When a Cool New Technology Meets 40 Years of Domination

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A 40-year reign as the king of anything is impressive, but especially so when we’re talking about vehicles.

Ford (F) logo on a steering wheel.

Source: Shutterstock

It’s hard to believe, but the Ford (NYSE:F) F-150 has been the top-selling vehicle since … 1982.

Through the first nine months of this unusual year, the F-Series is again number one in sales.

And it’s followed by two more trucks … the Chevrolet Silverado and the Ram.

It doesn’t take a whole lot of rigorous analysis to see that Americans love their pickup trucks.

And with a wave of new announcements, one of the biggest drawbacks to driving a pickup is quickly going by the wayside …

Pickup trucks have come a long way through the years.

They’ve actually been around for more than a century, with Gottlieb Daimler making the first pickup in 1896. More manufacturers jumped on board in the early 1900s, and the trucks started to become more popular in the 1920s.

Farmers and tradespeople liked them for their utility, but America’s love affair with the size, utility, and now luxury recently led to an historic first. In April of this year, more people purchased trucks than passenger cars for the first time ever.

Imagine, then, how much more popular they might be if they got better gas mileage and were cheaper to run. Gas mileage for trucks has improved tremendously, but they are still thirsty, with the best getting a little over 20 miles per gallon on average.

That’s not bad at times when oil and gas prices are low, like right now, but sales have suffered in the past when prices at the pump got a little high.

Well, don’t look now, but battery technology has come far enough that we’ve seen several major announcements of electric trucks in the last few weeks.

It’s almost as hard to believe as electric sports cars, but they’re now out there, too.

Let’s start with one of the biggest and baddest trucks around — the Hummer. After all, this thing has military ancestry. There were times when Hummers got less than 10 miles per gallon, but the new version — which you can see looks like a cool pickup — will run entirely on batteries.

It will still have plenty of muscle — reportedly set to go from 0 to 60 in just three seconds. And the improved batteries will allow for a range of 350 miles as well as rapid charging … 10 minutes to go 100 miles.

If you’re wondering what the response was, General Motors (NYSE:GM) sold out the entire first year of production in … one hour.

We have hot new battery technologies joining forces with the hottest-selling vehicles in the U.S. and the world, which sounds like a recipe for success to me.

Telsa (NASDAQ:TSLA) has similar success with reservations for its Cybertruck, which is expected to be released next year. I’m on the waiting list for that one and will keep you posted.

Ford has also announced an electric version of the F-150. And given such a hot opportunity, it’s no surprise that startups like Nikola (NASDAQ:NKLA) and Rivian want in on the electric truck action.

As electric vehicles become more affordable and more widely adopted, growth forecasts get eye-popping. The Energy Industry Administration calls for overall sales to more than triple to 6.5 million units by 2024.

ARK Investment Management is even more bullish, predicting that 37 million EVs will be sold in 2024. That would be an amazing 79% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and result in full-year revenue of $1.1 trillion.

Even if we basically split the difference and EV sales increase to 20 million units in the next few years, it is an easy 10X opportunity for investors.

Breakthrough battery technology will power vehicles of the future, whether they are cars, trucks, busses, or even airplanes. That’s why I put together a portfolio of battery stocks for my Investment Opportunities subscribers. It has doubled since I introduced it in January 2019, nearly tripling the S&P 500 in that time.

This hypergrowth trend is already underway, but it’s still in its very early stages. Now is the time for smart investors to get in position for potentially massive profits.

On the date of publication, Matthew McCall did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.

Matthew McCall left Wall Street to actually help investors — by getting them into the world’s biggest, most revolutionary trends BEFORE anyone else. Click here to see what Matt has up his sleeve now


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/moneywire/2020/10/ev-electric-truck-a-cool-new-technology-meets-40-years-of-domination/.

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