6 ms·

90% of F-150s are daily driver grocery-getters. That was the target for the Lightning, not truck stuff.

hypercube33 11mo ago
Meanwhile 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 11mo ago
  The 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 11mo ago
    If 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 11mo ago
      Sure, I was talking more about daily work usage. (I have an EV and a diesel truck.)
bayesnet 11mo ago
My 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 11mo ago
  This 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 11mo ago
  We 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 11mo ago
    thats like $250k of cars at new prices, yes you're not typical :)
    - fragmede 11mo ago
      well yeah, but you don't buy them new and all at once
      - red-iron-pine 11mo ago
        the raptor alone is uncommon and is expensive a super-premium luxury truck. parent poster is loaded af
- eitally 11mo ago
  I drive a 2017 F150 with the back commonly filled with either sports equipment or outdoors gear, or photography equipment. I would like to additionally have a city car but am not willing to spend the money (or consume another parking space in front of my house). Since I only have one vehicle, I do also use it for grocery shopping.
themafia 11mo ago
Which 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 11mo ago
  It’s a really bad consumer market right now, and also, we have enough cars.
  - themafia 11mo ago
    The 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 11mo ago
      it'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 11mo ago
  [deleted]
fsckboy 11mo 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 11mo ago
  They 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 11mo ago
    It’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 11mo ago
      Yeah 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 11mo ago
        I’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 11mo ago
I 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 11mo ago
  Crew cabs, truck boxes, tonneau covers etc exist.
- seanmcdirmid 11mo ago
  When 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 11mo ago
    When 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 11mo ago
      I don’t think a F150 lightning is wider than a 1985 Silverado.
      - ssl-3 11mo ago
        It'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.

Meanwhile 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 11mo ago
The 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 11mo ago
  If 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 11mo ago
    Sure, I was talking more about daily work usage. (I have an EV and a diesel truck.)

bayesnet 11mo ago

My 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 11mo ago
This 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 11mo ago
We 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 11mo ago
  thats like $250k of cars at new prices, yes you're not typical :)
  - fragmede 11mo ago
    well yeah, but you don't buy them new and all at once
    - red-iron-pine 11mo ago
      the raptor alone is uncommon and is expensive a super-premium luxury truck. parent poster is loaded af
eitally 11mo ago
I drive a 2017 F150 with the back commonly filled with either sports equipment or outdoors gear, or photography equipment. I would like to additionally have a city car but am not willing to spend the money (or consume another parking space in front of my house). Since I only have one vehicle, I do also use it for grocery shopping.

themafia 11mo ago

Which 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 11mo ago
It’s a really bad consumer market right now, and also, we have enough cars.
- themafia 11mo ago
  The 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 11mo ago
    it'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 11mo ago
[deleted]

fsckboy 11mo 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 11mo ago
They 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 11mo ago
  It’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 11mo ago
    Yeah 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 11mo ago
      I’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 11mo ago

I 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 11mo ago
Crew cabs, truck boxes, tonneau covers etc exist.
seanmcdirmid 11mo ago
When 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 11mo ago
  When 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 11mo ago
    I don’t think a F150 lightning is wider than a 1985 Silverado.
    - ssl-3 11mo ago
      It'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.