221–230 of 1001 posts
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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
I decide if a truck is utilitarian by whether I have to flag a 2x4x8 in the bed or not.
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>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, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility. It's a $60,000 four-door lifted luxobarge with leather interior and a short bed. It signals (perceived) wealth while preserving working-class alignment. It can also be justified by way of having to pick up used furniture for TikTok refinish and flip projects or bim…
Crappy used trucks simply aren't up for sale. And even the rare listing I do come across, the asking price is ridiculously inflated.
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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.
The brain is a confabulation/justification engine. In reality ideal utility is likely found in the shape of a 2008 Toyota Camry and a U-Haul truck rental when necessary.
buy yourself a gently used 2019 Camry
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...
Why didn't they just do it anyways? Dealerships seem like a pointless middleman, but I know absolutely nothing about what leverage they have. Self-driving cars can not come fast enough
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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.
It's great for rural folks or others with power issues. For a few thousand bucks, you have a backup generator in your garage.
Otherwise rural folks often have something to fix on the other side of their property that needs tools. Cordless tools do a lot but sometimes are not enough.
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Sports cars largely don't have any of the negative externalities of trucks.
Their fuel consumption is about the same, what externalities are you referring to?
And there's also wear on the road, noise, and damage to property and people when accidents happen (physics is a bitch).
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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…
This is why I am like a broken record repeating that EV misconceptions kill EVs. You are applying gas car logic to electric cars, which is what people do, and stops them from getting an EV.
But it's wrong.
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 You don't know much about trucks? What does this even mean, max utility? Trucks are designed for different purposes. Should we eliminate all programming languages besides bash or python?
> especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one Seems like you don't know much about business either. Most new products should NOT try to do everything at once the first time.
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The Cybertruck isn't a "real" truck, but the vast majority of trucks never do real truck stuff anyway so that's not as big of a gotcha as people think. Hell, even F-150s and Dodge Rams and GMCs have stunted vestigial cargo beds now, they're more like minivan utes. How many trucks can you buy today that can fit a standard everyday 4x8 sheet and a load of 8' studs in the back and close the tailgate?
> but the vast majority of trucks never do real truck stuff anyway so that's not as big of a gotcha as people think. The whole point for those non-utilty buyers is the badass, tough-guy branding. Would a whiskey-drinking, steer-wranglin', meat-smokin', spur-boot-wearin', woodshop-havin', permanent-5-oclock-shadow BAMF drive a electric CT? No. Therefore the CT fails at the one thing they expect of trucks due to its la…
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>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…
My brother has one, it is an amazing vehicle with better range performance than Tesla. It's dramatically better in the snow. Towing of large loads is a valid downside, but reality is that most people don't tow, and people who do are probably fine with 80% of the use cases (construction trailers, lawn trailers, etc). The business problem Tesla solved at Ford cannot is the dealer network. He pre-ordered his, and the de…