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Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

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Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#81

Post by scottbez1 »

bflesch wrote: post #60
lefstathiou wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is that the administration is in an adversarial relationship with China. Risky to allow a foreign power have a kill switch on critical infrastructure.

Just to clarify: We accept the security risk of kill switches in networking equipment, smartphones, laptops, servers, clouds, processors, bluetooth firmware and nvidia driver blobs, but we draw the line at civillian cars? And in contrast to the listed items above, for civillian cars you can choose from dozens of countries who produce them. And if you cannot accept security risk of owning a "kill switch" car then you…

This doesn’t seem that crazy to me - a broadly applicable coordinated OTA zero day applied across cars during US rush hours has the potential to result in likely hundreds of thousands of deaths in a few hours if safety critical systems like airbags can be tampered/inhibited by OTA-capable systems.

The scale of car travel plus the inherent kinetic energy involved make a correlated risk particularly likely to lead to a mass casualty event. There are very few information system vulnerabilities with that magnitude of short-term worst case outcome.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#82

Post by tracker1 »

bink wrote: post #53
exabrial wrote: post #43

I expected the "T word" to come out in the article, however this fails to address any of the practical reasons it isn't a good replacement for the value-engineered F-150: * The price isn't right for small businesses. These trucks are quite expensive * They're difficult to repair. A regular F-150 is designed to be repaired; these things are designed like iPhones to be disposable. * Parts availability is scarce, contra…

> The price isn't right for small businesses. These trucks are quite expensive They definitely aimed for the luxury market, like Rivian. Who knows how successful they would've been if they aimed for mid-range like Scout. That's the market they claimed to be entering when they started taking reservations. They also could've offered a fleet ready version without the luxury features, but must've decided not to. > They'r…

Significant portions of the body and interior were not shared with general F-150 models... At least those parts most likely to be damaged in minor accidents... imagine having your work truck in the shop for 2-3 months for want of a corner light fixture.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#83

Post by delecti »

wagwang wrote: post #65
delecti wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They view EVs as a moral threat. Can't get cognitive dissonance about your neighbor's dope new EV with perks your new ICE doesn't have, if your neighbor can't get EVs either. Loads of examples of "this is worse, so we're going to make it worse, so we're sure that it is worse".

I wish my ev has dope perks... too bad California is dead set on making EV charging more expensive then gas lol.

Yeah, I was being a bit glib about that part.

IMO, the biggest perk is dependent on the ability to charge at home. If you can, then the price per mile is about half (if Google is right that California rates are about $0.30/kWh) or less than for an ICE. But even if the $/mile were equal, never needing to visit a gas station again is itself the biggest perk.

And sure there are people for whom an EV won't meet their range needs, but probably way fewer than think that's the case for them.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#84

Post by ponector »

cogman10 wrote: post #16
izend wrote: post #7

I am actually surprised they cancelled the F150 Lightning, I see a lot of them the Metro Vancouver area where a lot of contractors, (gardeners, pool maintenance, labourers, etc...) are driving them as electricity is super cheap here and gasoline is quite expensive.

That's exactly where I expected this thing to sell like hotcakes. It's a perfect fleet vehicle for many businesses. I think the price just wasn't right.

How it is better than a van?

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#85

Post by tracker1 »

galkk wrote: post #76

I think that trucks are in worst position for moving to EV. Customer base is quite conservative in how the truck should look like. For example,F150 lightning had to look like F150. While a look of truck (and even ordinary car) is defined by the function - need to have beefy, but somewhat serviceable/accessible engine in the front. There is no need for this in the ev truck like at all. It's all dead space now. I suspe…

FWIW, plenty of work trucks in lots of Companies are boring Vans or Pickups...

Even so, the issue comes to fit for use, cost (initial, ongoing), repairability and value. The F-150 Lightning only checked the fit for use box, since parts backlogs made it unrepairable for potentially months. The initial cost was okay at initial list price, but the actual price for purchase after dealer gouging and the factory raising prices through the roof was kind of insane... on top of a minor fender bender keeping your truck off the road an excessive amount of time killed a lot of momentum.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#86

Post by omnimus »

tracker1 wrote: post #80
exabrial wrote: post #43

I expected the "T word" to come out in the article, however this fails to address any of the practical reasons it isn't a good replacement for the value-engineered F-150: * The price isn't right for small businesses. These trucks are quite expensive * They're difficult to repair. A regular F-150 is designed to be repaired; these things are designed like iPhones to be disposable. * Parts availability is scarce, contra…

I think the bigger issue is parts availability over the repairability issue... from what I understand, these have been quite reliable but parts for Ford's EVs have been backordered as much as months, where having a "work truck" down for months is an intolerable position. The cost is also kind of crazy between inflated factory and dealer pricing as much as $20k over sticker price. Yeah, there was some early demand, bu…

I mean the biggest issue is that “trucks” like F-150 are actually used because of US tax system that exempts such massive vehicles from emmision taxes because they are work trucks. They are pretty ineffective work vehicles but some people just love them as a symbol.

That symbolism goes completely against electric/green vehicles. In other words - people who buy F-150 would never buy electric vehicle and people who are looking for electric truck for work wouldn't buy F-150.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#87

Post by formerly_proven »

omnimus wrote: post #86
tracker1 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the bigger issue is parts availability over the repairability issue... from what I understand, these have been quite reliable but parts for Ford's EVs have been backordered as much as months, where having a "work truck" down for months is an intolerable position. The cost is also kind of crazy between inflated factory and dealer pricing as much as $20k over sticker price. Yeah, there was some early demand, bu…

I mean the biggest issue is that “trucks” like F-150 are actually used because of US tax system that exempts such massive vehicles from emmision taxes because they are work trucks. They are pretty ineffective work vehicles but some people just love them as a symbol. That symbolism goes completely against electric/green vehicles. In other words - people who buy F-150 would never buy electric vehicle and people who are…

Ford actually makes a highly practical electric work vehicle. It's called E-Transit.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#88

Post by bflesch »

scottbez1 wrote: post #81
bflesch wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify: We accept the security risk of kill switches in networking equipment, smartphones, laptops, servers, clouds, processors, bluetooth firmware and nvidia driver blobs, but we draw the line at civillian cars? And in contrast to the listed items above, for civillian cars you can choose from dozens of countries who produce them. And if you cannot accept security risk of owning a "kill switch" car then you…

This doesn’t seem that crazy to me - a broadly applicable coordinated OTA zero day applied across cars during US rush hours has the potential to result in likely hundreds of thousands of deaths in a few hours if safety critical systems like airbags can be tampered/inhibited by OTA-capable systems. The scale of car travel plus the inherent kinetic energy involved make a correlated risk particularly likely to lead to a…

Not really convinced by your argument. If you want to achieve your scenario you just take a sysadmin from the Tesla shanghai plant and next time they go to the US HQ they gain access to a coworkers laptop and deploy an OTA update to the tesla fleet. And this is assuming that the Tesla OTA update deployment mechanism is actually separated between countries, and not simply accessible from the Tesla intranet.

No need to design & ship another low-cost car model for this.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#89

Post by amarant »

The comments in this thread are far more interesting than the article. It really shows why selling EV's in America is difficult, especially in the pickup segment I think. The amount of arguments that are clearly just justifying an opinion held without ever actually considering an alternative is unusual for this forum.

It appears America is not ready for electrical pickups. Maybe other markets will be more eager for them?

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#90

Post by nixonpjoshua »

bdcs wrote: post #79
kerblang wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay are we just saying they just discontinued one electric F150 in favor of another? Meh. Edit: Oh, an EREV is fancy way to say "hybrid" ok

>Oh, an EREV is fancy way to say "hybrid" ok Kind of. EREVs are what locomotives have been doing for a century (and to a lesser extent barges), which is called diesel-electric in that field. I agree the terminology is lacking, but EREVs are quite compelling (and their high market share in China supports consumer demand). Hybrid: * ICE must run during regular operation (except for ~very short distances at ~very slow s…

I agree EREVs make a lot of sense, electric first but not requiring a full commitment, especially for a truck that sometimes has to do things like towing.

https://insideevs.com/news/777407/scout-motors-erev-reservas...

I'm sure this wasn't lost on Ford, 80% of Scout reservations come with the EREV and only 20% BEV.

Maybe one day they will have enough volume in the segment to justify making the pure BEV version again but with parts sharing with the EREV. An advantage to EREV design is that if done smartly you can offer the same vehicle stripped down and BOOM you have a BEV too.

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