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Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

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Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#91
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The price isn't right for small businesses. These trucks are quite expensive They definitely aimed for the luxury market, like Rivian. Who knows how successful they would've been if they aimed for mid-range like Scout. That's the market they claimed to be entering when they started taking reservations. They also could've offered a fleet ready version without the luxury features, but must've decided not to. > They'r…

Significant portions of the body and interior were not shared with general F-150 models... At least those parts most likely to be damaged in minor accidents... imagine having your work truck in the shop for 2-3 months for want of a corner light fixture.

Yeah, that's definitely a no-go. I think you'd see that with any new model, however. I once had a Ducati in the shop for 4-5 months just waiting on a wheel because it was a new model.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#92
It's a shame they didn't ship an EV that fit the uses the F-150 serves. The Lightening is a luxury item. The F-150 is a tool, regardless of whether it's ICE or EV. I hope this puts more people in the market for the Slate truck. It won't serve everyone with an ICE F-150 but I suspect a bunch of farm and ranch vehicles that don't do many highway miles could be Slates.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#93
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the biggest issue is that “trucks” like F-150 are actually used because of US tax system that exempts such massive vehicles from emmision taxes because they are work trucks. They are pretty ineffective work vehicles but some people just love them as a symbol. That symbolism goes completely against electric/green vehicles. In other words - people who buy F-150 would never buy electric vehicle and people who are…

Ford actually makes a highly practical electric work vehicle. It's called E-Transit.

Oh I agree! I didn't mean that they can't make a good work vehicle.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#95
post #7

I am actually surprised they cancelled the F150 Lightning, I see a lot of them the Metro Vancouver area where a lot of contractors, (gardeners, pool maintenance, labourers, etc...) are driving them as electricity is super cheap here and gasoline is quite expensive.

That's exactly where I expected this thing to sell like hotcakes. It's a perfect fleet vehicle for many businesses. I think the price just wasn't right.

Wasn't the original announced price like $39k? Did they ever hit that?

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#96
post #7

I am actually surprised they cancelled the F150 Lightning, I see a lot of them the Metro Vancouver area where a lot of contractors, (gardeners, pool maintenance, labourers, etc...) are driving them as electricity is super cheap here and gasoline is quite expensive.

Gotta say, know few F150 EV owners and they all love it.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#97

I expected the "T word" to come out in the article, however this fails to address any of the practical reasons it isn't a good replacement for the value-engineered F-150: * The price isn't right for small businesses. These trucks are quite expensive * They're difficult to repair. A regular F-150 is designed to be repaired; these things are designed like iPhones to be disposable. * Parts availability is scarce, contra…

> single-charge range issues are pretty much non-existent (for non-towing applications). Readers might enjoy this, though I can't find the conclusions section at a glance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmKf8smvGsA "The Truth about Electric Towing" - The video author says that weight doesn't make much difference, but aerodynamics does. Towing a big flat piece of plywood that weighs 50 pounds but catches the wind is…

He's only comparing highway driving. As he notes, city driving (or really anything with a lot of accelerating) will see the impact of weight on fuel consumption. Seems like regen brakes can help mitigate that for electric vehicles.

Side note, if he set the parking brake when getting loaded then the second tailgate denting might not have happened. It'll also help save the transmission.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#98

I expected the "T word" to come out in the article, however this fails to address any of the practical reasons it isn't a good replacement for the value-engineered F-150: * The price isn't right for small businesses. These trucks are quite expensive * They're difficult to repair. A regular F-150 is designed to be repaired; these things are designed like iPhones to be disposable. * Parts availability is scarce, contra…

> The price isn't right for small businesses. These trucks are quite expensive

So are RAM trucks and I don't think they're hurting for customers.

I think there are two fundamental issues. One is that pickups are a weirdly-politicized lifestyle choice in the US - i.e., if you're progressive, you're supposed to hate them and see them as the symbol of the gun-totting macho redneck culture, and if you're conservative, you're supposed to love them because they're gas-guzzling freedom machines that "own the libs". An electric pickup straddles these political choices in a hard-to-market way.

The other problem is that electric pickups don't really solve any pressing problem for the buyer. They're more expensive up front, more expensive to keep running (unless you also invest a lot of $$$ into solar), and harder to repair, but they don't boast better specs... well, except for acceleration, which isn't a huge selling point for trucks.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#99
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify: We accept the security risk of kill switches in networking equipment, smartphones, laptops, servers, clouds, processors, bluetooth firmware and nvidia driver blobs, but we draw the line at civillian cars? And in contrast to the listed items above, for civillian cars you can choose from dozens of countries who produce them. And if you cannot accept security risk of owning a "kill switch" car then you…

This doesn’t seem that crazy to me - a broadly applicable coordinated OTA zero day applied across cars during US rush hours has the potential to result in likely hundreds of thousands of deaths in a few hours if safety critical systems like airbags can be tampered/inhibited by OTA-capable systems. The scale of car travel plus the inherent kinetic energy involved make a correlated risk particularly likely to lead to a…

Sure but you could just nuke us too, given that the response to a mass civilian death event would be the same. Same reason the US would be foolish to destroy the Three Gorges Dam.

Re: Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

#100

I expected the "T word" to come out in the article, however this fails to address any of the practical reasons it isn't a good replacement for the value-engineered F-150: * The price isn't right for small businesses. These trucks are quite expensive * They're difficult to repair. A regular F-150 is designed to be repaired; these things are designed like iPhones to be disposable. * Parts availability is scarce, contra…

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