Talk to Don Wires, director of engineering for the Workhorse Group, and he makes the W-15—his company’s new half-ton, battery-electric pickup—sound like an exotic sports car with a really big trunk.

“The lightweight carbon-fiber construction and instantaneous torque from the two electric motors gives this truck the same kind of acceleration I get from my freaking Corvette Grand Sport,” he explains. “It also looks so different from every other pickup on the road that it attracts attention everywhere I go.”