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Ford to Halt F-150 Lightning Production as EV Demand Wanes
- phren0logy 2y agoWaning demand might be one factor, but the word on the street about the F-150 Lighthing has been generally pretty negative (justified or not, I don't know). So softening of the EV market may not be the whole story.
- schlauerfox 2y agoIt's bad for one's career as an executive to accept any responsiblity. It's always the market to blame. See the 3 envelopes joke.
- blairbeckwith 2y agoHas it been? I own one, did a bunch of research before I bought one, know others who own them, and the positive stories massively outnumber the negative ones from my perspective.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- bhouston 2y agoIs Tesla or BYD seeing waning demand or just Ford? Hmm... seems Tesla is flat over the last few years: https://www.reuters.com/graphics/TESLA-DELIVERIES/gkvlbmzmevb/chart.png https://www.reuters.com/graphics/TESLA-DELIVERIES/gkvlbmzmev...
- valianteffort 2y agoTesla just had a phenomenal quarter so no, this is just the mediocre overpriced EV's being sold at a loss by legacy auto.
- kibwen 2y agoCompared to BYD, Tesla is "legacy auto".
- indemnity 2y agoI agree from a long term prospect point of view. They are so vertically integrated, control much of their supply chain, and are not hamstrung by an increasingly erratic and irrational CEO. Test drove both Model 3 Performance and BYD Seal Performance both before settling on a Tesla, it was close. Price wise about 20% cheaper (I am in a country that does not put tariffs on BYD). But currently, the BYD software is….. not great, comparatively. The cars are decently made though, and look pretty good. Drive ok, but M3P is a much sharper drive. Another vehicle generation of improvement though, Tesla would need to watch their backs.
- ryandvm 2y agoFunny how two people can look at the same chart and see exactly what they want. One person sees a roughly flat multi-year sales chart (true) and another sees significant growth in the last quarter (true) and somehow they arrive at opposite conclusions.
- bobthepanda 2y agopeople generally don't look at quarter-to-quarter growth because there can be wild swings explained by seasonality (e.g. the major holiday shopping season in Q4)
- bcx 2y agohttps://archive.is/nQWAn https://archive.is/nQWAn
- josefritzishere 2y agoElon Musk is single-handedly tanking the EV market with his over-promising and under-delivering.
- mynameisash 2y agoFord has also done a decent job of over-promising. I put a deposit on the Lightning the morning after their announcement. They originally priced it at $40k[0], and now their base model starts at $63k[1]. When the opportunity finally came up for me to buy one, the two lower trim levels were unavailable, and the best I could get was something like $75k, which was a hard pass for me. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/19/22442777/ford-f-150-lightning-electric-truck-specs-price https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/19/22442777/ford-f-150-light... [1] https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/models/ https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/models/
- chrisstanchak 2y agoRecord sales, lowest costs and greatest profits of any maker. Yes, he's tanking the non-Tesla portion of the EV market.
- tzs 2y agoBy "lowest costs" do you mean cheapest to make or do you mean lowest price to the consumer?
- gjsman-1000 2y agoI still don't understand why people would think EVs would succeed as quickly in America, as they are in Europe and China. France is a little smaller than Texas. If you live in France, how often are you driving to Portugal, Belgium, or Germany? Not often. The maximum amount of range you will ever drive is quite constrained. How often do Americans go on road trips from Minnesota to California, or from California to New York, or from Minnesota to Mexico, or from Montana to Florida? All the time, by comparison. Some will do it multiple times per year. People buy cars with the maximum in mind, not the average.
- mmooss 2y ago> How often do Americans go on road trips from Minnesota to California, or from California to New York? Very rarely, IMHO. I'm not sure who you know. I don't think I know anyone who buys cars with trips anything like that in mind. Europe is effectively borderless for its residents - no passports, border guards, etc. - and people cross into different countries all the time.
- gjsman-1000 2y agohttps://www.bts.gov/statistical-products/surveys/national-household-travel-survey-summer-travel-quick-facts https://www.bts.gov/statistical-products/surveys/national-ho... According to the US Government, more than 32 million trips every year exceed 1,000 miles - and that's only during the "16-week period between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day." 37 percent of those trips are by vehicle; so about 12 million 1000+ mile trips by car during those 16 weeks alone. That's not small.
- mmooss 2y agoFigure 2 trips average per traveler, and that's 6 million car buyers. And I wonder how many are in specific market segments. For example, maybe not many luxury or super-luxury car owners; they fly. Maybe lots of minivans and SUVs for families and capacity. Maybe not many economy cars.
- nsxwolf 2y ago
- phil21 2y agoI really liked the idea behind the Lightning - finally an EV that can be used as a whole-home battery backup. I've been looking for a semi-off-grid property (at least ability to disconnect from the grid and survive without noticing should there be an extended grid outage) and the Lightning announcement was exciting until you learned the specifics of it all. Good idea, but the execution needed to be better. I hope more EVs come along that incorporate the whole "battery backup on wheels" idea that can integrate into a solar power setup easily and efficiently. Ideally have some static batteries installed at the property, and when the vehicle is plugged in it simply augments that battery storage to extend runtime. Of course I assume the addressable market for folks like me is in the dozens, so I understand as an actual truck it more or less failed after talking to a few Truck Guys.
- Scene_Cast2 2y agoI was looking into the EV F150 for the same reason, albeit not very deeply. What were the issues you saw?
- phil21 2y agoCost by the time it came out for actual purchase was the first one. When it was announced the cost (as I recall it) seemed quite reasonable for the capabilities. Then the inverter size was severely undersized with no real ability to power a full sized home without making large sacrifices. Around 9kw if I recall correctly, which means (for me at least) no running A/C and a large electric appliance at the same time like a dryer. Then it required using Sunrun as the only system integrator - plus all their equipment. I guess this is to be expected, but I'd like to design my own system. I'm in the same boat as you though - I never looked into beyond surface level since I have enough random projects to think about as it is, and no property yet to turn any research into a practical system.
- rjsw 2y agoMaybe Ford need to sell a cut-down version with a smaller battery alongside it. I thought the idea of powering work tools from the Lightning was good but I guess it may not match how people work. I like the look of the upcoming Ford e-Transit Courier but it will be a lot more expensive than the ICE versions.
- lenerdenator 2y agoA more expensive good, sold at a time when everything is more expensive and we continue to make equities the primary vessel for the surplus value generated by labor, instead of paying the labor, which would enable them to buy the more expensive good.
- StayTrue 2y agoLogic Henry Ford would recognize.
- headwayoldest 2y agoAh yes, the famous logic of Henry Ford. Pay union workers? Bad. Buy newspaper to run anti-semitic trash for eight years? Good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dearborn_Independent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dearborn_Independent
- SubiculumCode 2y agoAlso, how about make smaller cheaper pickups. These giant pickups cost a small fortune. A small affordable pickup would do well on the market, including an electric one.
- lenerdenator 2y agoThey did that for a year with the Maverick. The refresh jacked up the price, because, well, they can. This is North America. With the exception of a few relatively small metro areas, if you live in the US or Canada, you must own a car in order to survive. They've got it; you need it. Pay up. There's also the impact of CAFE rules. "Let the market sort it out" types often point to these as perverse incentives ruining the profitability of small trucks, but they forget that the automakers lobbied for the light truck exemption.
- red-iron-pine 2y ago> The refresh jacked up the price, because, well, they can. Publicly traded company gonna behave like a publicly traded company.
- bee_rider 2y agoI wonder what went wrong there. The F-150 is objectively a very popular truck, right? So I’d expect the electric version to be very popular as well. I’d love an electric truck, but I wouldn’t want one of these awful giant things with huge cabs and a tiny little bed. However, I don’t think this is the reason, my taste is apparently not very representative. I miss my grandpa’s truck though, single cab, bench seat, loads of garbage in the bed, let’s go to the dump. Simpler times.
- Loughla 2y agoIt's obscenely expensive. That's the reason. The body style is wildly popular and the torque it produces would be a god send. But they CRAZY expensive.
- greener_grass 2y agoWhy is it so expensive? Is it cost of production being passed on or did the marketing department decide to do some "prestige" pricing?
- floxy 2y agoBatteries? Assuming a $150/kwh cost for batteries, that would be $14,700 for a 98 kwh pack, or $19,650 for a 131 kwh pack. I think the rumor is that GM is hoping to hit ~$100 for their batteries in 2025. It will be a game changer once batteries get below $50/kwh. And some Chinese batteries are getting close.
- axus 2y agoWhat I learned in ECON 101 is that in a competitive market, price decrease to the level the market will bear. Isn't this the "cheaper" alternative to the Cyber-truck? A quick search said a new one would cost $80k delivered, how much can the price decrease before Ford is losing money?
- lifeisgood99 2y agoThe maximum price the buyers would pay is lower than the minimum price the sellers would sell for. There's no market anymore.
- neves 2y agoIs Ford dying? They went away from Brazil because their cars weren't competitive. Even in GeoGuessr if I see a Ford I know that I'm in USA, because is the only place where they are used. I do not follow the auto market, but I never hear news about this iconic brand.
- kulahan 2y agoSort of, but the popularity of the F-150 and Mustang could prop up quite a large company. There's a reason they stopped selling sedans even in the US, though.
- silisili 2y agoFar from it - the F150 has been the best selling vehicle for over 40 years, and they do nearly 200b in revenue. I think they just quit competing on price and volume - they've gutted their entire car lineup except for the Mustang, for example. In my own shopping, I found that Ford was considerably more expensive than the alternatives. Even the much advertised Maverick is creeping into the 30ks. Maybe it's worth it, I sure wasn't going to find out...but they do sell a -lot- of trucks.
- ktosobcy 2y agoAnd I was thinking that they would stop making this monstrosity altogether... could they at the very least limit the sales to the USA?
- lifeisgood99 2y agoTell your people to stop buying.
- ktosobcy 2y agoUnfortunatelly they are so brainwashed by murican pop-culture and are in "wannabe-murican-overdrive" then it's impossible...
- elzbardico 2y agoOutside our particular bubble EVs are not as popular as you might think they are by reading HN. I have an EV, but I also have a couple ICEs at home between me an my wife. The EV is great for urban use, taking kids to school and everywhere else, buying groceries, but for road trips, anything beyond a single charge roundtrip radius we use our ICEs. I will probably replace one of my ICEs with an hybrid, but not an EV, and probably when that time comes, I will sell both one of the ICE and the EV. Expensive insurance, the fear of a battery fire, expensive suspension repairs, premature tires replacement. Lots of negatives that very few people think about. And really, I don't like the agressive driving style the instant torque encourages me to adopt.
- MrHamburger 2y agoMy biggest problem with BEVs is regression in charging (fueling) experience compared to ICE. Unless one is able to charge at home people are forced to use barely functional infrastructure dependent on sketchy applications and then wasting dozens of minutes (best case) to hours at a charger. Compare it to ICE - fueled in a minute and you can then pay by card or cash. No applications required.
- Maarten88 2y agoDisruption at work. Ford can't make money on selling EV's, their overall margin suffers with every EV they sell. They have large existing investments in factories, processes and people that produce combustion engines. They can't lower prices and sell enough of them for economies of scale to start working. Tesla is the new Ford. Ford (and most other car manufacturers) will have a difficult time, most manufacturers are probably doomed. After the current hesitation phase, when the economics are there (very soon), customers will almost all go electric.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoIf the marginally produced EVs are profitable, then total profit trumps average margin. It seems like the bigger concern is that the trucks simply arent selling
- hollerith 2y agoWhat investors (and their "agents" CEOs) want is ROI, which depends on not only total profit, but also total amount invested and how long it has to stay invested. Hence the relevance when GP says that "They have large existing investments in factories, processes and people that produce combustion engines".
- s1artibartfast 2y agoThat's not how stocks work. Margin is profit over total revenue, not profit over Capital invested When someone buys stock on the market, they are giving money to another trader. They are not giving money to the company to invest in production capacity. Shareholder profit tracks net corporate profit, not profit margin. It's better to hold a stock that makes a 1% margin on a billion dollars revenue, then one that has a 90% margin on $10 of revenue
- hollerith 2y agoThat is incoherent.
- voisin 2y agoI have hope the Ramcharger will be popular - small gas engine that charges a battery which runs the drivetrain, so effectively zero range anxiety but efficiency and speed of an EV.
- quantified 2y agoThe gas-electric model such as has been developed by Chinese manufacturers and licensed to Toyota (I believe) that let you get many hundreds of miles on a single tank of gas) seems relatively compelling. For cars, anyway. Putting that into a diesel work truck seems like re-inventing the locomotive, with a massive battery pack.
- TMWNN 2y ago> Putting that into a diesel work truck seems like re-inventing the locomotive, with a massive battery pack. I was going to say, this sounds like a diesel-electric locomotive! That said, there is a reason why diesel-electric took over from both steam and early electric locomotives; maybe that applies to automobiles, too?
- voisin 2y ago> Putting that into a diesel work truck seems like re-inventing the locomotive, with a massive battery pack. Sorry I am not following this conclusion. Ramcharger is doing this next year. Massive pulling capacity and acceleration of an EV drivetrain, regular battery for the size of vehicle, and small electricity generating engine to keep the battery charged.