4 ms·

We don't want your electric car ... we want your car, but electric. We want an electric F150 or an electric Suburban or v90 wagon or whatever. But instead we

by rsync 10mo ago

We don't want your electric car ... we want your car, but electric. We want an electric F150 or an electric Suburban or v90 wagon or whatever. But instead we get e-initiative i-mobiles. We get TRON-cars. We get iModels. There is a reason for this: The incumbent auto makers understand fully that the ICE version of whatever model they electrify will suffer enormously. They believe that they can somehow retain all of the sales of the existing ICE model while adding growth sales of a different electric model. And, of course, they are wrong: because nobody wants an "electric F150". They just want an F150. But electric.

godelski 10mo ago
I really miss all the short trucks. For a long time I had a F150 supercab (made in the 90's) and while it was a great truck it was just excessive for 99% of what I used the vehicle for. That includes the vast majority of times I used it to haul and tow! I always envied my friend's smaller truck. Over a decade I think my truck was the better vehicle in only a handful of situations. (Far better to rent one for the day at that point) I absolutely hate all the new trucks. That supercab was too large and trucks today feel bigger. Especially the front huge grill (which is also incredibly dangerous). That truck I had was already hard to drive. I loved having a truck but parking is an absolute nightmare, especially in cities where lanes and spaces are not only shorter but narrower. All these big trucks are even harder to drive but people love them because they feel safer (in a perverted and most American arms race imaginable) But I do like things like power outlets in the bed. I don't give a shit about the infotainment system, but the sockets in the bed is actually helpful. I'd have used that a much larger portion of the time than I used the actual size of my truck. Just being able to plug in a drill (or charge one) is really helpful to more /general/ "truck activities". Not to mention all the things like camping or other things where you take a vehicle like that. But even in those situations you don't need a huge vehicle 99% of the time. Side note: I now drive a small compact sedan and am absolutely pissed by how many people drive with their high beams on and are putting in projector bulbs and not properly aiming them. I'm very close to installing a mirror to reflect peoples highbeams back into their own car. Blinding me may increase your visibility, but it also decreases both of our safety. Your brighter lights make you feel safer, but they make you less.
- 0_____0 10mo ago
  Retro reflective material will do the trick. Try a retroreflective hi-viz vest on the headrest.
  - LeifCarrotson 10mo ago
    DOT and SOLAS conspicuity tape (the red and white reflective stuff on semi trailers and so on) is mandatory for certain commercial vehicles, but also works great on bikes, scooters, strollers, backpacks (or rigid tags attached to backpacks, many varieties are kind of stiff), boots, helmets, and other things that you want not to be run over by vehicles with headlights. It comes in a few grades, the better ranks are magnificently, astonishingly bright! You can also get more flexible, stretchy types made to be stitched or glued onto fabric. I outfitted my classy black bike and bike gear with a bunch of material from reflectivepro.com, they're easy to deal with even for consumers who only need a little bit of material.
- shawn_w 10mo ago
  >I really miss all the short trucks I hope the Telo pans out (and comes down in price to where I can afford one). Looks funny but it's such an obvious idea. https://www.telotrucks.com/ https://www.telotrucks.com/
  - galkk 10mo ago
    Yes, that’s how I think ev truck should look like. With a bit longer bed probably in
  - iris-digital 10mo ago
    It's funny because when I saw the Slate, I thought it was cool, but the bed was a bit too short to camp in. And there was a large front trunk, a little too large I thought. If only they could take a bit off the front, and put it in the back. And then I saw the Telo! Hah, they went too far in the opposite direction. Something between these two is what I'd like.
    - 10mo ago
deckar01 10mo ago
I preordered a lightning and they never offered to sell me one for under $80k…
pixl97 10mo ago
Maybe one of these days Edison out of Canada will get hybrid generator conversion kits out.
EdwardDiego 10mo ago
I'd love an off-road capable electric 4WD (because think about how amazing having computer controlled precision torque applied to wheels individually would be for getting out of a tricky situation). Especially if you could buy some kind of field charging kit - maybe something you could power off a wood fire or flexible solar panels that you could stow. I imagine that's not realistic at the moment, but a boy can dream.
- _yb2s 10mo ago
  Look at the new Scout, they are planning to do everything you mentioned
- 0xbadcafebee 10mo ago
  > having computer controlled precision torque applied to wheels individually Fwiw many vehicles already have this. Mechanical torque vectoring via differentials, electronic controlled differentials, and electronic brake-based torque vectoring. The latter is the most common, works pretty well in modern cars
- dalyons 10mo ago
  Isn’t that the rivian R1? Incredibly capable off-road. One of a small number of stock model cars to complete the Rubicon trail
  - jandrewrogers 10mo ago
    The Rivian has pretty limited range. The Scout looks promising though. People out in the ranch country, oil patch, some mining areas, etc often want a reliable 600-ish miles unloaded. That’s why extended fuel tanks are a common option. Even without an extended fuel tank, you can often achieve that with an ICE and a jerry can. EVs have great potential as 4WD off-road vehicles. In a lot of ways they are more naturally suited to it. Their main weakness is range and loiter time. In many contexts it will be days before you’ll be able to get to a charging point. The killer feature of ICE in this context is the tremendous range and simplicity of extending range if you need more. Fuel is very compact, easy to bring with you, and available from other vehicles if you run short. An EV that can augment its range indefinitely with fuel is probably the sweet spot. I think we’ll get there relatively soon.
_yb2s 10mo ago
I owned one of the first VW eGolfs, and it was an excellent car. Just a regular golf with an electric drive.
- jeffbee 10mo ago
  The new Polo EV looks perfect.
  - SoftTalker 10mo ago
    I wish they sold the Polo in the US.
- dzhiurgis 10mo ago
  160hp and 0-60 at 10seconds. Yikes. That does sound like a regular golf.
  - _yb2s 10mo ago
    It’s quite sporty to drive but has about twice the torque you can easily put down with energy efficient ev tires in a small light FWD car so you need to go easy if you want tires to last. Handles great also. Those might be low specs nowadays but were respected performance car specs not long ago, and roads haven’t changed any- plus those were big specs at redline in a combustion engine, feels like a heck of a lot more with the instant torque at any speed of an EV. It’s still way more power than you need, and more than enough to have fun. And I say that as a Porsche enthusiast that drives a lot of fast and sporty cars.
    - dzhiurgis 10mo ago
      What are you on about. 20 year basic crossover SUV has better 0-60.
      - _yb2s 10mo ago
        I'm not talking about specs on paper, I'm talking about the actual experience of driving it in the real world. As the saying goes, “people buy horsepower but drive torque.” Horsepower on an electric motor vehicle is often effectively a software setting based on what RPM or top speed they allow, and the eGolf is set with a low rev limiter/top speed from the factory probably to limit battery temps. For example, in the eGolf you have a flat torque curve with 100% of the power available instantly at any speed, without shifting. A basic crossover SUV with a 4 cylinder engine and slippy/slow responding automatic can easily have more horsepower, and a faster 0-60, but still feel gutless in normal driving compared to the e-Golf because you have very little torque at normal RPMs, and you need to rev the engine to the redline to actually use the horsepower, which typically involves a lot of lag time, and then a lot of jerking and noise in your typical basic low end car. You could for example compare it to a Nissan Rogue from the same era, which has 170 horsepower. The Rogue sometimes feels scary slow like it can’t get out of its own way and has to be floored and ran to the redline to get it really moving, whereas with the eGolf it takes some finess to launch it smooth without wheelspin due to the instant on torque. Most people would be shocked to hear that the Rogue technically has a more powerful motor. Consider that the ALH TDI Golf and Jetta (diesel) had literally only 90 horsepower also with a totally flat torque curve, way less than the e-Golf, and are also feel a lot more sporty than your typical 4 cylinder gasoline economy car, despite being radically slower on paper, or floored in a straight line drag race. Extend this to other cars- take an early Porsche Boxster with only 200 horsepower, one of the best drivers cars in history, but on paper slower than a lot of low end economy cars nowadays. But the amazing handling, and wide torque band let it hang with a lot of supercars in a real world track race. It would literally lose a drag race against a modern low end economy car, yet it feels way faster and is way faster on say, a track with turns. The eGolf isn't a sports car, but it will never feel like it's lacking in power for normal driving.
lern_too_spel 10mo ago
Chevrolet makes these. The Blazer and the Blazer EV look roughly the same. The Equinox and Equinox EV look more different but not completely different. The Silverado and the Silverado EV look completely different, but given those other models, I don't think it's for lack of trying. Similarly, Volvo's EX cars look almost exactly like their XC counterparts.
- rsync 10mo ago
  "Similarly, Volvo's EX cars look almost exactly like their XC counterparts." Interesting you should mention ... Here is the interior of the 2025 XC90: https://0x.co/AJ5PVP https://0x.co/AJ5PVP ... and here is the 2025 EX90: https://0x.co/Z3ZQPF https://0x.co/Z3ZQPF That's not a mistake and they know exactly what they are doing: they think they can sell the EX90 in addition to the XC90 and the dramatically different UI/UX/styling is an effort to keep the XC money flowing. If the electric one was just the XC90 ... but electric ... they know they'd barely sell another ICE one again.
  - vel0city 10mo ago
    These two interiors look dang near the same. One has a faux stick shifter versus a dial. Big deal. You could randomize which was the EV and which was the ICE and I'd have no clue.
  - ViewTrick1002 10mo ago
    They are completely different platforms. The EX90 platform is from the a ground up a purely electric vehicle while the 2025 XC90 runs on the same platform with upgrades and face-lifts since 2015. The EX90 is a couple of years late to the market due to software integration problems. Previously they’ve been sharing platforms across ICE and BEV like the XC40 and XC40 Recharge now rebranded EX40. But now Volvo is going electric.
themafia 10mo ago
> The incumbent auto makers understand fully that the ICE version of whatever model they electrify will suffer enormously. So you're saying they make _less_ profit on the EVs? That seems dubious. > They believe that they can somehow retain all of the sales of the existing ICE model while adding growth sales of a different electric model. Well.. precisely. Isn't the solution to make the EVs more profitable than the ICEs? Meanwhile Toyota's out here killing it in Hybrids.
- chris_va 10mo ago
  Well, instead of cannibalizing ICE sales, why not have your cake and eat it to? - Ford & Marie Antoinette
  - LeifCarrotson 10mo ago
    > "It is difficult to get a corporation to understand something, when its stock price depends upon its not understanding it!" Paraphrased from Upton Sinclair
- tokioyoyo 10mo ago
  When your entire supply chain is optimized in ICE vehicles, it’s a tough sell to re-org everything for EVs. And when you try to half-ass it, it doesn’t pan out well, and you end up in this situation.
- hcurtiss 10mo ago
  Isn’t it well known that they’ve lost money for every Lightning they’ve sold? Whereas the ICE F-150 is one of their most profitable sales?
- WorldMaker 10mo ago
  Dealers certainly make less profit on EVs. The Dealer model was built around regular, required maintenance schedules as profit centers. EVs have far fewer moving parts and fluids with regular maintenance schedules. Dealers are incentivized to sell more ICE than EVs for the good of their own profits. Ford and GM unfortunately can't cannibalize their relationship with dealers under current American regulations and so will feel a lot of pressure to somehow keep EVs "luxury" and low volume/high margin deals for the dealers so they feel less bad about the loss of maintenance profits. At one point Ford was teasing building their EV division as a mini-startup with direct-to-consumer sales and no pressure to meet dealer needs/demands, because that would be the only true way to compete with Tesla and Rivian and others. That probably would have been the best interest for Ford EVs, but obviously just floating those rumors was enough to stop it by the number of dealers that are also shareholders in Ford. (A problem for Ford all the way back to Ford v. Dodge Brothers.)
pembrook 10mo ago
While this sounds clever, it just isn't true. The electric F150 looks and feels virtually identical to the non-electric one. It's not some evil big business conspiracy. It's just that the F150 buyer tends to travel longer distances for work/play over traditional car buyers (more on the edge of suburban/rural, less urban), hence the range anxiety problem with all-electric. Couple that with higher upfront costs, lower resale values, and cheap fuel in the US, it's pretty obvious why the market would prefer a hybrid or ICE F150.
vel0city 10mo ago
What particularly was overly "electric F-150" versus "F-150 but electric" on the Lightning? When i tested it, and when other reviewers talked about it they generally praised how normal truck like it was compared to even the Rivian R1T.

by rsync 10mo ago

godelski 10mo ago

I really miss all the short trucks. For a long time I had a F150 supercab (made in the 90's) and while it was a great truck it was just excessive for 99% of what I used the vehicle for. That includes the vast majority of times I used it to haul and tow! I always envied my friend's smaller truck. Over a decade I think my truck was the better vehicle in only a handful of situations. (Far better to rent one for the day at that point) I absolutely hate all the new trucks. That supercab was too large and trucks today feel bigger. Especially the front huge grill (which is also incredibly dangerous). That truck I had was already hard to drive. I loved having a truck but parking is an absolute nightmare, especially in cities where lanes and spaces are not only shorter but narrower. All these big trucks are even harder to drive but people love them because they feel safer (in a perverted and most American arms race imaginable) But I do like things like power outlets in the bed. I don't give a shit about the infotainment system, but the sockets in the bed is actually helpful. I'd have used that a much larger portion of the time than I used the actual size of my truck. Just being able to plug in a drill (or charge one) is really helpful to more /general/ "truck activities". Not to mention all the things like camping or other things where you take a vehicle like that. But even in those situations you don't need a huge vehicle 99% of the time. Side note: I now drive a small compact sedan and am absolutely pissed by how many people drive with their high beams on and are putting in projector bulbs and not properly aiming them. I'm very close to installing a mirror to reflect peoples highbeams back into their own car. Blinding me may increase your visibility, but it also decreases both of our safety. Your brighter lights make you feel safer, but they make you less.

0_____0 10mo ago
Retro reflective material will do the trick. Try a retroreflective hi-viz vest on the headrest.
- LeifCarrotson 10mo ago
  DOT and SOLAS conspicuity tape (the red and white reflective stuff on semi trailers and so on) is mandatory for certain commercial vehicles, but also works great on bikes, scooters, strollers, backpacks (or rigid tags attached to backpacks, many varieties are kind of stiff), boots, helmets, and other things that you want not to be run over by vehicles with headlights. It comes in a few grades, the better ranks are magnificently, astonishingly bright! You can also get more flexible, stretchy types made to be stitched or glued onto fabric. I outfitted my classy black bike and bike gear with a bunch of material from reflectivepro.com, they're easy to deal with even for consumers who only need a little bit of material.
shawn_w 10mo ago
>I really miss all the short trucks I hope the Telo pans out (and comes down in price to where I can afford one). Looks funny but it's such an obvious idea. https://www.telotrucks.com/ https://www.telotrucks.com/
- galkk 10mo ago
  Yes, that’s how I think ev truck should look like. With a bit longer bed probably in
- iris-digital 10mo ago
  It's funny because when I saw the Slate, I thought it was cool, but the bed was a bit too short to camp in. And there was a large front trunk, a little too large I thought. If only they could take a bit off the front, and put it in the back. And then I saw the Telo! Hah, they went too far in the opposite direction. Something between these two is what I'd like.
  - 10mo ago

deckar01 10mo ago

I preordered a lightning and they never offered to sell me one for under $80k…

pixl97 10mo ago

Maybe one of these days Edison out of Canada will get hybrid generator conversion kits out.

EdwardDiego 10mo ago

I'd love an off-road capable electric 4WD (because think about how amazing having computer controlled precision torque applied to wheels individually would be for getting out of a tricky situation). Especially if you could buy some kind of field charging kit - maybe something you could power off a wood fire or flexible solar panels that you could stow. I imagine that's not realistic at the moment, but a boy can dream.

_yb2s 10mo ago
Look at the new Scout, they are planning to do everything you mentioned
0xbadcafebee 10mo ago
> having computer controlled precision torque applied to wheels individually Fwiw many vehicles already have this. Mechanical torque vectoring via differentials, electronic controlled differentials, and electronic brake-based torque vectoring. The latter is the most common, works pretty well in modern cars
dalyons 10mo ago
Isn’t that the rivian R1? Incredibly capable off-road. One of a small number of stock model cars to complete the Rubicon trail
- jandrewrogers 10mo ago
  The Rivian has pretty limited range. The Scout looks promising though. People out in the ranch country, oil patch, some mining areas, etc often want a reliable 600-ish miles unloaded. That’s why extended fuel tanks are a common option. Even without an extended fuel tank, you can often achieve that with an ICE and a jerry can. EVs have great potential as 4WD off-road vehicles. In a lot of ways they are more naturally suited to it. Their main weakness is range and loiter time. In many contexts it will be days before you’ll be able to get to a charging point. The killer feature of ICE in this context is the tremendous range and simplicity of extending range if you need more. Fuel is very compact, easy to bring with you, and available from other vehicles if you run short. An EV that can augment its range indefinitely with fuel is probably the sweet spot. I think we’ll get there relatively soon.

_yb2s 10mo ago

I owned one of the first VW eGolfs, and it was an excellent car. Just a regular golf with an electric drive.

jeffbee 10mo ago
The new Polo EV looks perfect.
- SoftTalker 10mo ago
  I wish they sold the Polo in the US.
dzhiurgis 10mo ago
160hp and 0-60 at 10seconds. Yikes. That does sound like a regular golf.
- _yb2s 10mo ago
  It’s quite sporty to drive but has about twice the torque you can easily put down with energy efficient ev tires in a small light FWD car so you need to go easy if you want tires to last. Handles great also. Those might be low specs nowadays but were respected performance car specs not long ago, and roads haven’t changed any- plus those were big specs at redline in a combustion engine, feels like a heck of a lot more with the instant torque at any speed of an EV. It’s still way more power than you need, and more than enough to have fun. And I say that as a Porsche enthusiast that drives a lot of fast and sporty cars.
  - dzhiurgis 10mo ago
    What are you on about. 20 year basic crossover SUV has better 0-60.
    - _yb2s 10mo ago
      I'm not talking about specs on paper, I'm talking about the actual experience of driving it in the real world. As the saying goes, “people buy horsepower but drive torque.” Horsepower on an electric motor vehicle is often effectively a software setting based on what RPM or top speed they allow, and the eGolf is set with a low rev limiter/top speed from the factory probably to limit battery temps. For example, in the eGolf you have a flat torque curve with 100% of the power available instantly at any speed, without shifting. A basic crossover SUV with a 4 cylinder engine and slippy/slow responding automatic can easily have more horsepower, and a faster 0-60, but still feel gutless in normal driving compared to the e-Golf because you have very little torque at normal RPMs, and you need to rev the engine to the redline to actually use the horsepower, which typically involves a lot of lag time, and then a lot of jerking and noise in your typical basic low end car. You could for example compare it to a Nissan Rogue from the same era, which has 170 horsepower. The Rogue sometimes feels scary slow like it can’t get out of its own way and has to be floored and ran to the redline to get it really moving, whereas with the eGolf it takes some finess to launch it smooth without wheelspin due to the instant on torque. Most people would be shocked to hear that the Rogue technically has a more powerful motor. Consider that the ALH TDI Golf and Jetta (diesel) had literally only 90 horsepower also with a totally flat torque curve, way less than the e-Golf, and are also feel a lot more sporty than your typical 4 cylinder gasoline economy car, despite being radically slower on paper, or floored in a straight line drag race. Extend this to other cars- take an early Porsche Boxster with only 200 horsepower, one of the best drivers cars in history, but on paper slower than a lot of low end economy cars nowadays. But the amazing handling, and wide torque band let it hang with a lot of supercars in a real world track race. It would literally lose a drag race against a modern low end economy car, yet it feels way faster and is way faster on say, a track with turns. The eGolf isn't a sports car, but it will never feel like it's lacking in power for normal driving.

lern_too_spel 10mo ago

Chevrolet makes these. The Blazer and the Blazer EV look roughly the same. The Equinox and Equinox EV look more different but not completely different. The Silverado and the Silverado EV look completely different, but given those other models, I don't think it's for lack of trying. Similarly, Volvo's EX cars look almost exactly like their XC counterparts.

rsync 10mo ago
"Similarly, Volvo's EX cars look almost exactly like their XC counterparts." Interesting you should mention ... Here is the interior of the 2025 XC90: https://0x.co/AJ5PVP https://0x.co/AJ5PVP ... and here is the 2025 EX90: https://0x.co/Z3ZQPF https://0x.co/Z3ZQPF That's not a mistake and they know exactly what they are doing: they think they can sell the EX90 in addition to the XC90 and the dramatically different UI/UX/styling is an effort to keep the XC money flowing. If the electric one was just the XC90 ... but electric ... they know they'd barely sell another ICE one again.
- vel0city 10mo ago
  These two interiors look dang near the same. One has a faux stick shifter versus a dial. Big deal. You could randomize which was the EV and which was the ICE and I'd have no clue.
- ViewTrick1002 10mo ago
  They are completely different platforms. The EX90 platform is from the a ground up a purely electric vehicle while the 2025 XC90 runs on the same platform with upgrades and face-lifts since 2015. The EX90 is a couple of years late to the market due to software integration problems. Previously they’ve been sharing platforms across ICE and BEV like the XC40 and XC40 Recharge now rebranded EX40. But now Volvo is going electric.

themafia 10mo ago

> The incumbent auto makers understand fully that the ICE version of whatever model they electrify will suffer enormously. So you're saying they make _less_ profit on the EVs? That seems dubious. > They believe that they can somehow retain all of the sales of the existing ICE model while adding growth sales of a different electric model. Well.. precisely. Isn't the solution to make the EVs more profitable than the ICEs? Meanwhile Toyota's out here killing it in Hybrids.

chris_va 10mo ago
Well, instead of cannibalizing ICE sales, why not have your cake and eat it to? - Ford & Marie Antoinette
- LeifCarrotson 10mo ago
  > "It is difficult to get a corporation to understand something, when its stock price depends upon its not understanding it!" Paraphrased from Upton Sinclair
tokioyoyo 10mo ago
When your entire supply chain is optimized in ICE vehicles, it’s a tough sell to re-org everything for EVs. And when you try to half-ass it, it doesn’t pan out well, and you end up in this situation.
hcurtiss 10mo ago
Isn’t it well known that they’ve lost money for every Lightning they’ve sold? Whereas the ICE F-150 is one of their most profitable sales?
WorldMaker 10mo ago
Dealers certainly make less profit on EVs. The Dealer model was built around regular, required maintenance schedules as profit centers. EVs have far fewer moving parts and fluids with regular maintenance schedules. Dealers are incentivized to sell more ICE than EVs for the good of their own profits. Ford and GM unfortunately can't cannibalize their relationship with dealers under current American regulations and so will feel a lot of pressure to somehow keep EVs "luxury" and low volume/high margin deals for the dealers so they feel less bad about the loss of maintenance profits. At one point Ford was teasing building their EV division as a mini-startup with direct-to-consumer sales and no pressure to meet dealer needs/demands, because that would be the only true way to compete with Tesla and Rivian and others. That probably would have been the best interest for Ford EVs, but obviously just floating those rumors was enough to stop it by the number of dealers that are also shareholders in Ford. (A problem for Ford all the way back to Ford v. Dodge Brothers.)

pembrook 10mo ago

While this sounds clever, it just isn't true. The electric F150 looks and feels virtually identical to the non-electric one. It's not some evil big business conspiracy. It's just that the F150 buyer tends to travel longer distances for work/play over traditional car buyers (more on the edge of suburban/rural, less urban), hence the range anxiety problem with all-electric. Couple that with higher upfront costs, lower resale values, and cheap fuel in the US, it's pretty obvious why the market would prefer a hybrid or ICE F150.

vel0city 10mo ago

What particularly was overly "electric F-150" versus "F-150 but electric" on the Lightning? When i tested it, and when other reviewers talked about it they generally praised how normal truck like it was compared to even the Rivian R1T.