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The F-150 is in one of the markets I think ev's will take over first (small commercial vehicles) but it just was not the right vehicle to start with. To expensi
by class3shock 10mo ago
The F-150 is in one of the markets I think ev's will take over first (small commercial vehicles) but it just was not the right vehicle to start with. To expensive, even when the tax incentives were still a thing, and Ford suffers from having corrupt dealers taking a large cut on top of that. So you are selling to either the top 5% or bigger businesses.
If you are a top 5% buying this you want it to tow your expensive toy somewhere which ev's suck at currently or you want it to drive to "insert outdoorsy vacation destination", which means long distance in a remote area with few charging stations. So not a great sell.
If you are a bigger business I think this probably makes sense in some cases. You aren't dealing with the maintenance of an ICE, you can keep it "running" inside a building, it can provide on site power, probably has cost benefits in cities where the lack of emissions and noise is helpful. But the expensive really narrows down your customers. Many are also looking for range and towing, which doesn't help, and people that would show up for the ev part probably would be better off with a van.
If they had done a small e-transit, in the $30-35k range and sold it direct for actual msrp they would have had a much better chance at dealing with where we are now (high interest rate and low support for ev's).
- kevin_thibedeau 10mo ago90% of F-150s are daily driver grocery-getters. That was the target for the Lightning, not truck stuff.
- hypercube33 10mo agoMeanwhile Chevy has a 400 mile range, unknown but more than the 100 mile range the lightning has for towing and is a work truck at about 70k or something street price last I saw. Its compelling, where the lightning is not.
- mattmaroon 10mo agoThe Silverado EV does have a big battery, but for actual real world use you’re keeping it within a band of about 60% (20-80) so 400 is really 240 with an emergency reserve. (This is common to all EVs). You lose about half your range towing so you’re still going to drive two hours, stop for 30-45 minutes, repeat. So it’s still far from compelling for anyone towing or doing truck stuff.
- NetMageSCW 10mo agoIf you are planning a trip and know you are, your first left is easily 20-100% or 80% range, and then it depends on charging speed versus stop purpose.
- mattmaroon 10mo agoSure, I was talking more about daily work usage. (I have an EV and a diesel truck.)
- bayesnet 10mo agoMy hunch is that the people who buy an F-150 for groceries are not the people interested in buying EVs. The advantage of an EV truck is solely on cost and maintenance, so the natural market is businesses looking for practical vehicles, not people who buy impractical vehicles that are costly to operate for status reasons. Then again as I’m typing this I realize that I have a phone with a better processor than most computers on which I … browse hacker news and read email, so go figure.
- IgorPartola 10mo agoThis is anecdotal but I have a gas F-150 that is often a grocery getter (I work from home and take a motorcycle when I can so gas mileage for me isn’t as big a concern as for some) and I would gladly trade it for an electric or a hybrid version (one that does not have the gas motor do anything but charge the batteries). But the cost was absolutely asinine for the Lightning. These trucks were made from unobtainium. But I would also trade this truck for an all electric or mostly electric Maverick as long as it had enough cabin space for my needs (children).
- bitexploder 10mo agoWe have a f150 raptor and a rivian and a model 3. I drive the gas truck and the model 3. Depends on the weather. Truck is an amazing road tripper. We are not the typical customer, but we do exist.
- dalyons 10mo agothats like $250k of cars at new prices, yes you're not typical :)
- fragmede 10mo agowell yeah, but you don't buy them new and all at once
- red-iron-pine 10mo ago
- themafia 10mo agoWhich is odd because this is how they mostly marketed it on release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42BmZ6Rgqkc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42BmZ6Rgqkc Also most people I know who use F-150s in the way you describe also typically have two children or more. It's not as if this was a segment that was particularly hard to pin down. They just completely wiffed.
- doctorpangloss 10mo agoIt’s a really bad consumer market right now, and also, we have enough cars.
- themafia 10mo agoThe vehicle has been in production for almost 5 years now. See the date on that video. Vehicles break and get damaged and need replacement so we always need to build them. Newer ones are also more efficient and provide greater safety and overall benefits to the owner. People's needs change and family sizes change. You may perceive that there's "enough" but the market has clearly decided that you are wrong.
- doctorpangloss 10mo agoit's a stylistic comment haha. it's not that lamentable that something is being discontinued, and i don't know what it says generally except, "too expensive" maybe. the market is for people who buy cars, not for people who need cars. most new cars shipping today are a stack of regulations, like road and parking subsidies, safety features, emissions standards, and most of all import quotas, decorated with marketing, financing and post-sale monetization scheme shapes. if you really wanted to innovate in the car "product" for the audience that actually buys cars, imo you should focus on figuring out how to sell parking up front and affordably, whatever that means. if you are only focusing on stuff for people who buy cars - i don't think people who buy cars really care that much about today's USPs and things that hacker news cares about like energy.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- fsckboy 10mo ago>90% of F-150s are daily driver grocery-getters it's my impression that electric vehicles are 90% grocery getters, unless the drivers are young in which case it's takeout. what else would you use an electric for, commuting? when you commute, on the way home, you shop.
- craftkiller 10mo agoThey are suggesting that most F-150s are not purchased for real truck work like hauling stuff. Instead, they are purchased by people who use them exclusively to drive on paved roads, in towns/cities, mostly carrying passengers instead of large cargo. Therefore the concern about going off-road to remote locations isn't a real concern for this market.
- dpark 10mo agoIt’s a real concern in the sense that a lot of them care about the capability. Objectively a Ford F-150 is the wrong vehicle for what 90% of its buyers need. But it’s an aspirational purchase. It can go off-road. It can haul a boat. It can haul a bed full of gravel. It doesn’t matter for these purchasers that they rarely if ever actually do any of this.
- mattmaroon 10mo agoYeah but you buy a truck and all of a sudden you have a lot of friends. I might not move furniture regularly, but it’s reeeeal nice to be able to do so when I need to. My dishwasher broke on Christmas Eve when I was hosting so I went to the store and got another and installed it within an hour. Not doing that with my Subaru.
- tfourb 10mo agoI’ve literally transported dishwashers in a Renault Twingo. And the „small car + trailer“ combo will always carry more than a pickup. Pickups are pure lifestyle.
- qingcharles 10mo agoI live in an area that has probably >100% pick-up ownership per adult male. I've noticed that these people will not go to the grocery store on days when the weather is inclement due to the chance of the groceries getting wet. Seems like a bad vehicle for grocery runs.
- mattmaroon 10mo agoCrew cabs, truck boxes, tonneau covers etc exist.
- seanmcdirmid 10mo agoWhen I was a kid, my dad owned a pickup truck in Mississippi, and there seem to be tons of ways of avoiding getting the groceries wet, a bed-width toolbox behind the cab was the simplest way (and this was way before extended cabs were a thing). If you are living in such an area where they can't even figure that kind of thing out, it sounds like there might be something in the water.
- ssl-3 10mo agoWhen I was a kid, a normal-sized American adult could open up a bed-width toolbox, look down inside of it, and easily remove a few bags of groceries before re-closing the lid -- all while standing flat-footed on the ground beside their normal-sized American truck. Things are not that way anymore; trucks got bigger. The top of the bed rail of an F150 Lightning is around chin height for a lot of folks: https://imgur.com/ZBOBqJc https://imgur.com/ZBOBqJc
- seanmcdirmid 10mo agoI don’t think a F150 lightning is wider than a 1985 Silverado.
- ssl-3 10mo agoIt's not the width that's a problem, but the height. Here's a brochure for the first-year F-150 (1984): https://xr793.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/1984-Ford-F-Series-Pickup.pdf https://xr793.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/1984-Ford-F-Ser... Have a look at some of the pictures that have people standing next to the truck. They'd be giants if they were able to have that kind of posture next to a modern F150.
- hirvi74 10mo ago> "tow your expensive toy somewhere which ev's suck at currently" Do EVs suck at towing because of battery life? I thought electric engines were often superior to comparable internal combustion engines regarding torque.
- wpm 10mo agoAging Wheels did some tests on YouTube and it’s heavily affected by aerodynamics.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- lemming 10mo agoThe instantaneous torque definitely helps, and EVs are often heavier which helps with stability. But if you're towing anything with significant air resistance (e.g. a boat, a caravan, a big trailer) it kills your range. The general rule of thumb is that it will cut your range in half, which depending on your original max range is ok for some use cases, but unacceptable for others.
- bluGill 10mo agoMy f350 has 600 miles of range empty so it can go 300 towing.
- vel0city 10mo agoThis is exactly the situation. ICE also has a massive range hit as well, it's just easy to put a massive fuel tank in to get a stupid amount of range not towing compared to a battery electric that struggles to get a similar range. When you start with almost 600mi losing half isn't too bad, when it's maybe 300mi on a good day and you cut it in half is just not as usable for that usage. That said, if it's not the towing but the bed you need, the range but isn't nearly so bad.
- adrr 10mo agoThey should be cheaper than the F150 but Ford can’t figure out how to make batteries cheaply. Evs are a lot less complex, no gas engine, no transmission, no exhaust systems with hundreds of dollars of precious metal in them. It should be cheaper than a gas equivalent.
- smackeyacky 10mo agoCheaper? Not sure how. While an ICE engine does have cooling systems and fuelling systems, water pumps and fuel pumps are relatively cheap and simple devices. An EV generally has a battery cooling system along with regenerative braking. EVs have roughly the same mechanical things as an ICE vehicle too, HVAC, suspension, brakes, in car entertainment, heated seats. Lighting. An entire 12v subsystem to power all that stuff as well. A good old ICE car will be cheaper to make than an EV because the powertrain is cheaper when you account for batteries. Even taking into account the gearbox you don’t need in an EV.
- lallysingh 10mo agoI don't understand this comparison. An EV's battery cooling system is a cooling system. Regen braking isn't more complicated than an alternator. The rest, yeah. The chemical stacks in the batteries are expensive, and dealer markup was a problem (now they're 47-56k new). But the energy costs! $7-12 for a fill-up on home power overnight instead of $75-85 at the gas station. And maintenance. So little maintenance. For local non-towing fleets these would save a lot.
- dmitrygr 10mo ago> Regen braking isn't more complicated than an alternator. Either disingenuous or ill-informed. one is ~1KW for a few seconds a day, the other is > 100KW of power for dozens of seconds, multiple dozens of times a day. completely engineering
- kakacik 10mo agoOnly if you have a home or some other super convenient always available spot. I don't and EVs are non-existing to me for another decade at least, simply too much hassle even if ignoring all other downsides (I don't buy new but mildly used for 25-30% of price of new which for ICE means 95% of the car, I do sometimes family 1500km drives like another one in 2 days - PITA with overcrowded electric cars, in cold which is normal here they become fraction of their capacity and drain battery continuously when parked and so on). Its future but its coming/will come at very different time for various folks
- jen20 10mo agoNot to speak to the rest of the topic, but focusing on direct sales: I'm almost certain Ford would love to sell direct, but the various franchise laws in different states make it next to impossible. On top of this, dealership owners are typically quite powerful in terms of local politics, which makes such laws very difficult to overturn. For example: Texas: https://www.txdmv.gov/dealers/licensing/franchise https://www.txdmv.gov/dealers/licensing/franchise Florida: https://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0300-0399/0320/Sections/0320.642.html https://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Disp... California: https://www.nmvb.ca.gov/protest/protest_establish_new_fran.html https://www.nmvb.ca.gov/protest/protest_establish_new_fran.h...
- NetMageSCW 10mo agoSomehow Tesla has managed okay, Ford could if they weren’t worried about their existing dealer base.
- inasio 10mo agoMy electrician drives an electric F-150, it's impressive how useful it is for him. The frunk carries a big box of tools, there's tons of outlets to charge his power tool batteries, he can even run a small welder
- tekno45 10mo agoThe F-150 is a great power bank that comes with a very useful set of 4 tires and a steering wheel for a truly portable charging experience.
- malfist 10mo agoI justified the lightning purchase to my partner by pointing out having an equivalent whole house battery backup in Tesla power walls would be more expensive than the truck
- tenuousemphasis 10mo agoHave you tried supplying power to your home yet?
- markdown 10mo agoShhh, his wife might read this.
- malfist 10mo agoMy only fear is that when I pass away, he'll sell my telescopes for what I said they cost. Jk jk, he bought me my most expensive one
- malfist 10mo agoWe've not hooked up the transfer switch yet but we have ran a lot of extension cords during an ice storm last year and kept all our aquariums going, all 700 gallons of them
- kjkjadksj 10mo agoRivians are all over socal. I think there is a lot of demand in certain markets.
- ProAm 10mo agoWait until the R2 comes out for ~50% of the cost of an R1. They are the best EV out in terms of features and comfort and usability.
- lotsofpulp 10mo agoI would hope the most expensive EV is the best in terms of features and comfort and usability. If they can continue to be at 50% of the price is unknown.
- ProAm 10mo agoI agree, they promised it to be ~50k so we will see. With the R1 Revisions where they reduced components and wiring I have hope!
- nine_k 10mo agoIn NYC al the Amazon delivery trucks I see are purpose-built Rivians. And this is the hyper-frugal, penny-pinching Amazon.
- twoodfin 10mo agoThey’re also a major investor in Rivian so there’s some circularity in that phenomenon.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- frutiger 10mo agoMost of the Amazon delivery trucks I see are big trucks with Ryder on the side or electric cargo bikes with Prime on the side. This is in Manhattan mostly below 60th St. though, that might be the difference?
- mattmaroon 10mo agoYeah I might have thought that too if I didn’t own commercial vehicles. I own a few and the idea of switching to an EV for them is laughable. Go tow stuff for 8 hours one day and ask yourself “if I had to stop for 30 minutes every 90 miles how would I like this day?” Battery ranges decline by over 50% when towing. The long term health of a battery requires you to keep it within a range of about 60% of the max capacity (ie between 20 and 80). So that’s if anything a generous estimate. You’d increase your labor cost by 25% just charging, not to mention that public charging isn’t any cheaper than fuel. I’m not even factoring in lost job profits or overtime. The margins the Ford dealer takes are not the issue. The cost of the vehicle itself amortized by the hour is much less than the labor cost of operating it. If I could get any EV truck at the same cost as my diesel, I still wouldn’t. If you’ve got two guys out, that’s $50 burnt every time they charge (at least) and that may be 2+ times a day. Your fuel cost is irrelevant. Five minutes at a gas station and a tank of diesel is still cheaper. It has some use cases I’m sure (delivery vans since it is one worker, city driving, short range) but most commercial vehicle work is simply not going electric given current battery technology.
- lokar 10mo agoMost heavy trucks are sold to people who don’t really need them, but buy them to signal cultural allegiance and get a tax break.
- NetMageSCW 10mo agoCitation needed This sound like every EVangalist who says road trips aren’t important when most everyone takes at least one a year.
- Mawr 10mo agoCitation: "Ford F-Series Is America’s Best-Selling Model For The 43rd Consecutive Year (2024)" Either the US has a lot of electricians and plumbers, all those people aren't buying these trucks because they need them. Just look anywhere outside the US — nobody buys trucks like these. And that's because they're incredibly niche. They're worse than all other options. A regular sedan is a better everyday car and can fulfill most of your "i need a truck" use cases anyway. BTW, I was kidding with the electricians and plumbers, they have no need for a truck. Nobody does. For anything you'd actually need a truck for, an appropriately sized van is better. You'd have to be hauling dirt and sand offroad in rural areas on a regular basis without somehow being able to use a trailer for a flatbed truck to make any sense as a purchase. Guess how many people in the US have a need for that. Certainly not enough to push the sales numbers to #1. > road trips aren’t important when most everyone takes at least one a year Exactly, optimizing your life around something you do once per year is completely irrational. Buy all the trucks all you want, just don't claim it's a sensible, rational decision. It's not.
- asciimov 10mo agoMaybe for city truck drivers. For those that don't drive in town, noting beats gas or diesel. Companies need to build a stepping stone truck. Dino-powered generator on an electric platform. Get most of the upside to electric performance, while getting the speed gas refilling.
- standeven 10mo agoYou just described the new Ramcharger.
- markdown 10mo ago> Companies need to build a stepping stone truck. The worlds biggest electric car company made the Shark, a plug-in EV hybrid. Sold for US$40k in Australia. https://bydautomotive.com.au/shark-6 https://bydautomotive.com.au/shark-6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7EnaR_9XGs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7EnaR_9XGs
- protocolture 10mo agoThe electric LDV and GWM utes are meant to be pretty great. I reckon they will take over everywhere else and then come for the US with a US specific model.
- foofoo55 10mo agoMy experience supports nearly all of this. In 2022 I decided to keep my 2019 F-150 gasser instead of getting a Lightning because the Lightning was ridiculously expensive, even though Covid kept the value of my truck close to what I paid for it. I also didn't want all the Lightning's luxury features that tend to fail and highly depreciate over time. We do >12hr drives for work & family through remote BC and I was still willing to try the EV for such trips but didn't see the payback. In hindsight it was a good choice given the actual range experienced by Lightning owners.
- rsynnott 10mo agoThey have one for 34,640 EUR; happy? https://www.ford.ie/content/dam/guxeu/ie/Documents/Pricelists/CVs/PL-all_new_ford_transit_courier.pdf https://www.ford.ie/content/dam/guxeu/ie/Documents/Pricelist... Granted, they don't seem to sell the cheap ones in the US. (For whatever reason you don't see these around very much, though; Citroen and Mercedes seem to dominate the niche, at least here.)
- rjsw 10mo agoThe Ford one is slightly newer than the equivalent rebranded Stellantis models. I am considering the Transit e-Courier or the Chicken Tax variant as my next car.
- black_puppydog 10mo agoDear god, what about this monstrosity is supposed to be "small"?! Seriously, people should take a look at how professionals around tye world are managing just fine with anything from a cargo bike via VW caddy to sprinters....
- bombcar 10mo agoI think a Sprinter is going to be larger than most pickups.
- gilbetron 10mo agoA bit taller, but generally not bigger. Most pickups have gotten insanely huge.
- class3shock 10mo agoThat's an "american" small, lol.
- beAbU 10mo ago> The F-150 is in one of the markets I think ev's will take over first (small commercial vehicles) I agree that small commercial vehicles are the right prime target for electrification, but why the pick-up? I would argue that the classic van is a much more sensible small commercial vehicle than a pick-up. As a non-USian, do you mind explaining why the pick-up is so much more popular in this category? The van wins in all tests in my mind, except maybe that it's less manly?
- Vinnl 10mo agoThat's also why a number of cities here have started banning the use of newly-purchased non-electric commercial vehicles. The feasibility-impact ratio makes it an easy first step.
- frameworkeGPU 10mo agoeasier to drive, and better for hauling gross or oddly-shaped loads. Before we started taxing them out of existence, small pickups were also easier to load. worse for storing tools and supplies. So some service techs here also prefer vans depending on their loadout. but generally it's easier to use a pickup truck for van stuff (eg locking jobsite boxes) than the reverse.
- class3shock 10mo agoI talk later on that I think a small ev van would have been a better entry into the market. That being said I do love pickups, my dream car is probably the Slate if it ever gets made. I won't argue about truck over van on the merits because I think the van wins. Trucks are just cooler in the minds of americans I guess.
- pmontra 10mo ago> Ford suffers from having corrupt dealers Do you mean that dealers ask for bribes to customers to deliver cars, or that customers bribe dealers to skip the waiting list, or something like that?
- labcomputer 10mo agoIn many states in the United States it is illegal to buy a car directly from the manufacturer or from a dealer owned by the manufacturer. In all states it is illegal for a manufacturer with an existing independent dealer network (which is to say, every manufacturer except the EV startups) to sell directly to the customer or to open a new factory-owned dealer. So companies like Ford can only sell what independent dealers want to sell. You can go to the dealer and ask to buy a car sitting on the lot, and the dealer can just… not sell you the car. For any price. And it is also illegal for the manufacturer to force/coerce the dealer to sell it to you. Of course the dealer can do softer things also, like talk down the car when you test drive or talk up the benefits of other cars. Or tell you that next year’s model will be much better than this one, so you should wait. Additionally, most dealers do not actually pay for the car until it is sold to the customer (the manufacturer offers financing to the dealer, called “floor planning”). Independent dealers do not want to sell EVs because of the perceived loss of service revenue. So they simply offer bad deals on the car that most customers would not take. The cars sit on the dealer’s lot, but that costs the dealer nothing (see above), even though Ford wants to sell an EV and customers want to buy EVs.
- pmontra 10mo agoHow did dealers get a better deal with states than manufacturers? I would assume that who has more money (manufacturers) write the law.
- class3shock 10mo agoThe dealer owners have better cocaine and hookers. If you think I'm joking you probably live in a more sane country.
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- SmirkingRevenge 10mo agoIt's tough if you live in a place without great EV charging infrastructure. You end up really having to strategize when/how you charge. If you ever need to make unplanned drives across town or to a neighboring city it can really screw you up. Charging stations are often poorly maintained too and out of order. EV's still aren't practical for a lot of drivers in such places.