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Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

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201–210 of 915 posts

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was considering getting a Rivian and decided that in fact I would probably not allow the 24 year old dude at my local construction supply co to use a skid steer to drop a load of gravel into the bed of my $75k+ electric vehicle. So instead I got a used Ford F150 (gas) and when the skid steer guy drops gravel into the bed I feel fine.

There is a lot to be said for that perspective. I wonder if any PMs have considered making the bed of the truck a FRU that you can swap out at home.

A modular open spec for attaching beds to trucks might be useful.

What are some possible attachments?

4-6.5' Truck Bed, Trailer, Camper, Mobile Workshop / Trade Rig, Car hauler, Bed with rack and storage and 270° awning

What all needs to be connected?

Mechanical attachment, 4WD/AWD/RWD axle and differential, CAN bus, backup can, lights

Public link: Open Truck Bed Standard Proposal https://gemini.google.com/share/1e70ae398d26 :

"Kinetic-Link" (K-Link) open spec:

> The proposed Active-AWD Trade Platform utilizes a Through-the-Road (TTR) Hybrid architecture to decouple the mechanical drivetrain while maintaining synchronized propulsion via a Vehicle Control Unit (VCU). By integrating high-topology Axial Flux or Radial-Axial (RAX) in-wheel motors, the system achieves exceptional torque density within the limited packaging of a trailer wheel well. The control strategy relies on Zero-Force Emulation, utilizing a bi-directional load cell at the hitch to modulate torque output via a PID loop, ensuring the module remains neutrally buoyant to the tow vehicle during steady-state cruising. In low-traction environments, the system transitions to Virtual AWD, employing Torque Vectoring to mitigate sway and Regenerative Braking to prevent jackknifing, effectively acting as an intelligent e-Axle retrofit. This configuration leverages 400V/800V DC architecture for rapid energy discharge and V2L (Vehicle-to-Load) site power, solving the unsprung weight damping challenges through advanced suspension geometry while eliminating the parasitic drag of traditional passive towing.

A modular truck bed could have Through-the-road TTR AWD (given a better VCU) and e.g. hub motors or an axle motor.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#202
post #60

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…

The security risk of backdoors in your IT may drive you crazy, but backdoors in your car may drive you off a bridge.

I agree with your point. But cars are the last line of defense, and they are technology most people understand. With computers, you can just unplug them at the end of the day. A backdoor in a car or a drone or something just kills you.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#203
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The price isn't right for small businesses. These trucks are quite expensive So are RAM trucks and I don't think they're hurting for customers. I think there are two fundamental issues. One is that pickups are a weirdly-politicized lifestyle choice in the US - i.e., if you're progressive, you're supposed to hate them and see them as the symbol of the gun-totting macho redneck culture, and if you're conservative, yo…

> One is that pickups are a weirdly-politicized lifestyle choice in the US Based on my personal experience traveling, there's a more practical reason for the political divide. I spend a good portion of my life in rural parts of the US these days, where most of the residents are pretty conservative. But these are also parts of the country where I get nervous when I'm on 1/4 tank of gas. If you're routinely out in plac…

You're also likely to have to wait in line to charge.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One is that pickups are a weirdly-politicized lifestyle choice in the US Based on my personal experience traveling, there's a more practical reason for the political divide. I spend a good portion of my life in rural parts of the US these days, where most of the residents are pretty conservative. But these are also parts of the country where I get nervous when I'm on 1/4 tank of gas. If you're routinely out in plac…

Try this map: https://supercharge.info/map , it has a feature called "range circles". If you set it to 50 miles, you'll see that most of the country is well within 50 miles of the nearest supercharger. Including almost all of Texas. At 100 miles of range, you only have a couple of blank spots. With third party chargers, there's really only one blank spot in Montana. At this point, the range is already a solved proble…

The US isn't flat. Range can vary considerably with climbing into the mountain passes, or in cold weather.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#205
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure but you could just nuke us too, given that the response to a mass civilian death event would be the same. Same reason the US would be foolish to destroy the Three Gorges Dam.

It doesn't need to be a mass civilian death event. They can wait, collect data and kill 90% of our most important soldiers, heads of state, spies and everyone needed to maintain critical sectors of our economy. They could kill everyone who is anti-china. They could kill all the members of one political party (any one) as a false flag and cause a civil war.

Surveillance technology is nessisarially selective, so these "all or nothing" hypotheticals do not apply.

See also "slaughterbots". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#206
This is a shame. Coworker got a Lightning and he loves it. He doesn't tow with it but he does field work for fiber optic stuff, usually back home every day. Runs his computers, tools, ventilation for going down manholes, he even powered a sump pump from it, without needing to haul a generator. The hybrid truck can now do the same, but it's a really nice truck

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#207
post #98

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 So are RAM trucks and I don't think they're hurting for customers. I think there are two fundamental issues. One is that pickups are a weirdly-politicized lifestyle choice in the US - i.e., if you're progressive, you're supposed to hate them and see them as the symbol of the gun-totting macho redneck culture, and if you're conservative, yo…

Everyone like Tacomas though

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#209

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…

"They're loaded with useless/barely-functional interior electronics that are poor copies of Tesla"

Wow, must be absolute crap if they are poor copies of Tesla, given how plastic and uncomfortable Tesla interior/ux is

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need a truck? Serious question, in europe professionals have a van, like the Ford e-transit, and if you just need to haul some stuff from your summerhouse sometimes you hitch a trailer to your car. Why do you need a truck? Couldn’t you buy an electric van instead?

> Why do you need a truck? To haul dirt. To haul junk out to the dump. Etc. Do people load their Transits with piles of dirt and mulch? I doubt it. I live in the US and have a small house in the city, and I haul stuff like this all the time. Yes, you can rent a pickup truck as needed from U-Haul, but that gets old real quick. Yes, I would love it if there was a nice small or mid-sized truck with an extended bed avail…

> Do people load their Transits with piles of dirt and mulch? I doubt it.

I am from the UK but live in Canada. I only see three types of businesses using those Transit style vans here in North America: food delivery, parcel delivery and landscaping businesses. I assume the landscapers are carrying dirt at least some of the time.

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