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Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

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Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#271

Post by jen20 »

class3shock wrote: post #237

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…

Not to speak to the rest of the topic, but focusing on direct sales:

I'm almost certain Ford would love to sell direct, but the various franchise laws in different states make it next to impossible. On top of this, dealership owners are typically quite powerful in terms of local politics, which makes such laws very difficult to overturn.

For example:

Texas: https://www.txdmv.gov/dealers/licensing/franchise

Florida: https://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Disp...

California: https://www.nmvb.ca.gov/protest/protest_establish_new_fran.h...

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#272

Post by godelski »

rsync wrote: post #233

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 t…

I really miss all the short trucks.

For a long time I had a F150 supercab (made in the 90's) and while it was a great truck it was just excessive for 99% of what I used the vehicle for. That includes the vast majority of times I used it to haul and tow! I always envied my friend's smaller truck. Over a decade I think my truck was the better vehicle in only a handful of situations. (Far better to rent one for the day at that point)

I absolutely hate all the new trucks. That supercab was too large and trucks today feel bigger. Especially the front huge grill (which is also incredibly dangerous). That truck I had was already hard to drive. I loved having a truck but parking is an absolute nightmare, especially in cities where lanes and spaces are not only shorter but narrower. All these big trucks are even harder to drive but people love them because they feel safer (in a perverted and most American arms race imaginable)

But I do like things like power outlets in the bed. I don't give a shit about the infotainment system, but the sockets in the bed is actually helpful. I'd have used that a much larger portion of the time than I used the actual size of my truck. Just being able to plug in a drill (or charge one) is really helpful to more /general/ "truck activities". Not to mention all the things like camping or other things where you take a vehicle like that. But even in those situations you don't need a huge vehicle 99% of the time.

Side note:

I now drive a small compact sedan and am absolutely pissed by how many people drive with their high beams on and are putting in projector bulbs and not properly aiming them. I'm very close to installing a mirror to reflect peoples highbeams back into their own car. Blinding me may increase your visibility, but it also decreases both of our safety. Your brighter lights make you feel safer, but they make you less.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#273

Post by m4ck_ »

strawhatguy wrote: post #240

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.

I wonder if it's hybrid electric is super old tech and manufacturers can't have a monopoly on it or something?

Hybrids have been powering heavy industry and locomotives for the past 100 years or so, it seems like a perfect first step towards mass electrification of vehicles. Plus I imagine it'd be possible to swap the engine for more batteries as that tech improves.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#274

Post by rootusrootus »

TheDong wrote: post #194
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cars are not critical infrastructure Their production infrastructure is. > the idea that China would turn off their EVs or starting to use them as weapons from the other side of the world is borderline absurd Is it? If we got into a shooting match with Beijing, would we not try to hijack Tesla’s OTA features to disrupt their economy?

If that's a normal thing to do, why aren't we hijacking russian teslas right now? Why haven't we made Microsoft push an OTA update to windows to bluescreen all military PCs in Russia? Why haven't we made Google and Apple push Android/iOS updates that cause all phones in Russia to crash? I'm confident that even if at war with China, the US would not hijack random civilian cars, yes. That's absolutely absurd.

> why aren't we hijacking russian teslas right now

You mean Ukrainian Teslas. We are currently on Russia's side.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#275

Post by hypercube33 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #247
class3shock wrote: post #237

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…

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

Meanwhile Chevy has a 400 mile range, unknown but more than the 100 mile range the lightning has for towing and is a work truck at about 70k or something street price last I saw. Its compelling, where the lightning is not.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#276

Post by rootusrootus »

happyopossum wrote: post #101
ChuckMcM wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The bed of more traditional pickups like the F-150 can be swapped out in a couple of hours by one or two dudes with a lift and an impact wrench. Heck, you can buy blank F-250s without a bed at all.

Hell, a few hours with that impact wrench and you can also lift the cab right off the frame, too.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#277

Post by bayesnet »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #247
class3shock wrote: post #237

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…

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

My hunch is that the people who buy an F-150 for groceries are not the people interested in buying EVs. The advantage of an EV truck is solely on cost and maintenance, so the natural market is businesses looking for practical vehicles, not people who buy impractical vehicles that are costly to operate for status reasons.

Then again as I’m typing this I realize that I have a phone with a better processor than most computers on which I … browse hacker news and read email, so go figure.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#278

Post by jandrewrogers »

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…

The F-150 is valued because it is utilitarian and the platform is engineered for a pretty abusive duty cycle. Ford understands this. If you use trucks in anger, you start to appreciate this.

The entry of Japanese automakers into the F-150 market is instructive. While the Japanese trucks looked similar, the early versions had a bad reputation for slowly coming apart under the typical workload and stresses people put on the F-150, which Ford had been refining for many decades. Those trucks often get used hard, and because people know an F-150 can take it they aren't afraid to use them hard. The median abuse significantly exceeded what the Japanese engineers anticipated. Japanese trucks are much better now but the attention to survivability is a big part of the F-150's enduring reputation.

I've taken the Ford platform through situations where I've seen many other vehicles get destroyed. That's where the loyalty comes from and why it is a default choice for many. Most people aren't using them as hard as I have but it does provide a safety blanket.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#279

Post by elcritch »

wsc981 wrote: post #241
ta9000 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ in case of emergency is you can have a couple of filled jerrycans around so you can always move if needed” How many times has this been a problem for you?

Luckily I haven't had any emergencies. But in Thailand recently there's been flooding in the south, many people stuck. And in eastern part many people have been evacuated due to border tensions with Cambodia. I live in the north-west Thailand, close to the border with Myanmar. An area known as the Golden Triangle [0]. About once a month or so we don't have electricity for a about 10-12 hours or so. I also experienced…

Seems like an electric vehicle that could serve as an electricity backup might actually be more useful for you than not.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#280

Post by Dylan16807 »

tooltalk wrote: post #178
LUmBULtERA wrote: post #40

I wish if this U.S. administration and U.S. carmakers don't care to promote EVs, that they'd at least let in the Chinese manufacturers that are interested in them.

>> they'd at least let in the Chinese manufacturers that are interested in them. China's anti-market tactics in EV/battery supply-chain past 15 years haven't exactly helped promote EVs outside China -- they are now countervailed not only in the US, but also the EU, Canada, Turkiye; even in China-friendly nations, such as Brazil and Russia now are imposing restrictions on Chinese EV imports. Not very realistic.

What anti-market tactics? My understanding is they poured money over the whole market in a way that helped it grow faster, but didn't pick winners and doesn't subsidize the current pricing.
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