Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

electrek.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 1001 posts

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

#531

Post by dylan604 »

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…

> I’ll take a moment to lament the demise of the light duty pickup that provided a bit of extra utility while still fitting in a normal parking space.

I miss the hell out of my '82 Chevrolet S10 with extended cab and two-tone paint job. The extended cab isn't going to be used for hauling the soccer team, but I could put it was plenty of space for "inside only" cargo. Damn thing threw a rod and cracked the case, and I never could convince my parents to keep it and put a new engine in it. I'd like to think I'd still own it today if they had.

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

#532

Post by ElijahLynn »

AngryData wrote: post #377
ElijahLynn wrote: post #25

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.

In my opinion it isn't useful at all because if the only thing you can get into a spot is a vehicle with 4-wheel steering, you have already fucked up your site planning. You aren't going to be delivering materials with that thing, bulk materials are too heavy and light materials are too large. Maybe tools, but it isn't that large to be a tool truck and too expensive for small handyman type work.

There are many situations that are not proper job sites. All sorts of rural situations that require turning.

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

#533

Post by pstuart »

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…

I remember the unveiling (loved the "bullet proof" glass demo). That was before I understood who Elon really was and I was pro Tesla. I never would have bought such an ugly vehicle, and I don't normally use looks to evaluate a potential ride.

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

#534

Post by thomassmith65 »

alexjplant wrote: post #183
grouchomarx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

My impression is that the pickup truck as status symbol began with a Back to the Future product placement. You may recall that the character Marty lusts after a 1985 Toyota SR5 Xtra Cab.

I saw the movie in the theater and, at the time, found it strange that anyone would have a work vehicle as a dream car.

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

#535

Post by dylan604 »

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.

Yanks never got cool vans. Vans also became synonymous with Chester the Molester. Yanks also had Chevy Astro as an option. I grew up with the family owning a full sized custom van with 2 rows of captain chairs and the third row bench folding out into a bed.

From all of the bitching in the driveway, vans were not pleasant to work on the engine. Some of them had to remove a cover from inside the van to gain access, and that cover tended to not be well insulated and was the source of a lot of heat. Not much of a firewall as a car with the engine fully separated from the passenger compartment.

There were a lot of things people did not like about vans available in the land of Yanks. The Limey vans are not the same, so do not equate your experience as being the same.

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

#536

Post by loeg »

jandrese wrote: post #63
loeg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The depreciation of electric vehicles has made me appreciate those circumstances more and more. The depreciation for most EVs isn't all that different from that of new ICE vehicles. For a while, MSRPs were artificially inflated by the EV tax credit, which could give artificially worse depreciation appearance .

So now that the tax credits are gone we should expect to see the sticker prices on new EVs to drop right? Right? Any day now?

Yes, exactly.

https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/2026-hyundai-ioniq-5-price....

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

#537

Post by loeg »

recursive wrote: post #272
jandrese wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now that the tax credits are gone we should expect to see the sticker prices on new EVs to drop right? Right? Any day now?

This happened a few years ago, at least accounting for the dealer markups.

No, it was only a few months ago when the EV credit was ended.

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

#538

Post by loeg »

fullstop wrote: post #65
loeg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Obviously this is slanted by tax credits, but the EV that I have shares a name with the existing gas model and was less expensive. EVs aren't for everything, but mine fits my use case perfectly.

I'd be interested to hear which model, because that's pretty remarkable.

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

#539

Post by potato3732842 »

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…

>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.

Any OEM will happily sell you a white vinyl floor half ton with your preferred cab/bed/engine/drivetrain configuration.

The GMC 4cyl 1500s were stupid cheap for awhile, because they shat out a bunch for CAFE and weren't selling so they were going for like 25-30k going into the new model year. I wanna say this was 2024 into 25, maybe 23 into 24, idk.

Ford Maverick seems to fit the bill for compact stuff though I suspect it may make the goalposts zip to "single cab option" and "body on frame"

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

#540

Post by loeg »

ceejayoz wrote: post #66
loeg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 worse prices (higher) Does this factor in cost of ownership? Gas, oil changes, less complexity? > worse range (lower, particularly for towing) Towing reduces a gas powered car’s range, too.

> Does this factor in cost of ownership? Gas, oil changes, less complexity?

No, I'm just talking about sticker price.

Lifetime EV costs are relatively unknown at this point, so that would be a relatively speculative comparison. You have to have a pretty optimistic view on long-term EV maintenance costs and charging costs to have EVs pencil out better with long-term cost of ownership.

If you want to talk about ongoing costs like oil and gas in ICE vehicles, you probably also need to be thinking about cost of charging (whether you can charge at home, or only at expensive DCFS) and perhaps relative cost of consumables like tires (EVs might require costlier higher load rating tires and the torquey motors might make it easier to chew through tires faster). E.g., in my area, fast charging has a per-mile cost roughly on par with gas prices (~4x home electricity prices). So if I couldn't charge at home, ownership would be somewhat costlier.

> Towing reduces a gas powered car’s range, too.

Yes, yes, but that's more acceptable when you're starting from 500 miles of non-towing range than 230, and filling up gas is still faster than filling electrons.

Post reply on HN