[HN Gopher] Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was ...
___________________________________________________________________
Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was then canceled
for poor sales
Author : MBCook
Score : 341 points
Date : 2026-01-14 17:20 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (electrek.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (electrek.co)
| tracker1 wrote:
| At the size of Ford, sales numbers can be at a different mark for
| what is considered successful than others. Not to mention dealer
| gamesmanship fudges real sales numbers.
|
| As to the Cybertruck it's both interesting and kind of ugly...
| repairability is another concern/issue as is pure cost...
|
| I'm far more interested in the Slate[1] myself. It's probably
| closer to what a lot of consumers would want in an electric
| truck. It really feels like a spiritual successor to the OG Jeep
| (GP). 1. https://www.slate.auto/en
| jandrese wrote:
| I'll be interested in the Slate when I can actually buy one.
| I've seen far too many startup car companies fail to launch to
| ever get my hopes up. Also, the hopes that the very first
| vehicle from a brand new company will be affordable are not
| realistic. Making affordable vehicles requires production at
| large scale, and that requires enormous capital investment,
| which generally means your company needs to already have
| income. Even if it just to prove to potential investors that
| you have basic competence.
|
| Don't think that just because a billionaire is interested in
| the project that the funding will be easy. Billionaires don't
| like to spend their own money and can be easily distracted by
| newer and shinier projects.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| This.
|
| When the cyber truck was announced we decided to buy a Super
| Duty instead. That was 5 years ago. It's now paid off and
| driven us and our RV all over the country, and still worth
| more than half it's purchase price with many more miles to
| go, and no issues at all (knock on wood).
|
| A lightning, cyber truck, or even rivian can't do those
| things.
|
| Instead of waiting for a slate just buy a little gas pickup
| and GO USE IT, live you life!!!
| wffurr wrote:
| >> no issues at all
|
| Other than all the CO2, CO, and NOx you've emitted over
| that time period.
|
| The government should have started taxing barrels of oil in
| the 70s.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| The government started taxing fuel (both gas and diesel)
| at the federal level in 1932.
|
| Individual states go back to 1919.
| jandrese wrote:
| If you want to kill coal and oil just tax them the fair
| market price of carbon sequestration for the amount of
| carbon they ultimately emit. Use that money to sequester
| the carbon. This is how carbon markets should have been
| set up, but unfortunately that would have killed the
| modern economy.
| tracker1 wrote:
| If that was the goal, then killing nuclear power and
| holding it back for the past 4 decades was probably the
| wrong move. Solar and other "renewable" sources aren't
| enough to meet energy needs now, let alone the near
| future.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Look at the same specs for the cyber truck. There is
| about twice the carbon in the manufacturing of these, so
| it counts on people driving them for hundreds of
| thousands of miles, I don't see that happening with them
| because you can't even take a normal road trip while
| towing. These things just aren't going to see the miles,
| because they can't. They're just not usable as trucks.
|
| https://insideevs.com/news/719434/tesla-cybertruck-awd-
| vs-ra...
|
| Also the power plants and diesel generators for the data
| centers... https://www.selc.org/press-release/new-images-
| reveal-elon-mu...
| jandrese wrote:
| My understanding is the difference in carbon emission
| from manufacturing a BEV vs. an ICE vehicle is about 4
| tons of carbon, roughly what you would get from 400
| gallons of gasoline. So to make up the carbon deficit the
| BEV needs to drive about 8,000 miles assuming the ICE
| truck has above average highway MPG. This does assume the
| electricity comes from renewables though, if you have
| coal fired electricity then the figure may vary wildly.
| wffurr wrote:
| Yeah the Cyber truck is no prize either for emissions.
| It's not a good alternative.
| tracker1 wrote:
| To be clear, I'm not waiting for it at all... I'm not that
| interested in EVs for my own use so much... I work from
| home and not going to buy a new vehicle any time soon. I'm
| just more interested in it conceptually. Much like I was
| interested in the Local Motors Rally Fighter, I wasn't ever
| going to buy one, just thought it was cool. Well, maybe not
| the same, as the Slate could be something I would actually
| buy if/when it hits market in any numbers.
|
| If it's got a good level of repairability beyond the
| body/form, then the company collapsing may be a lot less of
| an issue. The way it's being done does remind me a lot of
| the original GP (General Purpose) vehicle. Though not
| necessarily fit for military/combat environments; As fuel
| is easier to transport than electricity to the middle of
| nowhere.
| everdrive wrote:
| Same. The Slate is so close to what I actually want out of an
| EV: basic, utilitarian, cheap, not made out of 5 iPads. It's
| not perfect, but neither is any of its competition.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| > At the size of Ford, sales numbers can be at a different mark
| for what is considered successful than others.
|
| Does this really hold when Tesla has a considerably higher
| valuation?
|
| Tesla is sitting at an egregious 30x market cap of Ford. If
| anything... I'd expect them to have sales targets that are ~30x
| the size of Ford.
|
| When you consider that Ford also makes many more models than
| Tesla (Tesla has like 8 core models incl the cybertruck [and
| the not-yet-for-sale semi...] , Ford has like 20+)
|
| By all measures - Tesla should be _considerably_ more
| aggressive with sales targets for a core model, and it seems
| pretty clear the cybertruck is just a slow rolling market
| failure.
| tracker1 wrote:
| For 2025, Ford sold about 2.2 million vehicles, Tesla was
| like 1.6m. Given, more variety for Ford... But there's also
| margins and supply chains to consider.
|
| The Cybertruck is kind of ugly and very expensive... not to
| mention that no EV truck really does towing well. The fact
| that the Lightning sold more than the Cybertruck doesn't make
| it a success.
|
| The Cybertruck, imo, is not too different than a limited run
| sports car from a major car company... it's just a step above
| a concept car. The Lightning from Ford was an attempt to see
| if a market was really ready to shift to EV, it largely
| isn't. Even though I think it's probably a great option for a
| lot of work truck use, that doesn't include long distances or
| heavy towing, but then it likely prices itself out of that
| market segment too.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| I'm not sure what the takeaway from your comment is?
|
| I'm not arguing that the F-150 lightning was a commercial
| success for Ford, I'm suggesting that the argument that
| Tesla should be held to a different standard on sales
| numbers feels pretty shaky.
|
| Both of these are basically "concept cars", and neither
| company has really delivered.
|
| Both are expensive to make, and have very high sticker
| prices with low/negative margins (Tesla claims cybertruck
| is profitable, but they're sitting on an absolutely insane
| inventory count, which they can't seem to sell... so
| again... my guess is they're deep in the red for this model
| if you look at total costs instead)
| tracker1 wrote:
| I think the difference is what each company respectively
| thought of the model itself. For Tesla, Cybertruck is imo
| like a lower-volume sports car... for Ford, it was an
| upscale work truck option. The expectations are imo very
| different. Maybe not so much a Ford/Tesla comparison, but
| the respective market expectations.
|
| Ford didn't exactly expect the Ford GT to be a mass
| seller, which is probably closer to what Tesla expected
| of the Cybertruck, or not, who knows.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| the god awful range of the Slate is not closer to what a lot of
| consumers would want in an electric truck
| tracker1 wrote:
| Plenty of people use pickup/work trucks and travel under
| 150-250 miles a day.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| It's also the fact that Ford investors care about profits and
| its stock is not just a meme stock with no relationship to
| current or future profits like Tesla.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I see the slate as the successor of the now extinct (in Can +
| US) mini-truck. 90s trucks like the small Toyota Truck, old
| Ford Ranger, Nissan hardbody, etc.
|
| The kind of trucks that landscapers are still using, that are
| beat to shit, and have three features, cheap, load carrying,
| reliable by way of simplicity.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I can see that, but I mean in terms of body specs and room to
| reshape/cover/modify the vehicle to different needs beyond
| pickup truck. Including a second row of seats.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Ford doesn't have a benefactor worth close to 1T usd...
| malfist wrote:
| Nether does Tesla
| loeg wrote:
| Right. Musk extracts value from Tesla shareholders, rather
| than the other way around.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Exactly. Pay me billions in options or I'll quit ... how
| about building up the company that made you rich in the
| first place?
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| Are you suggesting that markets are rational?
| dfajgljsldkjag wrote:
| It says a lot that spacex had to buy so many trucks just to help
| the sales numbers. I always thought the ford lightning was a
| better option for most people anyway. It is too bad they are
| stopping production when it seems to be the winner.
| malfist wrote:
| If you sell five thousand units but built production capacity
| for a quarter million units, that's not a success.
| mingus88 wrote:
| There is also the optic that the premiere US EV company
| failed to deliver an EV pickup truck behind Rivian, Ford,
| Stellantis, and arguably did a far worse job at it.
|
| The F150 lightning was always going to be a tough sell for
| die hard truck customers but it at least has all the fit and
| finish that those customers expect, with access to the
| F-series aftermarket.
| jandrese wrote:
| 5,600 units of Cybertrunk and Semi combined is basically 5,600
| units of Cybertruck. The Semi is still a boondoggle. I can
| believe that number. Your maximum sales figures are capped by
| your price point, and the Cybertruck, as well as the S and X,
| are in that "Fully successful this vehicle will have sales in
| the mid-thousands" price bracket.
|
| I sometimes wonder about a world where those trucks managed to
| hit their $40,000 price points. For the Cybertruck it was clear
| that Elon demanded way too much (four wheel seering? Come on)
| to ever get close to it, but for the F150 it seems more like
| the price was due to Ford halfassing the production.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I take it that SpaceX looked at all the trucks on the market
| and chose the cyber truck to maximize investor value and do
| what's right for SpaceX.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| I suspect the reasoning was similar to the reason Tesla
| bought Solar City or X.ai acquired the site previously known
| as twitter. Pure unvarnished investor value.
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| I'm sure the usual detractors will be here to whine "Electrek is
| biased against Tesla!"
|
| To which I would ask: Is it "bias" because they simply report on
| Tesla frequently? Would it be "less biased" if they _ignored_
| Tesla? Obviously Electrek can 't simply _invent_ positive press
| for Tesla to report on.
|
| Putting that aside though. The Cybertruck by all measures has
| been an abject failure. Its production run was so limited that
| insurance companies refused to cover it [1] and the NHTSA took
| something like two years just to crash test the thing due to how
| few of them there were on the road.
|
| Combine that with _10 fucking recalls_ for absolutely horrific
| safety issues [2] and the company making the batteries taking a
| 99% slash in its $2.8 billion dollar contract [3] the thing is a
| complete travesty
|
| [1]
| https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/insurance...
|
| [2] https://www.cnet.com/home/electric-vehicles/every-tesla-
| cybe...
|
| [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-29/tesla-
| cyb...
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| Elecdrek's bias against Tesla is only surpassed by its gushing
| over any/everything China.
| aeternum wrote:
| Fred Lambert (Electrek founder) was pro-tesla and was using his
| site to get a huge number of referral credits. Then Tesla
| changed the rules on that referral program.
|
| That's what triggered the beef. Fred sold all shares, took down
| all the pro-tesla articles, and posts nearly exclusively only
| negative tesla articles since.
|
| Seems both parties were/are within legal rights, but it is
| clearly bias.
| mebizzle wrote:
| Literally the only people who can think that this dude is
| anywhere remotely objective is if you are already a Tesla
| hater; he posts qualifications in every title and always
| adjusts the wording and tone to be negative. Every Electrek's
| take on an article is him describing how he warned everyone
| about the Elon/Tesla heel turn as you laid it out. It screams
| confirmation bias but since he isn't a journalist there's no
| code of ethics he's bound to follow.
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| I'm bullish on EV's at large. They're far nicer to ride in.
| So I find his coverage informative. I've never owned a
| Tesla but I've ridden in hundreds and must admit (other
| than the original Roadster) I've been thoroughly "whelmed"
| by their mediocrity.
|
| However, short of going to places like Reddit's "Tesla
| Lounge" or "Cyber Truck Owners Forum" I have yet to see
| many (any?) places that cover Tesla/Elon positively. Not
| because "every website is biased against him" but simply
| _because they 're reporting on events that've happened_
| aeternum wrote:
| Makes it even more impressive that Model Y is the best
| selling car worldwide. If you sell enough, I guess by
| definition you achieve mediocrity. You eventually become
| the average simply numerically.
| mebizzle wrote:
| Best selling car worldwide and not a super affordable one
| at that, but if you listen to everyone on the internet
| who "doesn't own a Tesla but has ridden in hundreds",
| they'll you very authoritatively they're mediocre cars.
| 4d4m wrote:
| Why was it so ugly? The front lightbars execution looked cheap
| and toy-like. Expecting awesome designs for future Ford electric
| trucks lets go!
| seiferteric wrote:
| Similar complaint for the chevy silverado, why can't they just
| make it look just like the regular silverado?
| jandrese wrote:
| Looks are subjective, but what I don't understand is why they
| put an enormous vision obscuring frunk on it. The vehicle could
| have been considerably easier to maneuver in tight spots and
| safer to pedestrians at the loss of just some dubious storage
| space with no loss in bed capacity. Or it could have been the
| same length or even a little shorter and have a full 4x8 bed in
| the back.
|
| If anything the vehicle was designed more for aesthetics than
| for practicality. There is no engine up front. There's no need
| for all of that space in front of the driver. It's entirely
| possible to engineer crash resistance without needing 4 goddamn
| feet of crumple zone. They could have had both a crew cab and a
| full size bed. Or the short bed but a more practical size.
| to11mtm wrote:
| The Lightning was done the way it was because they were able
| to re-use a lot of existing F150 tooling/etc and keep the R&D
| cost lower in the process.
| billti wrote:
| I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly
| aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it
| quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong
| association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand
| association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly
| didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the
| most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift around its launch.
|
| That said, even though it's not to my taste, I do admire that
| they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it.
| So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost
| indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. Kudos to
| Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category
| somewhere new.
| grouchomarx wrote:
| >I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries
| roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in
| politics
|
| That and also it's just a bad product.
|
| >That said, even though it's not to my taste, I do admire that
| they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on
| it.
|
| A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're
| a manufacturer making your first one
|
| edit: agree there's a market for the raptor off-road tremor
| package thing, but it wasn't ford's first and they've been
| selling commerical trucks for 75 years. A true tesla f150
| competitor would have sold like crazy, I think
| catigula wrote:
| >A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if
| you're a manufacturer making your first one
|
| I don't think this is actually true, most pickup trucks
| aren't designed for maximum utility. They're designed to sell
| a lifestyle.
| everdrive wrote:
| Heartbreaking but true. The most popular pickups today are
| not the most useful pickups. There are no more basic
| utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US.
|
| Pickups are a little bit interesting in this regard. For
| any given model (eg: Tacoma, Frontier, etc.) the more
| premium the truck, the worse it is at being a truck. Each
| feature you add reduces its payload, and in the case of the
| Frontier, you could drop from a 6' bed with ~1,600 lbs of
| payload on the base model all the way down to a 5' bed with
| ~900 lbs of payload for the most premium offroad model.
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| > There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer,
| at least in the US.
|
| What makes you say this? The F-150 series has a pretty
| serviceable option in their XL trim. 8ft bed, 4x4, "dumb"
| interior (maybe not, looking at their site looks like the
| most recent is iPad screen, sigh) - but what else would
| you look for to call it utilitarian?
|
| You're right that each feature is further limiting, but I
| would argue premium and utilitarian are reaching for
| opposite goals.
| everdrive wrote:
| I wish it had even fewer features, but I take your point.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| A F-150 from the previous century is much utilitarian
| than today's F-150's. The bed height and rail height are
| much more reasonable heights -- you can reach into the
| bed from the side.
| sejje wrote:
| Manual gearbox, triangle vent windows, engine bay room,
| repairability, bench seats.
| rjrjrjrj wrote:
| The Ford Maverick is pretty utilitarian, inasmuch as any
| new US vehicle is.
|
| The Slate is utilitarian, but remains to be seen if it
| actually ships. https://www.slate.auto/en
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| I decide if a truck is utilitarian by whether I have to
| flag a 2x4x8 in the bed or not.
| foobarian wrote:
| I can fit one of those into my Ford Fiesta with the hatch
| closed. :smh:
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Closed _and_ latched? I find that hard to believe (used
| to own an 80s Honda Civic which would allow "closed but
| not latched" for 4x8 sheet goods) ...
| foobarian wrote:
| Yes, with room to spare. I assume the grandparent was
| referring to a stud, i.e. the nominal "2x4" that is
| 1.5x3.5inches in cross section and 8 feet long :-) Sadly
| I cannot fit 4x8 sheet goods though I haven't tried very
| hard. I can definitely fit them if I ask nicely for a
| lengthwise cut, so I end up with 2' wide 8' strips. Those
| I can fit and close the hatch.
| olyjohn wrote:
| I decide if you need to have a step on your bumper
| because the truck is too high to get anything in and out
| of it. Lowering my truck made it way easier to load and
| unload.
| vablings wrote:
| I would be willing to say that a small Japanese kei truck
| is more than the average American would ever need for
| hauling furnishings, appliances and lumber. If you really
| need something bigger renting a trailer or truck is dirt
| cheap
| jeff_skj wrote:
| Except most people also use trucks as daily driver
| vehicles. You can't exactly fit the wife and kids in a
| kei. Sure you could also own a car for that but now I
| need to own/store 2 vehicles instead of one.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Yeah let's not pretend every family with a truck only
| owns one vehicle. Most families already have a second car
| anyways. Especially people spending $60k+ on a truck.
| bluGill wrote:
| That is my argument for EVs as well. One truck with an
| ICE for take the whole family on long trips, or towing.
| Then an EV for everyone else - whoever is making the long
| trip that day gets the truck.
|
| Truck works well for those role because it can do so
| much. It isn't the best for most of those, but it can do
| them.
| vablings wrote:
| Sure, you can. Two kids up front and your wife in the
| bed.
|
| Jokes aside I could purchase a new hatchback and a small
| old Kei truck for a fraction of the cost of something
| like an f150
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I found out a couple of years ago that you cannot rent a
| vehicle and use it to tow. This is a major barrier to the
| argument "when you need to tow <X> just rent a vehicle
| that can do that" (an argument I would like to support).
| everdrive wrote:
| I found this out recently as well, and it's really
| interesting since it must mean that a lot of these "just
| rent a truck when you need to tow" claims must have been
| unfounded.
| catigula wrote:
| https://www.enterprisetrucks.com/truckrental/en_US/towing
| .ht...
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| That's good to know.
|
| However, the most likely place to rent a pickup from
| (U-Haul) does not allow this.
| Ostrogoth wrote:
| >If you really need something bigger renting a trailer or
| truck is dirt cheap
|
| It's neither convenient nor cheap to rent a trailer in
| much of the US. Major cities have options, rural areas
| less so. Full disclosure I have a mid-sized pickup, but I
| recently looked into renting a trailer for a landscaping
| project that was above the weight limit for my truck.
| First issue I ran into was that there were not any
| trailers available for rent anywhere near my location.
| Second issue was that after factoring in driving distance
| + rental cost + dump fees, it was ~ the same price just
| to pay a junk company to haul the materials...and it was
| not cheap. Anecdotally, my pickup was cheaper than most
| other vehicle options at the time I bought it, my commute
| is short (so fuel economy is less an issue), and as a
| homeowner I use the bed to haul something at least
| once/month (Unfortunately kei trucks weren't available at
| the time). So the cost/benefit/convenience factor of
| owning a truck over renting a trailer works for me. YMMV.
| vablings wrote:
| Yeah, I cannot speak for rural US as much, I live in a
| large metropolitan area, and I would estimate around
| 1/5th cars here are pickups. You can rent a truck from
| Home Depot for as low as $100 a day.
| enaaem wrote:
| The most utilitarian truck is probably the Hilux champ
| and it's not even sold in the US.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| these trucks are still a thing; Toyota sells a 10k
| stripped down work truck for places like Thailand
|
| https://www.roadandtrack.com/reviews/a45752401/toyotas-10
| 000...
|
| wouldn't fly due to chicken tax + other safety and
| emissions. they plan on selling em in Mexico tho, so
| maybe we'll see some float up...
| a4isms wrote:
| Lifestyle sells.
|
| I drive a wagon. Of course wagon owners talk about the
| utility. And yet, you can buy a wagon with a twin-turbo V8
| engine. What's the "sportwagon" segment all about?
| Certainly not going to Home Depot to buy four toilets for
| the new house, it's about putting your $15,000 Cannondale
| Black Ink MTB on the roof and swanking up to the trailhead.
| switchbak wrote:
| It's about drag racing on the way to your Jiu-Jitsu club
| with the baby seats in the back. And still being able to
| fit that new vanity from Home Depot in on your way back
| home!
| catigula wrote:
| The brain is a confabulation/justification engine.
|
| In reality ideal utility is likely found in the shape of
| a 2008 Toyota Camry and a U-Haul truck rental when
| necessary.
| pixl97 wrote:
| You may underestimate how much consumption some people in
| the US have and why a Camry wouldn't work. Hell, for the
| amount of hobby project stuff I bring home on a bi-weekly
| basis a car just doesn't cut it. Then again, I'm not sure
| where I fit in the average population.
| adw wrote:
| More like a 2001 Renault Clio. Camrys are already
| bloatware.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| safety standards, gas milage, and a bunch of other
| factors have improved dramatically since 2008.
|
| buy yourself a gently used 2019 Camry
| giglamesh wrote:
| > ... most pickup trucks aren't designed for maximum
| utility. They're designed to sell a lifestyle.
|
| Yes, but that lifestyle can and sometimes does include
| actual needs for some of the utility. There is a great
| observation from Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a
| Democrat from Washington's 3rd District in an NYT piece a
| couple of days ago. I included a perhaps too long quote in
| lieu of apologizing for the paywall.
|
| > "Spreadsheets can contain a part of truth," Ms.
| Gluesenkamp Perez told me. "But never all of truth."
|
| > Looking to illustrate this, I bought the recent book
| "White Rural Rage" and opened it more or less at random to
| a passage about rural pickup trucks. It cites a rich
| portfolio of data and even a scholarly expert on the
| psychology of truck purchasers, to make what might seem
| like an obvious point -- that it's inefficient and deluded
| for rural and suburban men to choose trucks as their daily
| driving vehicles. The passage never does explain, though,
| how you're supposed to haul an elk carcass or pull a cargo
| trailer without one.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/opinion/marie-
| gluesenkamp...
| catigula wrote:
| If I mostly trim my hedges, but sometimes, very rarely,
| need to cut down small trees, am I best served by simply
| owning a hedge-trimmer and renting a chainsaw or other
| appropriate tool when necessary, or by buying a katana
| for both jobs?
|
| Everybody knows why you bought the katana. We know you
| have a story to tell yourself, it's just not convincing.
| pixl97 wrote:
| > and renting a chainsaw or other appropriate tool when
| necessary,
|
| I don't think most people realize how expensive and time
| consuming tool rental is.
|
| This is where things also get kind of messy in the US. In
| manicured suburbs you probably don't need a chainsaw. But
| in older growth and places with larger lots you really do
| need one. If you wait till you need one after a big
| storm, you may travel 100 miles out of the storm damage
| to find one to rent or have to wait for weeks as your
| driveway is blocked and contractors are booked up.
|
| For me the utility function is somewhere in between a car
| and a truck, hence why I have an SUV. I can carry the
| large boxes/items I seem to have at a regular basis. When
| I need something bigger I can rent a trailer to hook to
| it. Trucks themselves are way too expensive now, and I
| don't need that much capacity. A car would have me
| constantly renting or borrowing one from someone else
| (which I did when I owned a car and it was a pain in the
| ass).
| zaphoyd wrote:
| We recently moved to a more rural location that has
| needed more tools. It is shocking just how expensive and
| inconvenient it is to rent tools (and even vehicles to
| some extent) and just how much worse it is being even
| just a little bit rural.
|
| The big box store in our town doesn't rent tools or
| vehicles. You have to drive 45-60 minutes to get to a
| store that does. This means the 4 hour rental prices
| (which for something like a wood chipper or chain saw
| might be sufficient for a lot of jobs) become nearly non-
| viable or highly stressful rushing through unfamiliar
| power equipment that really shouldn't be rushed.
|
| A full day tool rental is often 1/3 to 1/2 of the price
| of a new mass market version of the tool. A week rental
| is almost always more. The tools are rarely in great
| shape. You are almost always way better off going to an
| estate sale or local marketplace and buying a used tool.
| If there is a job you end up doing 2-3 times or need for
| more than a week its even cost effective to just buy new
| ones. You save so much on labor doing things yourself
| that even with new tools you basically always come out
| ahead.
|
| The best case is that you have a community run tool
| library that lets you check stuff out cheaply for a week
| and can have a relationship with the folks that run it.
| Similarly, getting to know the neighbors and being able
| to swap/borrow stuff. For vehicles this is a little more
| dicey because of liability & insurance issues.
|
| We've definitely struggled with the vehicle for long and
| sheet goods. We really don't need a pickup truck and it
| would honestly be a hazard on skinny mountain roads...
| but we do need to move lumber, sheet goods, appliance
| sized things just enough that it's a pain without one. We
| settled on a midsized SUV with passable towing power (as
| an aside, EV power and control makes towing a breeze as
| long as your round trip fits in one charge). Renting a
| trailer is still annoying, but at least can be done close
| by. For larger orders delivery can sometimes be cost
| effective (vs renting a vehicle or buying and maintaining
| a truck) especially because places often subsidize
| delivery to win business.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >A full day tool rental is often 1/3 to 1/2 of the price
| of a new mass market version of the tool
|
| For sure. I had to dig some post holes in limestone that
| was very hard. Rental was going to be $200 for a tool
| that would do it in a day.
|
| Instead I went to harbor freight and bought a tool closer
| to $100 even though it took me a bit longer, and I get to
| keep the tool which is still working to this day.
|
| Heh, and labor costs in the Austin area are off the hook.
| I did a project for around $5000 that a neighbor had a
| similar but smaller in scope project quoted for $21,000.
| rationalist wrote:
| > I don't think most people realize how expensive and
| time consuming tool rental is.
|
| Same with truck rentals.
| brandonmenc wrote:
| People seriously underestimate how much trouble a pickup
| truck rental from U-Haul can be.
|
| I've wasted so much time trying to track down which
| location near me has one available on the exact day I
| want to do major yard work. Often I have to reschedule my
| work or plan out super far in advance. Or take a day off
| during the week because everyone else also wants to rent
| trucks on the weekend. Then I'm running against the clock
| the whole time.
|
| An extra $100-$200 a month car payment to have a truck
| instead of a crossover is totally worth it.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I struggle to think what vehicle has more all around
| utility (by my own definition) than my Lightning. The only
| things it does not do well is tow 300 miles, and drive in
| NYC. Neither of which are on my requirements list.
| a4isms wrote:
| > A pickup truck should just be max utility
|
| A _working_ truck should be max utility. Around the core
| market of "working trucks," there are various wannabe truck
| products that do not have to be max utility. For example, a
| Subaru Brat or a Hyundai Santa Fe. Niche products compared to
| an F-150, but they had/have their fans.
|
| I personally can't stand the design, but the idea of an
| impractical "halo vehicle" that appeals to a niche audience
| but burnishes the brand as "forward-looking" is not a bad
| one. It's just the execution of this particular halo vehicle
| that I would have a problem with were I in the market for a
| lifestyle look-at-me vehicle.
| b40d-48b2-979e wrote:
| A *working* truck should be max utility.
|
| All trucks _should be_ working trucks. There is no reason
| to drive something that large and heavy that isn 't better
| served by smaller vehicles that don't damage our shared
| infrastructure while being safer to drive.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Tragedy of the commons.
| miltonlost wrote:
| Tragedy of not having better regulations. The commons
| don't have anything to do with it.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| _Some_ of the motivations to get vehicles like that, like
| being up higher than everyone and having more mass in a
| collision, are solidly tragedy of the commons.
| allarm wrote:
| This is a tragedy of an awful taste.
| brokensegue wrote:
| The reason is personal preference. Same reason people buy
| sports cars. I also wish their preferences were different
| alistairSH wrote:
| Sports cars largely don't have any of the negative
| externalities of trucks.
| scottyah wrote:
| Their fuel consumption is about the same, what
| externalities are you referring to?
| alistairSH wrote:
| Sure, if you're talking about high-power cars (M2,
| Corvette, etc). A Miata or Civic Type R will get far
| better fuel consumption.
|
| And there's also wear on the road, noise, and damage to
| property and people when accidents happen (physics is a
| bitch).
| scottyah wrote:
| Sure, if you're talking about high-power trucks (F350,
| Ram 3500). A Ford Maverick hybrid will get far better
| fuel consumption.
|
| I think more sports cars are burning out, revving loudly
| (or getting modified to take out their mufflers), and the
| damage from going a lot faster creates more damage.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| No, you just don't dislike them enough to find them.
| switchbak wrote:
| Reply to the sibling comment about little to no negative
| externalities:
|
| Sports cars sure do have negative externalities. I live
| next to a custom car mod shop in the boonies. People hoon
| around here like there's no one else alive. They put my
| life and the lives of my family at risk on the regular.
| That is most definitely a negative externality.
| wil421 wrote:
| HN has hated Trucks and American cars, except when Tesla
| came out, for as long as I've been here. Same with
| Reddit.
| sroerick wrote:
| It's pretty funny how much truck rage there is here.
| scottyah wrote:
| It's crazy to me. If you hate automobiles, trucks still
| make the most sense- if you're just carrying people and a
| grocery or two you should probably be on a bike or ebike.
| b40d-48b2-979e wrote:
| That is quite a European take there. Most places in the
| US do not have safe pedestrian infrastructure mandating
| "share the road" policies with bicycles which puts you
| into direct contact with motor vehicle traffic, and
| suburban spread means you're probably not close enough to
| walk to your grocer.
| switchbak wrote:
| Oh sure, but look at the vast popularity of these
| monstrosities that never even see gravel. I get how you
| (and I) find that abhorrent, but there's clearly LOTS of
| folks that find a blinged out useless luxury pretend
| truck to be very attractive.
|
| I was in the market for a pickup recently. I had wanted
| to like the Cybertruck, but ... too damn ugly, too
| version 0.3, too many dweebs driving them, too many
| teething issues even for a first cut. Plus it's as heavy
| as an F-250. There's almost no actual reason to grab one
| besides it being electric. Since I drive so little, I'd
| never pay back the embedded energy it takes to make the
| thing - so even that isn't a selling point.
|
| So instead I got a used Tacoma, and disappeared into the
| ocean of Tacomas that exist here in the PNW. It could be
| worse :)
| pixl97 wrote:
| I hope someone fully capitalizes on what Edison is trying
| to do up in Canada.
|
| That is a fully electric drive train hybrid. That way you
| can charge it at home _and_ charge it with a generator
| under use. Problem is our current laws are making
| certifications a mess.
| bluGill wrote:
| Trucks don't have to see gravel to be working trucks.
|
| If you use a truck for work purposes once a year it is
| likely cheaper to just drive a truck for everything than
| have a second car. Don't say rent a truck is an option -
| you probably can't rent a truck for most work purposes -
| most rentals have fine print against that, even if you
| can find a place to rent a truck the cost quickly gets to
| more than just owning your own truck.
| b40d-48b2-979e wrote:
| even if you can find a place to rent a truck the cost
| quickly gets to more than just owning your own
| truck.
|
| _What?_ I regularly rent a Lowe 's truck when I need one
| (tends to be every year or two) to move mulch, furniture,
| whatever. I don't understand this take.
| bluGill wrote:
| I have not read the contract with Lowe's - but I know
| home depot's contract states that you can only use the
| truck to take things you by at Home Depot home. If there
| is an accident you could be in big legal trouble with
| your rental use (so long as there isn't one they might
| not care)
| kevinpet wrote:
| It's a lot cheaper to rent a trailer.
| alwa wrote:
| Are you in the US? Most Home Depot locations will rent
| you one of several sizes of work truck for as low as $20
| for a quick there-and-back of 75 minutes, or ~$100-200
| for a day. I understand Lowe's to do something similar.
| U-Haul does trucks.
|
| And if your needs are more ambitious, there's Sunbelt
| Rentals through much of the country and Enterprise's
| Trucks arm as opposed to their more consumer-familiar
| operation.
|
| If I'm using it once a year, I'll splurge for a bigass 1
| ton 4x4 which Enterprise Trucks is currently listing for
| $139 a day including 150 miles... and in 100 years, have
| spent the $13,900 difference between a dweeby little
| smarte car and owning my own pickup
|
| Not that there's the least thing wrong with just
| preferring to own one, just options that I wish I'd known
| about earlier in life.
| bluGill wrote:
| Have you read the contract with Home Depot? You can't use
| their trucks for anything other than hauling your
| purchased from Home Depot home.
|
| I haven't see the contract with enterprise trucks, but I
| suspect it is similarity restricted against the type of
| damage this is normal from using a truck for work. You
| can at least tow a trailer with them. Their locations are
| not convenient for me either.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yep. Renting a truck where you could actually haul a load
| of dirt or mulch, or tow anything, you will need to go to
| with a "commercial" rental which will be 5x the rate for
| a consumer rental or "Home Depot" truck rental. The Home
| Depot/consumer trucks don't even have a tow hitch.
| klaff wrote:
| LOL, the Home Depot flatbed I rented a week ago (the $19
| deal although I went a little long and ended up paying
| $32 total) had just hauled a load of dirt or mulch. No
| one read me anything saying I couldn't use it for
| purposes other than carrying a Home Depot purchased item
| (although that's what I was doing). The HD page for the
| F250 flatbed does say they only supply a hitch if you are
| renting something towable from them but says nothing
| about using it for other purposes (like hauling dirt).
| asadotzler wrote:
| U-Haul rents work trucks and vans meant to be haulers and
| rented out specifically for hauling.
| nospice wrote:
| > Oh sure, but look at the vast popularity of these
| monstrosities that never even see gravel.
|
| Normal-sized pickups aren't meant for offroading.
| rjrjrjrj wrote:
| The Santa Cruz is about the same size as a Santa Fe and
| weighs less.
|
| The Ford Maverick is a smaller vehicle but also a truck.
| It is a working truck for some, and a rec/handyman
| vehicle for others.
| zdragnar wrote:
| A Maverick is hardly a working truck. It's got the same
| towing capacity of an older Kia Sportage. It's got front
| wheel drive (or awd). It's a car with a bed, not a truck.
| b40d-48b2-979e wrote:
| It's a car with a bed, not a truck.
|
| Also called a Ute, which is fine! It avoids the weight
| and height that makes trucks dangerous vehicles to
| operate in a society.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| > It's got the same towing capacity of an older Kia
| Sportage.
|
| How often do you need to pull 2000kg?
| zdragnar wrote:
| Several times a year at a minimum, and not always with
| good notice.
|
| Towing weight is also a good proxy for frame strength. I
| do some light forestry work moving and bucking logs,
| freeing stuck cars, plowing snow in addition to towing
| trailers and equipment.
| Marsymars wrote:
| A BMW i3 is a body-on-frame rear-wheel-drive vehicle, but
| I don't think anyone would call it a "truck without a
| bed, not a car".
| rjrjrjrj wrote:
| Ford calls it a truck. Ask a random person on the street,
| and they'll say it is a small truck.
|
| I've seen plenty of people in working clothes driving
| them, carrying working tools and such.
| cameldrv wrote:
| I don't get this attitude. Everyone criticizes auto
| companies for not making a small truck anymore, and then
| Ford comes out with the Maverick and then you say it
| doesn't have enough towing capacity. It can tow 4000 lbs.
| That covers a whole lot of use cases. It also has a
| payload capacity of 1500 lbs which is quite respectable
| for a small truck. As for FWD vs. RWD, who cares? How
| does that affect your ability to move things around?
|
| Really the only thing I think you can ding it for is the
| small bed. It used to be that trucks this size would have
| a regular cab or an extended cab with the two tiny side
| facing seats, and they would have a longer bed. With the
| tailgate down you can still move sheet goods with a
| Maverick though.
| zdragnar wrote:
| People want smaller, not weaker, trucks. The 1985 Ford
| ranger compact truck could tow over 3000 lbs base, and
| over 5000 with upgrades.
|
| The Maverick only tows 2000 base, the 4000 is an upgrade
| package and only for trailers with their own brakes.
|
| RWD is pretty functionally important for a vehicle to
| maintain control while towing significant weight, as all
| the weight sits on the back of the frame, and that's
| where you want the engine power to go.
|
| The Maverick is not a working truck, which was my
| original point. In terms of what matters, it is worse in
| every way than a 40 year old design.
| palmotea wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/opinion/marie-
| gluesenkamp...:
|
| > It's all but impossible to go into any rural bar in
| America today, ask for thoughts on pickup trucks and not
| hear complaints about the size of trucks these days,
| about touch-screens and silly gimmicks manufacturers use
| to justify their ballooning prices. Our economy, awash in
| cheap capital, has turned quality used trucks into
| something like a luxury asset class.
|
| > It's often more affordable in the near-term to buy a
| new truck than a reliable used one. Manufacturers are
| incentivized by federal regulations, and by the basic
| imperatives of the thing economy, to produce ever-bigger
| trucks for ever-higher prices to lock people into a cycle
| of consumption and debt that often lasts a lifetime.
|
| > This looks like progress, in G.D.P. figures, but we are
| rapidly grinding away the freedom and agency once
| afforded by the ability to buy a good, reasonable-size
| truck that you could work on yourself and own fully. You
| can learn a lot about why people feel so alienated in our
| economy if you ask around about the pickup truck market.
|
| > Instead, the authors of "White Rural Rage" consulted
| data and an expert to argue that driving a pickup
| reflects a desire to "stay atop society's hierarchy," but
| they do not actually try to reckon much with the problem
| that passage raises -- that consumer choices, such as
| buying trucks, have become a way for many Americans to
| express the deep attachment they have to a life rooted in
| the physical world. A reader might conclude that people
| who want a vehicle to pull a boat or haul mulch are
| misguided, or even dangerous. And a party led by people
| who believe that is doomed among rural voters, the
| Midwestern working class and probably American men in
| general.
|
| > This approach to politics governed by data and experts
| is what we mean when we talk about technocracy. It's a
| system that no longer really functions today because the
| broad societal trust that once allowed data and experts
| to guide political choices has broken down. Democrats,
| increasingly, live in a world where data and researchers
| convincingly show that low-wage immigration raises the
| economy and our gun laws are reckless and misguided.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > A reader might conclude that people who want a vehicle
| to pull a boat or haul mulch are misguided, or even
| dangerous.
|
| How about I just conclude that while pulling a boat or
| hauling mulch are completely OK things to want a vehicle
| for (*), one does not need a F150 with a front end that
| reaches my chest and has gas mileage to prove it.
|
| As many have noted, pickups like the 90s Toyotas did
| these things just fine for almost everyone, but most US
| based manufacturers have stopped making them.
|
| Me noting that doesn't make me part of the doom of the
| political party I always vote for.
|
| (*) to the extent that we live in a society where private
| ownership of vehicles is completely unremarkable, that
| is. And we do, for the foreseeable future.
| sroerick wrote:
| The Tacoma is the modern equivalent of the 90s Toyota,
| and while it is certainly bigger, it is not that much
| bigger.
|
| Also, there are a lot of boats, RVs and trailers which my
| 2019 Tacoma absolutely would not have towed successfully.
| palmotea wrote:
| > How about I just conclude that while pulling a boat or
| hauling mulch are completely OK things to want a vehicle
| for (*), one does not need a F150 with a front end that
| reaches my chest and has gas mileage to prove it.
|
| Did you miss like the entire first half of the quoted
| passage? Because it kinda sounds like you're judging the
| people buying the trucks.
|
| One buys from the options the market gives them, and the
| market often does not optimize for what consumers want.
| It optimizes for barely tolerable products that maximize
| profit.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| No, actually, I did not. But I thought that the part that
| I requoted stood in a weird opposition to it ...
| palmotea wrote:
| > No, actually, I did not. But I thought that the part
| that I requoted stood in a weird opposition to it ...
|
| Which kind of makes sense, because it's Gluesenkamp-Perez
| critiquing a book she opposes.
| scottyah wrote:
| There are different sized trucks for different purposes.
| A Maverick or Kei truck is lighter and safer than a lot
| of cars on the road while being way more useful.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Maverick has a tiny bed (4.5 foot) whereas kei trucks can
| have up to 7 foot beds. I really wish we did small trucks
| with bigger beds here in North America. Really all I want
| is a hilux champ.
| zweih wrote:
| I can't speak for the Santa Fe, but most Brat owners admit
| they have no intention of using it as a utility vehicle.
| The same cannot be said for most F-150 owners I know.
| stickfigure wrote:
| These days Brat owners are classic car collectors...
| ActorNightly wrote:
| >A pickup truck should just be max utility,
|
| The problem is as soon as you go EV, you use a lot of utility
| from the get go. With a truck specifically, because its a
| brick aerodynamically. There is no reason to buy a Cybertruck
| or Lightning when you can get a gas or hybrid F150 (or a
| Raptor) for a little bit more, and be able to sit at 80 mph
| on highways without worrying about range.
|
| The biggest suprise about the lightning is that Ford didn't
| put in a gas engine in it as a range extender. They have 3
| cylinder ecoboost engines that would have been perfect for
| that.
| drewda wrote:
| Here's a different aspect of utility: The F150 Lightning
| includes 120V and optionally 240V outlets, so it replaces
| the need to carry a separate gas-powered generator.
|
| That's probably more relevant to fleet vehicles for
| construction and maintenance firms than to individuals
| towing boats. But just to offer an example of how the F150
| Lightning is a great fit for certain uses.
| shibapuppie wrote:
| You can also get a standard hybrid F150 with the "Pro
| Power(?)" package, and the hybrid drive-train turns into
| a 7.2kW generator.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's great for rural folks or others with power issues.
| For a few thousand bucks, you have a backup generator in
| your garage.
| bluGill wrote:
| The only question is range when those rural folks go to
| the big city (if less than an hour they do this once a
| week because groceries in the suburbs of a big city are
| so much cheaper. If farther than that they still go once
| a month because of things they can't get. Though I don't
| know anyone who lives so far out that they can't get to a
| city and back in a long day.
|
| Otherwise rural folks often have something to fix on the
| other side of their property that needs tools. Cordless
| tools do a lot but sometimes are not enough.
| bluGill wrote:
| I'm surprised it didn't sell based on that. 20 years ago
| when I was in construction the truck drove at most 130
| miles per day (we made sure to work 14 hour days when we
| were going to spend an hour on the road - the crew hated
| those jobs), but typically more like 30. The the first
| thing we did was pull the generator out of the truck and
| started it. If would could just plug into the truck that
| would have saved a lot of space/weight in the truck, it
| seems like a no-brainer.
|
| Then again, all the construction sites I see these days
| have mains power on a post, which we never had back then
| (I don't live in the same state so I don't know if this
| is universal or just this area has always been
| different).
| nospice wrote:
| > Here's a different aspect of utility: The F150
| Lightning includes 120V and optionally 240V outlets, so
| it replaces the need to carry a separate gas-powered
| generator.
|
| A small generator costs few hundred bucks and fits
| comfortably in any truck actually used for work. It's a
| small perk that some pro users would probably pay for,
| but it's not a selling point for a radically different
| car design.
| apercu wrote:
| Easily stolen.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| it's a few hundred bucks, an extra thing to remember,
| takes up bed space, requires bringing gas, and is loud
| and annoying to use. It's not the biggest thing, but it's
| a pretty nice value add.
| scottyah wrote:
| You have one reason listed, which is going 80mph (which is
| illegal in most states). They also can't tow long distances
| easily, but are superior in nearly every other way.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| My brother has one, it is an amazing vehicle with better
| range performance than Tesla. It's dramatically better in
| the snow. Towing of large loads is a valid downside, but
| reality is that most people don't tow, and people who do
| are probably fine with 80% of the use cases (construction
| trailers, lawn trailers, etc).
|
| The business problem Tesla solved at Ford cannot is the
| dealer network. He pre-ordered his, and the dealer he was
| stuck with tried to rip him off like 4 different ways.
|
| The other issue is that car guys are afraid of electric, as
| the entire supporting industry is essentially obsolete.
| It's hard to get excited about something that will take
| away your ability to pay your mortgage. Every car dealer
| employee and mechanic knows that.
| bluGill wrote:
| Electric cars still need maintenance. They don't get
| regular oil changes, but they wear out tires sooner. They
| have more recalls in general than ICE (this will likely
| change, but manufactures are still learning how to make
| EVs reliable). The parts of a car that are not common
| with EVs don't break for the first 100k miles, and almost
| nobody is using the dealer for cars that old. There is
| plenty of other work that is common that dealers will
| still need to do.
| philistine wrote:
| Your argument hinges on any level of maintenance being
| enough to maintain our current level of investment. The
| truth is always more complicated.
|
| Take for example DVD rental. The market completely
| evaporated, while there is still a small lingering
| community that could be serviced by rentals. My local
| library is proof that there is a market. But there are,
| bar some weird exceptions, no remaining DVD rental
| stores.
|
| If an EV needs 50% of the maintenance, then it stands to
| reason that you need 50% of the staff. That's the easy
| part. But what about all the other staff? Can you afford
| as many staff in front of house when your main profit
| centre shrank massively? Can you keep the same amount of
| cars in the lot if you don't have the cash to pay the
| manufacturer fees?
| bluGill wrote:
| I'm sure that some mechanics will need to go. However a
| lot of them will still remain because there are a lot of
| cars and a lot that can go wrong that is common. There
| are also potential new failure modes, though only time
| will tell.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > they wear out tires sooner.
|
| This is dependent on how you drive them. EVs are fun, so
| you get a disproportionate number of people driving them
| aggressively. That's hard on tires. If you drive normal,
| you get normal tire life.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| You also gain some utility. Infinite torque at idle,
| cheaper 4wd, better traction control, fewer mechanical
| problems, etc.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| They tow way better aside from reduced range. And the
| near perfect 50/50 weight distribution means they handle
| better than a truck should.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > The biggest suprise about the lightning is that Ford
| didn't put in a gas engine in it as a range extender.
|
| They announced that along with the EV Lightning
| cancellation:
| https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/next-
| ge...
| jonlink wrote:
| Next generation of lightning is doing exactly that with a
| smaller battery, they're claiming 700+ miles of range:
| https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/next-
| ge...
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| > That and also it's just a bad product.
|
| I want whatever the v3 equivalent of the Cybertruk would be.
| Assuming they improve on it.
| __loam wrote:
| That's basically the F150 or a rivian
| scottyah wrote:
| That's... a very uneducated take, even according to those
| car's CEOs RJ and Jim.
| __loam wrote:
| Normal cars vs the fever dreams of a ketamine addict.
| scottyah wrote:
| And a lot of the best automotive+ engineers in the world.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| > pickup truck should just be max utility
|
| Except the main demographic buying F150s is suburban dads
| driving to their office job.
| bluGill wrote:
| And using the truck on weekends to tow the boat, or do
| other work with it. Not every weekend, but once a month in
| summer.
| jeffbee wrote:
| There are 5x more households with trucks than households
| with boats, so this hardly explains it.
| bluGill wrote:
| There are a lot more uses of a truck than towing a boat.
| wffurr wrote:
| Gas doesn't cost enough.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| I think the problem is Trucks are a visible lifestyle
| preferences that does not align with yours.
| wffurr wrote:
| You can have all the weird lifestyle preferences you want
| that don't involve conspicuous waste of natural resources
| and spending up anthropogenic climate change.
| cmtm4 wrote:
| I think the reason this take gets push-back in discussions
| (including here) is that it's highly regional.
|
| I've lived in parts of the US where I doubt more than 10%
| of pickup trucks on the road (and there were a _lot_ of
| them) were really justifiable purchases _as trucks_. They
| were aspirational purchases, and /or were selected for
| status/class/politics signaling.
|
| I've lived other places in the US where the whole region
| had far fewer trucks (but a hell of a lot more Volvos...
| like, easily 10x as many as the other place) where I bet at
| least 50% of pickup trucks saw enough truck-use to really
| be justifiable.
| alexjplant wrote:
| > A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if
| you're a manufacturer making your first one
|
| The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility. It's a
| $60,000 four-door lifted luxobarge with leather interior and
| a short bed. It signals (perceived) wealth while preserving
| working-class alignment. It can also be justified by way of
| having to pick up used furniture for TikTok refinish and flip
| projects or bimonthly runs to Home Depot to buy caulk and
| lightbulbs. Independent tradesman can write them off as work
| vehicles or, allegedly, use COVID-era PPP loans to buy them.
|
| It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner.
| Investment bankers generally don't go scuba diving and if
| they did a dive computer would be vastly preferable.
|
| I say all of that to say that making a pickup truck for that
| market segment isn't a bad idea from a numbers perspective.
| You just can't market it as a luxury vehicle because the
| whole point is that it _is_ but it isn 't.
| staplers wrote:
| Class tourism is a succinct term here. Blending in with
| hardworking blue collar Americans is a whole marketing
| industry in itself.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Blending in with imaginary people, you mean. Every single
| actual blue collar worker who needs a truck for that
| purpose drives a 1997 Toyota Tacoma.
| matwood wrote:
| I had a 2008 Tundra I sold when I moved to the EU not too
| long ago. Still miss it. It was big, but could easily tow
| my boat or haul anything I needed. Was a 4 door and had a
| full sized bed. Had 125k miles when I sold it, and still
| ran great.
|
| I would have gotten a Tacoma, but I need the extra towing
| capacity.
| bluGill wrote:
| The modern US pickup truck still has the utility image and
| they make sure they sell a bunch to people who want utility
| to ensure that the image is not lost. That is why the
| lightening came in a cheap pro trim clearly targeted at the
| things pros are likely to want. (I don't know how well it
| worked, but they seriously tried to sell to that market)
|
| Of course the real money is in the high trim levels that
| sell for twice as much but don't really cost much more.
| jahsome wrote:
| As someone who's just been trying to buy a crappy used
| truck to haul some crap to the dump a couple times a year,
| you're absolutely spot on. I even live in the southwest US
| where trucks make up a considerable portion of vehicles on
| the road.
|
| Crappy used trucks simply aren't up for sale. And even the
| rare listing I do come across, the asking price is
| ridiculously inflated.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Consider a Honda Acty - they even have models with a
| dumping bed.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Harsh did a tipper conversion for the Daihatsu Hijet,
| which had an 850cc triple with a lot more poke than the
| Acty's 660cc twin, and had a "true 4WD" variant.
|
| In the UK, Truck and Driver Magazine featured one so
| equipped in a head-to-head AWD tipper test (AWD in the
| sense of all wheels driven regardless of number of axles,
| not Subaru AWD/Audi Quattro type AWD), alongside a
| variety of extremely large trucks. Proper trucks, not
| F150s, we're talking 18-tonne Scanias and stuff here.
|
| Everyone wanted one of the little Hijets to take home.
| mywittyname wrote:
| These are quite expensive for what you get and are
| slooooooow. It's fine if you want an expensive, quirky
| neighborhood runabout, but you'll be made very aware that
| this is a product not at all designed for the US market
| (there's a good reason most examples do ~1000 miles a
| year). The ACTYs I found online were in the $7-20k range,
| for a ~30 year old model - more for a nice van.
|
| The best used work truck is actually a van. They lack the
| coolness factor of trucks, but are far more versatile.
| You can pick up a <10 year old Transit with under 100k
| miles for like 10-15k. That price point will get you a
| >10 year old F150 in the 100-150k mile range.
|
| Plus, there are good options if you want something
| smaller can car-based, like NV2000s and Transit connects.
| Which don't really exist for trucks outside of newer
| (maverick) or niche (Ridgeline) options.
|
| Bonus points, a nice Transit is a great daily driver too.
| criddell wrote:
| If you only need a truck a couple of times per year,
| maybe it makes more sense to rent one?
| alexjplant wrote:
| Not even. When I lived in the boonies trash service was
| ~$75 a quarter, the local hardware store would deliver
| pallets of mulch for free, and furniture stores offered
| free delivery above certain purchase amounts. My buddy's
| dad would haul your boat between the marina and your
| house for a flat fee. Hell, I was able to cram a full PA
| with floor monitors and a few guitars into my Corolla for
| weekend band gigs.
|
| I started looking into getting a trailer or hitch hauler
| but it didn't seem to make much sense. I could usually
| pay somebody on-demand to move stuff around and it always
| worked out to be cheaper than owning and maintaining a
| truck. I presently work from home and don't even own a
| car anymore; the math is quite similar with rideshare and
| motorcycle maintenance coming in significantly cheaper.
| mindslight wrote:
| Consider a trailer if you have even a mildly acceptable
| tow vehicle that can take a 2 inch receiver. Use what
| UHaul will rent you as a rough limit for what your
| vehicle can handle, and then if you want to save some
| weight get your own because it will be lighter than
| UHaul's brick shithouses.
|
| Having said that, I'm still in the market for a larger
| vehicle with a better tow weight rating as I use the
| trailer more than a handful of times per year, and my
| current tow vehicle is getting a bit long in the tooth.
| gscott wrote:
| I have had good luck with farm type auctions just check
| the rust. IronPlanet is also really good but a little
| more expensive.
| m463 wrote:
| I was looking for the same thing and a friend gave me
| some advice.
|
| Get an SUV with a trailer hitch.
|
| worked out great. Maybe better than a pickup.
|
| For example - taking mountain bikes somewhere to ride -
| you can put them in the back, go ride, and leave them
| there while you go eat without someone stealing them. You
| can even load them the night before.
|
| dirty stuff can use a trailer (I've never needed one)
|
| and suv carries lots of people - which has worked out
| many many times more than I predicted.
|
| (it is a gas guzzler, but was cheaper because of that,
| and didn't compete with higher-priced pickup market)
| doublesocket wrote:
| Never understood why the yanks don't like vans? Pickups
| are much less popular here in the UK, many more people
| use vans. A crew cab van with removable seats is
| infinitely more flexible than a pickup, other than long
| stuff which you chuck on a roof rack.
| aeonik wrote:
| Vans usually have a very difficult time off-road or in
| mountainous terrain.
|
| Vans are commonly used in urban areas, especially by
| businesses, but suburbs, rural, and construction benefit
| from higher clearences of SUVs and trucks.
|
| SUVs are also usually much better in hazardous driving
| conditions because of a more optimal weight distribution.
| matt_s wrote:
| Some "yanks" align their identity with their vehicle.
| There are songs about trucks but yes a van or mini-van
| are more flexible.
|
| There are many that buy trucks for off road capabilities
| but probably 70% or more of truck owners don't go off
| road more than once a year. Many pick up truck models,
| like stock versions with crew cabs, are too long and not
| equipped for serious off-road use. Shallow sand/snow they
| can handle but so can SUVs.
| tyre wrote:
| Vans don't project manliness. Most people don't use
| pickup trucks for pickup truck things. They'd be fine
| with a station wagon, but they have self-confidence
| issues.
| some-guy wrote:
| Even cheaper than SUVs are used minivans. My 2005 Honda
| Odyssey was an amazing "truck" with a good amount of
| towing capacity for most cases.
| sroerick wrote:
| Yes, and they're awesome. Also much closer to 100k.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| What's 100K? My Lightning was just under 51K out the
| door, and it is not a base model. You must be referring
| to something else? Maybe pickups in general? It's true
| that they do tend to be expensive.
|
| Edit: OH, you mean the CT. Silly me.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| It is utility, just not the utility you're thinking of. Try
| spending all day, every day in a basic, rough riding pickup
| truck, then compare it to spending all day in a "luxobarge"
| that can still tow a 7,000lb trailer.
|
| To the people I know who drive trucks like that, they're
| basically mobile offices.
| scottyah wrote:
| > it's just a bad product. So you've never driven one?
|
| > A pickup truck should just be max utility You don't know
| much about trucks? What does this even mean, max utility?
| Trucks are designed for different purposes. Should we
| eliminate all programming languages besides bash or python?
|
| > especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
| Seems like you don't know much about business either. Most
| new products should NOT try to do everything at once the
| first time.
| uncletaco wrote:
| I don't know much about car economics but I'd think Tesla
| probably should have built a truck to sell as a fleet vehicle
| first. There are very few car brands that aren't part of a
| larger entity doing b2b vehicle sales.
| internet2000 wrote:
| > A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if
| you're a manufacturer making your first one
|
| That's very unrealistic considering the market.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| > A pickup truck should just be max utility
|
| Yet we are in a thread where one with max utility has been
| cancelled and one flop of the century continues to sell.
| catigula wrote:
| I feel like kudos for making a public eye-sore merely because
| people typically don't make public eye-sores is a bit missing
| the point.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| The Cybertruck also does the tightest turns because it has
| front and back wheel steering. I could imagine that to be
| useful on job sites.
| nearlyepic wrote:
| The kinds of people buying cybertrucks aren't going to be
| caught dead on a job site.
| revnode wrote:
| That's not true. Boss likes being flashy. You won't see
| them being used for actual work, but that's a different
| proposition.
| karlgkk wrote:
| Not really, sites are pretty much always spaced out.
| Ironically, it's best for city and daily driving - it's a
| pure luxury feature.
| jandrese wrote:
| It would be amazing in the city if it weren't two lanes
| wide.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Its not amazing in the city. The turning radius on the
| cybertruck is atrocious. Go look it up and quit believing
| the marketing bullshit.
| scottyah wrote:
| It's great, maybe stop looking it up and go drive one?
| sejje wrote:
| It's the same width as an F150
| throwaway-11-1 wrote:
| 2002 GMC Sierras did this, it was called quadrasteer
| usefulcat wrote:
| As did some models of Honda Prelude starting in '87.
| throwaway-11-1 wrote:
| whoa I was not aware of this, super cool
| olyjohn wrote:
| No it doesn't. A regular Suburban without 4 wheel steering
| still has a tighter turning radius. A fucking Suburban!
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| A full-size Ford Transit - which is _much_ larger than a
| Cybertruck, and much more useful - turns in about an 11-metre
| kerb-to-kerb circle.
|
| That's fully a metre and a half tighter than the Cybertruck.
| AngryData wrote:
| In my opinion it isn't useful at all because if the only
| thing you can get into a spot is a vehicle with 4-wheel
| steering, you have already fucked up your site planning. You
| aren't going to be delivering materials with that thing, bulk
| materials are too heavy and light materials are too large.
| Maybe tools, but it isn't that large to be a tool truck and
| too expensive for small handyman type work.
| Lammy wrote:
| > I do admire that they dared to do something different and
| took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the
| truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of
| imagination.
|
| I 1000% agree with this, in fact I _love_ the way it looks,
| like something out of a SEGA Saturn game. But I would never buy
| one for the same reasons I would never buy any Tesla, or in
| fact any EV, or any post-2014 car at all. But the looks of it
| are not one of those reasons :)
|
| I do have to laugh every time I see a Tesla with one of those
| "Bought this before we knew Elon was crazy!!" stickers, because
| to me they just read as "Wahhh I bought my car to make a
| statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-
| conscious about it!!". It's weird to me to think that other
| people are thinking that way about their automobiles, because I
| bought mine (Prius C) based on its features and how they fit
| into my needs and my life. I guess the Prius line was a popular
| "statement car" of the pre-Tesla era, though, like how Brian
| drives one on Family Guy, or the "Smug Alert" episode of South
| Park, but it was never that for me.
| burkaman wrote:
| > "Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes
| the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!"
|
| The correct interpretation for most people is "I bought my
| car because it was a good car and now for reasons beyond my
| control it may appear to be a political statement. Also sorry
| for giving that guy money, I didn't know he would spend it on
| Trump."
|
| I understand you don't think it's a good car, which is fine,
| but most people who bought one did not agree with you.
|
| Your comment is a little confusing because you obviously
| understand this concept, you bought a Prius because you
| thought it was a good car, not because of a political
| statement others may have projected onto your purchase. The
| same is true of most Tesla owners.
| pipo234 wrote:
| > I guess the Prius line was a popular "statement car" of the
| pre-Tesla era, though, like how Brian drives one on Family
| Guy, or the "Smug Alert" episode of South Park, but it was
| never that for me.
|
| ... So you admit to falling for Toyota product placement in
| cartoons.
| Lammy wrote:
| Learn to read. I actually didn't see that episode until
| years after I both owned a Prius and lived in San
| Francisco, and I found it very funny :)
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Let me get this straight. You bought a "statement car" but
| not for its statement, and then you assume that other people
| driving a different "statement car" bought it because of the
| statement?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| They also avoid buying certain cars to make a statement.
| Lammy wrote:
| Yes, anybody who puts a sticker on their car apologizing
| for owning it is somebody who bought it to make a
| statement. I bought mine because I researched best gas
| mileage, lowest ongoing maintenance cost, and dimensions
| that fit the the city, and that's what I came up with.
| slg wrote:
| >Yes, anybody who puts a sticker on their car apologizing
| for owning it is somebody who bought it to make a
| statement.
|
| Or the opposite, buying the car wasn't a statement at the
| time and they don't like that driving it feels like a
| statement now so they got a bumper sticker to acknowledge
| that their continued ownership is not a statement of
| support for Musk and his ideology.
| Lammy wrote:
| Real ones wouldn't be thinking about it at all.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Lots of reports of Tesla's getting keyed. I know Tesla
| owners who bought the sticker just to avoid getting
| keyed.
| scottyah wrote:
| My favorite is the cybertruck with the T O Y O T A decal
| on the back
| EA-3167 wrote:
| So it all boils down to "No True Scotsman"? How about I
| offer you an alternative:
|
| We don't try to guess why you bought what you bought, or
| why you need to so actively rationalize it, and you stop
| assuming that those stickers are something other than
| "Please don't key this car" signs. Less dramatically some
| of them are also "I bought this before the guy started
| throwing celebratory HiterGruss on stage and carving up
| important parts of the government for nonexistent
| savings."
|
| Which... for people outside of your bubble is something
| important.
| slg wrote:
| How are you defining "real ones"? Because it seems like
| you're implying that someone can't have political
| opinions while also occasionally making apolitical
| decisions.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Until someone who hates Elon (not saying that's wrong per
| se) throws a brick through the window (which IS wrong per
| se) and you're on the hook for paying for it.
| spiderice wrote:
| How is a Tesla a "statement car"? A Cybertruck, sure. But
| Tesla's are as normal as anything on the road nowadays.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes
| the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!". I
|
| I read it exactly the opposite. Somebody bought a car not
| because they were making a statement but just because they
| thought it was cool, only to find out later Elon was a nazi
| nutjob, and they don't want people to think they bought it
| because they share the same views.
| spiderice wrote:
| Nobody thinks you share the same views as the CEO of your
| car company. Jesus. GP is right. It makes them seem utterly
| self-conscious.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| They may not have put it there because they were "self-
| conscious" about their "statement car." They may have put it
| there in an honest attempt to avoid having their car
| vandalized for something they had nothing to do with.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| You're right about it looking like something out of a game. I
| passed one wrapped in fluorescent green at a gas station the
| other night (owner was checking the tire pressure) and it
| indeed made think 'low polygon count'. I would not have been
| entirely surprised if the driver had looked similar.
|
| Thing is, after the initial momentary amusement the novelty
| quickly evaporates. It doesn't have the compelling presence
| of, say, a Tumbler. https://brucewaynex.com/pages/tumbler
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'll applaud anything that tries to move us away from the
| current stale design trend where every car looks like the same
| boring bar of soap and every truck looks like the same
| aggressive, drivable, mechanized fist.
| alistairSH wrote:
| But _anything_ in this case is a pedestrian-maiming, finger-
| slicing, dumpster on dubs. Not sure that 's really a move in
| the right direction.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I like the fact the design is bold. I don't like the fact
| it's criminally unsafe.
|
| There are lots of interesting concept cars on every car
| show. Too bad companies choose to never make them.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| The bar of soap is aerodynamic
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient
| jeffbee wrote:
| Right. All cars are converging on the shape of the Dodge
| Intrepid Hybrid. It is simply unavoidable. It is
| carcinisation, but for cars.
| echelon wrote:
| They're so ugly to me.
|
| Anything with that teardrop shape is immediately out of my
| purchasing decision matrix.
|
| I like boxy vehicles and sharp angles you could cut
| yourself on. The Toyota FJ Cruiser. The new Ford Bronco.
| The new Land Cruiser FJ.
|
| The original DeLorean DMC-12 speaks to me. The Ferrari F40.
| The Corvette C8.
|
| The Unimog. FMTV trucks.
|
| Nothing that looks like a dollop of sour cream or a tear
| drop breast implant is ever going to appeal to me.
| Aerodynamics be damned.
| jandrese wrote:
| Politics or no, the price point ultimately dictated its maximum
| sales. By that measure it's a reasonable success, and if Elon
| was forecasting that they would sell multiple tens of thousands
| of vehicles per year at a $80,000 price point he needs to lay
| off the drugs. Elon sometimes seems like the living embodiment
| of "How much could a banana cost, Michael, $10?" parody of out
| of touch rich people.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| I think if people who like trucks didn't see videos of things
| like the bumper ripping off when towing or minor failures
| leading to whole vehicle shorts it might have done better.
| The people who want trucks want resilience and ability to
| self-service more than the average car buyer.
| overfeed wrote:
| Cybertruck offroading attempts were also a hoot to watch.
| The whole vibe is that it is merely a truck-shaped Tesla EV
| that's terrible at most truck tasks. Sure, there's a market
| for mall-run trucks with pristine beds and never get any
| mud on them, but it's not a big one.
| scottyah wrote:
| It's an amazing vehicle well suited to many normal tasks
| and more, and is an absolute pleasure to drive off road.
| I think you were subjected to either misinformation or
| very biased clips that were intended to warp your
| opinion.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| It actually wasn't the bumper that ripped off in that
| video, it was the entire rear subframe tearing in two.
| piyh wrote:
| I remember the "under $40k" announcement price
| scottyah wrote:
| 2019 just before covid was a bad time to make price
| estimates five years into the future.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| well half of the problem is that it ended up 2 years
| late.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I'll always give Tesla, SpaceX etc props for the work they
| accomplish, even though Elon is at the helm, he's not a perfect
| dude but I will give him props when he gets something right
| too. At the end of the day his employees are doing incredible
| work and it should not be written off because of Elon. To any
| Tesla / SpaceX employee whether you agree with Elon or not,
| thank you for helping to build a more interesting tomorrow.
| ge96 wrote:
| Yeah SpaceX's tech is amazing. Funny China's like "star link
| launches are bad" then they're trying to do even more, China
| knows what's up.
| Fazebooking wrote:
| Elon Shithead promised a lot for apparently a good price and
| wasn't able to deliver.
|
| It wasn't just the hate i think.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| The thing with Cybertrucks losing panels certainly didn't help.
|
| A big part of the Cybertruck marketing was the robustness of
| its unusual design: exoskeleton! space grade materials! They
| smashed the door with a hammer and it didn't dent (just avoid
| petanque balls...), Elon Musk commented that it would destroy
| the other vehicle in an accident. Morally dubious arguments
| sometimes, but it appeals to many potential customers.
|
| And then, the vehicle that is supposed to be a tank falls apart
| by looking at it funny. And the glued on steel plates, is it
| that the exoskeleton? Not only the design is controversial, but
| it failed at what it is supposed to represent.
| starik36 wrote:
| > many vehicles ... are almost indistinguishable
|
| That is so right on the money. I attended the LA Auto Show a
| couple of months back and the takeaway was that every
| manufacturer pretty much makes the same safe car. There might
| be a feature here and feature there, but it's the same car.
|
| In the years past they at least had lots of concept cars. This
| year, I maybe saw two and they weren't all that "concept".
| matwood wrote:
| > Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit
|
| I think the Cybertruck was DOA and his involvement in politics
| got people who shared his views to buy one in order to signal
| the same.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Also the fact that many truck deliveries were literally DOA
| as in the truck bricked itself in the driveway.
| scottyah wrote:
| This isn't even remotely true though?
| WheatMillington wrote:
| You can attribute the failure of this vehicle to politics if
| you like, but it's fairly obvious to anyone watching why it
| failed - it came out at double the proposed priced with half
| the proposed range. It's not even the hideous design, there
| were hundreds of thousands of "pre orders" who knew about the
| horrible design. It's the price and range.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Eh, that might explain failure to convert preorders to sales.
| But it doesn't really matter when comparing to other vehicles
| in the same market.
| speed_spread wrote:
| > it's not to my taste
|
| It's not just you, it's universally tasteless and that's the
| point: It is a contrarian vehicle.
|
| In an age where the Internet has flattened subcultures into
| surface phenomenons, the only remaining way to publicly
| distance yourself from normality is by making patently,
| obviously bad decisions and using the backlash to further fuel
| your ego.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Elon going off the deep end is the tail wagging the dog. It's
| an objectively terrible car.
|
| The collapse of the company overall, particularly the Model Y,
| which is a great car, is all about Elon. Not only his unveiling
| as a fascist, but he essentially looted the company.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| pumped the stock and then tried to use the twitter buy as a
| way to sell greatly without taking the price too hard.
|
| they wouldn't let him out of the sale -- he sued 3 times to
| get out of the twitter buy agreement -- so now he owns that
| too.
| jlarocco wrote:
| Honestly, both the Lightning and the Cybertruck are just bad
| trucks. Some review of the Lightning I read said it has less
| than a 100 mile range towing a full load.
|
| It's a fashion statement, not a work vehicle.
| iAMkenough wrote:
| I counted 49 pickup trucks with empty beds in the parking
| garage downtown this morning.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Half of them sticking out into the roadway blocking half
| the lane. What an entitlement.
| bluGill wrote:
| So? You saw them for one subset of what they are doing.
| Perhaps the most common one, but still just a subset.
| sroerick wrote:
| Wouldn't there be a selection bias, as trucks in parking
| garages are much less likely to be doing hauling /towing
| tasks?
| scottyah wrote:
| I counted 50 sedans with empty seats in the parking garage
| downtown this morning.
| wolrah wrote:
| > Some review of the Lightning I read said it has less than a
| 100 mile range towing a full load.
|
| Because of course towing long distances is the only reason
| you'd ever want a truck.
|
| Obviously we can start by acknowledging that the vast
| majority of F-150s (and other half-ton pickup trucks) sold in
| the US these days are purchased by people who maybe haul a
| load of mulch or dirt once a year and otherwise use them as
| daily commuter vehicles for which no part of their
| "truckiness" actually matters for any reason other than
| image. I absolutely agree that these people should drive
| something that's not a truck, but that's a battle we're not
| going to win, so I'd rather have them driving an EV truck
| instead of a gas-guzzling V8. It's an improvement in some
| ways even if in reality that suburban parent would be best
| off with a minivan as their daily and renting a pickup from
| Home Depot for that mulch run.
|
| My one friend who has a Lightning is exactly this. She used
| to have a gas F-150, replaced it with a RAV4 that she didn't
| like so she rapidly replaced that with the Lightning and
| loves it. Lots of power, quiet, smooth, and never needs to go
| to the gas station. I don't think she's ever fast charged it,
| just plugs in at home and goes about her life.
|
| Where I live there are a lot of people who actually do need a
| truck or truck-based SUV for recreational purposes but don't
| really go long distances, like towing their boat up to the
| lake for the weekend, towing ATVs to the trail, or towing a
| RV trailer to a nearby state/national park where they'll then
| plug in to the nice 50A outlet and charge back up overnight
| without having to think about it.
|
| There are also an absolute ton of commercial fleets that need
| pickup trucks for one reason or another but their trucks
| never leave their metro area and always end up back at the
| office every night. Lawn care, delivery, etc. where the only
| downside of the current lineup of electric trucks is that
| they're all only offered as the ultra short bed crew cab
| configuration instead of a long-bed standard cab.
|
| ---
|
| EVs are absolutely the wrong choice for time-constrained long
| distance travel, like long-haul trucking or the midwestern
| three-day-weekend road trip, but the Lightning and its GM
| competition that were actually designed to be good at things
| instead of a pure image machine are very good at certain
| roles.
| wolrah wrote:
| > I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries
| roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in
| politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle
| with a strong association with Elon, that there was an
| immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway,
| but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who
| are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift
| around its launch.
|
| IMO the sort of person who wants a vehicle like Elon's dumpster
| has a strong overlap with Elon's politics. Basically everything
| about its design and marketing was aimed at the sort of person
| who is focused on presenting a masculine image, who thinks
| they're going to be in a war zone on their daily commute, who
| wishes they could drive through a crowd of protesters, etc.
|
| Basically the only thing "left wing" about it is the fact that
| it's electric.
|
| > Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the
| category somewhere new.
|
| The only thing it actually did new was the drive-by-wire
| steering, which is by all accounts impressive but could have
| been done on any normal vehicle as well. The "unique" styling
| is mostly just re-learning lessons that John DeLorean taught
| the rest of the industry decades ago.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| > IMO the sort of person who wants a vehicle like Elon's
| dumpster has a strong overlap with Elon's politics. Basically
| everything about its design and marketing was aimed at the
| sort of person who is focused on presenting a masculine
| image, who thinks they're going to be in a war zone on their
| daily commute, who wishes they could drive through a crowd of
| protesters, etc.
|
| Elon is an ass, but this is still the most crudely and
| childishly stereotyped thing I've read on the internet today.
| Congrats.
| spacecadet wrote:
| While largely true, that trucks have adorned the comforts of
| luxury cars, most are running 6' beds. This largely ignores the
| evolution of the truck and the job site. My family operates
| contracting and excavating businesses that operating in all
| manner of weather and terrain, no one is carrying loads in
| their truck beds anymore... its not even legal most places
| unless you convert to a dump bed...
|
| Whats in their trucks? Well, a crew cab occasionally is used
| for car pooling workers, where they all park their vintage
| beater trucks at the business... Sometimes weather sensitive
| tools, or job related items, documents, you can just throw
| these in a glove box... The bed usually has a gas pump for
| refilling remote equipment. Cones and other safety shit. Sand
| hoppers for plowing. Yes they also use these "luxury" trucks to
| plow.
|
| The thing is... These people are making decent salaries... my
| direct relatives are multi-millionaires who still pick up a
| welder, a hammer, a shovel.
|
| Im see alot of assumptions about why trucks evolved the way
| they did, who owns them, and what for... I would argue the
| "luxury faker" is a very small crowd, one that likely moved to
| the cybertruck... and despite the trucks looking modernized,
| are beaten to pulp over long service lives.
|
| Now, go get in a modern tractor, dump truck, or excavator. They
| are also all AC, Radios, Computers, Leather Seats, etc...
| People want to be comfortable.
| guluarte wrote:
| gl getting out of one in case of a crash when the battery that
| opens the doors malfunction
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| I'm very much on the left, and I honestly like the design of
| the Cybertruck. (I know this puts me in a minority.) It is
| disappointing that the original "unibody" design was abandoned.
| The new design where the body panels just randomly fall off is
| silly.
|
| If it was made by some other company I would genuinely consider
| buying one. But I would never buy another Tesla. I owned an
| older Model X, before Elon went full-fascism. And even ignoring
| Elon, the car was awful. It was shoddily built, kept breaking
| down, and the service experience was _shockingly_ bad.
| Absolutely atrocious.
|
| But after all that, I can't give money to Elon ever again. I
| can't fund America's descent into fascism. I could not live
| with myself.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > I'm very much on the left, and I honestly like the design
| of the Cybertruck. (I know this puts me in a minority.) It is
| disappointing that the original "unibody" design was
| abandoned. The new design where the body panels just randomly
| fall off is silly.
|
| Function should drive form. The design would be cool if it
| was for a cool function.
|
| Say you have a beautifully-made, expertly-weighted tack
| hammer. That looks cool on your work bench and works well. If
| you refashion the hammer into a kitchen spoon, it looks dumb
| in the kitchen and works poorly for stirring a pot.
| scottyah wrote:
| It is designed for cool functions, although a pure
| exoskeleton turned out to be infeasible the thick panels
| still help with side crashes, helping it get the Top Safety
| Pick+ award (equal/better than the competition other than
| "safety belt reminders). The steel makes it great for
| driving in places with branches and grocery cart/door
| dings. The panels also don't just "randomly" fall off,
| there was a period of time where the manufacturing process
| didn't follow the spec on applying the adhesive so ice
| crystals would form and degrade the adhesion.
| stickfigure wrote:
| I'm one of the few people that _love_ the cybertruck design,
| but even I can 't look at one these days and not think
| "swasticar". It's terribly disappointing, really. Fully self-
| inflicted.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| I mean, in certain circles online, people were literally
| calling Cybertrucks "Swasticars." Not the greatest for
| marketing.
| c0brac0bra wrote:
| Have we completely forgotten about how Tesla dealerships were
| shot up, firebombed? Video after video showing cybertrucks
| vandalized with scratches and spray paint?
|
| It may be a terrible car from a terrible program, but these
| events at least bear mentioning. If you saw it happening in
| 2025, would it have a cooling effect on your decision to
| purchase? Who would want the trouble?
| scottyah wrote:
| The targeted vandalism/terrorism definitely stopped a lot of
| purchases.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Lots of people are still buying other Teslas.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| I mean as with most "product" things related to Musk, it's more
| about the meme stock than any fundamental coupling to finances
| in the real world.
|
| Ford is a car company. They sell cars. The Lightning was a
| poorly selling car, so they stopped selling it. Pretty simple!
|
| Tesla is a lifestyle company. They make line go up by owning
| the libs, catering to edgelord identity, and triggering
| speculation. The Cybertruck probably gained the company more
| memetic shareholder value than it lost as a real product.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| It's a shame the Lightning got discontinued.
|
| As an EV owner, it sucks that the main thing holding the
| technology back is misconceptions and misunderstanding, rather
| than actual practical matters.
|
| People think EVs are cars with tanks of electrons, and run
| aground the same way you would if you thought horses were cars
| full of hay. It's a different transport tool that gives the same
| results, you just have to know how to use it properly.
| mdavid626 wrote:
| I disagree that EV-s are held back by misconceptions. More
| their price and range.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Thanks for illustrating the point.
| loeg wrote:
| They have worse prices (higher) and worse range (lower,
| particularly for towing). These aren't misconceptions. (My
| only car is an EV that I'm happy with. But lying about EVs
| doesn't benefit advocates.)
| fullstop wrote:
| Obviously this is slanted by tax credits, but the EV that
| I have shares a name with the existing gas model and was
| less expensive.
|
| EVs aren't for everything, but mine fits my use case
| perfectly.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > They have worse prices (higher)
|
| Does this factor in cost of ownership? Gas, oil changes,
| less complexity?
|
| > worse range (lower, particularly for towing)
|
| Towing reduces a gas powered car's range, too.
| mdavid626 wrote:
| (Towing) You can fill it up in 5 min.
|
| Not true for EV.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Pop in for a pee and a snack. In the 15-20 mins that
| takes, you'll have a good amount of charge.
|
| Towing is also a _bit_ of an edge case.
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-
| siz...
|
| > According to Edwards' data, 75 percent of truck owners
| use their truck for towing one time a year or less
| (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go
| off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent
| of truck owners use their truck for hauling--putting
| something in the bed, its ostensible raison d'etre--once
| a year or less.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Hell, ain't true for any gas pickup I've owned, either.
| Big tanks, and often temperamental bastards that have to
| be babysat and won't take fuel at full pump speed in any
| case.
|
| Most road trip stops, according to the AAA, are 15
| minutes anyway. Only on the Internet does everyone take 5
| minutes to refuel.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| They have _artificially_ worse prices _in the US_ where
| EVs are mostly only getting sold as "luxury" vehicles
| and competition is hobbled by dealer networks and dealer
| laws and import tariffs.
|
| Most other parts of the world EVs are starting to be
| cheaper than the equivalent ICE in the same category.
|
| Range often doesn't need to get better, the impression of
| range needs to change. That's where a lot of
| misconceptions play into effect, over-focusing on things
| like gas-station-like charging stations over at-home
| charging. Over-focusing on "zero to full tank/battery
| statistics" when no one keeps a gas vehicle with a full
| tank overnight every night. Over-focusing on high speed
| charging and ignoring boring but useful "Level 1"
| charging, which is "just about everywhere" because our
| society has been building electrical outlets for a long
| time. Sure, the experience changes in things like long
| distance trips, but experience changes aren't "worse" by
| default of being a change.
| phainopepla2 wrote:
| I still have to pay the price whether it's artificial or
| not
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I can do a ten hour road trip with a family of four plus a
| dog in a used (2022) EV that I got for ~30k last year. I
| think the idea that price and range are problems is exactly
| the misconception that op was taking about. They are somewhat
| more expensive, although when I originally did the calculus,
| fuel savings made up the difference in monthly payments for a
| new vehicle, but that's going to vary a lot. The is a very
| small proportion of people for whom range is a legitimate
| concern.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Now do the range/time/stops calculation with a travel
| trailer.
|
| Yes, if we're talking about normal family travel, an EV
| works fine for many trips (though there are still charging
| "dead spots" in parts of the country - looking at you WV).
|
| But, "truck stuff" like towing, they aren't there yet.
| Maybe in a few years when we get the next generation of
| battery and charger tech.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| In truth you cannot really do this because range is a
| function of drag, not really weight.
|
| So if you are towing a 2000lb empty box mobile home it's
| gonna be worse than towing an 8000lb flat bed of
| decorative boulders.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Yep. It takes a massive battery (and massive "normal"
| range) to pull off towing any distance. Unless I'm wrong,
| only the Chevy Silverado EV has the range (480ish) to
| make a reasonable tow vehicle, but only with the big
| battery, which pushes the price north of $90k.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| AgingWheels on youtube did a video testing exactly this.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| I actually enjoy doing road trips in my tesla more so than
| in ICEs, because of the forced breaks. With ICEs, stops
| would be either for food or for bathroom breaks. A lot of
| times just eating in the car while driving. But for a 10
| hour drive I am forced to take 4 20 minute stops - so once
| every 2 hours. This ends up making me feel a lot better at
| the end of the trip and also gives you "guilt free" time to
| enjoy a random park you've never been to, or sit down and
| have a meal. So, lets say 80 minutes of added time for a 10
| hour trip, vs maybe 40 minutes that I would have added in
| my gas guzzler. 40 minutes extra on a 10 hour trip just
| isn't that big of a deal to me and especially so
| considering all the benefits from walking around for a bit
| or seeing some new places.
|
| Obviously you could do that same thing in an ICE car, but I
| feel the pressure to keep moving so it hits different.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| This calculation gets even better when you count "never
| have to go to a gas station except during long distance
| travel".
|
| Those minutes add up!
| Uvix wrote:
| The minutes add up, but it only takes one long distance
| trip to burn months or years of gas station time saved.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Nah. EVs can often charge ~80% in 20-30 mins. Pumping gas
| takes me at least 5 mins. You win pretty quickly on this
| metric unless you do a _lot_ of 200+ mile trips.
| mdavid626 wrote:
| How are you driving for 10 hours with only 80 min
| charging?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| I make sure to have 100% charge before I leave, and then
| I drive it down to 5-10% and hit up a super charger. The
| batteries charge the fastest from 0-50%(~15 mins), so I
| end up having about 60-70% charge by the time I'm heading
| out. Then I just repeat the process. I also arrive at my
| destination with 5-10%. I have a 2023 model Y for the
| record.
|
| I also try to drive in a manner that is friendliest to
| the battery (ie I'm not accelerating a bunch to pass
| people or driving 90 mph), and almost all the driving is
| on a highway. But, that's how I naturally drive in my gas
| car as well.
|
| I do ~Denver to ~Salt Lake City and back 2x/year through
| the Wyoming route and I've done it 6 times so far in a
| Tesla and 4 times in a gas SUV. I do it in the early/late
| summer so temperatures are warm, which I'm sure helps the
| mileage.
|
| The tesla mapper site claims you can do it with only 35
| mins charging, but I prefer the northern route, and my
| actual departure/destinations are about ~1hr more
| driving, but I'm sure that wouldn't add more than 45
| minutes to the charging time: https://www.tesla.com/trips
| #/?v=LR_RWD_NV36&o=Denver,%20CO,%...
| mdavid626 wrote:
| That's pretty cool!
|
| How does cold weather affect this? What about when there
| is no supercharger (I live in Germany)?
|
| Or driving faster, 160kmh/100mph in Germany is normal.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I recently did a road trip to Maine, and the whole week
| it didn't get above 15F. The difference in range was
| about 20% less. But I drive at 65mph with cruise control
| all the time.
| alistairSH wrote:
| For me, it's some intermediate trips where the EV really
| "fails" (though admittedly the gap closes every year and
| the use case below is basically a worst case scenario
| short of trying to tow trailer on the same route).
|
| A common trip for me is DC -> Dolly Sods WV for camping.
| Less than 3 hours drive time each way, about 150 miles. I
| only need to stop for gas once during the trip and for
| only as long as the tank takes to fill (no meal needed).
|
| In an EV, that ~6 hour round-trip takes about 9 hours due
| to 2 hours of charging and a 60 mile detour. That's using
| ABRP, with an Ioniq 5 from Reston VA to Dolly Sods
| Wilderness and back, no overnight charging because it's a
| wilderness location (gravel parking lot in the middle of
| nowhere).
| morshu9001 wrote:
| tbh that sounds like cope, this isn't a constraint people
| want to add
| nikcub wrote:
| Resale value is starting to ward some people off.
|
| You can buy 1-2 year old used Teslas and BYD's in Australia
| for ~30% below retail.
|
| Meanwhile Toyota hybrids not just retain their value but
| there have been moments where used RAV4's are listed above
| retail because the waitlist for new was so long.
| legobmw99 wrote:
| The poor resale market for EVs just means that people who
| actually have some understanding of the battery lifespans
| can get very good deals on 1-2 year old cars
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Tesla is a special case because they manipulate their
| pricing on a monthly, sometimes daily basis, and in the
| past they've changed the price quite significantly. In the
| US, the tax credits also really screw with the market
| dynamics. Lots of people think the car depreciates really
| quickly because they don't realize the original buyer
| didn't pay MSRP. I paid $20K under MSRP for my Lightning
| and in the just over a year I've owned it, the value has
| dropped about 7-8K. Pretty normal for the first year of a
| new vehicle.
| jsight wrote:
| Exactly, price is a huge problem. IIRC, the average selling
| price of F-150 is ~50k.
|
| The extended range Lightning tended to be $60k and up. Sure,
| it had AWD, but lots of people didn't need that. The
| Cybertruck is even more expensive.
|
| Both had huge preorders when they were announced at ~50k.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| My 2024 Lightning Flash was just under 51K, FWIW. Extended
| range, plenty of toys, definitely not the base model.
|
| I admit I was also under the impression they were
| expensive, and I was shopping for a Powerboost F150 first,
| until someone told me that MSRP was a lie.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Range is the misconception, because people view range through
| the "sit and fill up then drive till empty" paradigm.
|
| That is not how EVs work or how they should be used. They
| should be charged overnight/when you are doing something
| else, and on road trips should be charged to align with other
| stops even if those stops are 10 minutes. It's rare that I
| have ever done the "sit in the car for 40 minutes waiting for
| charge", and extremely common to do the "Put car on charger
| for 13 minutes while going into [insert any of the gazillion
| places with chargers in the parking lot] to use the bathroom,
| stretch legs, and get a snack, or see a landmark"
|
| Also you usually structure it so you arrive at your
| destination with very low charge, because you fill up while
| there. I've yet to be at a hotel with a gas pump in the lot.
|
| Again, EVs function differently than gas, and that change of
| paradigm really gets people ruffled up and confused.
| mdavid626 wrote:
| That's exactly the problem. I'd be happy to use an EV
| daily, as I drive short distances. But when I drive longer,
| then I don't want to waste hours on charging.
|
| The other day I drove 700km in just about 5.5 hours (German
| Autobahn). Few stops to pee. With EV that would be few
| hours more (!). If this doesn't bother you, then it's fine.
| It matters to me though.
|
| Sometimes I also drive early in the morning 600km, and in
| the afternoon back, so I'm home until 22:00. With EV,
| that's just impossible.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| As long as there's a fast charging station somewhere
| along the route you'd need more like 30 minutes to charge
| midway through, not multiple hours.
|
| You also surely recognize that your driving patterns are
| very atypical and a car not working for them says very
| little about how suitable the car is for the market as a
| whole.
| mdavid626 wrote:
| Assuming car can charge that fast. This is why I said
| "price and range".
|
| Renault 5 EV charges with 11kW.
| bluGill wrote:
| A fast charging station that is working, that has the
| correct connector for your car (including adapters you
| carry), that your car will work with (Tesla hasn't opened
| their superchargers to call cars with the NACS
| connector), that you have an account with... There are
| too many things that just are not there.
|
| One top of that you need to find a charger. They are all
| over, but many of them are slow speed chargers. There are
| also a lot of gaps, if you pass a charger with 50%
| battery remaining you can't be sure you will make the
| next one. (most cars can pass several gas station with 5%
| gas in the tank and still make it to one). You need to
| ensure you will get back to your car when it is charged
| so they don't charge extra (this is a problem if you are
| at a concert or something and are trying to charge while
| doing something else that can't be interupted)
|
| Someday all the above will be fixed. Everyone agrees NACS
| is the future connector, but it isn't rolled out. Someday
| every "gas station" will have a charger with the gas
| pumps (or perhaps something else?) - at least along
| routes where people often make long trips. Someday you
| won't need a phone/account, just swipe a card - or so I
| hope. But someday isn't today.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| In your typical 475km EV sedan, you would only need about
| 20 minutes of charging to do that 700km.
|
| This is why I am like a broken record repeating that EV
| misconceptions kill EVs. You are applying gas car logic
| to electric cars, which is what people do, and stops them
| from getting an EV.
|
| But it's wrong.
| mdavid626 wrote:
| Are you assuming 250kW chargers? ...and cars which can
| charge that fast?
|
| Renault 5 EV charges with 11kW. This is the size of car I
| need.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| If you often mowed a town park, you wouldn't buy a hand-
| push lawnmower and then be upset about lawn mower
| technology.
|
| The Renault 5 is a town car. Its specs are closer to a
| golf cart than a motorcar. It fills a niche, but if you
| are traveling often, a different EV would suite you
| better.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You are perhaps an edge case. For many people (the vast
| majority), you end up spending way, way less time
| refueling, even if the occasional road trip takes a
| little longer. It depends on how important time is to
| you.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| > They should be charged overnight/when you are doing
| something else
|
| This is fine if you're a homeowner. For a huge chunk of
| people living in denser housing, this is not feasible, and
| at best impractical.
| pixl97 wrote:
| The big problem here is we need a hybrid stage in between.
|
| I have a hybrid now, it's still a conventional powertrain,
| and it's not chargeable. That's not exactly what I want,
| but it's what I could get.
|
| I want a fully electric drive train hybrid with around 100
| miles capacity on the battery, then a generator that's big
| enough to keep it running if the battery is drained.
|
| 100 miles gets you through the average day without having
| to use gas.
|
| An electric drive train turns your engine to a generator
| that runs at a fixed speed and is more efficient. It also
| massively reduces the complexity turning into a system more
| like an EV.
|
| And, if I go on a long trip, the car still gets me to where
| I'm going without charges (unless I choose to so I can save
| gas).
| ashtonbaker wrote:
| I actually leased a Kia EV6 recently without too much
| research into the charging situation, assuming that in 2025
| it was probably pretty well figured out, and I could just
| do as you propose and just charge in small bursts at the
| grocery store etc. But:
|
| - It didn't come with a home charger at all. They're not
| cheap.
|
| - It came with a J1772 adapter, but no CCS adapter. The car
| itself has NACS. So I'm limited to Tesla superchargers,
| which are expensive, unless I buy a new adapter (not cheap,
| or cheap, but suspicious Temu brands).
|
| - The experience of using all of these different branded
| charging points is _awful_. You need to create 10 different
| accounts with a bunch of terrible apps. The maps to find
| charging infrastructure seem universally awful.
|
| - Pretty common to arrive at a charging location to find
| that some nutjob has hacked off all the charging cables.
| The only reliably maintained charge points are the larger,
| more expensive high speed charging locations.
|
| I think a lot of the issues would be solved if I was more
| committed to the car and the house that I'm living in, and
| installed a home charger to charge at night. But the
| charging experience out in the world is absolutely _dismal_
| when compared to gas vehicles, even if you change your
| behavior.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| A 600 mile trip can (theoretically) be done with 1 charge,
| because you leave home with full range, and arrive with 0
| charge (and fill up overnight). That one charge is done while
| eating dinner, _or spaced out in increments over the course
| of the trip_ , stops which you would take anyway. I know few
| people who want to bang out 10 hours without stopping for at
| least 1-2 hours over the course of the trip. And those who
| do, can be the edge case with gas cars.
|
| So you need to go 600 miles, and you need 1 full charge worth
| of energy during that.
|
| If that one charge takes 1 hour, you can also break it up
| into four 15 minute sessions at any time of your chosing.
|
| I'm sorry, but almost no regular person does 10 hours without
| at least four 15 minute stops.
|
| Range is not at all the problem people make it out to be.
| mdavid626 wrote:
| Which EV can go 600 miles with one charge, or with so
| little charging?
|
| How much does that car cost?
|
| Are you assuming, that every charger on the way is 200kW?
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Lucid Grand Touring can do it in one charge (that lasts
| ~45 minutes). Expensive, but it could do it.
|
| I did Shreveport, LA to Pesos, TX as an example.
|
| If you're OK with 2 charging stops, an Ioniq 6 or a Tesla
| Model 3 will work just fine.
|
| Also, charging speed is irrelevant to how many stops you
| need. Most chargers are >150kW these days, though.
|
| If you truly want to minimize charging stops, you'd be
| better served charging 3+ times for shorter periods of
| time, though.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Pecos?
| Kirby64 wrote:
| I picked Shreveport, LA as a starting location and went
| west towards El Paso until I found a city that was
| slightly over 600 miles of distance. The cities are
| mostly irrelevant unless you pick something that is
| exceptionally hilly such as routes through mountain
| ranges or something.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| You can get Model 3 LR that will do it for $20k used.
|
| Like everyone else, you are thinking in "gas car" trying
| to resolve an electric car problem.
|
| You start every trip in an EV with full range (unplug
| from home base charger). You drive 300 miles. You full
| recharge. You drive another 300 miles. You plug-in and go
| to sleep.
|
| 600 miles. One charge. $20k EV.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| A used Model 3 LR cannot do 300 miles of highway driving
| in almost any condition. Even a brand new one cannot do
| that. The only way you get 300mi of driving out of a
| Model 3 is if you drive at 35mph or something, which
| would be wildly impractical for any road trip situation.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You'd do a good bit better at 35. A realistic range at
| 65-70mph would be about 250-260.
| bluGill wrote:
| Where can I find chargers on demand like that? There are a
| lot of slow chargers that won't give you much range in an
| hour. There are a few fast chargers that will, but they are
| much less common - enough to make the long trips possible
| but you need to stop where the fast charger is not where
| you are going to eat a meal or use a bathroom anyway. (gas
| stations are everywhere and so if you need a bathroom you
| can get gas at the same time)
| structural wrote:
| My 10hr drives usually have 2 stops at 30mins-1hr each, for
| food. Unfortunately, stopping at a restaurant for a meal
| doesn't leave the vehicle in a location that has a charger,
| for the most part. Other parts of the world may differ, but
| the infrastructure to "just spend 15 minutes charging"
| whenever you want is not there.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Depends a lot on the particular example. My Lightning was
| less expensive than the Powerboost I had been shopping for
| originally. And 250-300 miles is well beyond my typical daily
| driving range requirement (and Superchargers are pretty
| plentiful in most of the areas I ever find myself).
| threetonesun wrote:
| An F-150 Lightning and Cybertruck weigh somewhere between 6000
| and 7000 pounds, so I personally think of them the same way as
| if you replaced your horse with a hippo.
|
| It's not hard to convince people to move to electric, just make
| it such a better economic proposition that it would be silly
| not to.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| My EV costs about 1/5th per mile what my previous vehicle
| used to (and that was already relatively efficient). I think
| we're pretty much already there when it comes to cost.
|
| I think the best reasons for not having an ev at the moment
| are 1. Not being able to charge it cheaply overnight where
| you live, or 2. Doing more than 400 miles in a single day
| more often than 5 times per year.
|
| I think an ev would work well for anyone not in those
| categories.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| No pickup is light. A Lightning weighs about the same as a
| gasser F250, and less than a diesel F250.
| subpixel wrote:
| I disagree. I really want a Lightning but live in a very rural
| place, weekend in an even more rural place, and need to pull a
| trailer pretty often.
|
| I already have a plug-in hybrid that gets 40+ miles/charge and
| have opined all over the internet that the perfect car is one
| that gets 100+ miles/charge before firing any gas engine.
|
| It sounds like the next Lightning will give me that though I
| don't put much stock in their promises. Personally the Scout is
| too bougie but it does similarly.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| I don't get plug in hybrids. All other engine types save you
| more money compared to the next less efficient alternative
| the more you use them, but plugins get closer to the less
| efficient alternative (regular hybrid) the more you use them.
| Add in the approximately 25% price hike over the hybrid
| version when there is one and it makes no sense to me.
| danans wrote:
| > but plugins get closer to the less efficient alternative
| (regular hybrid) the more you use them.
|
| As long as most of your drive cycle fits within the EV
| range of the plugin hybrid, they are cheaper to operate
| than a regular hybrid. The crossover point depends on the
| drive cycle and the cost of electricity vs gasoline.
|
| I had a plug-in hybrid SUV that got 2.2miles/kWh in EV
| mode, which covered 75% of the miles I drove. The net
| savings were significant vs an equivalent plain hybrid SUV
| in my area, which would get basically the same gasoline
| miles/gal.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| But the problem is that means you drove a minuscule
| amount so if you'd bought a hybrid you would have still
| used very little gas and your car would have been much
| cheaper. Generously, the full range of a plugin hybrid is
| equivalent to about a gallon of gas.
| eMSF wrote:
| Using a plug-in hybrid as an EV can and will wear out the
| drive battery over the lifetime of the car. It doesn't
| even matter if you don't intend to keep the car for very
| long as a rational market will price this in. The cost
| ($10k or more) goes a long way at the pump.
| Marsymars wrote:
| Depends on the car and driving patterns. I've got a friend
| with the PHEV Escape that he charges in his garage. It's
| the cheapest hybrid Escape that Ford sells, and he does all
| his driving on EV mode unless he has to do a longer trip
| outside of the city.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| The Escape is interesting. I wonder how they manage to
| sell without a premium.
| subpixel wrote:
| I drive it to avoid burning gas, while not being dependent
| on electricity alone - not to save money.
|
| For three years my plug-in hybrid let me commute 50 miles
| daily on next to no gasoline.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| I still don't think that perspective is rational. It
| saved at most 1 gallon of gas per day from being burned,
| and you still burn gas on longer trips.
|
| I drive a plain ICE engine, but I plan for my next car to
| be a full EV for the reasons you state, plus the savings
| on gas for all miles driven (and I have driven 30k miles
| in the past year).
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I disagree along with you. EVs would work for 80% of the
| population, there is a long tail of people who an EV will
| never (well foreseeable future) work for.
|
| Thankfully, the mass of humanity that should be transitioning
| lives in populated areas and never tows anything for more
| than 75 miles. There is no need to get bogged down in back
| and forths with the small subset of people who an EV will not
| work for.
| floxy wrote:
| Seems to me like the Chevy Silverado with the 200 kWh battery
| pack is the EV pickup to beat.
| danans wrote:
| > It's a shame the Lightning got discontinued. > As an EV
| owner, it sucks that the main thing holding the technology back
| is misconceptions and misunderstanding, rather than actual
| practical matters.
|
| The F150 Lighting (and the Cybertruck) are failing precisely
| because it was impractical. It was expensive, has limited range
| when doing actual "pickup truck" work, like hauling tons of
| construction materials. It was built for the very niche market
| of buyers at the intersection of luxury pickups and EVs.
|
| People who buy huge luxury pickups tend not to want EVs, and
| people who buy EVs tend not to want huge luxury pickup trucks.
|
| A practical work truck needs to be smaller, less luxurious, and
| less expensive, electric or not. If Ford follows through and
| releases a plugin-hybrid Maverick with 150ish miles of EV range
| plus the onboard generator, that would be ideal.
|
| A pure EV drivetrain on the other hand is incredibly practical
| for daily commuter and even long distance travel - assuming you
| have home charging - but not for hauling tons of stuff long
| distances.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The lighting is fine for towing, especially the type that
| people usually do. You can tow up to 10,000lbs and the truck
| has ridiculous power to pull it.
|
| What you can't do it tow it long distances (>90mi, worst
| case) without 40 minute stops every 1.5 hours. That sucks.
|
| But the truth is _very few truck owners are towing huge loads
| long distances_.
|
| However, if you are pulling your lawn care trailer around
| town, you will not have a problem, because every day you
| start with a full charge.
|
| As an aside, the main killer of range for a trailer is a
| function of speed and drag. Low drag trailers driven at
| highway speeds (60-65) have marginal impacts on range,
| regardless of weight.
|
| Again, the whole thing is ridden with misconceptions and
| misunderstandings. The majority of people who tow stuff, can
| still tow stuff while reaping cheaper operating costs.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| > But the truth is very few truck owners are towing huge
| loads long distances.
|
| This pattern also applies more broadly. Most people don't
| actually need to drive 400 miles without stopping, don't
| actually need an SUV, and in some cases don't actually need
| a truck. For a huge swath of the population some variation
| on a hybrid/electric hatchback/wagon or minivan is actually
| the best match for their needs, but practicality is rarely
| the prevailing factor in vehicle purchase decisions.
| array_key_first wrote:
| I don't think that market is a niche at all. From what I can
| tell, most pickup owners don't use them as a pickup. They use
| them as a more masculine pavement SUV. So, you'd think, the
| F150 L and Cyber truck would be perfect.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Right, but the people who buy luxury trucks dont want EVs.
| EVs dont align with the signal they are trying to send
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| If you just use it as a pick up a few times a year, it
| could be worth it. I have furniture that I want to get rid
| of, and if I had a pick up I would have done it already.
| pepperball wrote:
| Man, a gun is so much cheaper.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| And equally less visible (or legally visible).
| danans wrote:
| > From what I can tell, most pickup owners don't use them
| as a pickup
|
| You are right, except most of those people don't want an EV
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > hauling tons of construction materials
|
| Lots of people do exactly that. You can load it all the way
| past GVWR and it has little effect on the range. It's towing
| that hurts. Many people use these for business with great
| success.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _...misconceptions and misunderstanding, rather than actual
| practical matters._
|
| What's the range of an F-150 Lightning when towing a small
| travel trailer? The Rivian R1T is ~150 miles give or take. I
| assume the F-150 is similar.
|
| At least for towing, the math isn't great. Especially when you
| add in the cost - my Honda Ridgeline was $42k in 2021. EV
| trucks are roughly double that amount.
| redeeman wrote:
| of course your ridgeline has other ways to hurt you :)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWyjfbS7MMA
| alistairSH wrote:
| Funny because it's true.
|
| It's the most boring and practical vehicle I've ever owned.
| But, it does everything, so I'm having a hard time
| convincing my wife I need a Ranger Raptor or (used) AMG
| GLE.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > my Honda Ridgeline was $42k in 2021. EV trucks are roughly
| double that amount
|
| My Lightning was <$51K in 2024.
| frogperson wrote:
| The main thing holding EV back is the oil industry, not the
| tech. The US is the only country lagging on EV and its all
| because the industry puts so much effort in to squashing all
| progress.
|
| EVs are simpler and cheaper. Look at how fast adoption is
| growing outside the US. If US citizens could buy a BYD for the
| same price as in China, the the US auto makers and oil
| companies would be in trouble.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| It's not only US, it's global.
|
| I drive quite a lot throught southern Europe with my EV, and
| it's super frustrating that gas stations have the
| infrastructure on the highway while for my EV I have to go
| just outside the highway to a fast charger (wasting time),
| then I need to pay again (and waste a lot of time to go
| through the gate) to get back on the highway for example in
| Italy.
| morshu9001 wrote:
| US was the first to make EVs mainstream
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| I wanted an F-150 Lightning when it launched. Demand was high
| enough that I was told I'd have to pay over retail. I did not buy
| an F-150 Lightning and bought an ICE (internal combustion engine)
| vehicle. The depreciation of electric vehicles has made me
| appreciate those circumstances more and more.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| The depreciation though has meant that used EVs are a bargain
| now.
|
| But yes, as usual, dealers killed an EV. Same story for so many
| EVs. They don't want to sell them. They saw their opportunity
| to milk and screw up a product they didn't want, because of
| scarcity, and effectively poisoned it.
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| Truth. EV's need less service and will kill the dealership
| model if adopted at scale.
| epistasis wrote:
| > Demand was high enough that I was told I'd have to pay over
| retail
|
| Meanwhile the article says "the Ford F-150 Lightning delivered
| approximately 27,300 units in the US."
|
| I wonder how much dealers lie about these things. They tell you
| that there's not enough of them to go around, then Ford cancels
| them, because of what exactly?
| bluGill wrote:
| There were not enough to go around when it first came out. A
| couple years latter and everyone who wants one has one and
| there are plenty. This is normal for new cars - people who
| want the latest model line up to buy them as they come off
| the assembly line, then they all have one and sales drop.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Meanwhile the article says "the Ford F-150 Lightning
| delivered approximately 27,300 units in the US."
|
| In one year. Total was north of 100K
| loeg wrote:
| > The depreciation of electric vehicles has made me appreciate
| those circumstances more and more.
|
| The depreciation for most EVs isn't all that different from
| that of new ICE vehicles. For a while, MSRPs were artificially
| inflated by the EV tax credit, which could give artificially
| worse depreciation _appearance_.
| jandrese wrote:
| So now that the tax credits are gone we should expect to see
| the sticker prices on new EVs to drop right? Right? Any day
| now?
| neogodless wrote:
| Hyundai and Kia did exactly that...
| recursive wrote:
| This happened a few years ago, at least accounting for the
| dealer markups.
| kjshsh123 wrote:
| Tax incidence is pretty much a solved concept.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Idk why you make it sound like a hypothetical lol, the tax
| cuts already expired and price cuts already happened. HMC
| dropped their prices by $7k+ right after the tax credit
| expired
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Yes. Ask Tesla owners who bought at certain times in the
| past just how much the loss of the tax credit can hurt
| resale value when the manufacturer adjusts the price to
| account for it.
| film42 wrote:
| Same here. I was told it would take a at least year on the
| waitlist. A month later I had 2 friends offer me their spot.
| They weren't impressed with the truck after a few reviews came
| out showing bad towing performance. I opted to buy a used ICE
| truck instead and have zero regrets.
| throw0101d wrote:
| I've seen headlines / stories giving Toyota grief about not going
| 'all-in' on BEVs while many other companies did.
|
| It seems that the hybrid-first strategy has been working pretty
| well for them. (The 2026 RAV4s are hybrid-only with no ICE-only
| options, AIUI.)
| epolanski wrote:
| Armchair internet analysts think they know better than the
| biggest car producer in the world that reinvented the modern
| supply chain.
|
| "But look at Tesla market cap!!!"
|
| Toyota had the right intuition: focus on EVs when the global
| sales will make sense for it, meanwhile avoid throwing good
| money after bad like most legacy automakers did with EVs.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Toyota is not immune to throwing good money after bad. They
| have dumped billions into hydrogen fuel cell research and
| production over three decades. Last year they sold more
| Venzas than hydrogen cars.
|
| Notably, the Venza was discontinued after the 2024 model year
| and those sales figures represent inventory leftover from
| prior years.
| epolanski wrote:
| Yes doing business involves taking risks.
|
| Avoiding EV fomo when the market wasn't there was a good
| calculated risk.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You give them credit for taking a risk on hydrogen but
| not the manufacturers who took a risk on EVs?
| Interesting.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Armchair internet analysts think they know better than the
| biggest car producer in the world
|
| The car producer that still seems to think hydrogen is the
| future? The armchair internet analysts seem closer to
| correct.
| erikstarck wrote:
| I'm as much of a Tesla Fan Boy that you can be but I have to say,
| the F-150 seems like a darn good vehicle and it's sad they're
| killing it. I especially like the V2X features.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| I have one and it is an amazing vehicle. However, what they are
| planning with their new EREV system coming out in 2027 seems
| pretty interesting too. You get your usual battery only mileage
| and then a generator kicks in to recharge the battery for
| longer trips. I would imagine it wouldn't be required in 95% of
| most people's trips but it gives folks the option n long road
| trips or heavy tows.
|
| I like it because it skips the usual hybrid approach of
| switching over to an ICE engine that drives your wheels in a
| different way and simplifies things immensely.
| jandrese wrote:
| I remember when Elon promised that they would have an
| extended range battery option for the Cybertruck, but then
| realized the logistics of such a thing are extremely
| challenging and quietly dropped it.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I like the idea of easy additional range, but I use my frunk
| all the time and I don't think I'd give it up for additional
| range that would only benefit me two or three times a year.
| Along with additional things to maintain.
| epolanski wrote:
| What's there to brag to be a fanboy of a _company_?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I don't think they're really killing it. The Lightning EREV is
| next, and my bet is it's almost identical to the BEV version
| but with an engine where the big beautiful frunk is now. Gives
| them something to sell the people who think they need big range
| numbers, but also gives them an easy path back to a full BEV. I
| kind of expect them to backpedal on the full cancelation and
| make both vehicles.
| loeg wrote:
| No shit. The CT is ugly to most consumers' sensibilities, and not
| a "real" truck to most consumers in the truck segment. It only
| survives as long as it serves Musk's ego. But that's ok -- Tesla
| is Musk's company and shareholders are happy with that status
| quo. Who else cares?
| jandrese wrote:
| The Cybertruck isn't a "real" truck, but the vast majority of
| trucks never do real truck stuff anyway so that's not as big of
| a gotcha as people think. Hell, even F-150s and Dodge Rams and
| GMCs have stunted vestigial cargo beds now, they're more like
| minivan utes. How many trucks can you buy today that can fit a
| standard everyday 4x8 sheet and a load of 8' studs in the back
| and close the tailgate?
| overfeed wrote:
| > but the vast majority of trucks never do real truck stuff
| anyway so that's not as big of a gotcha as people think.
|
| The whole point for those non-utilty buyers is the badass,
| tough-guy branding. Would a whiskey-drinking, steer-
| wranglin', meat-smokin', spur-boot-wearin', woodshop-havin',
| permanent-5-oclock-shadow BAMF drive a _electric_ CT? No.
| Therefore the CT fails at the one thing they expect of trucks
| due to its lack truck aura.
| jandrese wrote:
| Oh no. What if Elon's highly visible foray into right wing
| politics is an attempt to market his truck to people who
| would not normally give it time of day? Basically turn it
| into a rolling red baseball cap.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I think the dealership monopoly is partly to blame. Dealers get
| more reoccurring revenue from ICE vehicles, so they are
| incentivized to not stock EVs and to steer customers away from
| them. Ford seemed to understand this and attempted a direct sale
| program for EVs, but they canceled it due to dealer pushback.
|
| https://fordauthority.com/2025/02/ford-ev-inventory-hub-syst...
| nilsbunger wrote:
| Yes I think there's a real innovators' dilemma here for
| traditional automakers with dealer networks. Dealers make most
| of their money on servicing vehicles, not selling them. And EVs
| require almost no servicing.
| kristianbrigman wrote:
| I bought a used Audi etron a couple months ago. Agent was
| going to try to sell me a service plan and realized none of
| them apply to electric :) The downstream fanout of the auto
| industry is huge...
| Hamuko wrote:
| There's still brakes, suspensions, tires, etc. to sell to
| EV buyers. Especially when EVs are so heavy that they have
| more wear on many of these.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| but nothing compared to the oil changes, filter changes,
| as well as an ICE having multiple moving parts, so more
| chances for something to break.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > There's still brakes, suspensions, tires, etc. to sell
| to EV buyers.
|
| The brakes last a lot longer because of regen, everything
| else applies but is pretty marginal, although I had to
| pay BMW $500 to replace a tire on my i4 because of a
| nail. I could have shopped around for that I guess.
| Hamuko wrote:
| If you don't use your brakes and just regen all the time,
| you run the risk of having your brakes rust.
|
| https://nrsbrakes.com/blogs/supporting-articles/the-
| unused-b...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Yes, you are encouraged to slam on your brakes at least
| once a month to get the rust off. I live on the west
| coast (rain but low humidity and hardly any snow), so its
| less of an issue.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Ford did try to make it up to them by offering a bevy of
| aftermarket add-ons for the Lightning that were sold through
| the dealerships. As a consumer, I wanted them to keep the EV
| and ICE versions as similar as possible, with the hope that
| parts would be cheaper and easier to find.
| jandrese wrote:
| I have a conspiracy theory take on traditional manufacturers
| being so anti-EV.
|
| Basically the primary differentiator between car companies and
| the primary barrier to entry in the combustion vehicle business
| is the engine, especially in the US. Look at the marketing,
| horsepower and torque are always the topline numbers. Zero to
| sixty and quarter mile drag races are the favored metrics. Each
| company spent decades perfecting the engines and the majority
| of the engineering effort goes into them. Even the
| transmissions get second fiddle status.
|
| But now EVs come along and the electric motors are commodity
| parts that are already well optimized. There's little one
| company can do to make the motor significantly better. Battery
| tech is cutthroat and also largely outside of the car company's
| scope, although Tesla does more than other car companies with
| their megafactories and experiments with oversized cells. If
| EVs become popular there's little to stop competition from
| sprouting up everywhere and killing profitability for the
| legacy auto manufacturers.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| They seem to be flooded on dealership lots and are not selling
| whatsoever. OEMs force dealers to take the crap vehicles if
| they are to get the good ones. You have a vehicle that started
| off as a hard sell to the crowd that normally buys the vehicle
| and then you make it so the price is astronomical...forget the
| dealer reluctance, what did you think was going to happen?
|
| [1]:https://youtu.be/F0SIL-ujtfA?t=532
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Yeah I mean the obvious problem is that consumers
| specifically want to buy new ICE cars.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| They will buy both ICE and EVs at the right price. I don't
| think Ford sells anything at the right price currently. But
| the Lightning was a mistake at that price.
| biophysboy wrote:
| > Ford seemed to understand this and attempted a direct sale
| program for EVs, but they canceled it due to dealer pushback.
|
| Why didn't they just do it anyways? Dealerships seem like a
| pointless middleman, but I know absolutely nothing about what
| leverage they have. Self-driving cars can not come fast enough
| ubertaco wrote:
| Because dealerships are the automakers' real customers, at
| least right now.
|
| _You_ don 't buy a vehicle from Ford; your local Ford
| dealership buys a large number of vehicles from Ford, and
| then you buy one of those.
|
| Yes, an argument could be made that eliminating the
| dealership keeps the same customer base while eliminating the
| middleman (see also: Carvana), but now you have a lot more
| cost and logistics (shipping individual cars to individuals'
| homes, for example, rather than shipping truckloads to a
| single well-known spot) and unless you're willing to do the
| Carvana/CarMax thing of offering a 7-day return window (which
| adds even more cost and logistics and risk), the average
| American customer won't feel as comfortable buying a vehicle
| sight-unseen from across the country as they would if they
| could sit in the thing while a salesperson pitches it to
| them.
|
| That means you're taking on whole new category of cost and
| risk, while _assuming_ that you won 't lose any of your
| incoming revenue.
|
| That's kinda a big assumption, and the major
| established/legacy/whatever-you-call-them automakers aren't
| known for having a high risk appetite.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Extensive regulatory capture -
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_US_dealership_disputes
| ASinclair wrote:
| Also dealers are one of the most reliable GOP funding sources.
| The GOP does not like EVs.
| BeetleB wrote:
| It wasn't canceled for poor sales. It was canceled because it was
| too expensive to produce, and would not fund all their other
| EV/battery projects. They found a better road to profitability in
| that front.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| And because they have problems as it is sourcing aluminum for
| more profitable F150 variants. Ford lives or dies based on the
| F150, they needed to focus on higher profit margins on the
| trucks they could actually build.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| Range extended EVs make far more sense. Smaller cheaper batteries
| but range benefit of a gas tank. 90% of trips are less than 30
| miles.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| They are the worst of both worlds: not enough battery range to
| satisfy on long trips plus the weight and maintenance headaches
| of a gas tank and engine, especially silly to lug that around
| if 90% of your trips _are_ in battery range.
|
| As a 2012 Volt owner I think EREV was a great idea in the 2010s
| given battery tech and networks at the time. In the 2020s, they
| seem a weak compromise that I wouldn't recommend to people.
| testing22321 wrote:
| Just before its release there was some press about a few high ups
| at Tesla who urged Elon to make a "traditional" looking pickup
| alongside the cyber truck in case it was a flip, but Elon shut
| them down hard.
|
| I'd be really interested to know if they're going to do that.
|
| The tech is incredible and will filter into all vehicles in a
| decade or so (48v, Ethernet instead of CAN, etc)
| Facemelters wrote:
| Have you met truck guys? Truck guys call you gay for driving an
| EV. Yes yes, not all truck guys.
| dzonga wrote:
| F-150 Lightning is better vehicle than Cybertruck - however Ford
| is a political company (not like Musk) as in the fortunes of Ford
| lie to an extent with politicians, unions etc
|
| so hopefully ford can turn the F-150 into an Extended Range
| Electrical Vehicle
| etc-hosts wrote:
| The Musk suite of companies all exist at least partly to
| promote Musk's politics and policies.
| schainks wrote:
| I thought the F-150 was cancelled because their aluminum supply
| caught fire?
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a69147125/ford-f-150-light...
| evereverever wrote:
| I love my EV, but for anything that needs the range they should
| have a super-efficient gas or diesel engine that can charge the
| batteries? It could be a much less complex engine.
|
| That said, they big car makers only chased the government
| incentives, which was a great reason to have them.
|
| Electric everything is the future. It is obvious (e.g. heat
| pumps, EVs).
| instagib wrote:
| Maybe they can sell them at the announced prices instead of the
| inflated ones. Used is selling around $40k with 20-40,000 miles.
|
| New started at 40k, went to 60k for sale, pre-order fulfillment
| fell off a cliff so it sunk to 56k, and settled around 50k.
|
| 2022: 15,617 sold
|
| 2023: 24,165
|
| 2024: 33,510
|
| 2025: "Around 27,300 units sold in the U.S"
|
| $4k-$6k per battery module replacement. Full pack $25k-$50k.
| chasing wrote:
| Cybertruck is a gimmick. And the fad has passed. No wonder
| they're not selling well.
|
| And they don't age well. Most of the ones around here are
| starting to look... grimy. Or dingy. After just a couple of
| years. It's a poor advertisement for itself.
|
| And, yeah, then there's cultural eye-rolling. It's really the
| only vehicle I hear people openly mock when they see one... And
| that's not a Tesla/Elon thing entirely, since people don't have
| the same reaction to other Tesla vehicles.
| electric_mayhem wrote:
| Unless they come right back with a comparable implementation with
| a maverick/ranger type form factor, Ford is absolutely shot
| itself in the foot canceling the lightning. I've been Evie only
| for five years and have driven both the electric Silverado and
| the lightning. I bought the lightning. It's fantastic. They are
| absolute idiots for discontinuing it.
| guga42k wrote:
| imho, CT is horribly looking car with absolute disregard to any
| aesthetics. everything else is secondary. it has vibes of Aztec.
| one of the worst selling car ever.
| soperj wrote:
| The Cybertruck was always the Homer car.
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| I do not understand why we haven't seen someone take a cybertruck
| and drop a new body on top. I see "put a model 3 into x" on
| YouTube all the time.
|
| I would love to buy a cybertruck chassis with a VW bus or minivan
| on top (current political issues of Tesla aside).
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| The Cybertruck is a unibody, not body on frame, so it would be
| a lot of work.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Not only that, it's aluminum. The first bit of work would be
| giving it a real frame.
| cenobyte wrote:
| I would gladly own a Cybertruck if prices come down.
|
| Approximately 100k for a truck of any type is ridiculous.
| harrisonjackson wrote:
| I've owned a few F-150s over the last 20is years. It has the best
| fold up seats of any truck - entire back cabin floor is flat
| which is great for my dogs.
|
| I rented a lightning on Turo and it was amazing - planned on
| getting one as my next truck. I would drive a CT depending on
| price but they just draw too much attention.
| sroerick wrote:
| Another truck thread on HN, another 150 bad comments about how
| trucks are pointless.
| yread wrote:
| I find it funny that car discussions here are so much busier than
| computer discussions. I wonder if over there at the mechanics
| forum they spend as much time discussing their laptops and
| ignoring the drills and screwdrivers
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| It's because people have a bone to pick and aren't actually
| invested in the car industry
| datahack wrote:
| This is a case study in the failure of product market fit.
|
| There is tons of room for a low cost, high quality small electric
| or hybrid pickup in today's market.
|
| Ford Maverick sales have been exceptionally strong, setting
| records in 2025 with 155,051 units sold in the US of A, up almost
| a fifth from last year.
|
| Tesla needs to make a product that people want, and continuing to
| try to sell one they don't want just won't work. Why not pivot
| and build the truck people are asking for? Otherwise, this
| program will fail.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| I mean, Cybertruck sold specially poorly, it's not a hard bar to
| surpass.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| At a normal auto company the board would have fired Elon long
| ago. It's a shame too, because the right CEO could really turn
| Tesla around.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| What evidence do you have of Tesla performing poorly as a whole
| compared to others in the space, and/or Elon not successfully
| growing the company at reasonable rates?
| doktor2un wrote:
| Short term Ford thinking again, that's why they're losing to
| Tesla.
| burnte wrote:
| If the Lightning OUTSOLD Tesla, is that really losing to them?
| Feels to me like an indictment of the scale that Tesla actually
| operates: an order of magnitude less than the big car makers.
| If Ford declares a truck that sold better than CT as a failure,
| it's because for their size it didn't sell enough. If that
| lesser number IS enough for Tesla, they're simply not a player
| in the same league as Ford.
| troad wrote:
| > If the Lightning OUTSODE Tesla
|
| This reflects a very common pronunciation of syllable-final
| Ls in English, called a vocalised L, but I've never seen it
| reflected in spelling in such a way. Very cool!
|
| I'm extremely curious - did you go for that spelling as an
| intentional stylistic variation, or was it a typo reflecting
| your usual pronunciation?
| burnte wrote:
| Typo.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Judging from how many people seem surprised by my open frunk at
| the grocery store, saying things like "I had no idea Ford made an
| electric truck!" I think they could have done more to market it.
| I sometimes wonder if they really wanted to sell a lot of them.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-01-14 23:00 UTC)