The vast majority of non-commercial truck use is not towing or hauling. Just look at the pickups you see on the road. Most are just luxury vehicles at this point. Not much difference than a slightly more practical sportscar.

I agree there are many truck owners who do not work their trucks and they would benefit from an electric truck. But it is important not to over estimate this number. GMC/Chevy have been putting out a turbocharged four cylinder since 2019 for this crowd. I can't fathom spending so much money on a truck that can't tow much reliably. Funnily enough the V6 version gets better fuel economy on the highway by 1 MPG. These things really are limited by their terrible aerodynamics. That said, the shape of the regular pickup truck is a perfect use of space once you make use of every aspect of it, from cargo area, hitches, rear seat areas, to engine maintenance. I wouldn't want a different shape truck because it is very compact as-is.

I would love for you cite your sources on this...

For Ford, the most popular Truck, 50-60% of Trucks are F150 XL, or XLT, the XL is the base work truck, the XLT as the common features but not level of luxury of the Lariat, or Platinum Trucks.

Was just my observation on the road in the Western USA. I think the stats you have include fleet and commercial which frequently buy the base models, I was just talking about non-commercial use.

Lots of the guys you see driving pickups without hauling might have boats or trailers which are normally at home but they tow from time to time and they need to be capable of doing that.

You can't own medium or larger sized boat or trailer if you don't have a truck to pull it with without jumping through massive hoops like borrowing, renting one, or putting together a dangerous contraption on a vehicle not legally rated to pulling that weight.

I was thinking about this recently. If we had an efficient way to sequester atmospheric carbon at scale, particularly if it could be done in such a way that it was backwards compatible with existing gasoline and/or diesel engines (perhaps in a formulation with biofuels and/or other sustainably sourced fuels), wouldn't it be preferable to roll that out "overnight" rather than rely on replacing the majority of existing cars with electric alternatives? Maybe there would still be room for both if gas and electric have properties that are nice for different use cases, but at least you wouldn't have to significantly prefer one over the other for environmental reasons.

Further, wouldn't this essentially solve the storage problem with renewables? If the tech were easily scalable / didn't rely on any scare materials, it would essentially be a type of battery that could be used in combination with existing fossil fuel plants (and nuclear of course) for baseline load.

Which, now that I think about it, would actually make any kind of green new deal much more politically viable. If the fossil fuel plants and gas stations get to keep running, it's that much fewer jobs we're axing and hoping to replace with better alternatives.