Tesla's Cybertruck is onto something. Just look at the top cars of 2019.
Going down the list of most popular car purchases in each state, it's easy to see that 2019 was the year of the pickup truck. Again.
Although hybrid or electric pickups aren't available yet, models from Tesla, Rivian, and Ford are coming soon and hoping to cash in on America's love affair with a sturdy workhorse. If the truck-obsessed public can hop onto electric, things look promising.
Car shopping website ISeeCars.com looked through 10.9 million new car sales throughout the U.S. in 2019 and found Ford's F-150 was the most popular new car in 22 states. (It's even more popular as a used car.) That's followed by the Chevrolet Silverado, GMC Sierra 1500, and Toyota Tacoma as the next most popular vehicles. Yup, those are all pickup trucks.
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For companies like Tesla this is a good sign. In November, the electric vehicle company unveiled its first pickup truck, the Cybertruck. Although aesthetically unusual and different from any truck before it, CEO Elon Musk knows his main competitor is the number one truck in America: the F-150. To lure truck owners to the electric side he's made a long list of comparisons about towing capabilities, door strength, and, most infamously, shatterproof windows.
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It's working with 250,000 Cybertruck reservations made within a few days of the truck's reveal, according to Musk's tweets.
Amazon backed Rivian with its first vehicle, the R1T truck, supposedly arriving by the end of 2020. That one is also gaining hype and attention as a viable (and more traditional-looking) pickup option that's all-electric.
Ford is promising an electric version of its top-selling truck eventually, and General Motors has even planned an EV truck option for 2021.
Give it a few years and the most popular car lists will still be truck-heavy, but it might have a more electric tinge.
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
