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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

#591

Post by aeonik »

3ple_alpha wrote: post #573
aeonik wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vans usually have a very difficult time off-road or in mountainous terrain. Vans are commonly used in urban areas, especially by businesses, but suburbs, rural, and construction benefit from higher clearences of SUVs and trucks. SUVs are also usually much better in hazardous driving conditions because of a more optimal weight distribution.

Vans work just fine on mountain roads. And driving off road is simply not a thing for like 99% of drivers. Reality is, people buy these things thinking they would drive them off road, and never actually do it. It's possible to make an off-road van, by the way. It's just that real demand is so vanishingly small that you don't really see them.

Having grown up in the mountains, and currently living in a hilly snowy area, no thanks I'll keep my SUV. My in laws have a mini van, and it's not great.

I deal and have dealt with enough deep snow that would eat a van.

I still might get a Sienna Hybrid for daily commuter

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

#592

Post by dwaite »

BizarroLand wrote: post #566
saalweachter wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have 3 vehicles, an old project jeep, an old truck, and a sedan. Sedan handles 99% of my driving, but can't really tow anything. Truck handles all of my towing stuff, but gets ~14mpg which hurts so I don't drive it. Jeep is a jeep, it's always being worked on, but when I use it I'm using it to go ride around on dirt paths or for camping. It gets 17-20mpg when I'm driving it but I don't want to drive it often. If th…

2001 Wrangler owner, I do some towing (particularly like the flexibility of UBox for borrowing a box on a trailer for a few days to store items at my house or leisurely pack up for storage).

The 2 door model unfortunately has a pretty weak tow rating of 1 ton, and I'm fairly certain I have gone well over that a few times. IIRC the four door models a few years later took that up to 5000 lbs because of the extra length.

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

#593

Post by [deleted] »

BizarroLand wrote: post #583
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the truth is very few truck owners are towing huge loads long distances. This pattern also applies more broadly. Most people don't actually need to drive 400 miles without stopping, don't actually need an SUV, and in some cases don't actually need a truck. For a huge swath of the population some variation on a hybrid/electric hatchback/wagon or minivan is actually the best match for their needs, but practicalit…

The reason I'm holding out for a 400 mile range vehicle is many fold. 1: Sometimes I actually do drive 400 miles in a single sitting, and I want to be able to keep doing that. 2: The last 10% of charge seems to take the longest. If I can safely fast charge in 20 minutes from 30 to 300 miles range, then I would have no range anxiety even when I'm on a long road trip. 3: I know the tech is coming, and I can wait until…

[deleted]

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

#594

Post by cgh »

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…

Light-duty pickups still exist, eg the Nissan Frontier with the 6’ bed is probably the most reliable, sturdy and cost-effective pickup out there. Europeans may know this truck as the Navarro.

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

#595

Post by debatem1 »

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.

Anecdotally, a lot more people in the US tow. And pickup trucks are the indisputable king of towing.

There's also the fact that it's a lot harder to take the top off a van than it is to add a top to the bed of a pickup. If I sometimes moved manure and had a van... I'd probably rent a trailer.

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

#596

Post by simondotau »

rootusrootus wrote: post #424
nikcub wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resale value is starting to ward some people off. You can buy 1-2 year old used Teslas and BYD's in Australia for ~30% below retail. Meanwhile Toyota hybrids not just retain their value but there have been moments where used RAV4's are listed above retail because the waitlist for new was so long.

Tesla is a special case because they manipulate their pricing on a monthly, sometimes daily basis, and in the past they've changed the price quite significantly. In the US, the tax credits also really screw with the market dynamics. Lots of people think the car depreciates really quickly because they don't realize the original buyer didn't pay MSRP. I paid $20K under MSRP for my Lightning and in the just over a year…

Most other car prices are "manipulated" on a minute-by-minute basis, insofar as pricing is different for each customer, based on their their willingness to go hard in negotiation, manufacturer incentives, demand levels, stock levels, finance packages, and the current mood of the dealership principal.

The difference with Tesla is that their current "best price" is published out in the open.

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

#597

Post by sejje »

shortstuffsushi wrote: post #524
sejje wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, utilitarian features. A manual gearbox is simpler than an automatic.

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

#598

Post by nospice »

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 doubt that. I suspect there are virtually no customers who step into a dealership unsure if they want to buy EV or ICE.

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

#600

Post by XorNot »

potato3732842 wrote: post #471
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…

I own a station wagon, a van and a pickup (none of which are nice or new) vehicle and three trailers (to be fair one is special purpose) and I'll put up to ~1000lb on the roof of the car before I drag a trailer around. Trailer is kind of obnoxious pain in the ass and has a bunch more shit to go wrong with it's use compared to a vehicle that "just does what you need". It might not be the literal cheapest but a truck w…

I just plain don't have room to store a trailer, but I do have room for a second car - hence I own a ute (pickup or whatever in American parlance).

Which is really the thing: it's very useful to have a second car, but a trailer can't be a second car.

What's really desperately missing is useful payload capacity: a standard ute can't carry 1 ton in the tray confidently (and it's downright impossible to find accurate info on what you should do to get that outside of "add a tag axle").

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