Took it from being very competitive with ICE trucks to costing much, much more.

If you figure that most pickup trucks in 2025 aren’t really being used in the role that historically they held: inexpensive, no-frills utility vehicles — but as status symbols, expensive, large, luxurious vehicles — that’s not necessarily bonkers. In fact, it’s possible to make a vehicle more-desirable by making the price rise:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

A Veblen good is a type of luxury good, named after American economist Thorstein Veblen, for which the demand increases as the price increases, in apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve.

The higher prices of Veblen goods may make them desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. A product may be a Veblen good because it is a positional good, something few others can own.

Veblen goods such as luxury cars are considered desirable consumer products for conspicuous consumption because of, rather than despite, their high prices.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/ausbav/average_pickup_truck_prices_went_up_61_in_the/

Average pickup truck prices went up 61% in the last 10 years, far outpacing the market as a whole (up 28%) (paywall less article in comments)

I don’t know if I’d normally cite wolfstreet.com, but they’ve helpfully graphed the price of a new Ford F-150 versus a Camry over the years:

The pickup truck is primarily selling to a different market segment than it once did. If the reason you buy a vehicle is to demonstrate to others who see you that you can afford to buy the vehicle…then having a higher price permits for the thing to be an even more potent demonstration.