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Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was then canceled for poor sales

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Re: Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was then canceled for poor sales

#81
post #2

At the size of Ford, sales numbers can be at a different mark for what is considered successful than others. Not to mention dealer gamesmanship fudges real sales numbers. As to the Cybertruck it's both interesting and kind of ugly... repairability is another concern/issue as is pure cost... I'm far more interested in the Slate[1] myself. It's probably closer to what a lot of consumers would want in an electric truck.…

> At the size of Ford, sales numbers can be at a different mark for what is considered successful than others. Does this really hold when Tesla has a considerably higher valuation? Tesla is sitting at an egregious 30x market cap of Ford. If anything... I'd expect them to have sales targets that are ~30x the size of Ford. When you consider that Ford also makes many more models than Tesla (Tesla has like 8 core models…

For 2025, Ford sold about 2.2 million vehicles, Tesla was like 1.6m. Given, more variety for Ford... But there's also margins and supply chains to consider.

The Cybertruck is kind of ugly and very expensive... not to mention that no EV truck really does towing well. The fact that the Lightning sold more than the Cybertruck doesn't make it a success.

The Cybertruck, imo, is not too different than a limited run sports car from a major car company... it's just a step above a concept car. The Lightning from Ford was an attempt to see if a market was really ready to shift to EV, it largely isn't. Even though I think it's probably a great option for a lot of work truck use, that doesn't include long distances or heavy towing, but then it likely prices itself out of that market segment too.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was then canceled for poor sales

#82
post #13

I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift…

>I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics That and also it's just a bad product. >That said, even though it's not to my taste, I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one edit: agree there's a market…

>A pickup truck should just be max utility,

The problem is as soon as you go EV, you use a lot of utility from the get go. With a truck specifically, because its a brick aerodynamically. There is no reason to buy a Cybertruck or Lightning when you can get a gas or hybrid F150 (or a Raptor) for a little bit more, and be able to sit at 80 mph on highways without worrying about range.

The biggest suprise about the lightning is that Ford didn't put in a gas engine in it as a range extender. They have 3 cylinder ecoboost engines that would have been perfect for that.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was then canceled for poor sales

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heartbreaking but true. The most popular pickups today are not the most useful pickups. There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US. Pickups are a little bit interesting in this regard. For any given model (eg: Tacoma, Frontier, etc.) the more premium the truck, the worse it is at being a truck. Each feature you add reduces its payload, and in the case of the Frontier, you could drop fr…

> There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US. What makes you say this? The F-150 series has a pretty serviceable option in their XL trim. 8ft bed, 4x4, "dumb" interior (maybe not, looking at their site looks like the most recent is iPad screen, sigh) - but what else would you look for to call it utilitarian? You're right that each feature is further limiting, but I would argue premium…

I wish it had even fewer features, but I take your point.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was then canceled for poor sales

#84
post #13

I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift…

I'll applaud anything that tries to move us away from the current stale design trend where every car looks like the same boring bar of soap and every truck looks like the same aggressive, drivable, mechanized fist.

But anything in this case is a pedestrian-maiming, finger-slicing, dumpster on dubs. Not sure that's really a move in the right direction.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was then canceled for poor sales

#85
post #62
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. I 1000% agree with this, in fact I love the way it looks, like something out of a SEGA Saturn game. But I would never buy one for the same reasons I would never buy any Tesla, or in fact any EV, or any post-2014 car at all.…

> I guess the Prius line was a popular “statement car” of the pre-Tesla era, though, like how Brian drives one on Family Guy, or the “Smug Alert” episode of South Park, but it was never that for me. ... So you admit to falling for Toyota product placement in cartoons.

Learn to read. I actually didn't see that episode until years after I both owned a Prius and lived in San Francisco, and I found it very funny :)

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was then canceled for poor sales

#86
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. I 1000% agree with this, in fact I love the way it looks, like something out of a SEGA Saturn game. But I would never buy one for the same reasons I would never buy any Tesla, or in fact any EV, or any post-2014 car at all.…

Let me get this straight. You bought a "statement car" but not for its statement, and then you assume that other people driving a different "statement car" bought it because of the statement?

They also avoid buying certain cars to make a statement.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was then canceled for poor sales

#87
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. I 1000% agree with this, in fact I love the way it looks, like something out of a SEGA Saturn game. But I would never buy one for the same reasons I would never buy any Tesla, or in fact any EV, or any post-2014 car at all.…

Let me get this straight. You bought a "statement car" but not for its statement, and then you assume that other people driving a different "statement car" bought it because of the statement?

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Re: Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was then canceled for poor sales

#88
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. When the cyber truck was announced we decided to buy a Super Duty instead. That was 5 years ago. It's now paid off and driven us and our RV all over the country, and still worth more than half it's purchase price with many more miles to go, and no issues at all (knock on wood). A lightning, cyber truck, or even rivian can't do those things. Instead of waiting for a slate just buy a little gas pickup and GO USE…

>> no issues at all Other than all the CO2, CO, and NOx you've emitted over that time period. The government should have started taxing barrels of oil in the 70s.

If that was the goal, then killing nuclear power and holding it back for the past 4 decades was probably the wrong move. Solar and other "renewable" sources aren't enough to meet energy needs now, let alone the near future.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was then canceled for poor sales

#89
post #13

I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift…

Politics or no, the price point ultimately dictated its maximum sales. By that measure it's a reasonable success, and if Elon was forecasting that they would sell multiple tens of thousands of vehicles per year at a $80,000 price point he needs to lay off the drugs. Elon sometimes seems like the living embodiment of "How much could a banana cost, Michael, $10?" parody of out of touch rich people.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was then canceled for poor sales

#90

I think the dealership monopoly is partly to blame. Dealers get more reoccurring revenue from ICE vehicles, so they are incentivized to not stock EVs and to steer customers away from them. Ford seemed to understand this and attempted a direct sale program for EVs, but they canceled it due to dealer pushback. https://fordauthority.com/2025/02/ford-ev-inventory-hub-syst...

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