> We have the technology to do EV conversions...

"We" do? If you know of any, please, share. I know a lot of people out here who own trucks who would absolutely love a reasonably priced ($20k or so?) conversion kit for a truck that would leave you with 100 miles or so of range with a 10k lb construction trailer (fully enclosed) or similar.

I'm aware of the old electric Rangers one can find on rare occasions (swap their lead for lithium and you have a truck, though not one that can either haul much or tow much). I know of a couple more or less DIY conversion kits for vehicles (EVWest has some nice ones, $5k-$10k before you add a battery, for light VWs), but a 200hp class motor alone for a retrofit is close to $10k, and that's before controllers, battery pack, anything.

But in general, I'm really not sure converting existing trucks is the right option, because how you build a truck for an ICE is probably not how you build a truck for electric drivetrains. If you just replace the input to the transmission with an electric motor, you end up with quite poor drivetrain efficiency - there's a lot of stuff spinning that you wouldn't use for a pure electric drivetrain, but if you're going to swap out pieces you don't need (transmission, maybe the transfer case - a motor hung on the front and rear differential, geared properly, makes a compelling argument), costs start going up again. And then there's the mass and weight of the battery pack. You could put a pack in the bed without too much trouble, but... whoops, you've just lost your access to a 5th wheel or gooseneck hitch, or you've got a lot of the bed not used for battery space. There's room under the hood, but it's weirdly shaped space, typically.

I would love an electric pickup that could handle around town work, but even if I start with a free truck body, I'm likely $40k away from a useful conversion, and that's with me doing the work myself. And I still wouldn't get that much use out of it, because I couldn't do any longer hauling with it (the bulk of my trips in trip count are about 40 mile round trips to the home improvement store, but the few longer trips I take, often with 5k-8k lb of trailer back there, make up a good fraction of the miles).

For that cost, I could buy a very nice used diesel truck, and still have a ton of money left over for other projects, carbon offsets, nice charity donations, a bunch of public EV charging stations, or whatever else I wanted to do.

The problem is that competent electric pickups have been "coming soon now" for most of a decade. Via Motors was announcing extended range electric pickups on Chevy gliders back in 2012 or so - and they've since pivoted a few times and not delivered any of those things (at least that I'm aware of, and certainly not in any meaningful numbers). A 50 mile range on battery with a good trailer, then a gas or diesel range extender, with a big split phase inverter built in, would sell like hotcakes to construction companies - you can haul your trailer to the jobsite, power the jobsite before the power company gets around to running lines without the small generators otherwise used for that, recharge at night, and pay a fraction the operating costs of a diesel you'd otherwise use for that. Think $0.05-$0.10/mi (depending on power costs) vs $0.25-$0.30/mi, plus generator costs. That adds up in a hurry.

But nobody sells one. I've no idea why. So diesel it is. Gassers are fine for infrequent towing, but their lifespan is an awful lot shorter if you use them for it regularly for towing.

I'm aware the Cybertruck is "coming soon now," and that it's rated for 14k lbs, but as I've stated elsewhere in this sidetrack, you have to be somewhat insane to hang 14k lbs on a receiver mount (I'm actually not even sure that's permitted everywhere). That much tongue weight (1000+ lbs, perhaps even 2000 lbs for high speed stability) really needs to be on or slightly forward of the rear axle for combo stability. There's a big difference between "It can move it on flat ground" and "It can safely tow it long distances in somewhat adverse conditions." A ~6000 lb truck, with 14k hanging on the receiver, is (IMO) an unsafe combination.

All of the above skips the legal problems with radically changing a vehicle (which an EV conversion is) and ensuring it's legal and certified for road operation. Hobby conversions and low volume conversions tend to fall between the cracks, but anything of a scale to matter would have to solve those problems, and they're far from trivial.

Anyway, if I'm missing something, please, let me know. But what you're arguing "should exist," as far as I know, "Doesn't exist, and won't exist."