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Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

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Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spend an hour at a charging station This is exaggeration. A half hour for a well-loaded truck, sure, but an hour is generally exaggeration. And as for five minutes for a fill up, it's usually more than five for a regular fill-up on a regular passenger car for me compared to just continuing on.

Yeah 5 mins is not true, its 1 minute actual 'charging' as in refill from empty to full. I don't know what your family does on the gas station, but my wife and 2 small kids can cover toilet visit (as long as there was no accident) for all 3 combined under 5 mins. So can I with paying, so at the end its 5 mins stop total all counted in. Eating as in lunch is once a day, and when we travel we certainly don't need resta…

I've timed a number of the pumps around my home filling ~20gal. None of them have come close to filling in a minute. They're often 3-4 minutes of pumping, after spending a few minutes negotiating payment. I don't think I've ever spent less than 8 minutes between pulling off the road, pulling up to the pump, getting out of my car, negotiating payment, pumping, finishing up, getting in my car, and returning to the road.

It takes a few minutes just getting the kids in and out of their car seats. No way everyone is getting out of the car, through the bathroom, and then back in the car ready to go in 5 minutes.

Seriously, time yourself sometime. You're way underestimating the actual time you spend at a stop.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#642
post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that you make more profit selling 50,000 cheap trucks and 50,000 expensive trucks than just 100,000 cheap trucks. When you can fool a largely innumerate populace into 84-month loans with "cheap" monthly payments, overpriced vehicles are the way to go.

Competition? Its not like ford is the only seller out there.

All US automakers are doing the same thing. There's gentle up-marketing collusion.

The issue at root is that auto demand is a finite, population-based amount. Automakers are all pretty good at margin and manufacturing cost control.

So that leaves the only independent variable that can influence revenue and profits as {average sold vehicle price}.

New entrants face a scale issue: it's difficult to compete with the larger manufacturers' production costs with orders of magnitude less sales volume.

Which is why you historically only saw state-sponsored new manufacturers break into the market (read: Japan, Korea, China).

Electrification turned some of this on its head, but not completely. GM, Ford, et al. can still build just enough mid-market electrics to spoil others volumes, without attempting to build something really good and cannibalizing their own luxury vehicles.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#643

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.

I don't get the whole American thing for Pick-up trucks. Unless you're hauling hay or manure, why would you want your cargo area exposed to the elements? A normal van is better in every single way. I can't figure out why someone would put their expensive tools in a pick-up's bed when this is an option: https://modulinecabinets.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/van-...

Pick-up trucks aren't meant for work. Like, at all. They are inherently grocery/family vehicles.

Europeans don't use pick-up trucks even for cargo that is suitable for pickup trucks, because small flatbed trucks [0] let you open the bed from the side, making pickup trucks mostly an obsolete concept for work purposes.

[0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=sm7pMHTu_m0

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like many of these comparisons are more applicable to an F-150 of twenty years ago. Modern F-150s start at forty grand, are so hard to repair that the CEO of Ford whines about not having enough mechanics willing to get a PhD in Ford Repair, are absolutely software-constrained to the extent they're legally allowed, and have almost as many cockpit gizmos. The primary difference is the flashy bloat, but the major…

Yeah the F150 is a strange vehicle. It has a proven reputation as a blue collar workhorse. However, a fully loaded Raptor trim is a 6 figure price tag easy.

The price of a Raptor is hardly relevant to anyone looking for a work truck - do you think the Civic Type R price is relevant to most buyers of Civics? Or the Corvette ZR1X relevant to most Corvette buyers?

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people I know make those road triys. Sure 99% of the time we don't, but we expect the car to do it

And as I pointed out, pretty much all these road trips are already possible, although some may require slight detours. With some fairly limited changes, they won't require any detours.

The changes are not limited. Gas pumps are everywhere. EV chargers are much more limited which means you have to stop where they are. You can make the trips, but sometimes it means you are stopping to charge in places you didn't want to be which can be a significant change. Worse the places you might want to be often don't have a charger so it can mean stop to charge in some gas station you don't want to spend half an hour at, then drive 10 minutes to the museum you want to be at. (even in the rare case there is transit at the gas station, they don't want you parking at the charger for 3 more hours after you are fully charged)

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah 5 mins is not true, its 1 minute actual 'charging' as in refill from empty to full. I don't know what your family does on the gas station, but my wife and 2 small kids can cover toilet visit (as long as there was no accident) for all 3 combined under 5 mins. So can I with paying, so at the end its 5 mins stop total all counted in. Eating as in lunch is once a day, and when we travel we certainly don't need resta…

I've timed a number of the pumps around my home filling ~20gal. None of them have come close to filling in a minute. They're often 3-4 minutes of pumping, after spending a few minutes negotiating payment. I don't think I've ever spent less than 8 minutes between pulling off the road, pulling up to the pump, getting out of my car, negotiating payment, pumping, finishing up, getting in my car, and returning to the road…

That is still significnatly less time than an EV charge time. (new EVs are starting to come that can do really fast charges, time will tell how this changes)

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spend an hour at a charging station This is exaggeration. A half hour for a well-loaded truck, sure, but an hour is generally exaggeration. And as for five minutes for a fill up, it's usually more than five for a regular fill-up on a regular passenger car for me compared to just continuing on.

Yeah 5 mins is not true, its 1 minute actual 'charging' as in refill from empty to full. I don't know what your family does on the gas station, but my wife and 2 small kids can cover toilet visit (as long as there was no accident) for all 3 combined under 5 mins. So can I with paying, so at the end its 5 mins stop total all counted in. Eating as in lunch is once a day, and when we travel we certainly don't need resta…

If you live in the US you likely are a two or more car family. You can argue the need for an ICE for one of those cars, but for most it wouldn't be hard to plan "honey I need your car tomorrow for my long trip so remember to take my car".

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#649

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…

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

Unless you are going a long way, you charge at home. And rural areas have a lot of independent housing and outdoor power so it’s easier than for city dwellers.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#650

I bought some LiFePo power packs this summer. They are just 1kWh things, the size and mass of a crate of beer but having a power pack with mains voltage output is mind bending. Suddenly you can do all sorts of things you never could do before. It feels as bizarre as it might feel going camping with a magic tap that has permanent running water, or to have a bag of rice that never empties. I set up a tent with a househ…

electric chainsaws no fun

If you mean battery powered, then yes, but I was hoping for some hypothetical 50kW device powered by a cable from my equally hypothetical all-electric F-150. That would be fun.
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