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

electrek.co

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

#101

Post by giancarlostoro »

grouchomarx wrote: post #20
billti wrote: 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…

> That and also it's just a bad product.

I want whatever the v3 equivalent of the Cybertruk would be. Assuming they improve on it.

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

#102

Post by miltonlost »

barbazoo wrote: post #70
b40d-48b2-979e wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A *working* truck should be max utility. All trucks should be working trucks. There is no reason to drive something that large and heavy that isn't better served by smaller vehicles that don't damage our shared infrastructure while being safer to drive.

Tragedy of the commons.

Tragedy of not having better regulations. The commons don't have anything to do with it.

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

#103

Post by 1234letshaveatw »

tracker1 wrote: 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.…

the god awful range of the Slate is not closer to what a lot of consumers would want in an electric truck

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

#104

Post by [deleted] »

threetonesun wrote: post #47
Workaccount2 wrote: post #17

It's a shame the Lightning got discontinued. As an EV owner, it sucks that the main thing holding the technology back is misconceptions and misunderstanding, rather than actual practical matters. People think EVs are cars with tanks of electrons, and run aground the same way you would if you thought horses were cars full of hay. It's a different transport tool that gives the same results, you just have to know how to…

An F-150 Lightning and Cybertruck weigh somewhere between 6000 and 7000 pounds, so I personally think of them the same way as if you replaced your horse with a hippo. It's not hard to convince people to move to electric, just make it such a better economic proposition that it would be silly not to.

[deleted]

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

#105

Post by rjrjrjrj »

everdrive wrote: post #31
catigula wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one I don't think this is actually true, most pickup trucks aren't designed for maximum utility. They're designed to sell a lifestyle.

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…

The Ford Maverick is pretty utilitarian, inasmuch as any new US vehicle is.

The Slate is utilitarian, but remains to be seen if it actually ships. https://www.slate.auto/en

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

#106

Post by WorldMaker »

loeg wrote: post #40
ceejayoz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for illustrating the point.

They have worse prices (higher) and worse range (lower, particularly for towing). These aren't misconceptions. (My only car is an EV that I'm happy with. But lying about EVs doesn't benefit advocates.)

They have artificially worse prices in the US where EVs are mostly only getting sold as "luxury" vehicles and competition is hobbled by dealer networks and dealer laws and import tariffs.

Most other parts of the world EVs are starting to be cheaper than the equivalent ICE in the same category.

Range often doesn't need to get better, the impression of range needs to change. That's where a lot of misconceptions play into effect, over-focusing on things like gas-station-like charging stations over at-home charging. Over-focusing on "zero to full tank/battery statistics" when no one keeps a gas vehicle with a full tank overnight every night. Over-focusing on high speed charging and ignoring boring but useful "Level 1" charging, which is "just about everywhere" because our society has been building electrical outlets for a long time. Sure, the experience changes in things like long distance trips, but experience changes aren't "worse" by default of being a change.

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

#107

Post by Lammy »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #72
Lammy wrote: 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?

Yes, anybody who puts a sticker on their car apologizing for owning it is somebody who bought it to make a statement. I bought mine because I researched best gas mileage, lowest ongoing maintenance cost, and dimensions that fit the the city, and that's what I came up with.

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

#108

Post by jandrese »

ortusdux wrote: post #36

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...

I have a conspiracy theory take on traditional manufacturers being so anti-EV.

Basically the primary differentiator between car companies and the primary barrier to entry in the combustion vehicle business is the engine, especially in the US. Look at the marketing, horsepower and torque are always the topline numbers. Zero to sixty and quarter mile drag races are the favored metrics. Each company spent decades perfecting the engines and the majority of the engineering effort goes into them. Even the transmissions get second fiddle status.

But now EVs come along and the electric motors are commodity parts that are already well optimized. There's little one company can do to make the motor significantly better. Battery tech is cutthroat and also largely outside of the car company's scope, although Tesla does more than other car companies with their megafactories and experiments with oversized cells. If EVs become popular there's little to stop competition from sprouting up everywhere and killing profitability for the legacy auto manufacturers.

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

#109

Post by switchbak »

a4isms wrote: post #52
catigula wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one I don't think this is actually true, most pickup trucks aren't designed for maximum utility. They're designed to sell a lifestyle.

Lifestyle sells. I drive a wagon. Of course wagon owners talk about the utility. And yet, you can buy a wagon with a twin-turbo V8 engine. What's the "sportwagon" segment all about? Certainly not going to Home Depot to buy four toilets for the new house, it's about putting your $15,000 Cannondale Black Ink MTB on the roof and swanking up to the trailhead.

It's about drag racing on the way to your Jiu-Jitsu club with the baby seats in the back. And still being able to fit that new vanity from Home Depot in on your way back home!

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

#110

Post by 1234letshaveatw »

CursedSilicon wrote: post #8

I'm sure the usual detractors will be here to whine "Electrek is biased against Tesla!" To which I would ask: Is it "bias" because they simply report on Tesla frequently? Would it be "less biased" if they ignored Tesla? Obviously Electrek can't simply invent positive press for Tesla to report on. Putting that aside though. The Cybertruck by all measures has been an abject failure. Its production run was so limited th…

Elecdrek's bias against Tesla is only surpassed by its gushing over any/everything China.
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