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2022 Ford F-150 Lightning

• noisy_boy 5y ago
  It does have some very nice features. However, I think the reason people who have no need to tow or go offroad would buy this is the same reason people with light workloads buy i9 laptops with 64GB of RAM - spec-flex that they can easily afford.
• post_break 5y ago
  I don't think ford will be able to build enough to meet demand. And ford dealers are going to price gouge the crap out of buyers. I have a friend of a friend who is a ford dealer and they are charging quite a bit over for regular F150's because of the chip shortage.
  • gibolt 5y ago
    The chip shortage will look like nothing, once the EV ramp increases. Batteries are always the bottleneck. Ford announced a 60GWh plant partnership, but that will only hold them over for several years of growth and is still a ways away from actually producing cells.
• ethbr0 5y ago
  Summarized at https://www.thedrive.com/news/40675/electric-2022-ford-f-150-lightning-is-finally-here-with-775-lb-ft-and-a-40k-sticker https://www.thedrive.com/news/40675/electric-2022-ford-f-150...
• namdnay 5y ago
  I guess the fact that's it's electric is a good step. But it seems insane to me that we don't do more to discourage massive consumption of what should be utility vehicles. I'm willing to be 80% of people buying an f150 or similar never have been and never will be building contractors or lumberjacks.
  • pionar 5y ago
    I've never been one of those things, but they're still useful. I had an F150 for a while that I only used to transport things like mulch or helping friends move or moving myself. I still have an old Ranger that I use for those purposes today. It seems insane to assume you can be the judge of what's "useful" or "utility".
    • matthewmcg 5y ago
      A truck is great to have for all kinds of reasons. I think the issue is that a combination of automaker marketing and various regulatory and tax incentves/loopholes drive people to purchase more trucks than they otherwise would.
      • alistairSH 5y ago
        Specifically, the Section 179 deductions available on vehicles that weight in excess of 6000lbs. A business doesn't need to prove need to make use of the tax advantage. This encourages real estate agents, sales people, etc to buy new large SUVs instead of leasing or buying second hand sedans that would otherwise be suitable (Mercedes E-Class, etc). And contractors that could use smaller vehicles (Transit Connect, Ranger) to buy F-150s or large vans. It's basically a massive kick-back to Ford and Chevy.
    • namdnay 5y ago
      I think you're being a bit unfair. We all agree that they're useful, but surely in a world win which we need to a) reduce road and parking space in order to encourage better forms of transportation , b) reduce our consumption of natural resources ,maybe we need to discourage individual ownership of 3000kg utility vehicles?
      • criddell 5y ago
        In the US, discouraging individual ownership of vehicles is probably not going to succeed. I don't want to give up my car and I suspect that electric vehicles and self driving vehicles (when they get here) are going to drive the cost of trips way, way down which will increase the number of trips by a similar amount. The number of vehicles on the road is going to increase. Because of the increased demand on raods, reducing road space probably won't happen. When cars can get to and from parking spaces by themselves, parking space can move into central towers or edge lots, but the number of spaces is probably going to increase, not decrease. We all want better forms of transportation, but there's a lot of disagreement about what's better.
• speedgoose 5y ago
  The perfect vehicle to let everyone think I have a complex about the size of my penis.
• anotherQuarter 5y ago
  I hope the ability to use your EV battery to backup your house power becomes an expected capability in the future. Glad Ford included it. Too bad Tesla backed away from it, i’m guessing due to their powerwall business.
  • ffggvv 5y ago
    i wonder how long a car could possibly power a house
    • mavhc 5y ago
      Depends if you need heating/cooling. Otherwise 500W would cover lights, fridge, TV. So 100kW battery, 200 hours.
    • kibwen 5y ago
      From other reports I've seen claims of three days at "normal" power draw, up to ten days if you're deliberately conserving power.
    • toast0 5y ago
      Depends on the size of the house's load and the size of the battery and the efficiency of the inverter. Ford's promo site says 'up to 10 days with rationing power' asuming 30kWh use per day with extended-range battery. But it's not clear to me if 30kWH is normal use, and rationing would be less, or if that's the rationed use. A 300 kWH battery seems rather large to me, and i haven't seen an actual spec for the Ford. Edit: reread their site after reading sibling posts, in a different blurb they say 3 days or 10 days with rationing with the same assumption about 30 kWH per day; so their rationing assumption must be getting down closer to 9 kWH per day. Either way, a nice feature to have that would eliminate a portable generator for me.
    • anotherQuarter 5y ago
      Ford claims three days based on 30 kwh per day usage.
    • pwagland 5y ago
• seanalltogether 5y ago
  I'm sure this image is heavily photoshopped, but it looks like they're trying to make a center console that's half touch screen, half physical controls. I wonder what that will look like in reality. https://www.ford.com/is/image/content/dam/vdm_ford/live/en_us/ford/nameplate/f-150lightning/2022/collections/dm/22_FRD_F15_BEV_53744_v2.tif?croppathe=1_3x2&wid=3840 https://www.ford.com/is/image/content/dam/vdm_ford/live/en_u...
  • post_break 5y ago
    It already exists in the electric mustang, and looks exactly like that. Go to 10:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4n5iPqxpaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4n5iPqxpaw
    • seanalltogether 5y ago
      Very cool, I love it, I hope more automakers figure out clever ways to keep analog controls mixed in with touch.
      • FridayoLeary 5y ago
        For my part i hope that they figure out that not literally everything needs to be crammed on to a flashy screen. The purging of tactile controls must stop.
  • mkmk 5y ago
    This interface is already in production in the electric mustang. The buttons are all touchscreen, with the exception of the physical center wheel which is embedded in a hole in the screen. The photo on this article may be helpful: https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/02/im-obsessed-with-the-ford-mustang-mach-e-physical-touchscreen-volume-knob/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/02/im-obsessed-with-the-ford-...
    • WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago
      Disgusting and awesome. I hate and love it. Just a mind bending and creative design all around.
• CalRobert 5y ago
  It's great to see the best selling vehicle in the US be zero emissions. It's wonderful. But this truck will be very heavy, very tall, and very fast. Drivers are already the leading killers of children, and more and more people are being killed while walking and cycling. I'm very worried about the effect of making this vehicle even faster and heavier. Hopefully reduced deaths from pollution offset this.
  • dubcanada 5y ago
    Wait, so you're against cars? I am confused as to what any of that has to do with the new electric F-150.
    • toomuchtodo 5y ago
      EVs are heavier by nature (this vehicle’s battery pack alone is ~1800 lbs). Your average driver is not good at driving. The F150 sells very well. Ergo, more risk of more property damage and human harm. You can’t get around physics. More mass with more force carries more risk.
      • formerly_proven 5y ago
        > (this vehicle’s battery pack alone is ~1800 lbs) The weight of an entire small car!
        • ddingus 5y ago
          Yup. For a while I owned a 3 cylinder Sprint. Was 1750 pounds.
        • mywittyname 5y ago
          Yeah, but it's not like the drivetrain of an F150 is light. A fully dressed Coyote V8, 10R80, driveshaft, differentials, subframes, exhaust, gas tank (with fuel), radiator & supports, fuel lines, etc, etc add up. So the batteries weight 1800 lbs, but your also removing like 1400lbs of stuff. It's pretty likely that the Lightning will weight in at barely more than a hybrid F150, and the lower range F150s, when introduced, will probably weight the same as the ICE versions. A little appreciated fact is that a Model 3 and a Mustang have the exact same weight ranges: the SR RWD Model 3 weights about what a ecoboost Mustang does, and a GT500 Mustang is actually about 200lbs heavier than a Model 3 AWD LR Performance.
• Rooster61 5y ago
  Folks I know that have owned Ford vehicles in the past few years have done nothing but complain about issues with electrical subsystem and accessory breakdown. I'd be very wary of buying a Ford period, much less one that relies entirely on electricity to move. Not FUD, as I have no dog in the fight and personally don't care if anyone else buys one, but its a make of automobile I avoid.
  • dubcanada 5y ago
    Why even say this? Every single car company has a bunch of users who hate them. This has nothing to do with your random friends hating Ford lol
  • 1123581321 5y ago
    Mate, this is textbook FUD. :) It’s anecdotal and there is no connection between the reliability of a vehicle’s electric motor system and the electrical systems that may have troubled your acquaintances.
    • Rooster61 5y ago
      Take it as what you perceive, that's fine. That said, saying that there is no connection is speculation. The design, implementation, and supply chain of both aspects of the vehicle deal with electronic components. I don't know if they will make the same mistakes with the drivetrain electronics that they do with other aspects of the vehicle's construction.
  • tra3 5y ago
    American vehicles had a history of poor quality control and reliability but it's improved in the last 20 years. F150 is the #1 selling truck in USA in Canada. Our 2011 F150 has been very reliable, mechanically, but the audio wiring is broken in interesting ways. My buddy's older F150 has exactly the same issue. Otherwise it's been trouble free.
    • Rooster61 5y ago
      I've noticed that in that era of Ford vehicles, including my own. I have a 2006 Mustang that mechanically has been a tank, but electrically has had multiple issues (it's on its 4th alternator). The audio deck has been similarly flakey. They may very well be better nowadays.
• defaultname 5y ago
  The aspect I'm most curious about is towing range. I have a 5000lb travel trailer that I tow about 200km away a few times a year. I'm pretty sure I'd be out of luck with a vehicle like this. It has the ability to pull the trailer with ease, but most preliminary estimates are that range would be two digits with that sort of load. In my current vehicle I do stop for gas midway, but it would be an entirely different situation hoping for a charger spot (with connected trailer) and then the time to charge. Still a great truck, though. For a huge range of uses, including more local towing situations (the vast majority of commercial uses), it could be brilliant. And eventually they can market a super-range battery you can tow. I kid...or do I?
  • criddell 5y ago
    If you only need to do it a few times a year, why not rent a truck?
  • megaman821 5y ago
    Cut the advertised range in half. That is about the max you can expect for towing range. So the extended range version may let you tow the distance you want to.
  • rm445 5y ago
    The occasional heavy-duty trip is a reasonable use case for a range extender (as in, an IC engine gen-set) either towed or on the truck bed.
    • dahfizz 5y ago
      The idea of having a gas-powered generator in the bed of an electric truck is both genius and hilarious to me.
      • nabla9 5y ago
        Removable hybrid option.
      • rswail 5y ago
• taytus 5y ago
  Tesla is fucked.
  • valine 5y ago
    With a max range of 300 miles on the f150 I doubt it.
    • taytus 5y ago
      I didn't meant for this vehicle in particular. I meant it for all these car manufacturers pushing new EVs. Tesla deserves a lot of credit for pushing the industry forward, but they are going to have a lot of competition in the next 5 years.
    • jefft255 5y ago
      And that's without towing anything
• perardi 5y ago
  I have no idea if this’ll be lightning or a lead balloon, because a significant amount of pickup truck buyers do it for the machismo. Which sounds like some city-slicker talking down to the cheap seats, except, I grew up in a town named Farmington. (Go Farmers.) I know pickups. I know the people who drive pickups. My dad sneers at fancy new pickups because he used to shove a good 700 pounds of mink pelts in a pickup, and he thinks all that leather would get stained by the blood nowadays. And pickup truck buyers love their macho trucks. They like the burble of the engines and the swagger and that it’s not some little penalty box of a green car. An electric pickup? Sure, sounds rational, especially with that torque. But does it trigger the libs enough? - Something that might help, though: that price. “but rather its price because the 2022 F-150 Lightning will start at just $39,974 before any government rebates.” Given the just eye-watering prices of pickups these days: that’s cheap, relatively.
  • outside1234 5y ago
    Also, this pickup is going to be way faster than the IC one. That helps with the overcompensation buyer.
  • bamboozled 5y ago
    Macho man and their egos like the fastest, toughest trucks with the most torque / power. This is it. It wins.
    • csharptwdec19 5y ago
      It depends. There's a couple classes of 'Truck guys'. The Truck guys that just want power, yeah they'll probably go for this. The Truck guys that like throwing turbodiesels in to get HP/Torque numbers like what we see in the lightning, I would say it depends on whether Ford makes it 'Moddable' or not.
  • GiorgioG 5y ago
    It isn't fair to characterize everyone this way. I've owned my fair share of small cars (by US standards) but I bought a used F150 (my first truck) a few years ago and I love it. I don't care about how loud the engine is, nor do I think it makes me any more macho (I don't buy things for what others think of me.) It carts my family around comfortably and I can haul lots of things with it without caring if it's dirty/wet/etc. My second favorite vehicle is my wife's minivan - it's too bad they have a bad stigma. My concern with the Lightning (and EVs in general) is range anxiety. I can fill up my F150 in what 3-4 minutes. How long before I can go 400 miles on a charge? What happens during an extended power outage, can I carry 100 miles worth of range in a portable container that's as easy to handle as 5 gallons of gas? None of these concerns have anything to do with this vehicle making me feel more manly ;)
• jycr753 5y ago
  We need this in Europe!
  • speedgoose 5y ago
    I disagree. This too big, heavy, and deadly for other people like cyclists, pedestrians, or even city car drivers.
• cduzz 5y ago
  It looks like a great vehicle. I hope ford's got a plan for making millions of battery packs for these things. I wonder if "backfeed from the EVSE" is going to be a regular / standardized feature of some vehicle chargers in the future? Combine this with time-of-use awareness and auto-auction mechanisms to backfeed the grid when power's necessary (and turn off back-feeding to not kill linemen repairing wires) it seems like a pretty good extension to car charging. Elevator pitch: Public charging installed on streets; charges 3 prices -- "I need power now", "I need this much power before this time" and "I need this much power by this time and you may draw power out of my battery between now and then so long as I have this much charge by this time". Then you network interconnect these chargers and make a distributed peaker power plant and also make subscription / power deliver fees.
• FridayoLeary 5y ago
  I just remember Clarkson talking about the hybrid f150 on TG. He said then that Ford had a survey of features that customers wanted added to the truck. A hybrid powertrain, he claimed, was something like number 24 on the list. In other words there are 23 things customers want more then a hybrid. If that is true, then i'm unclear how much of a profit- maker a fully electric f150 will be.
  • crazyjncsu 5y ago
    “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” ― Henry Ford The people answering your survey probably weren't aware they could power an entire jobsite with just a truck. Killer features such as this will be how electric vehicles penetrate the holdouts.
• samfisher83 5y ago
  F150 is the best selling vehicle in America. The price is actually comparable to the gas version. This might be the vehicle that really changes the EV game.
  • rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    If they have the capacity to produce the battery en masse, which is doubtful given what they announced so far. Only Tesla and VW seem to be serious about this.
    • rootusrootus 5y ago
      If Ford falls on it's face in battery capacity due to a lack of planning, it will be the biggest belly flop in years. They have to know they're sitting on a gold mine with this. At this moment, the game is theirs to lose. The Ford I know and love is likely to screw it up, unfortunately, now that Mulally is long gone.
• outside1234 5y ago
  Wow - so if the grid goes down the Truck will power your house? That is awesome! ref: https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/2022/ https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/2022/ (see bottom)
  • js2 5y ago
    I'm not sure it makes sense though. Now you have to choose between transportation and powering your home. As well, the power needs to go out when the truck happens to have a full charge. I think it cost them little to add (because they already have on-board power ports, which does make sense), but from a practical standpoint, I don't know how useful it is.
    • tzs 5y ago
      In many scenarios, you can anticipate power going out and so make sure to charge up before that. I do a similar thing with my ICE car. We don't get a lot of snow here, but every few years we'll get a storm that leaves up to a foot on the ground. Significant snow like that is rare enough that the cities and county don't keep a large fleet of snow removal equipment, so they only clear the bigger streets. I'm on a long dead end street that won't get plowed for quite a while, if at all. People with the bigger trucks and SUVs can still get through, and there are enough of those further up the street from me that usually in a day they'll have made enough trips that my smaller SUV can get out. When it looks like we might get one of those storms, I top off my car. If I lose power, and my house cools off enough that even with a sweater and jacket it gets too cold to stay in, I can move to my car. A full tank of gas will run the engine idling just enough to power the heater and radio and phone charger for about 24 hours. Power would almost certainly be restored by the time I'd be running out of gas.
      • js2 5y ago
        That's a good point. I've been through a couple hurricane-caused outages for up to two weeks, but in one of those, I required transportation. I've been through probably half-a-dozen outages of a few hours to a couple days that were due to equipment failure by the utility that I couldn't have anticipated. That's over decades though. Grid power is so damn reliable in most places that any backup solution is going to have limited use. I guess I see this feature of the F-150 as icing on the cake, not something that would sway my purchase decision.
• endisneigh 5y ago
  I'm curious, with the advent of electric what's the advantage of a truck vs. a minivan for a lot of situations? IIRC there were literal space constraints before which is why a minivan couldn't tow like a truck, but since the motor and batteries sit underneath the car, couldn't one build a van/minivan with just as much power as this? If that's the case, other than hauling very tall objects, why get a truck? A minivan with the 2nd and 3rd rows folded is already longer than most truck beds. Curious to hear thoughts on this. I know culturally a van would never beat a truck, but I'm curious more mechanically/technically. Another thing I'm curious about with a truck in particular is if a custom fit gasoline tank could be placed in the bed of a truck that has an inverter that could charge the car, so even if your battery was dead you could effectively use the car as a gas one, in a pinch. --- As an aside I'm willing to bet within a decade this will outsell the gasoline version. A F-150 used frequently requires a lot of maintenance. I imagine this will be significantly easier to maintain.
  • WillPostForFood 5y ago
    The advantage of a truck is you can carry more, or taller things, and they don't get the inside of your vehicle dirty. imagine you just mowed a wet, muddy lawn, do you want the mower in the back of your minivan, or in the bed of truck? Also, many tall things that you might haul in the back of truck can't simply be reposition into a minivan (tall and long or tall and many).
    • endisneigh 5y ago
      Ah yes, that's a good point. Other than tall or dirty objects, is there any reason to get a truck? Genuinely curious, because at some point I'll have kids and wonder what the trade-off is between minivan (more people) and truck (more hauling) is with an electric vehicle.
      • blisterpeanuts 5y ago
        For a family, a minivan is very practical. Not only for your one, two, or more kids, who will easily be accommodated in a 7-seater or 8-seater (if you add the optional middle seat in row 2), but when taking their friends along to the park etc. My minivan is a Chrysler with the stow'n'go fold-down seats; in about 5 minutes I can fold all the passenger seats down into the floor and have 8' x 4' cargo space, which is more than most pickup beds. Pickups have the advantage of height, as pointed out previously; if you need to move a refrigerator or a Harley, probably a pickup is better. Also, pickups can tow trailers & RV's. But for taking my family on holiday, or when transporting a sound system, musical instruments, and 2 other musicians all in one vehicle, the minivan works best for me :)
• dahfizz 5y ago
  300 miles of range unladen seems very low to me. When towing, this range will likely be cut by more than half. The truck is priced competitively, so it will make sense for "Regular daily driver, and occasionally I need to put something in the bed" truck owners, but definitely not "Tow my trailer to the mountains once a month" truck owners.
  • SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    I think you're exactly right about the classification. Most people I know who have a full trailer to bring to the mountains have larger than an F-150.
• crazypython 5y ago
  The F-150 is considered a heavy-duty truck, I think the Ford brand and advertising would help
• greenonions 5y ago
  This will electrify a lot of fleet vehicles when people see the lower maintenance and input costs.
• tbihl 5y ago
  We've added ~1000lb to the weight of these monstrosities (now 6,500lb), faster acceleration from a stop, and preserved the enormous front, with its twin features of blindspot and zero chance that someone can roll over top of it when you hit them. But now it's there for trunk space...
  • AshamedCaptain 5y ago
    The song from the Simpson's canyonero advert is still stuck in my head after seeing this
• SigmundA 5y ago
  Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27218029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27218029
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• tibiahurried 5y ago
  Who wants a Cybertruck anyway :) I am all for F-150
  • outside1234 5y ago
    yeah, the cybertruck is looking dead on arrival now.
    • mkoryak 5y ago
      Why?
      • fvdessen 5y ago
        because it looks stupid
        • outside1234 5y ago
          and it doesn't look like an F-150
        • tedd4u 5y ago
          Maybe CT style will prove attractive in the market, but I think Tesla could have designed something more like the Rivian pickup. i.e. F-150 inspired but modern Tesla styling.
  • ffggvv 5y ago
    i think they are different markets. cyber truck is for affluent city people who probably never had or wanted a truck before but like the design. f150 is more for normal people who actually just want a normal truck that’s electric
    • rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
      >f150 is more for normal people who actually just want a normal truck that’s electric Why? Does the look of the truck make it more practical? The Cybertruck does not have any paint, and can sustain far more scratch/shock that the F150.
• ginko 5y ago
  So according to this[1] it looks like the motors and batteries are in the bottom of the car like in other EVs. Which makes me wonder: What's under the enormous hood in front? Is it just empty space? [1] https://www.ford.com/is/image/content/dam/vdm_ford/live/en_us/ford/nameplate/f-150lightning/2022/collections/dm/22_FRD_F15_BEV_53787.tif?croppathe=1_3x2&wid=900 https://www.ford.com/is/image/content/dam/vdm_ford/live/en_u...
  • cpascal 5y ago
    It's the "frunk". Here's a picture: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dTXcXTNslbGIJam0Wy9BRhk_I80=/0x0:2400x1350/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22526650/8_16x9.jpg https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dTXcXTNslbGIJam0Wy9BRhk_I80=...
  • aynyc 5y ago
    It's called a Frunk. Basically, storage space!
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • voisin 5y ago
    There’s a trunk there for extra storage. I understand they did not integrate the motors and batteries into a new frame built specifically to accommodate them like Tesla did but rather added them on top the existing frame. I really like that Tesla is a ground up design and something about this F150 annoys me for carrying on all of the institutional inertia of a 100 year old company. Also, I read Ford is planning on 40k of these and their Transit van each year and marketing them toward fleets.
    • heymijo 5y ago
      That puts it in perspective. Ford sold 787,000 F-150’s in 2020 and about 1 million F-series trucks in total.
• neither_color 5y ago
  After going through their marketing, and considering the needs of family in the construction industry, I think they've touched on the right use cases here that a tech worker Tesla fan wouldn't be interested in but that tradesmen/contractors do need. My relatives do in fact: Use the truck bed always and fill it with tools and supplies. Drive around all day going from job site to job site transferring tools and supplies or meeting with current and prospective clients. Use electric generators and in fact carry one in their truck bed. If the onboard generator has enough juice to bring a crew to work and back, while also powering their tools all day I can definitely see contractors getting excited for this truck.
  • aynyc 5y ago
    Don't forget, the Frunk is a theft prevention system.
• progx 5y ago
  I can park my car in the F150 frunk :-)
• SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  Wow, the best selling vehicle coming in electric? If that doesn't encourage a huge surge in charging stations I don't know what will.
• Ninjinka 5y ago
  I just can't get over the lack of range compared to the Cybertruck. But Ford will do fine since it actually looks like a truck.
  • auiya 5y ago
    Why? A pickup truck isn't a touring vehicle.
• luxuryballs 5y ago
  To me electric cars are still far overpriced if you account for the astronomical number of routes and places you could never even think about going. Also have they solved the electric gas can problem? Maybe they can equip them with a small removable battery so you can go get a “5 gallon” charge and then go fetch your vehicle if the battery dies, otherwise a simple hike to a gas station becomes a tow job!
  • goodcanadian 5y ago
    The solution may not be as far off as you think. These guys are targetting a different market, but a possible solution exists: https://chargefairy.com/ https://chargefairy.com/
  • TheBigSalad 5y ago
    But otoh, you have a gas station at your house.
• haroldl 5y ago
  There is no picture of the entry level model; it says "coming soon". Since the Ford F-150 usually costs a lot to upgrade to 4 full-size doors and a navigation computer, I'm wondering if that will be the case here too. Near the bottom of the page it looks like you have to upgrade two levels to the "Lariat" configuration to get that 15.5 inch touchscreen.
  • csharptwdec19 5y ago
    The claims I saw in all of the regurgitated Press Releases seemed to indicate they are going to do 4 doors as standard on the Lightning, at least for now. I'm not sure how much of that is streamlining production versus design (i.e. fitting all the batteries in place may more or less necessitate that specific body style)
• rdiddly 5y ago
  It's great. Lose the oversize "frunk" and poor visibility, most of the cockpit distractions, all the electronic surveillance crap, 80% of these features, and cut the price in half, and I might consider it! Because of the rental vehicle shortage I was free-upgraded to an F-150 recently. You can haul stuff in it just fine, but in the front it's too tall, ridiculously tall. It's a bloated and stupid vehicle. The feature bloat you read about here, well obviously that's just more bloat of a different kind. The problem isn't that it's electric; that part is great. The problem is that it's an F-150.
  • keyboardCowBoy 5y ago
    People buy F150 because they need a truck. They sold almost 800K last year.
• kibwen 5y ago
  Ironically, the frunk on electric trucks is a game-changer. Complementing the bed with an enclosed, waterproof, secure place to carry things (and no mucking around with insecure bed covers) is a killer feature. No more springing for a crew cab just to carry groceries in the rear seats. In terms of practical carrying capacity this dominates an SUV.
  • browningstreet 5y ago
    I hope this displaces a lot of the adventure Sprinter vans out there. Obviously, the built-out vans for long-term living won't get replaced by a truck, but I live in Tahoe and could use an adventure ready vehicle for winter skiing and summer trail running and MTB excursions with the family. The frunk makes a big difference for those kinds of things.
  • golover721 5y ago
    Agreed, which makes it strange that it’s only available as a crew cab.
    • zippergz 5y ago
      Yeah, this is a bummer for me. I don't really like crew cab (either how it looks, or how it compromises bed length vs. overall truck length), and this really doesn't need it.
    • Someone1234 5y ago
      Most of the gas F-150 sales are crew cab models, so it makes sense not to target that relatively small niche. The long-bed was popular back when people owned a truck as an extra vehicle/work vehicle only, now many use their truck as their main vehicle and have need of carrying others. If you look at the creature comforts of older bench seat trucks (bare-bones) and the trucks sold today, a truck today will have everything an SUV will have in terms of comfort and maybe more.
      • kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
        The supercab F150 has serviceable back seats. There is no need to gimp the bed with an oversized crew cab.
• XorNot 5y ago
  Payload capacity is lower then I'd like to see (tops out at 900kg I think?). So still short of the something you could get a bulka-bag dropped on at a distributor and just drive home with.
• gher-shyu3i 5y ago
  I'm curious how it will perform off road. No need for a locking diff anymore if it has 1 motor per wheel.
  • jordache 5y ago
    it's one motor per pair of axles.
    • gher-shyu3i 5y ago
      I wonder if they're going to provide diff locks for each axel.
      • rhodozelia 5y ago
        That would be pretty sweet
• _coveredInBees 5y ago
  I gotta say, I am very impressed by what I've seen with the F-150. It's clear that a LOT of thought has gone into this product and Ford clearly understands their target audience extremely well. There are so many nice features that are so well tailored to folks who buy trucks. All the features to power job sites, etc is really sweet and I can totally see that being super handy. Heck, it would make it super easy to work on projects in my driveway without any worries. Storage with the massive frunk is awesome. Lots of features around hitches and making it easier to use them and tow with them. Pretty good price point, good acceleration to appeal to the macho truck crowd who will hold their nose while making the plunge to electric so they can feel good about themselves when they floor the accelerator at stoplights and onramps. There is something for everyone here. Yes, it plays it safe on the aesthetics side of things, but I don't see anything wrong with it. The "safer" aesthetics also make it more useful than the Cybertruck, what with the massive Frunk. Really glad to see some good competition in this space. The next 2 years are going to be really exciting in the EV space!
  • mywittyname 5y ago
    The only gotcha with this, is that F150s are huge. I have an oversized garage and an F150 will barely fit. Many of my full-size truck driving neighbors opt to park in the driveway because they turn a modern two car garage into a 1.5 car garage unless designed specifically for giant vehicles. I haven't seen consumer chargers that are designed to be installed outside. Most people have wall chargers in their garages, but I don't thing this is going to work for the majority of F150 home owners. That being said, this is an otherwise incredible vehicle. The F150 is pretty much the ultimate vehicle for someone with enough space for one, and this improves upon it in nearly every way.
    • pwagland 5y ago
      At least in Europe, pretty much _all_ chargers are designed to be installed outdoors, as pretty much no-one has a garage anyway. So outdoor charging should not be an issue.
      • 5y ago
• boulos 5y ago
  So, I’m sort of curious to see what this price point does to the home battery market. The new LG Chem RESU 16h (16 kWh) is available for preorder at $8,400 [1]. The base model truck has a 110 kWh suite of batteries and seemingly will start at $40k (unclear if that’s before or after the $7500 expected federal rebate). Naively multiplying it out, the base model F-150 Lightning is a free vehicle attached to the equivalent of 6 of the 16 kWh batteries. There are likely: - integration issues (you can’t hook it up to 48V or 400V solar) - battery life? (Though it’s a vehicle. You expect daily usage for years) - something else? tl;dr: if this is really 110 kWh of storage that can power your home, shouldn’t there be a secondary market of “just the batteries” for half that? [1] https://sunwatts.com/16-kwh-lg-chem-lithium-ion-home-battery-resu16h-prime/ https://sunwatts.com/16-kwh-lg-chem-lithium-ion-home-battery...
  • ajb92 5y ago
    > The base model truck has a 110 kWh suite of batteries and seemingly will start at $40k (unclear if that’s before or after the $7500 expected federal rebate). During the live presentation, I believe it was indicated the sub $40k price tag is before the rebate.
  • bryanlarsen 5y ago
    If I understand correctly, only the $90K model has the ability to power your home. Even so your comment still applies. 155 kWh / $90K is still cheaper than 16 kWh / $8400
• VBprogrammer 5y ago
  I notice they make a huge deal about the towing capacity but realistically what is the range of this going to be hooked up to a 10,000lb / 5000kg trailer? Maybe if it's lucky a little over 100 miles? Maybe useful for some utility use cases but practically useless for the recreational vehicle market.
  • skynet-9000 5y ago
    Perfect for taking the boat to the lake on the weekend. ... well, unless you actually back it into the lake on the boat ramp! Hmm..
  • thallium205 5y ago
    This YouTube video breaks it down. Basically they are god awful for towing. https://youtu.be/S4W-P5aCWJs https://youtu.be/S4W-P5aCWJs
    • VBprogrammer 5y ago
      Yeah, it's something I've been keeping an eye on. My father in law doesn't see how electric cars can work, one of his main objections is he tows a caravan. Admittedly UK caravans are pretty light, 1400kg is about the middle of the range. There are now a couple of pure electrics with enough towing capacity (Tesla X, Audi E-tron, Volvo something or other). Unfortunately, there isn't much getting away from the fact that towing a big box behind a car halves the economy, and while those cars are starting to have very useable ranges, even if you need to occasionally travel longer distance, halving those ranges leaves you a bit short.
• shireboy 5y ago
  I'm a potential customer on this. I'm in the market for a vehicle, need a pickup and towing (no really). My hesitance still is charge time on trips. If I'm taking my kids camping or something, I really don't want to add one or more hours to the trip. IMO for this sort of thing to really gain acceptance mainstream, we need 5 minute charge times and battery lifetimes on par with ICE engine lifetimes (300-500k miles). I feel like the industry is getting really close, and this is a solid effort that puts Tesla on notice, but not _quite_ there in terms of mass acceptance.
  • johnatwork 5y ago
    I have an EV, and yeah it takes more planning for longer trips, but that hasn't been too hard. We can always charge _and_ take bathroom/lunch breaks (~1 hour). By the time we get back the car's back up to 80~90%.
  • mywittyname 5y ago
    I really hope Ford accounted for the possibility of a gas-powered range extender. Gas powered generators are extremely common on work trucks. And a moderately sized one could probably produce enough power to maintain this truck at highways speeds, or at least produce enough power to drastically improve range.
  • bryanlarsen 5y ago
    If you've got kids, you need bathroom breaks. On our cross-country trip in our Model Y we calculated that we spent a whole 15 minutes waiting for the charger, every other time we charged while we were toileting, eating or sleeping. That being said, the F-150 will be a lot worse than the Y. It only supports 150kWh charging instead of Tesla's 250kWh, it uses a lot more watts per mile, and it doesn't have access to Tesla's Supercharger network.
    • shireboy 5y ago
      That's interesting to hear. I have several friends with Teslas and keep up with some of the reviews, etc. But I haven't heard much perspective from people with kids. I have a few friends with Teslas that also keep an ICE for trips. I think some would vary on location. I've gone so far as to do tesla's route planner for trips we commonly take, and I'm pretty sure between having to drive to charging station, and charge time, it would add a couple hours to our trips. Then again, I tend to not want to stop much.
• ziml77 5y ago
  What weird marketing. Is there really any overlap between a person who buys an F150 and one who is comfortable uttering the word "frunk"?
• itsbits 5y ago
  Wouldn't it be better if charging stations have Universal ports kind of standard?
  • knodi123 5y ago
    A lightning connector?
• bluthru 5y ago
  Every stylistic choice to make a vehicle "look electric" is always a failure, IMO. I don't like the LED unibrow at all.
• leesec 5y ago
  I'm really happy Ford and others are starting to actually deliver on EV's. I do however think there will be a long list of issues as they scale the roll out, given the newness and complexity of this product. Here are some concerns I think people should be aware of: 1. No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still. Using existing non-supercharging networks is not feasible for any long distance. You cannot do a roadtrip only charging 30~ mph. Thats 2 hours charging for every 1 hour driving. 2. Battery range for certain use cases. The base model is rated for 230 miles. If you've ever driven a Tesla on a highway you know you'll not get the full 230 at highspeeds. And so what happens when a truck is pulling a heavy load? You may end up literally getting half that range. This will be quite a shock for some users. 3. Software rollouts. Ford has been working on this but it is still not Solved. They've already bricked Mach-E's (1), and I expect there to be many more technical issues popping up. 4. No Autopilot. This is a big sell for many EV users. As far as I know Ford is no where close to having a viable competitor. Anyways, I'm sure these things will smooth out over the coming years and I wish them all the best with this amazing migration to electric vehicles. (1) https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/8/22373903/mustang-mach-e-deep-sleep-12v-battery-jump-start https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/8/22373903/mustang-mach-e-de...
  • loudmax 5y ago
    I agree with your issues 1 and 2. Batteries do not yet match the energy density of petrol. There are plenty of cases where the shorter range isn't a problem, but buyers need to know have a clear understanding up front. I don't think issues 3 and 4 really need to have much to do with electric vehicles. Autopilot and electric are orthogonal properties. The only connection is that they're both pioneered by Tesla. Otherwise there's no particular reason you should expect one with the other. The same goes for over the air software updates.
    • leesec 5y ago
      Autopilot sure but software updates are obviously an issue if they can brick your car.
      • 5y ago
• jrsj 5y ago
  There’s a lot of stereotyping of truck owners going on in this thread which is kind of funny given how pro-EV HN normally is. It’s like the aesthetics of a pickup truck is offensive to some people. Kind of bizarre and not something I’m used to seeing but I guess I live in Ohio so that probably has something to do with it. A lot of people just want to move stuff, they don’t want to like…burn your house down while wearing a MAGA hat or something. There’s no reason to have an irrational hatred of a vehicle that is pretty practical in non-urban settings. Edit: since this ended up as the top comment I’ll add some thoughts on the truck itself in the spirit of not being overly-negative. I’m interested to see what exactly is included in the base model and when that will become available since they’ve only given us information on higher trims so far. $40K for this vehicle is very affordable, that’s about as cheap as you can get a new Model 3 right now but at least for awhile it could be eligible for electric vehicle tax credits. Especially if the government extended these credits they could get A LOT of people to buy these trucks (and more Teslas which would help with EV adoption since demand for the Bolt and Leaf seem pretty low)
  • xwdv 5y ago
    None of them have ever had to carry planks of wood from Home Depot.
    • cycrutchfield 5y ago
      The vast majority of suburban pickup truck owners haven’t ever either.
      • losvedir 5y ago
        Really? I find it hard to imagine that anyone who owns a freestanding home hasn't wanted to carry some sort of large item home from Home Depot. It's not some unusual "salt of the earth" kind of situation. I only have a tiny Chevy Sonic, and have often thought how handy it would be to have a truck for carrying home soil, mulch, random wood things, a new lawnmower, heck even a large TV, etc, and have had to rent or borrow one occasionally.
• underbluewaters 5y ago
  This is what this transition should be all about. It's not just a more environmentally responsible truck, it's better truck in nearly every way. Contractors are going to love the secure storage and built-in power for use on the job site or a farm. It has more torque and will be better at towing. They could have charged a lot more for these but instead it will be cheaper than the existing fossil fuel versions if you consider the tax rebates. Ford knows their market and are going to absolutely destroy the competition with this.
• bryanlarsen 5y ago
  I get to eat my hat somewhat. I hope it's tasty. Just a few days ago I made the comment that the Cybertruck's killer feature is it's $40K price tag, if and only if that price tag actually happens. I said that Ford could not make a decent EV F-150 at that price point unless they throw their dealerships under the bus. And here we are with a $40K EV F-150. I'm glad I added the caveats though -- the $40K F150 is for commercial fleets, so will be missing crucial features for the passenger market and might bypass dealerships. Even so, $52K is still a competitive price for a SuperCrew with a few options.
  • mceachen 5y ago
    Ford also hasn't sold that many EVs (yet), so it's still eligible for the US $7500 federal tax rebate (unlike Tesla). (BTW: It seems like such an arbitrary and ultimately bad decision to cap rebates by manufacturer. Rebate caps for expensive luxury cars? Sure. But penalize a manufacturer for making _too many_ of the thing you're incentivizing doesn't seem right).
    • jaywalk 5y ago
      You're not penalizing anybody, you're adding a temporary incentive to get the manufacturer up to speed. Once they're selling enough, they don't need to incentivize people to buy them.
      • fma 5y ago
        Since the rebate is per manufacturer you are penalizing the first movers. Meaning, Tesla and GM's electric vehicles are $7500 costlier than Ford because they exhausted their rebates early on. The cap should have been for the entire country so that companies like Ford can't sit back years before rolling out with an EV and gain a second movers advantage now that the tech is mature.
    • bryanlarsen 5y ago
      Ford has already sold over 100,000 EV's, and if they can't sell 100,000 Mach-E's in the next 12 months then they're doing something wrong. So by the time the F-150 becomes available their credit should be in the wind-down phase. Another likely scenario is that Biden gets his infrastructure bill through and the credit becomes available to all US-manufactured EV's.
• ortusdux 5y ago
  Tesla's checkout process has spoiled me. It's landing page -> select a model -> select options and appearance -> enter payment info for a 100$ deposit. No signups, no friction, just car creation and transparent info and pricing. Step one on Ford's site is to select a dealer. Already I'm thinking about how much I hate my local dealer and the whole dealership system in general. Step two is a login screen with create an account burred at the bottom. Now I'm thinking about all the ford spam I'll get if I give them my email. Step three is me checking on the cyber truck status.
  • ketamine__ 5y ago
    But how long does it take you to get it? Most people can walk into a dealership and buy a new car instantly.
    • Cshelton 5y ago
      Keep in mind with the dealership model, you are easily paying a 25% or more premium on that vehicle.
    • LanceH 5y ago
      instantly - a couple hours of hostile manipulation designed to screw you over It took me 2.5 hours to buy my truck where the price had been determined before I walked in and I had a check in hand. That's after the research to get a price upon walk-in ($6000 less than on the sticker). The process of walking in and looking at prices that everyone knows aren't real and negotiating with someone who is lying to you is beyond tiresome.
      • Loughla 5y ago
        I think internet sales have changed that, though. We got our last car - I did the looking and pricing out online beforehand. We spend about 30 minutes in the dealership when we went to buy it. They were very straight forward online - all in print in e-mail. You want x car, in y trim level, it costs $z. Are you financing or not? The only thing they tried to sell us was a maintenance package that, if we lived closer than 3 hours away, actually was a good deal for the cost. Maybe it's situational based on specific dealer?
• SavantIdiot 5y ago
  Its battery can POWER YOUR HOUSE for up to a week. The Atlantic has a great article about it. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/05/f-150-lightning-fords-first-electric-truck/618932/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/05/f-150...
• andys627 5y ago
  This will not save the planet. We need to consume less, and walk/bike/take transit more. Fine, this may not be for you, but at least don't insist on a the rest of subsidizing you (untaxed climate externality).
• tigerBL00D 5y ago
  Electric seems like a great idea for a truck in general. You need high torque and with electric drive you don't need to have an overpowered and inefficient engine to handle peak load. For long distance use better aerodynamics will be important in the long term and Ford isn't breaking any new ground here.
• whatever1 5y ago
  The owners will be caught off guard with the horrible range for truck activities (towing, driving in rough terrain, climbing hills, carrying cargo). On the other hand I suspect that significant fraction of the trucks are just used for commuting in flat suburbia so range will not matter.
  • rhodozelia 5y ago
    Why would low speed high torque operation be bad for range? Are the electric motors less efficient at lower speeds? Hill climbing and off roading probably has bad gas mileage too?
    • whatever1 5y ago
      It is easy to understand. Think about trying to pedal your bike in the mud with 5mph. You will run out of energy way earlier compared to biking on perfect, flat tarmac with 10mph. To overcome friction, you need additional energy. The electric F150 comes with ~3.7 gal equiv. of gasoline worth of energy. The gas powered comes with ~25 gal tank. If we assume 90% efficiency for the electric motor and 25% for the gasoline, you get: electric F150: 3.3 gal equivalent available to move the car gas F150: 6.25 gal equivalent available to move the car The gas-powered stores effectively double the amount of energy, if the two cars have equal weight and aerodynamics, the gas powered will have 2ble range.
      • rhodozelia 5y ago
        Sure, but driving in mud will take the same amount of energy for both the gas and electric car. It’s not like the ev has an inherent disadvantage in low speed off roading. Since rock crawling is all about low end torque with guys installing two transfer cases so they can go 4 lo-lo and redline at 3 km/h I would have thought the low end torque of electric motor would be better than gas.
• pp19dd 5y ago
  Bluecruise - "driver-facing camera and radar-sensing technologies allowing for hands-free driving on prequalified sections of divided highways called hands-free Blue Zones" Struck me as a far different way of easing into the autonomous driving gig.
• zero_deg_kevin 5y ago
  I was all for this truck until I saw the range. As someone who has to run the heat in their car 3/4 of the year, I don't consider an EV with a sub 400-mile rated range anything but a toy.
• VectorLock 5y ago
  Being able to use the Lightning as a home backup and job site generator is a great innovation. Even having 240 is pretty cool.
• analog31 5y ago
  I'm happy to see this. It's the most popular vehicle, so it will reach a large audience. Also, at least in my imagination, work trucks are a perfect use because they are used locally and parked on the job site. So the range and need for a charging station might not be impediments. My pet peeve is that vehicles are getting bigger in general, and I don't need a big vehicle. An F150 won't fit in my garage. An amusing anecdote, my friend got a brand new pickup, and was being really fussy about keeping it clean. I asked him: How do you keep the bed from getting dirty and scratched up? He said: Don't put anything in there. When he drove back to the family ranch, his mom noticed that he was being too prissy with his truck. So she waited until he was sleeping in on a Saturday morning, and borrowed his truck to haul manure. Lesson learned. ;-)
  • cpwright 5y ago
    You could also just get a spray in bedliner, they are pretty darn tough. Shoveling dirty into/out of them will not have any negative effect and you can then sweep or hose it out.
    • analog31 5y ago
      Quite true. I mentioned that. My friend wanted it to be pristine. It was more than 2 decades ago.
  • Gracana 5y ago
    Hah! I recently bought a brand new truck, and while I haven't been quite that bad about it, I did find it painful to put scratches into the pristine paint. A week or so ago I had to hide my pain as my friends helped me load a pair of truck axles and transmissions and transfer cases into it. It's pretty well broken in now, and I'm getting over it. I think I'll let it go a while longer like this, then clean it up real good and get it lined.
• lancemurdock 5y ago
  im just bummed they went with the modern body style and did not revive the early 2000s Lightning body style that had a more street racer vibe. That car was sweet
• sjg007 5y ago
  I'll buy one.. it's a little more expensive than I'd like but I'm tired of gasoline and the fumes.
• api 5y ago
  This might be the most significant EV after the Tesla Roadster, which is the EV that made them cool and started tipping the market. Once your average truck driving country boy sees what "instant full torque" means, ICEs will start to get a reputation for being wimpy.
• aluminum96 5y ago
  I can't wait to be run over by an electric truck instead of a gas one. So green!
• mataug 5y ago
  I'm a city apartment dweller, and I'm not the usual demographic for this truck, but given the price point, and value this provides, ford has my attention, and I would definitely consider buying this if I can get a charger installed in my apartment complex.
• stakkur 5y ago
  It's simple: Ford will sell a shit ton of these. Killer feature: onboard power for external devices. This will be huge for the trades--and the trades are a primary target market for Ford trucks.
  • rhodozelia 5y ago
    I don’t think not needing a portable generator on small construction sites is going to be a big driver of sales. Sales will be driven by the same factors as Tesla’s, no c02 emissions, don’t have to buy gas. Everything else is bonus
    • skynet-9000 5y ago
      Most people buy pickups currently probably don't really think CO2 emissions are a big deal, but perhaps there's an undiscovered pickup market that Ford's going to tap into; perhaps an urbanite who normally wouldn't consider a pickup but thought the Cybertruck looked interesting.
      • mlac 5y ago
        I’m a Subaru driver who wants my next car to be electric or hybrid electric… this appeals to me. I’ve liked trucks before but I have not been able to justify the cost. Pretty much all EVs are in the same ball park now (40K-50k for dual motor), so it’s going into the comparison against a model 3, model y, and others that will be on the market at that time. The F150 itself has great features (quiet ride), then pile on the new stuff here (a good bed cover is $1k+ and no longer needed with the frunk, the acceleration).
        • therealdrag0 5y ago
          What about Rav4 Prime?
          • mlac 5y ago
            I’d consider it, but would like a Tacoma prime if they decide to make one. Easily 90-95% of my driving is <40 miles and I could do it on EV.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• wing-_-nuts 5y ago
  My first vehicle I bought with my own money was a truck. In retrospect, it was a mistake. It got shitty gas milage, had downright dangerous performance (0-60 in 16 seconds made for some white knuckle backroad passing), and 90% of the time my bed was empty. If I had been smart, and bought a small hatchback or wagon, I'd probably still be driving it to this day, and it'd have 90% of the hauling capability of my truck. An electric pickup solves a lot of the issues I had with my old truck, but understand, this is a premium product. Pickup truck owners are a stubborn bunch. EVs will have a hard time penetrating that market. It may take a few decades.
• stadium 5y ago
  This is going to accelerate ev adoption and ic obselecence. Mainstream electric, here we come.
• aynyc 5y ago
  This is a contractor's dream truck. * Power supply. This thing supports ton of recharging of power tools. Lawn cares services will love this as more and more communities are banning gas-powdered tools. * Range. 300 is well within most contractors' home to work site. * Frunk. Lock away their valuable tools without unloading the toolbox. * Look. It's what they know and trust. It's something new yet familiar. Next step for Ford, make EV version of Transit. That'll sell like hot cakes!
  • ed25519FUUU 5y ago
    The intelligent backup power is such an obviously good feature that I'm surprised nobody has thought of this before. Out here people will spend $5-$10k installing a generac for their home. That thing is loud and takes awhile to turn on depending on the setting. Having your EV plugged in and just "work" when there's a power outage is stupid simple and absolutely worth it.
    • aembleton 5y ago
      The Nissan Leaf has been able to do it for a while https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/you-can-power-your-house-nissan-leaf https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/you-can-power-your...
      • ed25519FUUU 5y ago
        No it’s not. There’s no Nissan device you can buy in the USA that allows leaf to do power to home. It might be different in Europe, and I know you can import non-Nissan devices from Japan.
  • aaronbeekay 5y ago
    Ford released the e-Transit before the Lightning! https://www.ford.com/commercial-trucks/e-transit/2022/ https://www.ford.com/commercial-trucks/e-transit/2022/
    • aynyc 5y ago
• djrogers 5y ago
  This is a really well thought out vehicle. 9.6kw of AC power (120 and 240) available for tools etc on work sites, 2 way power (truck can provide backup power to home), and it has a frunk (front trunk)! As a truck owner, and a California resident, every one of these features calls out to me. I use my power tools all over the place where power isn’t readily available, PG&E shuts off my power when it’s ‘too windy’, and a drunk seems like a good place to lock up my laptop and nice tools when I’m in a restaurant in San Jose or Santana Clara (sheesh, laptop thieves suck). Well done Ford - I think you’ve got a customer here.
• canada_dry 5y ago
  Does the old adage never buy the 1st year's model apply here?
• WhompingWindows 5y ago
  1. I'm really glad they didn't go with the "futuristic" look of the bmw or Volt, where extra "techie" lines create a muddled design. Just make EVs look like aerodynamic ICE vehicles, this will increase adoption rates. 2. How much power does the generator/house back-up provide? I can see it being enough for a couple tools on a jobsite, but how long will it run a refrigerator, furnace, lights, etc.? 3. In this page, Ford claims to have the largest charging network in the USA. How is that possible, I thought Tesla had a huge lead on supercharging stations and destination chargers? 4. Price: At 40k base, you'll be seeing average costs of 50k+, even after the 7.5k tax incentive. I'd take the larger battery for sure, it would greatly increase the utility of the truck for my cases. 50k is what MANY truck buyers are already spending, I don't see that being an obstacle at all. 5. Gripe: Most people who claim to need a truck don't really need to OWN a truck; they should just rent. I live in a rural area and 95% of the trucks I see have 1 passenger and on average almost no cargo in the bed. We are polluting our planet for the occasional privilege of using our OWN truck...people simply buy vehicles for the outlying use case, not the modal case, and it's incredibly inefficient. 6. Overall: These EVs are a step in the right direction. It's still energy inefficient overall, and renting an ICE truck once a month would still be better than buying a new massive EV truck, but this is a step in the right direction. It'll nudge the "I want my own truck" people in the right direction towards efficiency.
  • kevin_b_er 5y ago
    In response to 2: One, we don't know the actual usable capacity of the pack, because Ford hasn't said. Forbes writer estimates 110-130kWh. https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/2022-ford-f-150-lightning-ev-pickup-debuts-300-mile-range-priced-at-40k/ https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/2022-ford-f-150-lightning... Estimating home energy use per day really depends on how much heating/air conditioning you need, if your heater is gas powered or not. The fridge is like 1kWh per day. So... 100 days of just the fridge. Mid-sized gas furnace will pull about 600W to run the forced air fan. So... 0.6 kWh per hour of runtime. You'd have to calculate the runtime given a temperature. If it is an electric furnace it'll blow through that battery quite fast. Lights are now peanuts, because LED bulbs are about 8-10W. .12kWh per bulb per day for 12 hours of use. Also, compare your home's electric bill for a kWh number to compare: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3 Average of 877kWh per month. Of course this is averaged as you use more power depending on local weather and time of year due to heating/cooling needs. With that over-averaged value, 3.75 days to drain the battery. This is probably why Ford says about 3 days and then says "10 with conservation". So I'd say if a family really conserved on heating/cooling, and attempted to be careful with cooking, that battery could quite easily go 10 days.
• aazaa 5y ago
  I think it's interesting to look at this through the lens of Christensen's disruptive innovation idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma The move by Ford offers strong evidence that electric vehicles at this point have become a sustaining, not disruptive innovation. Incumbents like Ford can now compete using existing business models and possibly manufacturing practices/equipment. EV companies like Tesla are now positioned very poorly. They've burned capital chasing the top end of the market during the disruptive phase. Rather than servicing unserved low-end markets that companies like Ford couldn't touch for business reasons, Tesla went after the very top end of the market. Piles of evidence say that this approach will fail, not necessarily for technical reasons but for business reasons. Successful marketplace disruptors attack the market from the bottom by offering objectively inferior technologies with steeply improving performance. That tech trajectory eventually allows the disruptor to gobble the market from the bottom up, with incumbents only too happy to leave low-end, low-margin customers behind. Think microcomputers vs. minicomputers. Rather than running this playbook, Tesla chose the alternative: attack the very top end of the market. It never went through the phase where its products were mistaken for toys. Now that EV production costs and technologies allow easier transitions, Tesla's business model is upside-down. If Tesla couldn't consistently turn profits during the phase it held the advantage, it is going to become almost impossible now that the playing field has leveled and the incumbents can just run the playbook.
  • rootusrootus 5y ago
    At this point I think Tesla's future in the automotive market depends on just two factors. Their DC fast charging network, and their supply of batteries. I'm confident they currently hold the upper hand on both fronts right now and for the next couple of years most likely. I am not at all confident that they can hold onto either advantage much longer than that.
  • bliteben 5y ago
    Thank you for this, I added that book to my reading list.
  • unethical_ban 5y ago
• kingsuper20 5y ago
  Pretty cool. I'd buy one if they made a regular cab, short bed, base model version. Not gonna happen. Probably never will since it isn't a matter of simply producing a shorter frame and altering the body shell. Not enough call for it. In my case (not that anyone cares), lower end trucks are fairly optimal. Low repair costs, don't care about gas mileage (not enough miles/year), good visibility, don't ever need a back seat, ease of repair and accessibility, need space for transporting big and tall stuff often enough. Kind of a no-brainer. The emergency house power angle is the killer app for me. Plus never going to a gas station, changing oil, etc. You do have to wonder how much longer any EV subsidy can last. It highly favors wealthier people (due to the tie to income tax in many cases) and won't hold up to widespread adoption of EVs
• marcodiego 5y ago
  Panel features a large tablet-like touch screen, advertisement highlights over the air software updates... Definitely not what I'd like to have.
  • blisterpeanuts 5y ago
    Similar features to Tesla - is there reason to believe Ford will do a worse job? Can you at least disable the OTA updates if you don't want it?
    • fastball 5y ago
      Well basically every car OS has sucked compared to Tesla's, so that's a start.
• 1970-01-01 5y ago
  Why is snowplowing absent on all the EV trucks? Are they not capable of the heavy duty use or is the market not ready to buy them?
  • gibspaulding 5y ago
    I'd imagine the weight and traction control would make an EV truck great for plowing. Their marketing team must be based in So Cal and unaware of the use case. /s
    • thallium205 5y ago
      Nah that's bad use case for it. Batteries don't work well in cold and all that extra weight would make probably halve its range.
  • rhodozelia 5y ago
    I don’t often see vehicles advertised with snow plows? Aren’t they all aftermarket ?
    • 1970-01-01 5y ago
      The plows are all aftermarket but the trucks are sold as plow-ready or with prep packages. https://www.balisefordcapecod.com/Snow-Plow-Prep-Package.html https://www.balisefordcapecod.com/Snow-Plow-Prep-Package.htm...
• keyboardCowBoy 5y ago
  I have a mid size GM truck and it sufficiently handles all my needs. It's not overly large and drives fine in the city and tight spots. It has good performance gets easily 25MPG on the highway. Trucks standup more to abuse, and are usually more reliable. I haven't had any real major issues with it. I take mine down some unkept dirt roads, something I would not want to take a unibody low group clearance car down. When I go camping I just throw everything in the bed with some bungee cords and I'm ready to go. I have a bike and when I transport it I just use a bike pad and don't have to mess with taking the bike wheels off and trying to stuff it in a car. Also the biggest selling point is trucks hold their value quite well.
• alexanderdmitri 5y ago
  > Offering an ingenious array of connected, intelligent features with over-the-air Software Updates to help ensure your truck can get even better over time. Anyone else think it's anti-consumer to not be able to opt out of these 'features'?
  • yumraj 5y ago
    > Anyone else think it's anti-consumer to not be able to opt out of these 'features'? Yes, absolutely.
  • gibspaulding 5y ago
    I was pretty amazed to see this in the initial blurb. I agree with you, and I think a good chunk of HN would as well, but apparently Ford's marketing department determined that this is something that people want. Scrolling through the page, it's the second "feature" that they advertise (first being that it's "gass-free"). It gets higher placement than the "Power your home" capability, and much higher placement than the "Frunk" (in fact, if I just scroll, the "frunk" doesn't show up until about 2/3 of the way down the page!)
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • rootusrootus 5y ago
    Did they say it was something you couldn't opt out of? Tesla seems to do okay convincing people to accept OTA updates. Also, current F150s can do OTA updates, they're just rare.
• yumraj 5y ago
  Now when can we expect a real SUV built on this platform. A Ford Explorer or Expedition, whichever shares the platform with F-150
• mcguire 5y ago
  One question: what is the range at, say, 2/3 of the max towing capacity, with a normally aerodynamic trailer?
  • lurkerasdfh8 5y ago
    yep, suspect how they never mix the two. Just like laptop reviews. - can carry X tons / X petaflops and ai engine! - can drive up to Y hours / last Y hours but never mention how long is Y with X being true.
• aaroninsf 5y ago
  Hot take: this, as some like Ars Technica have observed, stands a decent chance of being a real game changer. Everything about this vehicle launch appears masterful, from its technology to its branding to the obvious care taken to ensure that in almost every respect it is so superior, and offers so many no-brainers, as to make anyone who can (both individuals and especially, fleet managers), buy these as fast they can. This thing has more than one killer app. The biggest by far IMO is its ability to power high voltage high draw tools at the jobsite. If you have never worked on a jobsite, this is a BFD. This is itself a game changer, it offers the ability to "disrupt" in a material way a whole class of project. Logistics just got 20% simpler and projects 30% cheaper. Sure, it can go super fast; yes, you can lock your stuff in the truck... But the other killer feature for fleet owners is that these are remotely manageable. Your fleet now has detailed telemetry and its only going to get better. And this is on launch. We just got a RAV4 Prime and if I didn't live in SF proper, I might be seriously regretting not waiting for this thing. (I don't, and don't think this makes sense in the city.) If we move to e.g. Sonoma and work remote? This would be that no brainer. Hallelujah. Now, to invest in Ford...
  • rootusrootus 5y ago
    To be fair, some of these features are available on the recently released hybrid, as well. What I would like to figure out is if it can actually backfeed the home with 240V split phase power. That would be a seriously big deal if it could, it's not a common generator feature as it is. I'm skeptical, but they did claim it could transition from charging to supplying the house and back to charging when the power returned. Probably some fine print there where they say "only with the 120V charger". Otherwise, that would just be killer. An automatic whole-house UPS that can easily support all your needs for hours or even a couple days in a pinch.
    • madengr 5y ago
      Yes it can, through the Ford EVSE (i.e. charger).
    • wearywanderer 5y ago
      Backfeeding houses with generators is indeed a killer feature... but not in the way you mean. It can be done safety, but when done incorrectly (if the house isn't removed from the grid first) it can kill linemen. It's a good thing most generators a homeowner might causally buy at the hardware store don't have this feature. Unfortunately I've seen male-to-male extension cords sold online for this purpose. I think these are actually illegal, at least in some places. https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/elecgenerators.html https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/elecgenerators.html
• hbarka 5y ago
  Old Ford Ranger is my sidekick. Got it used and has paid for itself many times over. I’m interested in the off-grid potential of the Lightning. Who knew Ford with be the first to offer “offloading capacity of 9kW, and based on an average daily power demand of 30kWh, can provide full power to a home for around three days”. In contrast, Tesla has a cigarette-lighter port offering 12V. There’s an additional one in the back in case you want to charge an iPhone while tailgating.
• hoffspot 5y ago
  For those wondering why some people move to trucks as a commuter vehicle, I moved to a 4 door Tacoma because I don't fit in cars. I'm 6'1' with a highly athletic, broad shoulder based build. I tried all kinds of cars in 2015 looking for one that was easy to get in an out of, had comfortable seating where my head didn't hit the roof, and I wasn't squashed in there like airplane seating. Good luck.
  • galkk 5y ago
    I doubt it, sorry. I'm 6'2, overweight, prefer to have seat in the highest position and fit my Subaru Forester with full comfort.
• slownews45 5y ago
  I want a super small pickup truck. My neighbor has a very old truck, it's SMALL (only font seats, no "cab", smaller width, height and everything) So they used to make smaller trucks. I'm serious. I just need room for myself, occasionally one other person, and random crap (canoes, boats etc on a rack in back, garden, house, etc crap in bed). We have a family car for the whole family. This could be uncomfortable and small (and ideally cheep) but obviously no market for that or it would be out there. What's smallest pickup currently sold in US?
  • frosted-flakes 5y ago
    Toyota Tacoma or Ford Ranger, probably. Look into buying a used Ford Ranger from the late 90s to early 2000s (or Mazdas of similar age; they're the same truck).
• m3kw9 5y ago
  900 comments so far, Tesla is in trouble.
  • rhodozelia 5y ago
    Tesla has achieved their goal of making EVs mainstream and reducing c02 emmissions
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• francoisp 5y ago
  I tried putting in a reservation in Canada yesteday. I think they got slashdoted. Spinning.... Victim of their success. Maybe they will understand why Tesla does not need paid for marketing?
  • CRConrad 5y ago
    Heh, "slashdotted"... Yathink most of the kids will even understand it?
• francoisp 5y ago
  Actually if they can build an Expedition SUV on this platform in short order, they could have another model T on their hands. That little e at the end of the bar crossing the capital F would finally take its meaning! (seriously in this price range, it could be a Panel van replacement for amazon, FEDEX, plumbers etc. A suburban ppl mover would be an absolute hit, I'd buy one in advance. (not a 100$ deposit, and cancel my CT reservation that I'm hoping to convert on to a yet to be announced hypothetical tesla SUV based on CT...)
• claytoneast 5y ago
  It amuses me now many asterisks are on this page. "Some big claim"* *Only with x package and x accessories Seems like more statements have asterisks next to them then don't.
  • thunkshift1 5y ago
    Which isn’t too different from tesla for comparison. It only sells you the most basic version and you have to pay for everything else
• PostThisTooFast 5y ago
  At least the Lightning name makes sense for an electric vehicle, even though it does not have much to do with the original Lightning. Mach-E is a perfectly good name, but calling that design a Mustang is bogus.
• dang 5y ago
  All: this thread has over 1000 comments. To see all of it you need to click More at the bottom of the page, or like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=3 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=3 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=4 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=4 (Posts like this will go away once we turn off pagination.) There are also some previous related threads: The Electric Ford F-150 Can Power Your House for Three Days on a Single Charge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27232576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27232576 - May 2021 (14 comments) Ford unveils the F-150 Lightning, its all-electric pickup truck - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27218029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27218029 - May 2021 (88 comments) How Ford Built an Electric F-150 That Can Do Real Work for $40K - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27217386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27217386 - May 2021 (7 comments)
• eloff 5y ago
  > Available Ford Intelligent Backup Power, enabled by the 80-amp Ford Charge Station Pro, allows you to use your truck as a backup power source to your home during a power outage. * The power transfer can be triggered automatically or manually based on customer preference. Good, now maybe Tesla will offer that too. Last I checked they didn't because of warranty concerns on the battery. They don't want you using the vehicle to arbitrage electricity prices. Which is probably not worth the wear anyway. But as an emergency backup or place to store surplus solar energy - now that's useful.
• throwawaypage05 5y ago
  It's perplexing to me to see these one-off messages explaining a basic UI control month after month. Why not simply include a numbered page widget (i.e. "More comments: 1, 2, 3..5") at the top and bottom of the page and be done with it? If performance improvements later obviate the need for it, it can then simply be removed.
  • grzm 5y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23851745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23851745 (and elsewhere) > "We're working on performance improvements that will hopefully allow us to go back to HN's original style of one big page per thread (not infinite scroll, don't worry). In the meantime please look for those 'More' links when the total number of comments is over 250 or so."
    • throwawaypage05 5y ago
      Right, that particular example was posted 10 months ago. Instead of providing manual documentation every time there is a multi-page discussion, why not let a simple UI affordance do that for you? Seems easier than repeatedly promising performance improvements for the better part of a year.
  • dang 5y ago
    I don't want to make a numbered widget or put it at the top of the page. That doesn't feel right somehow. Yes, I know it's taking a long time; we're just that slow over here. (I've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27239842 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27239842 so there isn't extra offtopicness up there.)
• xyst 5y ago
  It's a nudge in the right direction. The amount of driving is not going to change in the near future, so making transportation cleaner is the only way to make it sustainable. Now we need to figure out how to make sure the electrical grid is able to support the new load (hopefully with clean energy solutions), and deploy public electrical charging destinations across the entire US to make it feasible.
• modzu 5y ago
  ive always wanted touch screens in my truck!
• lovemenot 5y ago
  Is there a market for a stand-alone rolling-coal device? Can be used either in the normal way or ironically.
• yumraj 5y ago
  The one feature I would love, as someone who doesn’t need a pickup, is the ability to connect an entire battery pack that I can rent and put in the cargo area (cab?) if I need long range for a trip.
• baybal2 5y ago
  I give respect to Ford as one of very few American car makers who managed to survive in foreign markets. The prime majority of "fall apart as you drive" cars been wiped off the market outside of America.
• bfrog 5y ago
  This is an awesome truck. 100% may very well buy. They need to have the truck tie into some solar and peak shave the power cost and make mega bucks.
• elihu 5y ago
  Has Ford said how many of these they plan to make? It seems like a good step in the right direction, but can they actually source enough batteries to manufacture these in high volume? (They sell about a million F150s a year.) I wish them luck, but I hope they're fully committed and this isn't just a "let's make a few thousand at a loss for compliance and PR" move. And I hope they have a battery supplier that's prepared to ramp up production fast if they need it.
• batch12 5y ago
  They had me at electric, lost me at connected.
• ad8e 5y ago
  The webpage has an odd feature which is unrelated to the car itself. Many of the pictures are taken at a low angle, from waist height or a lower surface. Most are below head height. I think Ford's goal with this technique is to make the truck seem larger.
• Aeolun 5y ago
  If the batteries on the bottom of this thing are punctured, doesn’t it become a raging inferno practically instantly? I’ve seen videos of a phone battery lighting up, and I wouldn’t want that to happen with what’s on the bottom of my car.