The top-selling vehicle in the US last year was a pickup. Second place? Also a pickup. (They were the Ford F-Series and GMC Sierra respectively, for those keeping score.)

So it’s perhaps no surprise that two of the more exciting EV announcements this year have been pickups, with Ford promising one for under $30,000 and Jeff Bezos-backed startup Slate Auto offering one in the mid-$20,000s. Just don’t expect speakers with the Slate model at that price.

While both are still a ways away from production, would-be EV buyers looking for cheaper models — and there are a lot of them — could be inclined to take the plunge. That would help ease the coming dip in EV sales, driven in part by tax credits going away at the end of this month. 

So, would you buy a tiny electric pickup? Read a full version of this story on Bloomberg.com to decide. For unlimited access to climate and energy news, please subscribe. 

The EV bargain bin

By Kyle Stock

A decade ago, someone in the market for a new car with less than $25,000 to spend, had 43 different models to choose from. Today, there are five, according to Cox Automotive. None is electric.

But stalwarts like Ford Motor Co. and startups like Slate Auto are looking to change that, and they’re focusing on Americans’ favorite vehicle: the pickup.

With President Donald Trump’s tax bill killing EV incentives at the end of the month, the push for a sub-$30,000 vehicle that runs on electrons may help buttress the projected dip in sales.

The average price of a new car in the US now hovers at $49,100, nearly a third higher than it was in the summer of 2019. The average EV price is higher still, clocking in at $8,000 above that of the industry at large, according to Cox Automotive.

Much of the recent auto inflation can be tied directly to options and add-ons. During the peak of the pandemic-related supply chain crunch, auto executives had trouble getting enough parts, so they put what little they could find into more expensive, lavish vehicles. In many ways, they never looked back.

Last year, the average car sold for one-third more than the average starting price. Most buyers either didn’t want bare-bones base models — or couldn’t find them.

But some EV makers see a change ahead. At Slate’s launch event, Chief Executive Officer Chris Barman delivered what has since become a bit of a stump speech for cheap EVs. “The definition of what’s affordable is broken,” she said.

The Blank Slate Source: Slate Automotive

What Slate promises is a sticker price in the mid-$20,000s, before any incentives. By Slate’s reckoning, the market is sizable. In America, we love our trucks, but only about one-third of US truck owners tow regularly. We love our road trips, but on average only drive about 30 miles a day.

While roughly 163,000 Americans buy small pickups in a typical year, the potential market for Slate’s EV expands when considering the 4.3 million people who buy a small SUV or the 1.2 million or so who drive off in a compact or subcompact car.

Would-be buyers can also purchase add-ons a la carte, including speakers, a spare tire, or a kit that converts the truck to an SUV. Buyers can also add accessories in the years after their initial purchase, creating what the company hopes will be a long-tail revenue source.

Ford, which dominates the market for full-size pickups, announced plans in August to make a mid-size electric truck that will sell for about $30,000, as well as a battery-powered SUV that will start below $40,000.

Ford CEO Jim Farley said the company was making a “tremendous pivot” to more affordable EVs. “This is a Model T moment for the company,” he told analysts, invoking a car whose price point put Ford on the map and made automobiles ubiquitous in America.

Toyota Motor Corp., whose Tacoma has long outsold every mid-size pickup on the market, is eyeing the tiny-truck market as well. The current Tacoma starts just shy of $32,000; if the company rolls out a smaller rig for less money, it will add yet another option for budget-conscious buyers.

Read the full story, including the challenges Slate is likely to face. For more EV news, please subscribe.

Who killed the electric car?

You get an EV lease and you get an EV lease and...

US clean jobs on the rise

By Aaron Clark

Clean energy jobs in the US expanded 2.8% last year, three times faster than the rest of the nation’s workforce, according to a new report from research group E2, which cautioned that recent policy decisions threaten to derail future gains. 

The world’s largest economy added almost 100,000 new jobs in clean energy bringing the total number of workers in the sector to 3.56 million. About 60% of those positions are in construction and manufacturing and include jobs like assembling solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles and wind turbine parts, according to the group, which advocates for environmental policies.

Green technology and renewables deployment is critical to lowering domestic energy costs and modernizing America’s infrastructure to better compete in the global energy transition, the authors wrote. 

Last year’s growth may not be repeated in 2025. The sector has faced sustained attacks from US Republicans and President Donald Trump, whose $3.4 trillion budget bill rolled back Biden-era green tax breaks. Companies canceled, closed or scaled back more than $22 billion worth of investments in clean-energy projects during the first half of this year, a separate E2 report found earlier this year.

Clean energy jobs accounted for 82% of all new energy jobs added in 2024 in the US and now comprise 2.3% of the nation’s overall national workforce, according to E2. 

A tally of recent news you may have missed on changes impacting climate policy and science under the Trump administration.

The Trump administration asked a federal court to cancel the approval of a $6 billion wind project planned off the coast of Maryland as part of a wider effort to halt the development of the offshore clean- energy resource.

A panel of experts convened by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said the evidence that greenhouse gases harm human health is “beyond scientific dispute” — a conclusion that could impede the Trump administration as it seeks to roll back the federal government’s authority to regulate climate pollution.

A Bloomberg Green investigation unearthed internal documents showing how online conspiracies and personal attacks disrupted FEMA during back-to-back hurricanes last year.

What did we miss this week in Washington? Email dbochove1@bloomberg.net

Exxon has called for European leaders to repeal a new climate and human rights law that would fine corporations and is threatening to become a flashpoint in US-EU trade negotiations.

Designed to root out human rights abuses and improve environmental standards, critics say the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive has evolved into a sweeping set of regulations that make net zero plans mandatory and apply outside Europe to companies’ entire global supply chains.

“It’s the worst piece of legislation I’ve seen since I’ve been in this job,” Exxon’s Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods said in an interview. “Given the perspective I have around the world, that says quite a bit.”

The directive has come under scrutiny from member states including Germany and France, which say it risks harming competitiveness.

Read the full story on Bloomberg.com.

Darren Woods during a Bloomberg Television interview. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

EU leaders will turn up at the UN General Assembly in New York next week having failed again to deliver their climate homework on time after division among member states meant ministers did not agree on a 2035 emissions-cutting pledge.

Increased wildfire smoke could lead to 1.4 million premature deaths globally each year by the end of this century, while an annual average of 40,000 people in the US died over the past decade due to smoke exposure, a new study says.

A methane leak at a site owned by Australian fossil fuel producer Santos helped scupper a $19 billion takeover by suitors led by Adnoc, according to people familiar with the events that said other factors contributed to the collapse of the deal. 

Kuwaiti artist Monira Al Qadiri. Photographer: Markus Tretter/Markus Tretter

Monira Al Qadiri says she is pre-empting the end of oil and building monuments to it. As one of the most important contemporary artists of the Middle East, her work — spanning sculptures, films and performances — throws new light on humanity’s deep interdependent relationship with fossil fuels. This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi asks Al Qadiri how art can help make sense of the current moment.

Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday.

The New York City skyline Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg

On Thursday, Sept. 25, Bloomberg Green will host a solutions-focused look into a new era of climate action during Climate Week NYC. Following the 80th United Nations General Assembly, we’ll hear how top leaders in business, finance and government are approaching climate issues during times of geopolitical uncertainty. Learn more here.

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