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Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

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Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#511

Post by fragmede »

sroerick wrote: post #167
nospice wrote: 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…

I live in Truck Country, Wyoming If you need a truck for work, you're probably going to be towing in it. Now, some of those guys who are hauling are gonna need a 250 or a 350, but a lot of them will do just fine with the 150. Even if your job isn't hauling, per se, if you work on job sites you wanna be able to haul stuff. Imagine if you showed up to your new Tech Lead job with an 8 year old Chromebook. You'd look a l…

> Imagine if you showed up to your new Tech Lead job with an 8 year old Chromebook

But that's like rich people. Nouveau rich sport designer fashion to show off how much money they have, but true wealth doesn't need to show off like that. If the tech lead came in with a battle hardens Chromebook running a distro they created on crostini, I would respect them more, not less.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#512

Post by al_borland »

fragmede wrote: post #506
al_borland wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t a Ford problem, it’s a problem for the whole industry. EVs won’t get cheaper until battery tech evolves.

the reason we know American car makers other than Tesla aren't serious about electric cars is that they haven't been making battery factories.

GM partnered with Samsung for one[0]. Of course now they just announced layoffs at the EV plant[1], because most people still don’t want electrics cars. The investment needs to be tied to demand. If not, it’s just a lot of wasted money.

It seems they’d be better off waiting for better/cheaper battery tech, so they can build out those factories and make cheaper EVs that people might actually buy at scale. Right now the market still feels niche.

[0] https://insideevs.com/news/731721/gm-samsung-sdi-indiana-ev-...

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/general-motors-permanen...

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#513

Post by unethical_ban »

4fterd4rk wrote: post #388
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #314

This is fine, for three reasons: 1. Electric trucks don't make sense. In the "I drive my truck to pick up groceries" sense, it's fine. But as a work truck, it's not ideal. You lose both payload and towing capacity owing to that huge battery. Gets worse in winter and at elevation. The bigger the truck, the more it weighs, the worse the EV part does (which is why nobody's making an F350/F550 electric). ICE trucks get o…

Electric trucks make perfect sense and are ideal for what most F-150s are actually used for. The problem is that the F-150 is a fashion accessory for low IQ types that cosplay as rancher/cowboy/whatever. They're buying the appearance of being tough. They're insecure. The electric F-150 doesn't make them feel better about their pathetic lives.

You can say they're victims of marketing but your vitriol goes too far. I wonder if you would say the same about any other consumerist excess: a bigger house, a nicer watch, a faster car.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#514

Post by jasonkester »

SoftTalker wrote: post #375
exabrial wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Also, a truck can be used like a car. But a car cannot be used like a truck. If you need to haul 4x8 sheets of plywood or drywall, dimensional lumber, piping, ladders, etc a truck (or work van) is pretty much it. If I could only afford one car it would be a truck.

a car cannot be used like a truck.

I think that’s more down to choice than possibility. I’ve hauled all those things home from the diy store in my boring Volvo with its roof rack. Had 600-odd pounds of sand in the back just last week.

4x8 plywood isn’t particularly heavy, and little consumer “150 pounds max” roof racks can hold a lot more than they claim.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#515

Post by unethical_ban »

xivzgrev wrote: post #362

No one in top comments is mentioning a key point. It was cheap looking. How the truck looks is important. Outside the bottom end of market, it's a status symbol. I got a tundra TRD earlier this year and I've gotten multiple compliments on it because it's a good looking truck. The F150 lightning looked cheap. The grill is this crappy plastic. And there was no upgrade feature to make it cooler. If they had the option t…

The Toyota Silverado? The Chevy Tundra?

I can't get over how much Toyota fashioned their trucks after GM. Tacoma is a spitting image of the Colorado.

I'd still buy a Toyota before a GM 10/10.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#517

Post by ascorbic »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #426
qingcharles wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in an area that has probably >100% pick-up ownership per adult male. I've noticed that these people will not go to the grocery store on days when the weather is inclement due to the chance of the groceries getting wet. Seems like a bad vehicle for grocery runs.

When I was a kid, my dad owned a pickup truck in Mississippi, and there seem to be tons of ways of avoiding getting the groceries wet, a bed-width toolbox behind the cab was the simplest way (and this was way before extended cabs were a thing). If you are living in such an area where they can't even figure that kind of thing out, it sounds like there might be something in the water.

Funny to see so many workarounds to avoid the obvious solution of buying a vehicle with a roof instead of playing at being a farmer or builder.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#518

Post by Qwertious »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #475
mattmaroon wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I might have thought that too if I didn’t own commercial vehicles. I own a few and the idea of switching to an EV for them is laughable. Go tow stuff for 8 hours one day and ask yourself “if I had to stop for 30 minutes every 90 miles how would I like this day?” Battery ranges decline by over 50% when towing. The long term health of a battery requires you to keep it within a range of about 60% of the max capacit…

There is a lot of short range no/limited tow commercial work that could use a BEV truck (e.g. every gardener/lawncare small business) or a BEV panel van.

Gardening/lawncare wouldn't work as well as you'd think - ride-on lawnmowers need fuel to run for extended periods, so they face the same charging problem (even though the client usually has a power outlet in their house, mere metres away). Ditto for a ton of pressurewashing equipment and such.

The problem is that we built our world around cheap portable energy, so problems that are trivial technically are difficult socially - the client won't let you use the power outlet, if they do they'll make you pay for the power use, asking is weird and unusual and requires more negotiating with the client, it's just not worth it. Like, if oil never existed then residential housing would probably be built with a special "contractor power outlet" that could be billed separately on a pay-per-use basis - call up the number, dial in your Designated Contractor Code or whatever fictional paperwork, and you get charged for the power you pull until the socket is unplugged.

Or maybe some other solution that I can't think of, because people in that world had to think of one and spent decades refining it. Or maybe they invented lithium batteries 90 years ago (~1935) and now they're on par with oil.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#519

Post by jandrewrogers »

dalyons wrote: post #448
jandrewrogers wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Rivian has pretty limited range. The Scout looks promising though. People out in the ranch country, oil patch, some mining areas, etc often want a reliable 600-ish miles unloaded. That’s why extended fuel tanks are a common option. Even without an extended fuel tank, you can often achieve that with an ICE and a jerry can. EVs have great potential as 4WD off-road vehicles. In a lot of ways they are more naturally…

i was assuming the person i was responding to was talking about recreational offroading, not ranching, oiling or mining in the middle of nowhere. A max pack rivian has a 400ml range, which is plenty for the vast majority of recreational adventures.

That’s fair. There are “recreational offroaders” in the sense of urban bros that do casual offroading on well-developed trails with associated infrastructure. That is the nerf version of offroading in the US. Some of those trails are cool on their own merits, I don’t want to take away from them.

The US has vast regions that casual tourists never venture into and have no infrastructure that are nonetheless economically important or excellent for exploring.

If you stay near the Interstates, you’ll be able to manage with electric vehicles. But the best parts of the Mountain West are pretty far from the Interstate Highways. The deep Utah, Nevada, or Arizona wilderness is phenomenal but you’d be an idiot to attempt that with an EV. Just getting caught in a mountain pass during a blizzard in May or September could be enough to cook you.

I’m not against EVs in any sense but the tech is still pretty risky for the realities of the Mountain West of the US. I have learned many lessons the hard way about how you can be stranded or die in the Mountain West that makes me cognizant of the limitations of EV currently.

I am bullish on EV, I’d love to have one if it met my technical specs, but they aren’t there yet.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#520

Post by ascorbic »

stackghost wrote: post #486
tfourb wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve literally transported dishwashers in a Renault Twingo. And the „small car + trailer“ combo will always carry more than a pickup. Pickups are pure lifestyle.

Something tells me that dishwashers are smaller in areas where the Twingo is sold. There's no way my piece of shit Samsung dishwasher would fit in your car. It's huge.

An minivan will transport almost anything a normal person would want to move, while being more practical the other 99% of the time, but of course they have the wrong image.
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