What a ‘real world’ hydrogen pickup looks like and why it should end the conversation
This hydrogen-powered GM commercial truck offers 300 miles of range and “generates enough electricity to power 250 typical American homes” (for a few minutes?). Just not at the same time.
GM is calling this latest fuel cell-powered truck concept the foundation of “a hydrogen-based worksite ecosystem,” and imagines a world where Chevrolet Silverado 5500 MD trucks like this one are fitted with HYDROTEC fuel cell systems capable of generating 300 kW of peak power. The trucks would then serve as generators for on-site tools, portable offices, and more.
Jacob Lozier, HYDROTEC’s program manager, told reporters last week that these trucks could, “power job sites or bring charging to EVs in areas where traditional charging is not available,” before adding that, “it has enough power and energy to provide power for up to 250 American homes.”
GM and its partners were able to get nearly 300 miles of range from the big MD Chevy (compared to 450 from the Silverado EV), which has a … let’s go with “unique” look. One that, according to a HYDROTEC spokesperson, was inspired by shipping containers.
“Our team was inspired by the efficiencies of shipping containers and how that could contribute further to the efficiencies of this breakthrough truck,” reports James Carter. “It was the perfect solution.”
“To achieve a 300 mile range, we had to investigate new packaging initiatives for the tanks to hold 40kg of hydrogen,” is another quote attributed to the GM/HYDROTEC team. “[Fortunately], we were able to achieve this and still leave a 3ft bed for customers.”
The vehicles were built with funding awarded from the Department of Energy’s SuperTruck 3 program and the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office as part of a pilot program to demonstrate the real-world capabilities of fuel cells for fleet and commercial customers.
Southern Company, one of the largest southern utility companies, will receive the HYDROTEC fuel cell-powered Chevy MD trucks and use them as shop vehicles at its worksites. Southern Company, together with GM and Nel ASA, will use also test out a hydrogen microgrid for fueling infrastructure that includes a stationary fuel cell-based mobile power generator.
Electrek’s Jo’s Take
Look, I am the first person to say that battery-electric power is not the answer for everything. I’m a “right tool for the right job” kind of person. I understand that certain jobs in certain fields require kilowatt hours of energy every hour. Batteries made with today’s technology would have to be so huge to provide that power that the vehicle they’re attached to would sink into asphalt, let alone dirt and mud. Hydrogen, when blended with diesel to cut carbon and NOx emissions and in a few other extremely limited combustion scenarios, has a (temporary) role.
“It’s just awful,” I wrote to Electrek chief Seth Weintraub. “I can’t believe it’s not an April Fools’ joke.”
“Dear lord,” he wrote back. “I guess the mobile power generators is something needed but only 300 miles is laughable … if it can go 300 miles and it’s a generator that puts out 1MWh,” he said, re-reading the release, “then, OK. This makes sense.”
I looked at it again and shook my head. “For what it’s worth, I’m almost certain that’s in total. Look at all the hydrogen it takes to get a Nikola to go 400-ish miles.”
Nikola hydrogen semi truck
Still, I didn’t want to call GM’s multimillion dollar hydrogen truck program a laughable monstrosity without some due diligence, so I reached out to GM’s press contact. I sent over the following email in a quest for clarity:
Reading this article, it’s not clear if the truck has 300 miles of range AND “can power 250 homes for a day” or has 300 miles of range OR “can power 250 homes for a day.” Can you help clarify if the range is tied to the output? Meaning: can it drive out 150 (ish) miles, provide that power, then drive 150 (ish) miles back?
My email to gm
Their response was professionally short.
The 250 homes portion is to put it into perspective the amount of power the truck has. Driving the trucks would reduce the available fuel storage for powering homes, etc.
GM press contact
So, what is it exactly that GM and HYDROTEC have shown us here? Because, from where I sit, what we have here is an enormous MD pickup with significantly reduced range when compared to its diesel counterparts, that’s limited to a nearly useless 3 ft. of bed space (which, one imagines, would drop to zero on even a Silverado 3500 dually) that can power a job site for about the same amount for time as a hybrid F-150 (as long as it’s not too far away from a hydrogen filling station) and for significantly less time than a conventional EV or solar-powered gen set. And it does all those things worse than existing technologies at a significantly higher cost than any, with a dubious environmental advantage to diesel and none to battery and solar.
When MAN Truck’s CEO Alexander Vlaskamp told reporters that it was “impossible for hydrogen to effectively compete with battery electric trucks,” I believed him. I just didn’t expect GM to prove his point.
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Ford’s electric pickup truck is back at the top. The F-150 Lightning is once again the best-selling electric pickup in the US after overtaking the Tesla Cybertruck in the first quarter.
Ford’s F-150 Lightning is the best-selling electric pickup
After launching in 2023, Tesla’s Cybertruck quickly outpaced the Lightning to become America’s top-selling EV pickup last year.
Since Tesla doesn’t break down regional sales, registration data gives us our best estimate. The latest registration data from S&P Global Mobility (via Automotive News) shows that the F-150 Lightning retook the title in March and the first quarter of 2025.
Ford’s electric pickup notched 2,598 registrations in March, topping the Tesla Cybertruck with 2,170. In the first quarter, the F-150 Lightning remained ahead with 7,913 registrations, compared to the Cybertruck’s 7,126.
Although the Cybertruck was the fifth top-selling EV in the US last year, it didn’t even crack the top ten in March. It placed ninth through the first three months of 2025, behind the Volkswagen ID.4.
While Tesla and Ford remained the leaders in the electric pickup market, several new models are gaining momentum. According to the most recent numbers from Cox Automotive, GM sold 2,383 Chevy Silverado EVs and 1,249 GMC Sierra EV models in Q1. Meanwhile, Rivian sold 1,727 R1Ts during the quarter.
Earlier today, Electrek reported that new models, including the Honda Prologue and Chevy Blazer EV, helped drive EV registrations up 20% in the US in March.
Although the Lightning reclaimed the crown from Tesla, Ford’s electric pickup isn’t exactly flying off the lot. Ford reported Lightning sales fell 16% to just 1,740 units in April. Through April 2025, Ford has sold 8,927 electric trucks, down 9% from the 9,833 it handed over last year.
Electrek’s Take
To be fair, Tesla is still ahead by a wide margin in the US. The S&P numbers show Tesla had over 51,000 registrations in March, up 1% after two months of lower YOY growth.
GM’s Chevy surpassed Ford to become the second-best-selling EV brand with nearly 8,500 registrations, an increase of 274% from last year. Ford dropped to third with 7,361 registrations.
Although it’s just one quarter, it’s starting to show how Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s political antics are likely impacting sales. After the Cybertruck’s initial hype, it appears many buyers are opting for traditional pickups, like the F-150 Lighting.
Meanwhile, Ram is delaying its first electric pickup, the 1500 REV, again. Ram is pushing production back until summer 2027, saying it’s “extending the quality validation period.” The plug-in hybrid (PHEV) Ramcharger will also be delayed until the first quarter of 2026.
After pulling the Ramcharger ahead of the fully electric version last year, Stellantis blamed weak demand for EV pickups in the US.
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Environment
Podcast: EV tax credit on chopping block, Tesla’s China problem, Slate gets interest, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss how the GOP plans to kill the EV tax credit, Tesla’s China problem, Slate getting some interest, and more.
The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
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Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):
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Tesla’s Austin robotaxi fleet will be powered by ‘plenty of teleoperation’ as it “can’t screw up”, according to a new report from Morgan Stanley after meeting with Tesla.
You won’t hear anything negative about Tesla from Morgan Stanley very often.
Morgan Stanley’s Tesla analyst, Adam Jonas, has often been described as a ‘Tesla cheerleader’ on Wall Street for his extremely rosy view of the company. He generally believes whatever Elon Musk claims and adds a slight delay to the CEO’s timeline.
Recently, Jonas met with Tesla with some clients and released a new note that he hinted to be based on what he learned from Tesla during the meeting.
He claims that the planned “robotaxi” rollout in Austin next month is going to use “plenty of tele ops to ensure safety levels”:
Austin’s a ‘go’ but fleet size will be low. Think 10 to 20 cars. Public roads. Invite only. Plenty of tele ops to ensure safety levels (“we can’t screw up”). Still waiting for a date.
‘Tele ops’ stands for teleoperations, meaning that Tesla employees will be able to remotely access Tesla’s vehicles and operate them in some capacity.
Last year, Electrek reported that Tesla started hiring for this teleoperation team before the Robotaxi launch in Austin.
We have been extensively reporting on how much Tesla’s planned robotaxi fleet in Austin diverges from its previously disclosed plans of deploying “unsupervised Full Self-Driving” in its consumer vehicles.
Tesla plans to deploy “10-20” Model Y vehicles to offer ride-hailling services in a geo-fenced area of Austin, Texas using a version of its ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’ (FSD), but instead of being supervised by a driver inside the vehicle, like the current product in consumer vehicles, Tesla is going to used employees to remotely supervise the vehicles.
The service is supposed to launch in June.
Electrek’s Take
I seriously don’t get why anyone could get excited about this. It is going to be a bit better than the current FSD, which has stalled for months as Tesla focuses on optimizing the system for Austin, but it will still basically be supervised – just remotely.
There’s a chance that it won’t even be remote as some believe Tesla will even fumble that timeline and use safety drivers, but I don’t know. I’m about 50/50 on that prediction right now.
Remote supervisors make more sense as Tesla can claim a little victory even though it would be less impressive than what Waymo has been doing for years.
The real goal that Tesla sold to consumers is that their privately owned vehicles would become self-driving without supervision and we are still so far from that. It’s clear that this project is mainly to distract them from that fact.
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