The Chevrolet S10 is a small truck General Motors refuses to sell in the U.S. to compete with the Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz. Instead, GM is toying with the idea of a purely electric pickup that would have two doors, a low roofline and a 4- to 4.5-foot-long bed.
Automotive News saw marketing images of the zero-emission workhorse while visiting GM's design studio in Warren, MI. It's apparently "futuristic and sporty," while being slightly smaller than the compact gas trucks from Ford and Hyundai.
It's unclear which badge it would wear should it be approved for production, nor is it known what it would be called. If green-lighted, the production model would cost less than $30,000.
Chevrolet's director of affordable EV and crossover design, Michael Pevovar, said GM is "creating these [designs] to get a reaction and then to try to modify it or move on. What does work? What doesn't work? What's expected? Affordability is the key portion of this, and there's lots of different ways to approach it."
Pevovar said it might end up being too small for the architecture the engineers have in mind, so it could ride on a different platform.
Whatever the case may be, Pevovar emphasized it needs to be affordable. It's too early to say if it would ride on a dedicated electric platform or an adaptation of an existing truck.
Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, believes it would be the latter scenario, by giving the S10 an electric drivetrain. This is just speculation at this point.
Chevrolet also has the third-generation Montana, unveiled at the end of 2022, a front-wheel-drive smaller truck with a turbocharged 1.2-liter gasoline engine making 133 horsepower. AutoForecast Solutions' representative suggested GM's cheap electric pickup might be related to the Montana.
