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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

#521

Post by robbru »

mrexroad wrote: post #485
alexjplant wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Bingo. Sprinter vans, utility vans, or even minivans are far, far more useful for trades than modern pickups. Heck, my minivan was the goat for home renovations—it’d easily fit a dozen full 4x8 sheets of drywall/osb/ply/mdf/etc and I could still close the rear gate. I always got chuckles from guys awkwardly wrangling/securing sheets onto a pickup’s bed at the supply yard when I’d easily slide the sheets off the cart…

Sprinters vans are the GOAT. My wife drives a 2009 Ford Ranger, love that damn truck. When it goes, the Sprinter it is.

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

#522

Post by [deleted] »

b40d-48b2-979e wrote: post #382
scottyah wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s crazy to me. If you hate automobiles, trucks still make the most sense- if you’re just carrying people and a grocery or two you should probably be on a bike or ebike.

That is quite a European take there. Most places in the US do not have safe pedestrian infrastructure mandating "share the road" policies with bicycles which puts you into direct contact with motor vehicle traffic, and suburban spread means you're probably not close enough to walk to your grocer.

[deleted]

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

#523

Post by [deleted] »

omnimus wrote: post #496
queuebert wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're out of touch with the working class. Some people practically live in these trucks. A little comfort goes a long way toward making their day bearable. Leather is easy to clean, power adjustment makes the seat more comfortable. Auto wipers, climate, etc., help them focus on the calls they're taking. And so on. Fleets of these are bought for commercial purposes as well. Companies wouldn't spend that kind of money…

Maybe you are out of touch. I bet even many people here think it's mainly virtue signaling. I mean… do any of the commercial services in US use pickup trucks? It seems to all be vans? Why not to get a van then as a contractor?

[deleted]

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

#524

Post by shortstuffsushi »

sejje wrote: post #244
shortstuffsushi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Manual gearbox, triangle vent windows, engine bay room, repairability, bench seats.

I would argue that the first couple of these could be considered "features." Not sure what you mean about the bench seat - the "regular cab" configuration is a 3 person bench.

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

#525

Post by autoexec »

Lammy wrote: post #495
stbtrax wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that you share the same views but at least directly funneling money to someone harming many.

You do that merely by using the monetary system at all.

You won't survive long without using the monetary system, but you could go your whole life without supporting many of the companies who you see as harmful. Now that money is speech and corporations are increasingly running the oligarchy there are very few levers people have left to try to influence their government. I don't think boycotting massive corporations will be any more successful than trying to get our representatives to care more about our wishes than the bribes they get from those same companies, but at least it feels like doing something.

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

#526

Post by saalweachter »

mrexroad wrote: post #485
alexjplant wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Bingo. Sprinter vans, utility vans, or even minivans are far, far more useful for trades than modern pickups. Heck, my minivan was the goat for home renovations—it’d easily fit a dozen full 4x8 sheets of drywall/osb/ply/mdf/etc and I could still close the rear gate. I always got chuckles from guys awkwardly wrangling/securing sheets onto a pickup’s bed at the supply yard when I’d easily slide the sheets off the cart…

You can buy a hitch for any vehicle and a brand new 8 foot trailer for For the "I need to sometimes pick up large objects" use case it's hard to beat.

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

#527

Post by rightbyte »

pipo234 wrote: post #62
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.…

> 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.

Did Toyota pay for "Smug Alert"? Wasn't that the one where owning a Prius was smelling your own farts?

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

#528

Post by hbarka »

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…

It's just a darn shame that we're reduced to a simple measure of a single dimension, whether a right or left point on a single axis. You'll find many EV owners are multidimensional, a little bit up and down and all around an x-y plane, or even x-y-z cube. Conservative and liberal progressive alike in Europe are sick of Musk and it shows on the Tesla sales tanking.

https://electrek.co/2026/01/06/tesla-full-2025-data-europe-t...

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

#529

Post by irishcoffee »

doublesocket wrote: post #427
m463 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was looking for the same thing and a friend gave me some advice. Get an SUV with a trailer hitch. worked out great. Maybe better than a pickup. For example - taking mountain bikes somewhere to ride - you can put them in the back, go ride, and leave them there while you go eat without someone stealing them. You can even load them the night before. dirty stuff can use a trailer (I've never needed one) and suv carries…

Never understood why the yanks don't like vans? Pickups are much less popular here in the UK, many more people use vans. A crew cab van with removable seats is infinitely more flexible than a pickup, other than long stuff which you chuck on a roof rack.

I wouldn't want to haul 3 yards of dirt/mulch in a van, or yard refuse. I wouldn't want to try and move a full-sized fridge in a van, or a queen bed box spring, neither will fit.

I can't fit an ATV in a van, and I really don't want to put a dead deer in the back of a van after I hunt one.

I wouldn't trust a van to haul 75 8x8x16 concrete bricks (over 2000 lbs/1100kg) because the suspension wasn't designed to do that, nor was the transmission, and the van will quickly deteriorate.

How about moving a couch? Fits in the truck, not in a van.

I did all of those things in the past 12 months.

All that being said, vans are great, especially with kids. They absolutely do not replace trucks... if you use the truck and don't mind getting it dirty. Shiny trucks with 5.5ft beds are fucking stupid. My kids all laugh at "trucks with a baby bed" these days.

Or, downthread, people just assume everyone with a truck is insecure, projecting wealth, and generally ignorant. Which ironically, is a very ignorant take.

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

#530

Post by danans »

eMSF wrote: post #149
danans wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but plugins get closer to the less efficient alternative (regular hybrid) the more you use them. As long as most of your drive cycle fits within the EV range of the plugin hybrid, they are cheaper to operate than a regular hybrid. The crossover point depends on the drive cycle and the cost of electricity vs gasoline. I had a plug-in hybrid SUV that got 2.2miles/kWh in EV mode, which covered 75% of the miles I drove…

Using a plug-in hybrid as an EV can and will wear out the drive battery over the lifetime of the car. It doesn't even matter if you don't intend to keep the car for very long as a rational market will price this in. The cost ($10k or more) goes a long way at the pump.

> Using a plug-in hybrid as an EV can and will wear out the drive battery over the lifetime of the car

PHEVs have battery management systems and buffer capacity to protect the battery just like pure EVs. For many, at extremely high power demand, they switch to the gass engine anyways, so if anything the batteries are less stressed.

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