Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 915 posts

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#231

Post by exabrial »

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…

> people just love them as a symbol

This is an unfortunate trope that is oft repeated by those that live their life in constant upgrade cycles.

The regular F-150 is a pinnacle of value engineering for Ford. It's infinitely repairable for owners. Look around on the highway, you will see hundreds of 15+ year old F150s on the road, and a few times a day I will see 25+ year old trucks on the road too. There are thousands of aftermarket parts for repair or customization. Owners are happy with them, and they recognize the truck as something they buy once and keep for a long time.

If it is any kind of expression of self, its one of "I don't need to be consumeristic; I picked something simple that will last a lifetime."

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#232

Post by rootusrootus »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #62
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…

> single-charge range issues are pretty much non-existent (for non-towing applications). Readers might enjoy this, though I can't find the conclusions section at a glance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmKf8smvGsA "The Truth about Electric Towing" - The video author says that weight doesn't make much difference, but aerodynamics does. Towing a big flat piece of plywood that weighs 50 pounds but catches the wind is…

Yes, Ford has done plenty of tests as have regular folks, loading the bed to the weight limit of the truck doesn't have much impact at all on range. It's 99% about the aero.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#233

Post by rsync »

We don't want your electric car ... we want your car, but electric.

We want an electric F150 or an electric Suburban or v90 wagon or whatever.

But instead we get e-initiative i-mobiles. We get TRON-cars. We get iModels.

There is a reason for this:

The incumbent auto makers understand fully that the ICE version of whatever model they electrify will suffer enormously.

They believe that they can somehow retain all of the sales of the existing ICE model while adding growth sales of a different electric model.

And, of course, they are wrong: because nobody wants an "electric F150". They just want an F150. But electric.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#234

Post by philipwhiuk »

amarant wrote: post #89

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 t…

America is the pickup market.

Europe doesn't do pickups.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#235

Post by swolios »

bsder wrote: post #192
kryogen1c wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty much dead on. I live in a rural part of the US and there are tons of old, worked-on trucks. The idea that there might be an all-electric f150 hanging out in 40 years is, frankly, laughable. I know a lot of city kids think trucks are some obnoxious luxury good, but they're basically a functional requirement in most of the (very large) country.

> I know a lot of city kids think trucks are some obnoxious luxury good, but they're basically a functional requirement in most of the (very large) country. A van is almost always a better choice if you're actually looking at functionality. Shielding from the elements is way more useful than some mythical ground clearance benefit that you will never use. Sure, a very small number of people go offroad and need that cl…

Iowa has over 68,000 miles of gravel roads, something like 60% of the state's roads.

"Offroad" is 60% of the state 50+% of the year

This could be said anywhere with snow, by time the DOT repairs the frost heave after winter its winter again.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#236

Post by rootusrootus »

driverdan wrote: post #176
tshaddox wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the only EV F-150 the Lightning? The Lightning has always been the sports model, so I can't imagine it ever made sense economically as a work truck.

They reused the name much like they used the Mustang name for their electric SUV. Past Lightnings were single trim level performance trucks. The current Lightning mirrors the regular F150 trim levels but with an electric drivetrain.

It's a little more complicated. The Lightning has always been about performance, and that includes the EV. It'll demolish every other F150 (and most other regular cars for that matter) that doesn't say "Raptor R" on the side.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#237

Post by class3shock »

The F-150 is in one of the markets I think ev's will take over first (small commercial vehicles) but it just was not the right vehicle to start with. To expensive, even when the tax incentives were still a thing, and Ford suffers from having corrupt dealers taking a large cut on top of that. So you are selling to either the top 5% or bigger businesses.

If you are a top 5% buying this you want it to tow your expensive toy somewhere which ev's suck at currently or you want it to drive to "insert outdoorsy vacation destination", which means long distance in a remote area with few charging stations. So not a great sell.

If you are a bigger business I think this probably makes sense in some cases. You aren't dealing with the maintenance of an ICE, you can keep it "running" inside a building, it can provide on site power, probably has cost benefits in cities where the lack of emissions and noise is helpful. But the expensive really narrows down your customers. Many are also looking for range and towing, which doesn't help, and people that would show up for the ev part probably would be better off with a van.

If they had done a small e-transit, in the $30-35k range and sold it direct for actual msrp they would have had a much better chance at dealing with where we are now (high interest rate and low support for ev's).

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#238

Post by rootusrootus »

EgregiousCube wrote: post #151
cyberax wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

“There’s at least one spot within 100 miles where you can wait 20 minutes to get enough charge to get to the next charger” is not an argument that will convince someone to give up the convenience of the gas station.

The convenience argument works for a small segment of the population that road trips a few hundred miles at a time regularly. For the rest of us, EVs are far more convenient. I don't ever go to a gas station, and every day I start out with 320 miles of range. I stop at the EV equivalent of a gas station two or three times a year. I've saved a lot of time not having to get gas every week.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#239

Post by rootusrootus »

WalterBright wrote: post #204
cyberax wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's mostly a wash, the efficiency on the descent balances the climb, and overall you get respectably close to the same range you'd have gotten on a flat route.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#240

Post by strawhatguy »

Article says the next F-150 Lightning will be an EREV-style plugin hybrid. Which, if so, makes a lot of sense. EVs are great, but not so much for trucks.

I was always bothered about how cars were either supposed to be all electric or all ICE. Working together is the smart way forward.

Post reply on HN