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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

#191
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.

The bar of soap is aerodynamic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient

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

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Range is the misconception, because people view range through the "sit and fill up then drive till empty" paradigm. That is not how EVs work or how they should be used. They should be charged overnight/when you are doing something else, and on road trips should be charged to align with other stops even if those stops are 10 minutes. It's rare that I have ever done the "sit in the car for 40 minutes waiting for charge…

That’s exactly the problem. I’d be happy to use an EV daily, as I drive short distances. But when I drive longer, then I don’t want to waste hours on charging. The other day I drove 700km in just about 5.5 hours (German Autobahn). Few stops to pee. With EV that would be few hours more (!). If this doesn’t bother you, then it’s fine. It matters to me though. Sometimes I also drive early in the morning 600km, and in th…

As long as there's a fast charging station somewhere along the route you'd need more like 30 minutes to charge midway through, not multiple hours.

You also surely recognize that your driving patterns are very atypical and a car not working for them says very little about how suitable the car is for the market as a whole.

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

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Cybertruck also does the tightest turns because it has front and back wheel steering. I could imagine that to be useful on job sites.

2002 GMC Sierras did this, it was called quadrasteer

As did some models of Honda Prelude starting in '87.

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

#194
post #190
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes, anybody who puts a sticker on their car apologizing for owning it is somebody who bought it to make a statement. Or the opposite, buying the car wasn't a statement at the time and they don't like that driving it feels like a statement now so they got a bumper sticker to acknowledge that their continued ownership is not a statement of support for Musk and his ideology.

Real ones wouldn't be thinking about it at all.

Lots of reports of Tesla's getting keyed. I know Tesla owners who bought the sticker just to avoid getting keyed.

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

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure what the takeaway from your comment is? I'm not arguing that the F-150 lightning was a commercial success for Ford, I'm suggesting that the argument that Tesla should be held to a different standard on sales numbers feels pretty shaky. Both of these are basically "concept cars", and neither company has really delivered. Both are expensive to make, and have very high sticker prices with low/negative margi…

I think the difference is what each company respectively thought of the model itself. For Tesla, Cybertruck is imo like a lower-volume sports car... for Ford, it was an upscale work truck option. The expectations are imo very different. Maybe not so much a Ford/Tesla comparison, but the respective market expectations.

Ford didn't exactly expect the Ford GT to be a mass seller, which is probably closer to what Tesla expected of the Cybertruck, or not, who knows.

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

#196
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 light…

Here's a different aspect of utility: The F150 Lightning includes 120V and optionally 240V outlets, so it replaces the need to carry a separate gas-powered generator. That's probably more relevant to fleet vehicles for construction and maintenance firms than to individuals towing boats. But just to offer an example of how the F150 Lightning is a great fit for certain uses.

You can also get a standard hybrid F150 with the "Pro Power(?)" package, and the hybrid drive-train turns into a 7.2kW generator.

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that EV-s are held back by misconceptions. More their price and range.

Range is the misconception, because people view range through the "sit and fill up then drive till empty" paradigm. That is not how EVs work or how they should be used. They should be charged overnight/when you are doing something else, and on road trips should be charged to align with other stops even if those stops are 10 minutes. It's rare that I have ever done the "sit in the car for 40 minutes waiting for charge…

I actually leased a Kia EV6 recently without too much research into the charging situation, assuming that in 2025 it was probably pretty well figured out, and I could just do as you propose and just charge in small bursts at the grocery store etc. But:

- It didn't come with a home charger at all. They're not cheap.

- It came with a J1772 adapter, but no CCS adapter. The car itself has NACS. So I'm limited to Tesla superchargers, which are expensive, unless I buy a new adapter (not cheap, or cheap, but suspicious Temu brands).

- The experience of using all of these different branded charging points is _awful_. You need to create 10 different accounts with a bunch of terrible apps. The maps to find charging infrastructure seem universally awful.

- Pretty common to arrive at a charging location to find that some nutjob has hacked off all the charging cables. The only reliably maintained charge points are the larger, more expensive high speed charging locations.

I think a lot of the issues would be solved if I was more committed to the car and the house that I'm living in, and installed a home charger to charge at night. But the charging experience out in the world is absolutely _dismal_ when compared to gas vehicles, even if you change your behavior.

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

#199
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…

> it's not to my taste

It's not just you, it's universally tasteless and that's the point: It is a contrarian vehicle.

In an age where the Internet has flattened subcultures into surface phenomenons, the only remaining way to publicly distance yourself from normality is by making patently, obviously bad decisions and using the backlash to further fuel your ego.

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

#200
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…

Elon going off the deep end is the tail wagging the dog. It's an objectively terrible car.

The collapse of the company overall, particularly the Model Y, which is a great car, is all about Elon. Not only his unveiling as a fascist, but he essentially looted the company.

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