Even though I grew up driving my dad’s Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck from the passenger seat, I’m not exactly Chevy’s target market. I prefer hatchbacks to cargo beds. But after touring Detroit for a day in the Silverado EV, I realized that Chevy could still turn me into a truck guy.

The Silverado EV drives, well, almost like a car. However, the bed is huge, gloomy, cavernous. The back seat has enough room to cross my damn long legs and the cabin is quiet. It will power your home in the event of a hurricane and haul, tow, and cruise down the highway without a finger on the wheel. Plus, it goes over 400 miles on a charge. That should be a dream combination for an American truck lover.

And yet, it hasn’t exactly flown out of the showrooms. GM sold about 14,000 last year in the United States and Canada. The fossil fuel Silverado sells 10 times more in a quarter. After my trip, I’m a little stumped. GM may have made the perfect American electric vehicle, but no one is buying it.

Maybe it’s the appearance? At first glance, the Silverado EV looks like the old Chevy Avalanche, and whether that’s a good thing depends on how you feel about the original. Like the Avalanche, the Silverado EV has four doors, a short bed that can extend into the cab, and a “sail” between the cab and bed, a stylistic touch that helps minimize drag. I thought the EV looked cool, but then again, I’m not a truck guy.

Getting in requires a big step up, but once inside, it’s spacious and comfortable. Press the brake and the Silverado EV comes to life, with crystal-clear displays dominating the lower third of your vision. The seats are great and like many EVs, it will lean forward when touched with your right foot. At nearly 20 feet long, no one will call the Silverado EV small, but thanks to rear-wheel steering, it will power its way through a parking lot like a tidy hatchback. That is, until you try to squeeze it into a tight parking space.

The Google-powered infotainment system is crisp, clear and commendably responsive. It’s not as fast as an iPhone, but it’s very close and the voice commands work well. There are volume and temperature knobs and some HVAC buttons below the vents, which can also be directed manually. Fortunately, Chevy still remembers how to do physical checks.

Navigation is a Google service, so it works well. When I named my destination, it offered a selection of routes, just like Google Maps does on your phone, but with a twist: Below the usual time-to-destination readout, another estimates how long you’ll be able to use Super Cruise, GM’s hands-free driving option. Don’t you feel like driving? Choose the route to maximize the time spent on Super Cruise. Over the years, GM has offered many reasons why it removed CarPlay from its electric vehicles, and this might be one of its best arguments. Although that doesn’t mean I totally agree with that decision.

Speaking of Super Cruise, the Level 2 hands-free advanced driver assistance system is as good as they say. In March, I drove the Bolt with Super Cruise and was impressed, although I spent little time with it. With the Silverado EV, I toured the Detroit metro area during peak travel hours. In a truck this size, Super Cruise is almost a requirement, making driving relatively stress-free.

However, it had its disadvantages. Keeping him in his lane can be a bit tricky. Just like my time in the Bolt, Super Cruise could be caught off guard by cars accelerating and approaching from the right.

There was a particularly stressful moment at the Super Cruise when the Silverado EV nearly crashed into a dirty paint mixer trailer. Maybe the paint-splattered taillights messed up the system? In reality, however, the radar should have picked it up.

Overall, though, Super Cruise helped keep the ride smooth, although much of the credit should go to the 205 kilowatt-hour battery pack located in the center of the ship. It’s a big burden. But also kudos to the ride and handling engineers, who clearly had their work cut out for them. As trucks go, this one is smooth.

Perhaps most impressive was the efficiency. I clocked about 2.1 miles per kilowatt-hour, which is about 10% to 20% less than average in my Audi e-tron, a smaller vehicle with much less frontal area pushing against the wind.

So what is the reason for the slow sales?

Some observers have blamed the high price of the Silverado EV, but I have my doubts. Full-size truck buyers shell out an average of $66,000, just $5,000 less than the list price of a Silverado EV LT Extended Range, which gets 410 miles on a full charge. (The LT Max Range I tested will go another 68 miles but costs $20,000 more.)

People also blame the EV’s mediocre towing range, which is 60% shorter. Again, that shouldn’t be a deal breaker. The vast majority of full-size truck owners, about 75%, tow at most once a year, according to Strategic Vision. There should be 400,000 fossil fuel-powered Silverado buyers ready to make the switch. And still those sales figures!

It seems GM and other automakers misjudged the truck market, which tends to suffer from inertia, and not the kind that comes with piloting a 4.5-ton vehicle. Potential buyers worry about range, charging, and probably a few other things I’m not aware of. It has held back EVs in general, and especially EV pickup trucks.

It’s a shame, really. Most of those concerns disappear after owning an electric vehicle for a while, and the Silverado EV is a solid first draft of an electric truck. With a little more engineering, could the automaker squeeze some weight out of it? That would increase payload and towing capacity and at the same time allow the battery to be reduced, reducing costs.

GM could address the cost issue sooner rather than later. The automaker has strongly hinted that the Silverado EV will receive an all-new lithium-manganese-rich (LMR) battery chemistry that will reduce costs by about $6,000 and preserve range sometime this decade. If those savings are passed on to the consumer, the price of the electric vehicle would reach parity with the fossil fuel version.

If such revisions come and bring the price down a bit, I could even see myself considering the Silverado EV. Too bad it’s too big for my 1950s two-car garage. I would need a bigger house for my truck. And what could be more American than that?