Ford bets on electric trucks to head off Tesla

An electric Ford pickup truck filmed towing rail cars, pulling over a million pounds.

The pickup is a prototype and the promo video, released over the summer, is meant to show customers an all-electric version of the F-150 will meet the "Built Ford Tough" standards.

Ford's experiment is an effort to outmaneuver Tesla's Elon Musk.

Musk has his sights set on stealing market share from the Detroit Three, and the pickups are their most profitable models.

Reuters' Global Automotive Editor Joseph White.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) REUTERS GLOBAL AUTOMOTIVE EDITOR, JOSEPH WHITE, saying:

"If Detroit's automakers were hesitating about designing electric pickup trucks and really they have been, or they were, Elon Musk has given them a pretty swift kick. He has been very vocal about how he wants to offer an electric pickup, in the Tesla brand obviously, that he says would have the performance of a Porsche 911 and the hauling capabilities of an F 150. [edit] It's a competitive threat. The challenge however is that Detroit pickup truck customers are pretty traditional lot and they absolutely will not compromise on towing on payload or any of the fundamental attributes that make a pickup truck a work vehicle and a functional vehicle."

It's not just Ford. General Motors CEO Mary Barra also said in April that an electric full-size pickup was on the map.

GM has plans to invest $8 billion dollars to develop electric and self-driving vehicles and sources tell Reuters GM is pushing to introduce the electric pickup within two years.

Ford has said it will invest $11.5 billion in EVs by 2022, including a $500 million investment in April in EV startup Rivian Automotive.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) REUTERS GLOBAL AUTOMOTIVE EDITOR, JOSEPH WHITE, saying:

"Bill Ford tells me that one of the key things that Ford has to do is get people into the vehicle to try it and they're going to have to convince people that an electric pickup truck is just as rugged tough and capable as the gasoline and diesel vehicles that they've been selling for years."

While some in the industry see a big future for electric pickups, not everyone is so sanguine.

IHS Markit which tracks the industry estimates full-size electric trucks will account for less than 30,000 of 2.3 million full-size pickup truck sales in 20-26.

That means the industry could also be racing toward a wall in the future.