Mechanical Reality Is Catching Up To ICE Pickups

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When I first started my Charge To The Parks project, the goal was simple: to show people that you could visit the most beautiful and remote places in the United States using clean energy, and without sacrificing the freedom of the open road. I want to take away everyone’s last excuse for not getting an EV by showing that even an “edge case” like towing a travel trailer can work out.

I have spent a lot of time towing trailers through mountain passes and across desert floors, often pushing vehicles to their absolute limits to prove what is possible. If you’re curious about my project, visit the website here, follow me on Bluesky here, or on Facebook here (sorry, we’re not on Twitter anymore).

I mention this project not just to give it a shameless plug, but to explain how I came across a very important problem. I’ve long been involved in the RV community, going back to my childhood. I had a job in college at an RV dealer. While I only got my first serious travel trailer last year, it’s something I wanted to do for a long, long time. I took several trips with a 2001 Suburban as my tow vehicle, and a few weeks ago, I got a Silverado EV to make my journeys all-electric again!

But, as I have spent more time in the RV community last year with my ICE Suburban, I have noticed a disturbing trend that threatens the very core of the Great American Road Trip.

The vehicles people rely on to get to places like national parks are becoming less reliable even as they become more expensive. It is a frustrating paradox. People are paying more for trucks that seem to be engineered to fail a lot earlier than older trucks like my Suburban. This is especially true for the half ton market where the push for efficiency has led to some truly questionable engineering decisions.

This is going to be a long article, but it’s an important topic that we need to all have a solid understanding of if we want to help clean technologies become part of the solution.

The Quarter-Million-Mile Club Is Shrinking

If you look at recent data regarding vehicle longevity, the results are shocking for anyone who just dropped eighty thousand dollars on a brand new light-duty pickup. According to a long term study by iSeeCars, the trucks most likely to actually reach 250,000 miles are almost exclusively heavy-duty models or specific hybrids. The Ram 3500 leads the pack with a nearly forty percent chance of hitting that milestone, while popular half-ton trucks like the Ford F-150 and Ram 1500 are statistically far less likely to survive the long haul (something they had no problem with two decades ago).

The Toyota Tundra is a notable exception in the half-ton segment, but for the most part, many of these modern light-duty trucks are quite literally falling apart under the strain of daily work and towing.

This reliability gap is not an accident of nature. It is the result of a specific engineering trap created by decades of industry games. Half-ton trucks are subject to strict fuel economy standards that do not apply to their heavier siblings. To meet these numbers, manufacturers have spent the last 15 years slapping fragile band-aids onto aging engine designs in an increasingly futile attempt to meet those efficiency targets.

Older trucks like my Suburban 1500, with its simpler fixed displacement pushrod V8, are racking up hundreds of thousands of miles while newer trucks are seeing major problems.

Complexity Is Not Progress

We now have engines with displacement on demand systems that shut down cylinders to save a few drops of gas. These systems rely on complex oil-driven lifters that are notorious for failing and destroying camshafts or stranding people when the computer goes into limp mode. We have 10-speed transmissions with thousands of tiny moving parts that hunt for gears constantly to stay in an ultra-lean efficiency window.

In the heavy-duty world (¾ and 1 ton trucks), things are a bit different because they are often exempt from the most crushing light-duty regulations. This is why a 1 ton truck can still use a massive, lazy V8 or a simple diesel that just works. But in the 1500 class, everything is high strung. We see small engines with big turbos working way too hard. When you add in the emissions equipment that is frequently prone to failure (something the heavier diesel trucks are stuck with now), you get a vehicle with an endless list of things that can (and do) go wrong.

Want an example of this going very poorly? Look no further than GM’s 6.2-liter truck engines (in ICE Silverado and Sierra trucks). Increased complexity is leading to premature failures that have led to a class action lawsuit, a recall, and multiple types of failures. The company is desperately trying to keep a billion-dollar problem at bay with inspections, warranty extensions, and repeatedly changing engine oil recommendations.

The History Of A Hidden Future

It is common to hear people blame environmental regulations for these failures, but that is a superficial take that ignores how we got here. The real reason we are stuck with overcomplicated gasoline engines is that the auto and oil industries actively fought to keep simpler, better technologies off the market for half a century. This is a matter of historical and legal record. In 1969, the United States Department of Justice sued the Big Three automakers for what became known as the Smog Conspiracy. They were caught conspiring to eliminate competition in the research and development of pollution control equipment.

This culture of suppression never really went away. As I write this in 2026, the State of Michigan has recently filed a landmark antitrust lawsuit against several major oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute. The lawsuit alleges that these entities used cartel tactics to stall the transition to electric vehicles and renewable energy.

One of the most egregious examples was the acquisition of large-format nickel metal hydride battery patents by Chevron two decades ago. By controlling these patents, they effectively blocked the development of long-range electric vehicles for more than a decade.

The Human Factor And The Hotshot Dilemma

Because these industries fought so hard to keep us tethered to internal combustion, they were eventually forced to meet modern standards by making gasoline engines incredibly complex. This has created a nightmare for the people who actually use trucks to work hard and play hard. For an RVer trying to get to a national park, a sensor failure in a complex emissions system can trigger a limp mode that leaves them stranded in the heat needing to call for a very expensive tow and hopefully find a competent mechanic in a gateway community.

But for a hotshot trucker, these failures are even more devastating. These drivers carry time sensitive loads like heavy machinery parts or emergency medical supplies. They do not always have the luxury of sitting at a charger for an hour because their cargo might be a life saving organ or a critical part for a power plant that is currently offline. These people need reliability that does not depend on a fragile web of sensors, oil pressure lines, and piss tanks.

We also have to admit that modern trucks mask the stress they are under. A modern diesel cabin is so quiet that a driver towing fifteen thousand pounds might not realize the immense thermal stress the drivetrain is under. They treat a piece of industrial equipment like a sedan, failing to let the engine cool down after a hard pull. This behavior compounds the mechanical issues we are already seeing because many people weren’t taught how to protect their vehicle while towing like I was as a teenager.

A Better Path Not Taken: The Power Of Mechanical Simplicity

This is where the eCVT and series hybrid technology could have saved us decades ago. An eCVT is not the fragile belt driven transmission people find in cut-rate non-hybrid economy cars. It’s the same robust system of planetary gears and electric motors that vehicles like the Toyota Prius and the Chevy Volt proved out. When paired with a gas or diesel engine acting as a generator, you get a vehicle that drives like an electric locomotive under some circumstances, and more like a normal car in others.

There are no clutches to burn out. There is no hunting for gears on a mountain pass. The engine stays in its most efficient power band while the electric motors do the heavy lifting. This setup would provide the reliability and cleanliness we need without the complexity of modern diesel exhaust fluid systems that frequently fail and cripple the vehicle. It would be a game changer for the hotshot driver who needs to keep moving and the RVer who wants to explore the backcountry with peace of mind.

Moving Toward Even More Sustainable Workhorses

If we had spent the last thirty years perfecting these hybrid and electric drivetrains instead of fighting lawsuits to protect gasoline sales, the average pickup truck would probably be a half million mile machine. We would have trucks that could tow a massive fifth wheel trailer to the Grand Canyon with the efficiency of a Prius and the reliability of a freight train. Instead, we have half ton trucks that are being choked by their own efficiency workarounds.

The industry essentially chose to make the internal combustion engine as complicated as possible to avoid pairing it with batteries and motors. We are seeing the consequences of this every day in the repair shops across the country. We deserve better. We deserve the technology that was hidden from us in the name of corporate profits.

We’re Decades Behind Now

If the public had been able to enjoy eCVT technology in trucks decades ago, they’d be a lot more ready for full battery-electric trucks by now. Instead, we now face the awful task of trying to move truck people from what is essentially rehashed 1980s technology into 2025.

I’m going to write another article about this, but we’re also seeing an EV truck industry that’s grappling with outdated regulations that force them to underrate the capabilities of their electric trucks to avoid drivers needing medical exams and DOT numbers for routine pickup work.

At the same time, we now face the problem of a motoring public that has seen the “clean technology” in today’s pickups fail them. Instead of demanding better electric trucks that Detroit has coming out of the factories (well, GM does, Ford recently threw in the towel and Dodge gave up without making one), we’re instead watching in horror as politicians successfully convince them that emissions regulations are the problem and not the automotive and oil industries’ game-playing.

This is still a problem we can fix, but we’re not going to fix it unless we can identify what the problem actually is and do a lot of truth-telling about it.

Featured image: my 2001 Chevy Suburban, still pulling trailers across the country with 150,000 miles on the clock.