The Holden Ute EV will be "as cheap or even cheaper" as its fuel-powered competitors.

GM's boss of bosses has shed more light on the brand's upcoming electric car that will compete with the Rivian R1T (pictured)

A GM executive shed more light on the brand's electric car plans, saying its first EV pickup will be just as cheap or even cheaper than its fuel-powered rivals, but no less capable.

Those are the words of GM president and former Holden managing director Mark Reuss, who told Bloomberg that the company is focused on solving the key challenges facing electric vehicles.

His comments followed those made at a New York City transportation conference where he said a range of GM electric vehicles would be based on the brand's Autonomy platform. Reuss confirmed that GM will sell electric trucks from 2024 to compete with electric trucks from Tesla, Rivian and Ford.

Whether or not GM ute will make its way to Australia as Holden remains to be seen, as the brand's local division says the timeline given by Mr. Reuss is too far off to comment on.

In any case, there is still work to be done, says Reuss. This applies not least to ultra-fast charging, which can degrade the condition of battery cells, and to the charging infrastructure in general.

Perhaps most importantly, however, Reuss says that GM's electric vehicle will have "cost parity or less" compared to the brand's traditional pickup lineup.

“If you look at battery-electric pickups, you have to solve a few problems,” he says. “First, the charging time. You have to be able to drop the lithium-ion coating that happens when we put a lot of power into a battery cell, which is why the industry is working on that,” he says.

“You have to be able to have a relatively soft charge structure. In other words, if we had an infrastructure for charging electric vehicles, similar to gasoline.

“Third, they must be cost parity or lower. No one is going to pay more for a battery electric pickup truck for work or basic use, so you have to figure out the exact cost of a cell.”

In what appears to be a veiled slap at Tesla and Rivian's key competitors, Reuss says that while some products can go fast or be capable of off-roading, GM's electric car will be a true workhorse that ticks all the boxes. up the truck must.

“After all, a lot of people are making money off of them, and they are relatively inexpensive to run,” he says.

“At the end of the day, the customer has to buy something expensive, so it has to have towing capacity and everything that makes a pickup truck the standard for using something to make a living.

“This is the most voluminous part of the pickup segment. Many people will make trucks that are more in the luxury or high end segment. They can be great off-road, or they can be fast or handle well.

“But when it comes to transporting things reliably over long distances, it's really difficult. I wish I knew exactly when that would happen, but I don't know."