Live data from Hacker News

Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

wired.com

671–680 of 915 posts

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#671
post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charge at home, that’s the whole point. My F150 lightning costs about $14 in electric charges a month for about 600 miles on average.

Home electricity in California is about 45¢/kWh. If your F150 mileage is typical, you're getting about 2 miles per kWh. 600 miles would cost about $135 here in California. Meanwhile, a 20 mpg gas car would cost about $110/month at $3.65/gallon. You must be paying about 4.7 cents per kWh, or about 90% less than you'd pay here.

One would think that California would be the first place to have regulations for cheap electricity.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Landscapers have trucks here too, but they look like this https://iveco.dk/shopping-varktojer/kampagner/MY24-IVECO-Dai... For personal use, like you mention, people use a small trailer. You own one or borrow it freely from many places, hitch it to your car, haul dirt, and then detach it. No need to drive a truck everywhere because you need to haul some stuff once a month. > But this idea that no normal person needs a…

You borrow it freely in places where you don’t need it. In rural areas they aren’t available. And getting a trailer and towing it is t as convenient as just driving a truck.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Landscapers have trucks here too, but they look like this https://iveco.dk/shopping-varktojer/kampagner/MY24-IVECO-Dai... For personal use, like you mention, people use a small trailer. You own one or borrow it freely from many places, hitch it to your car, haul dirt, and then detach it. No need to drive a truck everywhere because you need to haul some stuff once a month. > But this idea that no normal person needs a…

Let’s not oversimplify. For example, waste transfer station in my city forbids use of trailers of any kind.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#674
post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My electrician drives an electric F-150, it's impressive how useful it is for him. The frunk carries a big box of tools, there's tons of outlets to charge his power tool batteries, he can even run a small welder

I have the powerboost hybrid F-150. It does all this, can power a house with the generator, AND I can drive it through the mountain west with zero EV infrastructure at insanely high MPG for a truck. Plopped a Tune camper on the back and couldn’t ask for more.

Same. In a Powerboost, pulling my 5000 pound boat 500 miles to north Idaho is super easy, with a single refuel. In a Lightning that would be a nightmare, recharging 4-5 times. In truth, I’m excited about Ford’s pivot. I think electric motors with a range extender would be fantastic. Like the Chevy Volt for pickups.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree EREVs make a lot of sense, electric first but not requiring a full commitment, especially for a truck that sometimes has to do things like towing. https://insideevs.com/news/777407/scout-motors-erev-reservas... I'm sure this wasn't lost on Ford, 80% of Scout reservations come with the EREV and only 20% BEV. Maybe one day they will have enough volume in the segment to justify making the pure BEV version again…

The problem with EREVs is they are more complex than a BEV. More parts to go wrong, to purchase, and ultimately a (potentially) higher price. The reason to do EREVs for a manufacture is, IMO, primarily because they can't get a hold of batteries for a cheap enough price. And I think that's the weakness of the way Ford has attacked EVs. They haven't (AFAIK) really built out battery plants. As a result, they are at the…

Studies have shown that hybrids are more reliable than ICE vehicles - it turns out that using EV mode of the time and ICE less often increases reliability. No reason an EREV shouldn’t be even better.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#676
post #106
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Oh, an EREV is fancy way to say "hybrid" ok Kind of. EREVs are what locomotives have been doing for a century (and to a lesser extent barges), which is called diesel-electric in that field. I agree the terminology is lacking, but EREVs are quite compelling (and their high market share in China supports consumer demand). Hybrid: * ICE must run during regular operation (except for ~very short distances at ~very slow s…

I wonder about the specs though. I recall the bmw serial hybrid was called a range extender, because the gas motor couldn't actually put out enough energy to drive the vehicle on the freeway. So basically it was an EV with a small +xx mile extra range from the gas engine. so no "ice for road trips", more like "ice for an additional +xx miles" then you need to recharge. In comparison the chevy volt had a better hybrid…

The i3 was bad, but Ford is planning long range towing with the EREV so it should be fine.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#677
post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most heavy trucks are sold to people who don’t really need them, but buy them to signal cultural allegiance and get a tax break.

Define “need”. I only use my snow shovel like 3 days a year. Does that mean I don’t need a snow shovel? I only camp in my camper one month a year, but I can’t move that thing with anything other than a pickup. I don’t “need” my truck for that. I operate several food trailers. I can’t tow most of them even with my 2500 reefer van, but I could go back into software. The better question might be how often does one utili…

I was talking about the heave ones. Past a certain weight there is a special tax preference. For example, every Mercedes dealer (it seems) has an explanation on their website pitching their G series SUV. People buy they and claim they are primarily for business, but there is very little enforcement or verification.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay are we just saying they just discontinued one electric F150 in favor of another? Meh. Edit: Oh, an EREV is fancy way to say "hybrid" ok

I get that a hybrid is attractive because of the flexibility, but still the change is a strange decision. EVs are simpler to maintain than ICEs, but a hybrid is more complex, it adds the possible EV problems atop possible ICE problems. Maybe keep the trucks as much they are now, just the essential changes to replace the engine? There's plenty of space on those huge trucks.

It turns out that it reduces possible ICE problems since you use the engine less often while the electric powertrain doesn’t add enough new problems to matter, so the result is an improvement in reliability.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#679

Let’s assume that this is the correct decision in terms of the viability of the electric F-150 (I have no reason to believe Ford is wrong here). The real problem with this decision is that the F-150 is pretty much Ford’s only foray into EVs. It raises the question of how Ford expects to compete in the EV market, which is a bigger concern given that the world market is showing a clear preference for EVs, especially on…

The Mach-E is pretty popular.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#680

Let’s assume that this is the correct decision in terms of the viability of the electric F-150 (I have no reason to believe Ford is wrong here). The real problem with this decision is that the F-150 is pretty much Ford’s only foray into EVs. It raises the question of how Ford expects to compete in the EV market, which is a bigger concern given that the world market is showing a clear preference for EVs, especially on…

The Ford Mach-e would like to have a word - it was the first Ford EV. It was available for the first year as a 2021 model, while the Lightning was available as a ‘22. The Mach-e is still available and I think the ‘26 models are already out there.

According to Car and Driver the Mach-e was the 4th most popular EV so far this year (around 42k sold) and the Lightning was the 7th (23k units sold.)

Anecdotally I see a ton of Mach-e on the road where I live, and Lightning too. We got a Mach-e this summer and it has been excellent.

Post reply on HN