2022 Ford F-150 Lightning
ford.com
ford.com
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=2
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=3
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=4
(Posts like this will go away once we turn off pagination.)
There are also some previous related threads:
The Electric Ford F-150 Can Power Your House for Three Days on a Single Charge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27232576 - May 2021 (14 comments)
Ford unveils the F-150 Lightning, its all-electric pickup truck - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27218029 - May 2021 (88 comments)
How Ford Built an Electric F-150 That Can Do Real Work for $40K - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27217386 - May 2021 (7 comments)
Everything about this vehicle launch appears masterful, from its technology to its branding to the obvious care taken to ensure that in almost every respect it is so superior, and offers so many no-brainers, as to make anyone who can (both individuals and especially, fleet managers), buy these as fast they can.
This thing has more than one killer app.
The biggest by far IMO is its ability to power high voltage high draw tools at the jobsite.
If you have never worked on a jobsite, this is a BFD.
This is itself a game changer, it offers the ability to "disrupt" in a material way a whole class of project. Logistics just got 20% simpler and projects 30% cheaper.
Sure, it can go super fast; yes, you can lock your stuff in the truck...
But the other killer feature for fleet owners is that these are remotely manageable.
Your fleet now has detailed telemetry and its only going to get better.
And this is on launch.
We just got a RAV4 Prime and if I didn't live in SF proper, I might be seriously regretting not waiting for this thing. (I don't, and don't think this makes sense in the city.)
If we move to e.g. Sonoma and work remote? This would be that no brainer.
Hallelujah. Now, to invest in Ford...
What I would like to figure out is if it can actually backfeed the home with 240V split phase power. That would be a seriously big deal if it could, it's not a common generator feature as it is. I'm skeptical, but they did claim it could transition from charging to supplying the house and back to charging when the power returned. Probably some fine print there where they say "only with the 120V charger". Otherwise, that would just be killer. An automatic whole-house UPS that can easily support all your needs for hours or even a couple days in a pinch.
oh, you mean like solar PV on-grid setups ...
A correct install is of course also required as it's possible to screw up and unintentionally cripple this important safety feature.
Needless to say, if you're looking for a backup power source this isn't a property you want.
(an idiot who the state of NM certified last year to install his own on-grid solar PV system, so doubly an idiot!)
Some battery systems, like the Tesla Powerwall include a contactor that allow their microgrid battery systems to conform to the standard without a loss of power to the site they power.
It is good that people are aware of the risk, but in reality the risk is quite low. It is standard procedure for a lineman to ground a line he's about to work on, to mitigate the risk of any power source feeding it. But I'd never advocate a DIY setup. But damn near everyone I know with a portable generator has a suicide cord and just flips the mains. Ah well.
How many linemen are killed a year in the US due to backup generators or similar? Are there no procedures they can do to work on lines safer?
But since lives are at stake here, we prefer to have layers of protection rather than just one thing. Grounding jumpers can fail if not properly connected (a large mechanical force will be applied to the jumper when the phase-to-ground fault current flows through it).
Bottom line, respect the electrical code and connect generators through a transfer switch. These rules are in place for a reason.
In fact it's likely the transformer on the street between your house and the network that's responsible for the death of the linemen. IIRC that's a step down transformer (so step up when run backwards like this.)
I wonder if the wiring is basically plug the 240v split phase into a special outlet in the house that feeds the transfer switch. The 80amp charger is then just a charger.
Could be completely wrong though. We'll know more at launch.
I have a TIG welder and a solid state linear amplifier that I'd love to be able to power from my truck instead of from a generator.
The hybrid F-150 could already do that.
A production prototype doesn't even exist yet.
Cybertruck is Musk's equivalent of the Mac G4 Cube ego mistake, except far worse. He understood that electric vehicles should look like existing conceptions of vehicles, things people can easily identify with as being vehicles they'd want to drive, but electric and maybe sexy + better in various boring functional ways. He abandoned that with the Cybertruck, and it'll bomb accordingly over time. Meanwhile Ford will sell a bazillion electric trucks, and humiliate Tesla's efforts in the space (in his inability to be humble, Musk will fall back on claiming Cybertruck is superior, even as it doesn't sell very well).
Tesla should have acquired Ford in a stock swap, left it an independent operating entity, and electrified their trucks; or acquired a huge minority position (in a stock swap) if the Ford family wouldn't go for a full acquisition. They should have done that years ago. They were too self-absorbed to see the obvious opportunity. The electrified trucks would be enormous profit centers. Now, instead, Tesla will almost entirely miss out on the zillion dollar electric truck market, which they could have had a big slice of. Tesla's only shot is to abandon Cybertruck and build a normal looking truck, which they won't do for several years until the pain from the embarrassment overwhelms Musk's ego problems (otherwise they'll just leave Cybertruck as a low volume trinket in their lineup, or abandon the space entirely).
I have a pre-order Cybertruck and may or may not be in a position to buy one when they land in Australia (if they land at all) but man it's cool.
Think of the Lamborghini Countach [0], it was designed decades ago and it still looks like it's from outer space!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamborghini_Countach
EDIT: Saying that, if this new F150 came to Australia (or say an all electric Raptor) I'd probably go for the Ford. I currently drive a 2019 Hilux and it's a very handy do everything car, but the F150 is quite a lot larger and not really suited to the (very few) Australian cities.
Even at 20% conversion of preorders (and that is way lower Tesla usually gets) they have plent for the first 1-2 years of production and that is assuming that they don't get more orders (again as they did with ever other car).
This is just your personal taste and you have formed your opinion on that 100%. Not a single actual state about the Cybertruck or its release indicates anthing like what you suggest.
> humiliate Tesla's efforts in the space
Ford wins in a space Tesla doesn't have a product in. Wow. Amazing.
> Tesla should have acquired Ford in a stock swap
That you believe that shows how you have absolutely no understanding of the car market. That the worst possible idea.
> Tesla's only shot is to abandon Cybertruck and build a normal looking truck
Or you know if your outrage claims are actually true, they could build a 'normal' turck and the Cyberturck. Crazy that a company could produce two different trucks.
The battery availability is the fundamental constraint.
Product launch is when something is released and you can buy it, not when someone published plans and best wishes.
It basically worse and more expensive at everything and its very unlikely Ford can build close to as many as the Cybertruck. Simply because of batteries alone and other production capacity as well (a lot is shared with the other F150s).
Its really slow charging considering the time it will come out. If you want to use this to transport anything its range is worse compared to the Cybertruck and its gone charge much slower.
This will likely sell well and they will likely sell as many as they can make. But that doesn't make it a game changer.
This will sell well but
Remember when 5 years ago people claimed that as soon car companies make electric cars they would outsell Tesla?
Well the fact is that Tesla sells more EV by far then even VW by a large amount.
Scaling BEV production is hard, and just because for produces lots of ICE cars does not mean they can magically produce lots of EVs.
Do yourself a favor and actually learn about BEV production and supply chain issues.
Remember 5 years ago when Telsa fans claimed BEV range and acceleration wasn't possible for legacy automakers?
Ford sell more F series vehicles per year than all tesla models combined - why are you assuming they need to pivot asap to EV only?
No, I don't. Its the opposite, most people were saying that legacy makers could do it eventually but they need to make massive investments in EV production, and guess what, they did.
Tesla fan were actually right, it took way longer then people said for real mass market EV to come out.
But of course Tesla got the lead and they are not just outselling everybody else and are still among the leaders in performance and efficiency.
> Ford sell more F series vehicles per year than all tesla models combined - why are you assuming they need to pivot asap to EV only?
They don't but in a few years EV version will outperform the alternative ICE version along pretty much every dimension and there will be huge demand for EV trucks.
The question is if you at that point have the capacity to produce them in accordance with demand.
The frunk makes a big difference for those kinds of things.
The long-bed was popular back when people owned a truck as an extra vehicle/work vehicle only, now many use their truck as their main vehicle and have need of carrying others.
If you look at the creature comforts of older bench seat trucks (bare-bones) and the trucks sold today, a truck today will have everything an SUV will have in terms of comfort and maybe more.
The backseat is passable with my dog and kids, but barely. If they were able to take some room from the front where there is no engine and give me both a reasonable bed and a crew cab I would be happy.
A lockable frunk is pretty attractive though so that you don't have to worry about leaving tools in the bed.
My favorite configuration is:
- 8 foot bed
- extended (not full) cab
- rear doors are "suicide" doors
Our ranch truck is a Silverado 1500 in that configuration and it is nice to have optional seats but not lose the 8 foot bed. Suicide doors allow you to open the entire vehicle up with no pillar in the way and I love that.
Chevy no longer offers this but I think Ford does, currently ...
Write your representative and tell them to thank the EPA and NHTSA for doing their jobs. The death of the small pickup is squarely the fault of the confluence of fuel economy and crash safety regulations.
It did come back last year, probably after meeting new regulation requirements.
They put energy requirements on dishwashers, they're not going to give EVs a pass.
It seems like those regulations aren't working they way they ought to if the result is to encourage people to drive bigger cars than they need and to have more cars on the road that minimize the safety risk to the occupants while maximizing risk to everyone else...
> The death of the small pickup is squarely the fault of the confluence of fuel economy and crash safety regulations.
...and the chicken tax.
Regulations rarely end up with the outcomes the people pushing for the regulations publicly claim the desired outcome is.
You're not kidding! I was in the market for a small pickup and checked out the Tacoma and Frontier, which I previously understood to be "small" trucks. They're massive these days, just like the F-150! I guess it's perceived that there's no market for that size any more.
A small electric pickup would be a super handy thing to have around, potentially appealing to urbanites too since they can toss their groceries in the frunk. There's really no reason the frunk needs to be so big on the F-150 Lightning - that part of the design is really a head scratcher.
The only thing the same is the name.
That said, I really wish they would have started there. I want an electric truck. I don't want one anywhere near as large as an F150. I understand F150s sell better so know why they went that route, but an electric Ranger/Colorado could really dominate the fleet market.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_econo...
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Ford did a lot of internal research, and focus groups, on the marketability of differently designed electric trucks to their primary customers and came to the conclusion that their consumers like the way the trucks look and are more likely to adopt electric trucks if they look the same and offer tangible benefits. Consider the massive frunk, that can hold 400 pounds of gear, or the 2k hauling capacity, or the on board outlets, including a 240v plug, or all the fancy new towing features (that are hopefully not useless vapor ware). If I was in charge of a large truck work truck fleet that averages less than 200 miles/day I'd be replacing at least a few of my oldest trucks with these and give them to the senior guys to break in and see how they do. This truck could be a serious game changer. Ford's not my favorite vehicle manufacturer but they've got my respect for building a serious electric truck at a reasonable price.
Next: Cold fusion jet pack!
[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36125131/2022-hyundai-san...
Just call it a pickup.
Example: https://truckvault.com/vehicles/pickup but there are others.
https://twitter.com/lloydalter/status/1395326192908218371?s=...
Plus the added visibility is nice and certainly would increase safety, I would think.
People walk in rural areas, too; and those roads are often not designed for it and these accidents tend to happen at night. There's a significant percentage of pedestrian deaths that happen out of the city under these circumstances.
https://www.wthr.com/mobile/article/news/investigations/13-i...
Trucks and SUVs are on average newer than cars and at a higher price point, which means more newer safety features like object detection and driver warnings. I also suspect the feeling of mass in driving a larger vehicle makes you take driving more seriously.
I think it's the opposite. Also larger vehicles feel slower when you drive them even when you are doing 80.
Cities should start taxing the size of vehicles too if they're going to let people park on the street. Smart cars are a fantastic utility vehicle for example, but are not incentivised enough.
You can always find a subpopulation where some effect is large; that can't be good reason to make rules that constrain the entire population.
Regulation: cars should be safer
Impact: All vehicles continuously increase in size and weight year on year, decreasing the safety of older vehicles and non-vehicular road users
unless the form factor has some very significant upside that I'm not seeing, preventing deaths should be prioritized over people's aesthetic preferences.
>It's clear consumers in the US value the large truck format and are willing to pay for it.
no, it's clear that consumers in the US don't value the lives of pedestrians, and therefore we cannot trust the free market to determine what types of things get made.
Nope. "Deaths should always be prioritized over aesthetics" is a clearly bad rule because it is innumerate. You must always trade off how many deaths for the preferences of how many people. Otherwise all design of everything is dictated solely by safety.
> no, it's clear that consumers in the US don't value the lives of pedestrians, and therefore we cannot trust the free market to determine what types of things get made.
No, you need to read about externalities and Pigovian taxes. The entire point of the proposed tax is that it does not require the car buyer to care about pedestrians whatsoever.
Pedestrians are the ones who should be the first to reach zero deaths IMO, since they weren't the ones who decided to drive around in a deadly machine in the first place and are usually completely innocent in their own danger.
Commuting on a scooter I've seen more than my fair share of pedestrians on phones walking out into traffic and idiots on bikes blowing through red lights. Sometimes everyone involved can be at fault.
How is this acceptable??
My yelling at one driver who was staring at her phone while driving out of a parking ramp and across the sidewalk where she nearly hit me, probably woke her up enough to avoid driving into traffic and being hit by a bus!
No, it's not the vehicles, it's the people driving them.
They could also just add mirrors as has long been standard between concept and production motorcycles. (Example [0][1])
[0] https://2yrh403fk8vd1hz9ro2n46dd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-... [1] https://i2.wp.com/www.asphaltandrubber.com/wp-content/upload...
[0]https://www.wthr.com/article/news/investigations/13-investig...
people being distracted isn't a new feature; people being given distractions in the cabin is.
I'm not sure exactly what your argument is, to be quite frank.
Are you insinuating that less visibility isn't hindering the ability to drive safely?
There are additional devices commonplace in vehicles to make up for the lack of visibility -- pedestrian detection/auto-braking/switching cameras for example -- but surely a car would be safer to both pedestrians and the passengers if it had those types of features along with increased visibility..
>No, it's not the vehicles, it's the people driving them.
As a former auto mechanic, maybe i'm over-exposed.. but :
1) car interior design changes yearly, and it's usually to sate consumer desires rather than for safety/usability/efficiency.
2) mechanical failures aren't rare. mechanical failures that may end in injury or loss-of-life aren't rare, either.
The DoD has done tons of usability studies with regards to UI/UX. If auto manufacturers wanted a safe/repeatable/efficient environment then the interiors would probably share a lot of features with fighter jets; tactile buttons, audio cues, correct information density, etc.
They don't look anything like this -- this is a clue to the consumer that there are different priorities in mind at the manufactures' HQ, namely lately ICE (in-car entertainment, not internal combustion engine; sorry for possible confusion) and technological glitz like RGB lighting.
Because of high crash incompatibility, more overall damage and death occurs because of SUVs (and other similar vehicles).
We seem to think because we have the freedom to drive a V8 half ton dually less than a block to the mailbox with the aircon blasting, that it somehow makes it any less of a stupid thing to do.
Most North Americans translate whatever freedoms we've been granted into one: the freedom to thoughtlessly consume and squander without restraint. I guess it remains to be seen whether your freedom is a good thing or not, but the way things been going I suspect it aint gonna go your way forever.
Even a 5-year-old knows: if you keep using your transformer as a projectile aimed at your brother, it's gonna be taken away.
How lucky that we're all grown up adults and the government is not our mommy!
I grow vegetables. Because I grow vegetables, I occasionally need to pick up a yard of compost. I need a bed to bring that back to the farm. A pickup can do this, too.
I own a tractor. Because I own a tractor, I need to be able to tow said tractor to the nearest dealer or machine shop to get it serviced and repaired. I need a vehicle that can tow a trailer carrying multi-thousand-pound many-foot-long tractor + loader + three-point implement setup. A pickup can do this, too.
I cook using ingredients I don't grow myself. Because I cook, I need to be able to buy groceries. I need a vehicle to bring as many groceries as I buy at once back to my house. Would you really suggest that if I already have a pickup for the above three needs, I should keep a second non-pickup vehicle around just to run to the supermarket, the doctor, or local watering hole?
That's a lot of expense when I could just have a general-purpose vehicle that does it all. HN seems to be all about general-purpose computers that can do more than you might need day-to-day. The same can apply to vehicles.
If you're using the pickup to haul to and from the jobsite 99% of the time, sure it doesn't make sense to buy something else to do errands around town on the weekends.
You'd be in the minority though.
Most household pickup owners in North America use them as a car. Here in Alberta there are more pickups sold every year than any other vehicle category. They are simply using the wrong tool for the job, and defend their 'fashion' choice by the once a year they throw in a bag of compost from home depot.
Furthermore, most North American households have 2+ vehicles, they do in fact have a choice as to which tool to use for groceries.
Registration is much cheaper if you have a camper shell because the vehicle ceases being 'commercial'.
> Adding a camper shell to a pickup truck does not necessarily constitute a change from commercial to auto registration. The addition must meet the definitions for human habitation or camping purposes. Otherwise, the vehicle may be subject to citation from law enforcement for not meeting the definition of an auto. Human habitation is defined as living space which includes, but is not limited to: closets, cabinets, kitchen units or fixtures, and bath or toilet rooms.
. The police never check.
You'd be surprised how expensive an old pickup's registration can be in CA.
The main problem isn't the cheating by low-end tradesmen but that the average schlub's truck is considered a 'commercial' vehicle including registration cost by gross vehicle weight. (at least that's how I understand all of this).
They never make it easy here to do anything, but people will put up with a lot of rules and taxes if it mostly happens to others.
Storage with the massive frunk is awesome. Lots of features around hitches and making it easier to use them and tow with them. Pretty good price point, good acceleration to appeal to the macho truck crowd who will hold their nose while making the plunge to electric so they can feel good about themselves when they floor the accelerator at stoplights and onramps.
There is something for everyone here. Yes, it plays it safe on the aesthetics side of things, but I don't see anything wrong with it. The "safer" aesthetics also make it more useful than the Cybertruck, what with the massive Frunk. Really glad to see some good competition in this space. The next 2 years are going to be really exciting in the EV space!
I haven't seen consumer chargers that are designed to be installed outside. Most people have wall chargers in their garages, but I don't thing this is going to work for the majority of F150 home owners.
That being said, this is an otherwise incredible vehicle. The F150 is pretty much the ultimate vehicle for someone with enough space for one, and this improves upon it in nearly every way.
So outdoor charging should not be an issue.
Most can be installed outside, specially if they are hardwired. Not sure if there are any rated to be plugged in outdoor power outlets.
That could be a very useful and popular niche, construction sites without power at early phases of construction aren't rare and power tool batteries are expensive.
For a lot of truck owners, there's going to be some resistance because they love having a v8 engine etc. I don't see those people moving over quickly (although they might be swayed by the acceleration/speed). But if you're using one as a tradesperson, this seems like an absolute no-brainer. You're not driving enormous distances regularly and if you're able to run your entire job site for free, as well as have lower servicing costs... why wouldn't you?
I'm sure gas guzzler enthusiasts will continue to exist, but the financials don't make sense; it would be far cheaper for them to daily drive an EV and keep the old guzzler for fun days. They'd save on gas and maintenance by not driving an ICE all the time, and they still get to use it whenever they have free time.
In conclusion, my argument is that Ford/whoever will still eventually capture these enthusiasts, because they can still keep their old trucks but will always eventually need a new one.
However, even better for that kind of stuff would be a hybrid with a smaller battery, but a generator in the frunk (sort of like the Volt).
Unfortunately I don't think such a vehicle exists yet, while hybrids and even plug-in hybrids are common, they aren't designed to be used as power stations/offer multiple 110v outlets.
This new F-150 is rare in that the manufacturer actually supports its usage like this. If you use a Tesla as a glorified battery they will actually void your warranty.
Perhaps.. but we'll have to see how the battery holds up under extremely hot or cold conditions to really know if it will be used that way; and few people will want to be stuck at the job site after the end of the day.
I have a Mustang Mach e and can't emphasize this enough. It makes tooling around my suburban enclave a pleasure as I go from 0 to 30 mph in a blink.
I entered an on-ramp with a BMW behind me. Honestly, I wasn't trying to make a point, but the BMW swung around me as we entered the highway and it was on. Then it was done. Giggle.
I'm glad I added the caveats though -- the $40K F150 is for commercial fleets, so will be missing crucial features for the passenger market and might bypass dealerships. Even so, $52K is still a competitive price for a SuperCrew with a few options.
(BTW: It seems like such an arbitrary and ultimately bad decision to cap rebates by manufacturer. Rebate caps for expensive luxury cars? Sure. But penalize a manufacturer for making _too many_ of the thing you're incentivizing doesn't seem right).
The cap should have been for the entire country so that companies like Ford can't sit back years before rolling out with an EV and gain a second movers advantage now that the tech is mature.
Another likely scenario is that Biden gets his infrastructure bill through and the credit becomes available to all US-manufactured EV's.
Not only that, but the phaseout process for rebates is VERY slow. Its likely they will still have at least some rebates until some time in 2023, even without a change in the law.
Specifically, the thing they are doing wrong is not having enough capacity to make 100K Mach-Es this year. It's not that demand isn't there, but rather the supply can't meet demand. Same problem Tesla has, just in smaller numbers on the Ford side for the time being.
Of course, they'll always cost more than the estimates, plus you get to throw in sales tax and the annual registration tithe to the state.
I'm always surprised that people are willing to spend so much on new vehicles but I guess it keeps the money moving through the economy. The spice must flow.
Means that you can't fix small dents with filler, have to swap panels instead.
The $50k Cybertruck gets you 300 miles.
If the $40K commercial use version is the right truck for a given consumer, great. But most consumers will want to step up from that for a personal vehicle. I think for most people, we will find $53K is the real starting price.
It feels as if the $40K commercial-use version was added in order to capture some headlines that group "$40K" alongside features of the more expensive trims such as "4.4 second 0 to 60," and I believe they have been successful in that.
(...in late 2022)
Not that its an issue. People focus a little too much on initial ship date, IMO.
The Cybertruck gets you nothing. It doesn't exist.
They are both large car companies who have invested billions into the development and production of these products and they will both come out next year. Anything else is just nutjob conspiracy theory nonsense.
Just a preface to say I’m not hating on Ford in particular here, but the msrp is bogus. I can nearly guarantee that the actual base on a vehicle you can actually by will be $10k higher once a dealer is involved.
Edit: side comment, wow 800 plus comments on an F150 hacker news submission. Did not see that coming ;)
It is setting customer expectations and it is competition.
1. No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still. Using existing non-supercharging networks is not feasible for any long distance. You cannot do a roadtrip only charging 30~ mph. Thats 2 hours charging for every 1 hour driving.
2. Battery range for certain use cases. The base model is rated for 230 miles. If you've ever driven a Tesla on a highway you know you'll not get the full 230 at highspeeds. And so what happens when a truck is pulling a heavy load? You may end up literally getting half that range. This will be quite a shock for some users.
3. Software rollouts. Ford has been working on this but it is still not Solved. They've already bricked Mach-E's (1), and I expect there to be many more technical issues popping up.
4. No Autopilot. This is a big sell for many EV users. As far as I know Ford is no where close to having a viable competitor.
Anyways, I'm sure these things will smooth out over the coming years and I wish them all the best with this amazing migration to electric vehicles.
(1) https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/8/22373903/mustang-mach-e-de...
I don't think issues 3 and 4 really need to have much to do with electric vehicles. Autopilot and electric are orthogonal properties. The only connection is that they're both pioneered by Tesla. Otherwise there's no particular reason you should expect one with the other. The same goes for over the air software updates.
That's Autopilot like anyone else has, it's just not marketed as autopilot.
Anyway, I don't care about Effonefittys, I want an 8 passenger Autopilot vehicle that I can buy used.
https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2021...
I agree that this is important, but it is 99% psychological. In the entire time I owned my Tesla, I used the supercharger a half dozen times. Most people with an EV that has 200+ miles of range will rarely use DC fast chargers.
But every once in a while we drive about 200 miles to visit the in-laws, and I would be super nervous about attempting that in an EV. At best we'd be close to empty by the time we arrived, I don't know the state of the charger system on the highways we use, and we'd be stuck using a low-amp charger at their house, which would take forever.
I was 50/50 on buying an EV last year, but decided against it for this reason; I felt like we were still a couple of years away from EVs being practical for all of my use cases. I'm sure we'll get there soon, but right now they aren't a drop-in replacement for everyone's ICE.
I totally understand your situation, but sorry, that had me laughing: Yeah sure, there is nothing to be done about that :)
If you have the navigate on autopilot feature, it automatically drives you from freeway onramp to exit. It's far less mentally taxing than driving manually.
If I use ABRP to simulate the same trip in a 2020 Bolt, it requires 3 stops and over 90 minutes of charging, bringing the trip time to 7 hours and 23 minutes.[1] It's not clear if the trip is actually possible, as the the first stop is at a used car dealership in The Dalles which claims to only allow Nissans to charge there.[2] The latest checkin says it's inoperable.
With the supercharger network, you know in advance if the station is having any issues (including simply being full). Other charging companies are getting better, but the current patchwork is too uncertain for me to deal with. If I had a Bolt, I'd probably rent a car for long distance trips. (Please don't take this as insulting the Bolt. It's far less expensive than a Model 3 Performance. With the money saved, you could probably fly for every long distance trip for the lifetime of the car.)
1. https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=4912118b-c0bd-486...
We've had a couple of cases recently where this wasn't the case. Supercharger was recording availability as if it was working, but in reality people were plugging in and getting failures. Rare, of course, but it can happen.
Also, that trip plan seems to just be ABRP bugs. Better to stop at the EA in Hood River, OR than the one they have by default.
All of a sudden with an EV you most likely need to plan your route around charging stations and allow for charging time. This isn't to say that EV's are bad or that they should be avoided - simply that most people don't think about these things in advance and may be surprised the first time they take a long trip with an EV.
But in an area like New Mexico, there are lots of people doing jobs where they will drive 150+ miles per day without even thinking about.
I want an electric truck, but there’s no way in hell I’m trusting my life to Bay Area tech. I want to save money on gas and be more eco friendly. My truck driving for me is not a want until the tech is perfected.
Is it really? I'm looking at an EV for my next car, and not once have I considered Autopilots availability as a musthave feature. Then again, most people who get excited about Autopilot seem to think that driving is a chore that should be removed, while I love driving.
Ford has something similar, but it fails more unexpectedly and often. Although, Tesla AP still has major phantom braking issues... sigh.
Why are companies not putting out electric gas hybrids that use a tuned generator as a backup source of energy like the Chevy Volt did? (I suspect then the vehicle wouldn't qualify for subsidies)
It's crazy to me, as it adds maybe 300 lbs to the vehicle and provides all the benefits of electric, but with the potential range of gas.
I find electric vehicles as a technology highly appealing, but current offerings atrocious. I want a privacy (crazy I even have to say this) respecting electric vehicle with a backup gas charging generator.
This truck would be ideal to _me_ if it met those two criterion, but as is it's a no go. I may just have to build my own someday. :sigh:
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_i3#Range_extender_option
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_Plug-in_Hybrid#Dr...
No complicated drive train either. The Prius drivetrain is an engineering marvel, but looks complicated to me. It seems to be reliable, which is incredible.
Sure you need to carry the extra weight, but maintenance is (supposedly) much simpler.
The I3 is an even better example. It's marketed with the 'range extender' as an option. Only issue is that it had a teeny tiny fuel tank that only added a pitiful range(I suspect some incentives were in play), but it demonstrates the concept. Maybe this could even be optional.
Cutting gas usage by 80% should be considered essentially equivalent to 100%. And the lower electric range of PHEVs is likely offset by lack of range anxiety and potentially greater adoption.
We had recall after recall to deal with. I still get notices in the mail and we sold that car two years ago. None of the recalls dealt with any of our problems which were common when googling.
Selling that car for 25% of it's purchase price after 3 years was the final insult, but nobody wanted it and I can't blame them.
For anyone curious, it was a 2013 Ford C-Max Energi.
It just so happens that one of the most popular autopilot implementations is on Tesla, but it could have just as well been implemented on an ICE car.
Buyers of the FSD Capability package get some additional beta features such as "Navigate on Autopilot" which will do lane changes on freeways, but is otherwise significantly less than actual full self-driving as it would be understood by a layperson.
The big pro of Ford's system is that on some highways/freeways the cruise control is actually hands free. IIRC Teslas have torque sensors in the steering wheel to make sure that your hands don't wander.
This isn't even close to true. Most LKAS and ADAS systems will only last a few seconds before they require human intervention. It is not at all the same experience.
I agree- this is really going to be a big deal, especially with how large the F-150 EV battery is (150kWh). For comparison, the Chevrolet Bolt hatchback has a 66KWh battery with a similar range as the F-150, which makes sense, because the Bolt is much lighter and aerodynamic.
The vast majority of public charging stations in the US ("Level 2") max out at under 10kW; these are great for smaller cars used for commuting to-and-from the office or local shops or whatever. This isn't so bad for the Bolt, but the F-150 will recharge (from a range perspective) much more slowly.
There are very few Level 3 "fast" chargers around. These typically charge at 50kW until the battery is at 80% capacity, then slow down to 10kW or so. Public chargers often charge per minute ($.30 or so), so you get the best bang for the buck to get off the charger once you hit 80%. So, let's say your F-150 is down to 20% capacity, and you need to charge up to 80%. 60% of that 150kWh is battery is 90kWh- that will take nearly two hours ($36) on that fast charger.
> These typically charge at 50kW until the battery is at 80% capacity, then slow down to 10kW or so.
I'm not sure where you're getting this number, but according to this data [1] about the Mach-E, it charges at 150 kW until about 10%, then 100 kW until 35%, then 70 kW until 80%. This is much faster than what you are saying. They have a chart showing that depending on your starting SoC, you can get an average of up to 90 kW. If you start at a reasonable 10-15% state of charge, your average charge rate up to 80% will be 80 kW, not 50kW.
> So, let's say your F-150 is down to 20% capacity, and you need to charge up to 80%. 60% of that 150kWh is battery is 90kWh- that will take nearly two hours ($36) on that fast charger.
The F-150 has a larger battery than the Mach-E, but assuming the rates stay the same, it would take a bit over an hour to charge this much, not two hours.
The pricing varies on Electrify America, but looking at a few stations here [2], as long as you have a membership, it looks like this would cost somewhere from $10-30. Some stations charge by the minute, and others by the kWh.
[1]: https://insideevs.com/news/492727/ford-mustang-mache-fast-ch...
This only matters for road trips. In general, L2 availability is the sticking point. Cars generally spend most of their time parked somewhere. All you need to do is to get back the miles you have spent getting to where you are currently charging. This is how I could survive my 25 mile commute every day with 110v power outlets. I didn't need to charge to full every time, just recover what was spent.
One thing that's impressing me is that Ford FINALLY took the "Tesla" route and made the car communicate with stations in the Electrify America network. No more fussing around with card readers that don't always work, or having to call a number with a bad cellphone connection. Just plug in, it works. That's easier than a conventional gas station.
Plus dealerships have business hours. I had a bad time once with an earlier Leaf generation trying to charge at night, in the cold. TWO quick chargers just a few miles away, both inaccessible.
> autopilot Again, don’t want a half baked marketing-speak technology. Driver assist with sensor driven safety features are all I want. Don’t want extremely intrusive analytics and camera monitoring sure where after any accident the car company CEO would be testing how it was my fault.
Supercharger network is the only thing that will ever make me want to get a Tesla, hopefully other networks will soon be sufficient.
Yes, Ford dealerships and in fact all dealerships can be shady, but for other cars I generally don’t have to deal with them once the warranty is over. With Tesla I’ll have to deal with the company for the life of my car.
Agreed. I've been driving a Leaf since 2015 (two different generations by now) and the main reason that makes road trips unpalatable is NOT range. Not at all. Charging more often? Sure, whatever. Unless it's a business trip or a trip across the country it's fine. I've discovered some stuff I'd probably would never have otherwise, by routing via chargers in small towns.
No, the problem is how sparse some quickchargers are, and the fact that many don't even work - and the best you can do is check comments to see if people have complained about them recently. Some of them (specially Nissan owned!) are located in places that _close at night_. That's not acceptable, we can find 24/7 gas stations almost everywhere.
However, that only accounts for 0.1% of my trips. I've optimized for the most common use-case (city driving) and don't regret that one bit.
> If you've ever driven a Tesla on a highway you know you'll not get the full 230 at highspeeds.
Yeap. Same way you won't get good mileage on any car if you do that. Thankfully liquid fuels have a ridiculous amount of energy, so we can afford to waste 70% as heat plus drag and the only real consequence is the wallet (and filling up more often).
US highway speeds are crazy and it is indeed shocking when you see it the first time. It would also be quite shocking on ICE cars too, but they don't have accurate fuel gages, let alone accurate range estimates. At least most don't.
> I wish them all the best with this amazing migration to electric vehicles.
Me too!
Crazy as in high or low?
I-5 between San Francisco and LA is about ~70mph limit. That's ~113km/h.
A lot of highways in Europe are often at 130km/h sometimes going up to 140km/h limit.
P.S. And if you think those limits are even remotely observed, try a road trip in Italy or Bulgaria :P
> Same way you won't get good mileage on any car if you do that
What do you mean by that? Aren't ICE cars often more efficient at highway speeds? My car usually averages 45ish MPG on the highway and more like 30 in the city.. the sweet spot seems to be around 60-70 mph. Some US highways get up to 80 or 90, but that still (at least for the cars I've owned) ends up more efficient MPG-wise than city driving.
Try driving US highway 1 from Key Largo to Key West. It’s about 100 miles with a 45mph speed limit, at sea level. Set your cruise control at 45 on an evening with light traffic. It will be the best fuel economy you’ve ever seen in your car, by a wide margin.
No. They're more efficient at constant speeds, because the ICE can only be really optimised for a very narrow RPM band, but that need not necessarily translate into higher speeds.
Just choose a lower gear, and watch your fuel consumption drop significantly below what it would be at higher speed in a higher gear.
The main reason for this is that air resistance, which costs energy (=fuel) to overcome, rises not linearly with rising speed, but in proportion to the square thereof.
Er, no, traditional gas cars fuel economy is optimal in freeway driving, despite the fact that more delivered energy is required than at slower speeds. Hybrids and electric cars, which can be closer to peak delivery efficiency over a broader range of speeds, have peak economy at lower speeds.
Depends on how you define "freeway driving": If you mean constant speed, then yes; if you mean high speed, then no.
> Hybrids and electric cars, which can be closer to peak delivery efficiency over a broader range of speeds, have peak economy at lower speeds.
So do ICE cars. Energy (=fuel) consumption rises with the square of speed, because aerodynamic resistance does. That's just a law of nature, irrespective of engine technology.
Not sure it's doing much more than inputting the single number fuel economy into an equation though.
Autopilot (as in ADAS Level 3) is and always will be vaporware on existing Teslas. Meanwhile my 2016 Civic has the same type of ADAS Level 2 driver assist. It's not quite as fancy as Tesla's version but it's 90% of what I need. I think for 90% of buyers, anything that does ADAS level 2 is fine.
Yes. I considered CarPlay a must-have feature, but no EVs out there matched the Supercharger network, which led to a Tesla purchase.
>4. No Autopilot.
Tesla is definitely overselling this. The only real time I've used Autopilot for an extended period of time was driving I-5 from SF to/from LA, and other ICE cars accomplish this too.
Ford is targeting Truck Buyers, not "EV Users", and I can assure you Ford knows Truck Buyers, and i can also Assure you we do not care or even want Autopilot. We love to drive our trucks.
>>No comprehensive supercharger network.
I fully expect Ford to have this solved by the time the first Truck rolls off the line, I could be wrong but Ford has a ton of partnerships and pull. Hell even if the only chargers where at every dealership that would likely rival Telsa's network out of the box. However I fully expect deals to be made likely in concert with other Manufactures over the next 12 mos so I think this will end up being a non-issue
>>Software rollouts. Ford has been working on this but it is still not Solved.
I still not sure how I feel about this "feature", one of the reason I dislike Tesla is their belief they should be allowed to modify the car I supposedly bought from them anytime they want over the air. Treating the car like it was an Apple iPhone (which I also do not own)
Ford has a careful balancing act here. Ford owners want to OWN their truck, not rent it from Ford
Minivan...yes. SUV yes. Work truck, not likely.
If people have the occasional need to drive cross country, just rent a gas vehicle till the infrastructure is there. Till then it's just fear mongering causes a slower adoption of EV, which means a slower rollout of a national network.
I agree that overselling the importance of uncommon use cases is a hindrance to EV adoption in general, but this is a pickup truck. The purpose of a pickup truck is to handle the uncommon use cases. It's fair to criticize this specific EV for not being good at the things that you must have a pickup truck to do.
Your criticism will likely prevent someone else where it fits their use case from buying it just because of a "what if" scenario and prevents the overall cause of eliminating emissions.
Ford knows their market and are going to absolutely destroy the competition with this.
Ford's promo site says 'up to 10 days with rationing power' asuming 30kWh use per day with extended-range battery. But it's not clear to me if 30kWH is normal use, and rationing would be less, or if that's the rationed use. A 300 kWH battery seems rather large to me, and i haven't seen an actual spec for the Ford.
Edit: reread their site after reading sibling posts, in a different blurb they say 3 days or 10 days with rationing with the same assumption about 30 kWH per day; so their rationing assumption must be getting down closer to 9 kWH per day. Either way, a nice feature to have that would eliminate a portable generator for me.
The F150 Lighting has up to a 150kWH battery, so somewhere in the 1-2 week range, depending on use.
So in theory, a fully charged Model X could power the average home for 3 days. Really puts into perspective how much energy is needed to move a car at highway speeds.
If you have a small cabin with no a/c, wood heat, and a propane stove - your house is going to use hardly any power compared to your truck. It would barely make a difference.
The mentality is extremely different, you do at home what you can, to the maximum.
The power draw is probably fine, but the contention for the battery would be a problem. Think, "hey honey, can we put off the Costco trip until next week so we can leave the internet up, and lights on?"
Implementing a transfer switch and dummy load just to dump solar generation when your truck is being a truck would feel like a weird exercise.
But I need an HD truck, and it has to have enough range to tow, which means I'm not in the market for a Lightning. Dammit.
Use the truck bed always and fill it with tools and supplies.
Drive around all day going from job site to job site transferring tools and supplies or meeting with current and prospective clients.
Use electric generators and in fact carry one in their truck bed.
If the onboard generator has enough juice to bring a crew to work and back, while also powering their tools all day I can definitely see contractors getting excited for this truck.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma
The move by Ford offers strong evidence that electric vehicles at this point have become a sustaining, not disruptive innovation. Incumbents like Ford can now compete using existing business models and possibly manufacturing practices/equipment.
EV companies like Tesla are now positioned very poorly. They've burned capital chasing the top end of the market during the disruptive phase. Rather than servicing unserved low-end markets that companies like Ford couldn't touch for business reasons, Tesla went after the very top end of the market. Piles of evidence say that this approach will fail, not necessarily for technical reasons but for business reasons.
Successful marketplace disruptors attack the market from the bottom by offering objectively inferior technologies with steeply improving performance. That tech trajectory eventually allows the disruptor to gobble the market from the bottom up, with incumbents only too happy to leave low-end, low-margin customers behind. Think microcomputers vs. minicomputers.
Rather than running this playbook, Tesla chose the alternative: attack the very top end of the market. It never went through the phase where its products were mistaken for toys.
Now that EV production costs and technologies allow easier transitions, Tesla's business model is upside-down. If Tesla couldn't consistently turn profits during the phase it held the advantage, it is going to become almost impossible now that the playing field has leveled and the incumbents can just run the playbook.
I'm confident they currently hold the upper hand on both fronts right now and for the next couple of years most likely. I am not at all confident that they can hold onto either advantage much longer than that.
I just don't agree with the theory.
https://www.ford.com/is/image/content/dam/vdm_ford/live/en_u...
Go to 10:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4n5iPqxpaw
Just a mind bending and creative design all around.
1. https://www.motortrend.com/news/2021-ford-mustang-mach-e-ele...
Also night driving. I love low interior indicator lighting. The big screens inhibit night vision. The older we get, the worse this is.
https://i.imgur.com/anDbKgG.jpg
In general I prefer knob controls for things like temperature and volume, but the physical up/down is ok
I agree with the sentiment though. I think Mazda and Volvo have had sensible approaches.
On the Ram example though, how would I change what I'm listening to? Would I press:
- select source - favourites - for you - audio - categories - media - related - search - apps - tune - > arrow at top - < > CH arrows at bottom
All those buttons are present at the same time
I second that. This also applies to heater controls and lighting and almost everything else that i can't think of. The benefit of the tactility of physical buttons and switches is sadly being coldly ignored by those who design our cars.
A tangential question: Does anyone know why there is an AC button on older cars? I can turn the temp all the way down but that just does outside air temp. If i want real AC I need to hit a button to turn it on. In my ideal car turning the knob to the lowest temp would get me cold air no matter what.
The hot/cold adjustment is adjusting a baffle/mixer that can either let in "cold" outside air, or air that's been heated by the engine compartment into the car. Think of it like driving around on a sunny day in the fall - sun is heating up the inside of the car, but the outside air is cold enough it would be silly and a waste of gas to turn on the A/C compressor.
A/C also consumes some amount of power and fuel efficiency- you may want the coolest air you could possibly have without A/C.
https://www.google.com/search?q=2020+mustang+mach+e+interior
With the touchscreen cars I've rented or driven for work I'd have loved to have a little bluetooth or serial connected control cluster that sat near to hand with basic radio and climate controls. Something I could operate by feel. Seems like there are enough bad touchscreen consoles out there to make an aftermarket kit viable but maybe I underestimate the technical challenges.
Maybe I'll just keep driving my junkers until voice control gets good.
This often means a large knob that one can turn, use as a joystick (up down left right) and push in for selection. This knob is used for navigating the majority of the console. There are some unique buttons and knobs for things like volume, climate, etc.
> “Doing our research, when a driver would reach towards a touch-screen interface in any vehicle, they would unintentionally apply torque to the steering wheel, and the vehicle would drift out of its lane position,” said Matthew Valbuena, Mazda North America’s lead engineer for HMI and infotainment.
> “And of course with a touchscreen you have to be looking at the screen while you’re touching...so for that reason we were comfortable removing the touch-screen functionality,” he added.
In my humble opinion, It's superior to touch screen experiences, at least while driving the vehicle. That said, dedicated knobs (such as a knob for a/c) are still the best for some things.
Good, now maybe Tesla will offer that too. Last I checked they didn't because of warranty concerns on the battery. They don't want you using the vehicle to arbitrage electricity prices. Which is probably not worth the wear anyway. But as an emergency backup or place to store surplus solar energy - now that's useful.
I hope ford's got a plan for making millions of battery packs for these things.
I wonder if "backfeed from the EVSE" is going to be a regular / standardized feature of some vehicle chargers in the future?
Combine this with time-of-use awareness and auto-auction mechanisms to backfeed the grid when power's necessary (and turn off back-feeding to not kill linemen repairing wires) it seems like a pretty good extension to car charging.
Elevator pitch:
Public charging installed on streets; charges 3 prices -- "I need power now", "I need this much power before this time" and "I need this much power by this time and you may draw power out of my battery between now and then so long as I have this much charge by this time".
Then you network interconnect these chargers and make a distributed peaker power plant and also make subscription / power deliver fees.
If that's the case, other than hauling very tall objects, why get a truck? A minivan with the 2nd and 3rd rows folded is already longer than most truck beds.
Curious to hear thoughts on this. I know culturally a van would never beat a truck, but I'm curious more mechanically/technically.
Another thing I'm curious about with a truck in particular is if a custom fit gasoline tank could be placed in the bed of a truck that has an inverter that could charge the car, so even if your battery was dead you could effectively use the car as a gas one, in a pinch.
---
As an aside I'm willing to bet within a decade this will outsell the gasoline version. A F-150 used frequently requires a lot of maintenance. I imagine this will be significantly easier to maintain.
I suspect the first is rarely used. The second is paraded as a feature, for reasons which escape me.
Based on utility, most minivans beat all SUVs in tasks not involving going off-road. Minivans definitely beat pickup trucks for moving people, and often for moving stuff -- but not always.
Purchasing a vehicle in the USA is only partially based on function, for most people. Price and culture figure in a lot more.
My minivan is a Chrysler with the stow'n'go fold-down seats; in about 5 minutes I can fold all the passenger seats down into the floor and have 8' x 4' cargo space, which is more than most pickup beds.
Pickups have the advantage of height, as pointed out previously; if you need to move a refrigerator or a Harley, probably a pickup is better. Also, pickups can tow trailers & RV's.
But for taking my family on holiday, or when transporting a sound system, musical instruments, and 2 other musicians all in one vehicle, the minivan works best for me :)
It’s a good thing for consumers that the two vehicle types have so much overlap in utility.
Technically my wife's van could carry that engine very easily but the process would almost certainly destroy the carpet and leather seats and maybe some windows and the bumper cover etc.
My buddy had hoists on each end of the trip to insert and remove the junkyard engine. This is widely understood in industry and construction in general and using a crane with a pickup truck is no big deal. With a van I guess you could use a forklift and pray the inevitable damage to the interior doesn't turn the vehicle into an instant insurance writeoff, but ...
Imagine for example how easy it would be to wipe out the stereo speakers or the wiring for the GPS in the back of a van vs a seemingly indestructible truck bed. The older the truck the tougher they were built and the more likely the owner doesn't care if its beat up, so you can toss bricks into trucks and similar behavior that would not be tolerated with a van.
I will say the best way to haul 1000+ pounds of yard landscape rock is to pay home depot $59.99 to have truck delivery with a forklift drop the pallet within inches of where I asked. I could have bought a $75K pickup truck and loaded and unloaded all that rock myself by hand, but sixty bucks sounds like a better deal LOL. If I had a full time landscaper job the numbers would be different...
EVs may tilt the equation, but one thing Big Three US automakers have absolutely perfected for their trucks over the last 40 years is maintainability. Go on autotrader.com, search "Ford F-150" or "Dodge Ram 1500" and sort mileage high to low - can a 20 year old minivan travel roughly the same distance as the moon and back?
source: https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicledetails.xhtm...
The initial models have a far smaller packs than the F150, however, given that most of these will be for business use locally, not distance hauling. If Ford were to make a model of the transit with a large pack, you'd have the much larger bed space along with towing. This would likely be a hit with the van-life community.
Much less futzing w/ the truck I'm sure.
It pains me. They are cool. Anyone who thinks they aren’t needs to test drive a Chrysler Pacifica with powered stow-and-go seats.
I am hoping that the E-transit is a sleeper hit and I can someday pick it up in a nice passenger configuration.
Ground clearance is another issue in a lot of places. Our Rendezvous is higher than most minivans, but I've still scraped the bottom before, and have had to turn back from a water crossing on a dirt road.
Generally my experience has been that the Rendezvous can do most of the same things my old Ranger did, but not as easily and with a lot more anxiety about breaking things. Ohh and come to think of it, it actually gets worse gas mileage.
Length. The size of trailer you can pull behind a tow vehicle is very dependent on the stability of the tow vehicle, and a lot of that comes down to wheelbase. As long as people want to tow 30+ foot long RVs, they will have to have tow vehicles the size of HD pickups.
It has the ability to pull the trailer with ease, but most preliminary estimates are that range would be two digits with that sort of load. In my current vehicle I do stop for gas midway, but it would be an entirely different situation hoping for a charger spot (with connected trailer) and then the time to charge.
Still a great truck, though. For a huge range of uses, including more local towing situations (the vast majority of commercial uses), it could be brilliant.
And eventually they can market a super-range battery you can tow. I kid...or do I?
They're appealing to people who tow stuff currently and aspirationally (e.g. people who don't currently tow trailers, but like to imagine that one day they will. "What if" scenarios).
Eventually the charging infrastructure will be there, including for towing vehicles, and it would be a case of scheduling a lunch around a charge.
I can't imagine that the F150 would be good for long haul trailers... just so much energy involved moving weight around.
For example, I had a Dodge Durango which got pretty much 16mpg no matter what, whether driving empty or towing a car on a flatbed trailer at highway speeds, still 16mpg. Next vehicle was a used manual transmission BMW X5, got 22-24mpg empty on the highway, but just towing an empty flat trailer would drop that to 17mpg, and a car on it would be 16, and the same towing a small U-Hual box trailer, just instantly drop to 16. So, one was highly stable and the other highly variable with different weight/aero loads.
The problem is that an EV is so inherently efficient to begin with that towing a big hollow brick behind you makes a tremendous difference in how much fuel it takes to pull it. Contrast that with a pickup that is already getting mid-teens fuel economy, the change in efficiency is much less pronounced. And with the easy filling ability of the ICE pickup, it's going to be the go-to choice for a number of years until batteries get significantly more capacity, denser, and cheaper.
A very typical pickup/travel trailer combo will get 10mpg. Maybe a couple more for a diesel. You can find outliers, but I've been towing RVs for a while and the topic comes up for discussion periodically, 10mpg is by far the most common experience. Trying to cram enough capacity into a battery for this kind of terrible efficiency is going to be tough for a while.
Batteries are always the bottleneck. Ford announced a 60GWh plant partnership, but that will only hold them over for several years of growth and is still a ways away from actually producing cells.
As a truck owner, and a California resident, every one of these features calls out to me. I use my power tools all over the place where power isn’t readily available, PG&E shuts off my power when it’s ‘too windy’, and a drunk seems like a good place to lock up my laptop and nice tools when I’m in a restaurant in San Jose or Santana Clara (sheesh, laptop thieves suck).
Well done Ford - I think you’ve got a customer here.
Killer feature: onboard power for external devices. This will be huge for the trades--and the trades are a primary target market for Ford trucks.
Sales will be driven by the same factors as Tesla’s, no c02 emissions, don’t have to buy gas. Everything else is bonus
The F150 itself has great features (quiet ride), then pile on the new stuff here (a good bed cover is $1k+ and no longer needed with the frunk, the acceleration).
My pet peeve is that vehicles are getting bigger in general, and I don't need a big vehicle. An F150 won't fit in my garage.
An amusing anecdote, my friend got a brand new pickup, and was being really fussy about keeping it clean. I asked him: How do you keep the bed from getting dirty and scratched up? He said: Don't put anything in there. When he drove back to the family ranch, his mom noticed that he was being too prissy with his truck. So she waited until he was sleeping in on a Saturday morning, and borrowed his truck to haul manure. Lesson learned. ;-)
In my case (not that anyone cares), lower end trucks are fairly optimal. Low repair costs, don't care about gas mileage (not enough miles/year), good visibility, don't ever need a back seat, ease of repair and accessibility, need space for transporting big and tall stuff often enough. Kind of a no-brainer.
The emergency house power angle is the killer app for me. Plus never going to a gas station, changing oil, etc.
You do have to wonder how much longer any EV subsidy can last. It highly favors wealthier people (due to the tie to income tax in many cases) and won't hold up to widespread adoption of EVs
Anyone else think it's anti-consumer to not be able to opt out of these 'features'?
Yes, absolutely.
Scrolling through the page, it's the second "feature" that they advertise (first being that it's "gass-free"). It gets higher placement than the "Power your home" capability, and much higher placement than the "Frunk" (in fact, if I just scroll, the "frunk" doesn't show up until about 2/3 of the way down the page!)
Tesla seems to do okay convincing people to accept OTA updates.
Also, current F150s can do OTA updates, they're just rare.
I feel like the industry is getting really close, and this is a solid effort that puts Tesla on notice, but not _quite_ there in terms of mass acceptance.
We can always charge _and_ take bathroom/lunch breaks (~1 hour). By the time we get back the car's back up to 80~90%.
That being said, the F-150 will be a lot worse than the Y. It only supports 150kWh charging instead of Tesla's 250kWh, it uses a lot more watts per mile, and it doesn't have access to Tesla's Supercharger network.
On the other hand I suspect that significant fraction of the trucks are just used for commuting in flat suburbia so range will not matter.
To overcome friction, you need additional energy. The electric F150 comes with ~3.7 gal equiv. of gasoline worth of energy. The gas powered comes with ~25 gal tank.
If we assume 90% efficiency for the electric motor and 25% for the gasoline, you get:
electric F150: 3.3 gal equivalent available to move the car
gas F150: 6.25 gal equivalent available to move the car
The gas-powered stores effectively double the amount of energy, if the two cars have equal weight and aerodynamics, the gas powered will have 2ble range.
Since rock crawling is all about low end torque with guys installing two transfer cases so they can go 4 lo-lo and redline at 3 km/h I would have thought the low end torque of electric motor would be better than gas.
I'm not sure how much of that is streamlining production versus design (i.e. fitting all the batteries in place may more or less necessitate that specific body style)
... well, unless you actually back it into the lake on the boat ramp! Hmm..
Unfortunately, there isn't much getting away from the fact that towing a big box behind a car halves the economy, and while those cars are starting to have very useable ranges, even if you need to occasionally travel longer distance, halving those ranges leaves you a bit short.
Can you at least disable the OTA updates if you don't want it?
cyber truck is for affluent city people who probably never had or wanted a truck before but like the design.
f150 is more for normal people who actually just want a normal truck that’s electric
Why? Does the look of the truck make it more practical? The Cybertruck does not have any paint, and can sustain far more scratch/shock that the F150.
Cybertruck seems like it would require special versions of these kind of things. One of the reasons people buy pickups is versatility, and you lose some of that with Cybertruck because of its different shape.
The design looks avante-guard from a consumer perspective, but its a result of making it more functional and easier to manufacture which is hard to argue with when your using for business even if you think its hideous. I think the f150 will compete for sure but its traditional branding and smaller bed will probably attract more consumer oriented existing pick-up owners. City people will continue to buy model Y because they have to run errands in tight spaces.
We'll see how the F150 pans out, but I'm more hesitant in Ford's ability to deliver than Tesla continuing to deliver.
I'm serious. I just need room for myself, occasionally one other person, and random crap (canoes, boats etc on a rack in back, garden, house, etc crap in bed). We have a family car for the whole family. This could be uncomfortable and small (and ideally cheep) but obviously no market for that or it would be out there. What's smallest pickup currently sold in US?
- can carry X tons / X petaflops and ai engine! - can drive up to Y hours / last Y hours
but never mention how long is Y with X being true.
* Power supply. This thing supports ton of recharging of power tools. Lawn cares services will love this as more and more communities are banning gas-powdered tools.
* Range. 300 is well within most contractors' home to work site.
* Frunk. Lock away their valuable tools without unloading the toolbox.
* Look. It's what they know and trust. It's something new yet familiar.
Next step for Ford, make EV version of Transit. That'll sell like hot cakes!
Having your EV plugged in and just "work" when there's a power outage is stupid simple and absolutely worth it.
They delayed refreshing the X and S for a long time, I believe, in part because these two models are low-volume and therefore don't warrant a high allocation of battery supply and manufacturing floor space. Why refresh them now, then? I think they are using the 2021 refresh of X and S as a spur for the 4680 battery ramp (see conjecture that Plaid+ is going to be 4680).
Adding more models and variations doesn't do them much good when their demand for the mainstream 3 and Y far outstrips their battery supply, both today and into the near future, even with them ramping battery supply as hard as possible.
Brands that are making a wide range of electric vehicles are taking a significantly different approach. But seeing as they too will be constrained by a small supply of batteries, I am not sure the diversity will be as valuable on their bottom line.
2. How much power does the generator/house back-up provide? I can see it being enough for a couple tools on a jobsite, but how long will it run a refrigerator, furnace, lights, etc.?
3. In this page, Ford claims to have the largest charging network in the USA. How is that possible, I thought Tesla had a huge lead on supercharging stations and destination chargers?
4. Price: At 40k base, you'll be seeing average costs of 50k+, even after the 7.5k tax incentive. I'd take the larger battery for sure, it would greatly increase the utility of the truck for my cases. 50k is what MANY truck buyers are already spending, I don't see that being an obstacle at all.
5. Gripe: Most people who claim to need a truck don't really need to OWN a truck; they should just rent. I live in a rural area and 95% of the trucks I see have 1 passenger and on average almost no cargo in the bed. We are polluting our planet for the occasional privilege of using our OWN truck...people simply buy vehicles for the outlying use case, not the modal case, and it's incredibly inefficient.
6. Overall: These EVs are a step in the right direction. It's still energy inefficient overall, and renting an ICE truck once a month would still be better than buying a new massive EV truck, but this is a step in the right direction. It'll nudge the "I want my own truck" people in the right direction towards efficiency.
One, we don't know the actual usable capacity of the pack, because Ford hasn't said. Forbes writer estimates 110-130kWh.
https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/2022-ford-f-150-lightning...
Estimating home energy use per day really depends on how much heating/air conditioning you need, if your heater is gas powered or not. The fridge is like 1kWh per day. So... 100 days of just the fridge.
Mid-sized gas furnace will pull about 600W to run the forced air fan. So... 0.6 kWh per hour of runtime. You'd have to calculate the runtime given a temperature. If it is an electric furnace it'll blow through that battery quite fast.
Lights are now peanuts, because LED bulbs are about 8-10W. .12kWh per bulb per day for 12 hours of use.
Also, compare your home's electric bill for a kWh number to compare: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3
Average of 877kWh per month. Of course this is averaged as you use more power depending on local weather and time of year due to heating/cooling needs. With that over-averaged value, 3.75 days to drain the battery. This is probably why Ford says about 3 days and then says "10 with conservation".
So I'd say if a family really conserved on heating/cooling, and attempted to be careful with cooking, that battery could quite easily go 10 days.
I wish them luck, but I hope they're fully committed and this isn't just a "let's make a few thousand at a loss for compliance and PR" move. And I hope they have a battery supplier that's prepared to ramp up production fast if they need it.
― Henry Ford
The people answering your survey probably weren't aware they could power an entire jobsite with just a truck. Killer features such as this will be how electric vehicles penetrate the holdouts.
Their marketing team must be based in So Cal and unaware of the use case. /s
https://www.balisefordcapecod.com/Snow-Plow-Prep-Package.htm...
If I had been smart, and bought a small hatchback or wagon, I'd probably still be driving it to this day, and it'd have 90% of the hauling capability of my truck.
An electric pickup solves a lot of the issues I had with my old truck, but understand, this is a premium product. Pickup truck owners are a stubborn bunch. EVs will have a hard time penetrating that market. It may take a few decades.
[1] https://www.ford.com/is/image/content/dam/vdm_ford/live/en_u...
Here's a picture: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dTXcXTNslbGIJam0Wy9BRhk_I80=...
I understand they did not integrate the motors and batteries into a new frame built specifically to accommodate them like Tesla did but rather added them on top the existing frame. I really like that Tesla is a ground up design and something about this F150 annoys me for carrying on all of the institutional inertia of a 100 year old company.
Also, I read Ford is planning on 40k of these and their Transit van each year and marketing them toward fleets.
Ford sold 787,000 F-150’s in 2020 and about 1 million F-series trucks in total.
Seems like more statements have asterisks next to them then don't.
Now we need to figure out how to make sure the electrical grid is able to support the new load (hopefully with clean energy solutions), and deploy public electrical charging destinations across the entire US to make it feasible.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/05/f-150...
ref: https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/2022/ (see bottom)
I do a similar thing with my ICE car. We don't get a lot of snow here, but every few years we'll get a storm that leaves up to a foot on the ground. Significant snow like that is rare enough that the cities and county don't keep a large fleet of snow removal equipment, so they only clear the bigger streets.
I'm on a long dead end street that won't get plowed for quite a while, if at all. People with the bigger trucks and SUVs can still get through, and there are enough of those further up the street from me that usually in a day they'll have made enough trips that my smaller SUV can get out.
When it looks like we might get one of those storms, I top off my car. If I lose power, and my house cools off enough that even with a sweater and jacket it gets too cold to stay in, I can move to my car. A full tank of gas will run the engine idling just enough to power the heater and radio and phone charger for about 24 hours.
Power would almost certainly be restored by the time I'd be running out of gas.
Grid power is so damn reliable in most places that any backup solution is going to have limited use. I guess I see this feature of the F-150 as icing on the cake, not something that would sway my purchase decision.
And for most scenarios it works - having some energy is always better than none. eg. The fridge will stay cold enough while you go shop for more food or whatever.
There's a lot of $10k-$15k natgas whole house generators going in around my neighborhood.
Your view of electricity reliability depends on where you live.
It is interesting to me that this is phrased as a negative thing. If you are at the point where you are choosing between transportation and powering your home, at least you _have_ the choice and it is not made for you.
Once your average truck driving country boy sees what "instant full torque" means, ICEs will start to get a reputation for being wimpy.
Struck me as a far different way of easing into the autonomous driving gig.
The prime majority of "fall apart as you drive" cars been wiped off the market outside of America.
The new LG Chem RESU 16h (16 kWh) is available for preorder at $8,400 [1].
The base model truck has a 110 kWh suite of batteries and seemingly will start at $40k (unclear if that’s before or after the $7500 expected federal rebate).
Naively multiplying it out, the base model F-150 Lightning is a free vehicle attached to the equivalent of 6 of the 16 kWh batteries.
There are likely:
- integration issues (you can’t hook it up to 48V or 400V solar)
- battery life? (Though it’s a vehicle. You expect daily usage for years)
- something else?
tl;dr: if this is really 110 kWh of storage that can power your home, shouldn’t there be a secondary market of “just the batteries” for half that?
[1] https://sunwatts.com/16-kwh-lg-chem-lithium-ion-home-battery...
During the live presentation, I believe it was indicated the sub $40k price tag is before the rebate.
But this truck will be very heavy, very tall, and very fast. Drivers are already the leading killers of children, and more and more people are being killed while walking and cycling.
I'm very worried about the effect of making this vehicle even faster and heavier. Hopefully reduced deaths from pollution offset this.
You can’t get around physics. More mass with more force carries more risk.
The weight of an entire small car!
A little appreciated fact is that a Model 3 and a Mustang have the exact same weight ranges: the SR RWD Model 3 weights about what a ecoboost Mustang does, and a GT500 Mustang is actually about 200lbs heavier than a Model 3 AWD LR Performance.
The battery being low should dramatically improve the safety of the vehicle by improving stability.
It's still a huge vehicle, though. It would be nice if we trended smaller, and left vehicles like this to people who actually need it.
Constantly telling people that existing on earth as a human is bad for x, y, z is a good strategy if you want people to tune out and stop paying attention to what you're saying.
Depends how fast it's going.
40% is like speeding up to 60.
If you are worried about vehicle weight, worry more about speed.
That's why crumple zones are important for vehicle-vehicle collisions--not because they turn kinetic energy into a stored form of potential energy in deformation, but because they drastically decrease the rate at which momentum changes.
The crumple zone spreads that energy transfer out over a longer period of time.
Obviously heavier cars are more deadly when hitting people with all the other variables fixed, but not all these variables are independent. They could also depend on the weight of the cars. For example, maybe the car becomes easier to control/steer when it's heavier (totally made up point), which counters the inherent risk introduced by the weight.
Without real-world data I won't be too quick to say heavier car is more dangerous.
I'll post the conclusion for the light trucks weight reduction part (fatalities part, there is also non-serious injuries part in the paper) here as TL;DR for other people.
Reducing the mass of light trucks would significantly increase the fatality risk of their occupants in
collisions with objects and big trucks. But downsizing of light trucks would significantly reduce risk
to pedestrians, motorcyclists and, above all, passenger car occupants. There would be little effect
on rollovers because, historically, there has been little correlation between the mass of light trucks
and their rollover stability (width relative to center-of-gravity height). There would also be little
change in collisions between two light trucks, if both trucks are reduced in mass.
Even though the effect of mass reductions is statistically significant in four of the six types of
crashes, the net effect for all types of crashes combined is small, because some of the individual
effects are positive and others are negative. The benefits of truck downsizing for pedestrians and
car occupants could more than offset the fatality increase for light truck occupants. It is estimated
that a 100-pound reduction could result in a modest net savings of 40 lives, (0.26 percent of baseline
fatalities). However, this estimate is not statistically significant, the 2-sigma confidence bounds
range from a savings of 100 to an increase of 20 fatalities; the 3-sigma bounds range from a savings
of 130 to an increase of 50 fatalities. It is concluded that a reduction in the weight of light trucks
would have a negligible overall effect, but if there is an effect, it is most likely a modest reduction
of fatalitiesWe also know that speed kills and people are driving faster today than ever before.
Basically light duty trucks take an extra 10-30 feet stopping from 60 MPH. This is dwarfed by distance travelled during reaction time. In the 1960's sedans were in the ~150 ft range for 60-0, about what modern pickups achieve.
Heavier vehicles have more kinetic energy at the same speed but the braking force for all vehicles is proportional to mass and friction with the road surface which depends on tire quality and road material, and since acceleration is proportional to mass from a given force the deceleration from braking is basically the same at any mass with equivalent tires and road surface.
2022 Ford Lightning: 6,500 lbs
2021 Ford F-150 Hybrid: 5,794 lbs
2021 Ford F-150 ICE: 5,014 lbs
(All 4-door models)
There is a also a massive difference between noise a normally driven ICE vehicle makes compared to an electric one at city speeds. The electric ones are very silent and barely audible if they don't make that humming sound. Even at 20-30mph.
Source: typing this in a city with lots of roads and traffic.
I would have though it would be in the city, if only for the fact that I practically never see pedestrians on country roads where I live. There can be cyclists, though.
In the city, though, most car noise is clearly the engine. Source: traffic outside my window. I clearly hear the engine noise or the exhaust if it's a scooter or motorcycle.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/12/14/2016-28...
All electric vehicles sold in the US since September 2020 must have a Pedestrian Warning System that emits noise at speeds less than 18mph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sound...
Once you're above 10mph or 15mph the road noise from the tires makes more noise than the quiet gas engines we have these days anyways.
This electric F-150 will not be "almost silent" in any way that matters to a pedestrian. It will certainly be less obnoxious to everyone than those grating diesel engine trucks, and I hope no one complains about the loss of that noise pollution.
Are you mental? I live on a residential street, not even too busy, and every single day, I hear these idiot gunning their motors to be cool. With electric its a non issue.
I don't know if 2020+ EVs are louder, but at least our Fiat 500e does make this tiny whirring sound at parking lot speeds, supposedly so pedestrians can hear it. But it is so quiet that it doesn't accomplish much. Even the quietest ICE car is substantially more audible in parking lots.
The F-150 is already a bloated monstrosity, it makes no difference if it’s electric. It’s some tiny bit faster, but they’re all fast enough.
This new Lightning (putting it that way because F150 Lightning once corresponded to a gas-guzzling Supercharged V8 trim) has 775ft/lb of Torque. For reference, the existing models are between 265 and 510 ft/lb.
Additionally, one of the benefits of an electric motor, is that torque is essentially instantly available, compared to an ICE where there's only a slim power bad where that max torque range is hit.
Unless Ford 'governs' acceleration in software, I can see some lead-foots getting themselves into trouble quickly. They probably -will-, but I'd expect them to offer some sort of switch for that, lest the Ford zealots grab their pitchforks. Let us not forget that a lot of 'Car guys' are arguably insane. When Ford considered switching the Mustang to a Front Wheel Drive Mazda design, they had to deal with death threats!
[edit]
Example: https://youtu.be/HGzlV4ggudM?t=425
> compared to an ICE where there's only a slim power bad where that max torque range is hit.
second, this is only true of naturally aspirated engines, which are pretty rare these days. engines with turbos or superchargers are usually tuned to make (roughly) peak torque all the way from 2000 rpm to redline.
this is a lot of fretting over the peak acceleration of a truck. I believe the thing does 0-60 in something like 4.5 seconds. that's really quick for a truck, but only above average compared to performance sedans. in any case, most people (even the crazy ones) do not often hit peak acceleration from a red light, especially in an EV.
Seems like the people in this thread arguing about a fast truck don't know about the original Lightning, nor are they familiar with modern sport trucks like the Ram TRX or Shelby F-150 Super Snake, both of which will give proper high end sports cars a run for the money in a drag race.
It's worth checking out the 1/4 mile times from guys with RCSB F150s, whether it's an Ecoboost or a Coyote.
At this point, I'd say that the main limitation tends to be traction issues.
You might want to look in the mirror. Car threads bring out really destructive attitudes, and mostly not from the 'car guys'. The stuff that gets said here is astounding...
And I've never sent anyone a death threat. I don't hate people for their choice in cars, or non-choice as the case may be. I enjoy interesting cars of all kinds. I'm not especially into trucks from an enthusiast perspective, though as a homeowner and RV owner I do happen to own a Ford F250. And I don't mind people that are into them. You have to be a bit of an enthusiast, IMO, to daily drive a super duty if you don't need it :). I'd own a Taco if I didn't need to tow anything, as it would be far more livable for daily use.
I provided a very real world example of car enthusiasts doing something that a sane human being would not do. Can you help me understand what I should be looking for?
And yeah, a lot of people on HN are also car enthusiasts. How many of us sent death threats in response to the Ford Probe? I was even a Mustang enthusiast at that time. I never sent any death threats, nobody I know did either. You are describing a sociopath, who may also be a car enthusiast, and then claiming that this means all car enthusiasts are sociopaths.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/19/ford-f-150-lightning-elect...
> “If your F-150 Lightning is plugged in when your outage occurs, Intelligent Backup Power will automatically kick in to power your home,” said Ryan O’Gorman, Ford’s energy services lead, in a video briefing prior to the reveal. “When power is restored, the truck automatically reverts to charging its battery.”
We all realize it's due to safety, but a lot of sports cars have gotten progressively less fun as a result. The M3 is no longer a small nimble sedan. It's larger than the 5 series was from only 2 generations ago. That's all he's pointing out.
2021 G80 M4 length: 189.1″, width: 74.3″, curb weight: 3,840 to 3,890 lbs
2011 E92 M3 length: 180.4 to 181.8″, width: 71 to 71.5″, curb weight: 3,704
2001 E46 M3 length: 176.8", width: 70.1", curb weight: 3415 lbs.
2021 M5 length: 196.4″, width: 74.9″, curb weight: 4,345 lbs
2010 M5 length: 191.5, width: 72.7, curb weight: 4,012
2001 M5 length: 188.4″, width: 70.9″, curb weight: 4,024 lbs
I think more worrisome is the center console - pedestrian deaths had been going down for 20 years until smartphones became widespread and we've had increases every year since.
I wish there was more discussion and acknowledgement of the dangers here.
Not in a "guns don't kill people way", but because I think smarphone helped spread society's worse effects on girls, but they were already in a very shitty position, and we can't just get back to the status quo before the smarphones and social networks.
We can of course also work on reducing sns negative impacts, but I think it will also be a bad, long and thorny way before seeing improvements.
I would rather drive next to people with .09 blood alcohol than someone on their phone.
Social media and cell phones are very convenient, but come with major drawbacks that must be addressed. Phones, for many young people, are just mental disorders with a touch screen.
* All of the weight is in the bottom of the vehicle, giving a lower centre of gravity. I'd bet this will kill the old F150 in a moose (or child!) test.
* The lack of engine means the entire front part of the car is a huge crumple zone. This gives designers more wriggle room for pedestrian protection too. This is an increasingly important requirement in road safety standards.
* The electric motors are able to respond with torque far faster (in ms) than an ICE engine, so traction and stability control are more effective. Again good for things like the moose test.
* Switching our road transport to electric will probably save more children, and the adults they will become, from a lifetime of lung problems and premature death from pollution than better pedestrian safety features ever will.
The important thing to note about the moose test is that it doesn't specify that the moose has to survive. It's simply a test of whether the occupants will survive hitting a moose. I would wager anything that is designed to pass the moose test will kill anything that it hits that is below the moose's center of gravity. So actually the vehicle is way less safe for pedestrians than a vehicle that would fail the moose test.
But if all that matters is the safety of the occupant I guess this is okay.
> * The lack of engine means the entire front part of the car is a huge crumple zone. This gives designers more wriggle room for pedestrian protection too. This is an increasingly important requirement in road safety standards.
The kind of "crumple zone" that enhances pedestrian and cyclist safety is more like a beer can. Again, the crumple zones in this vehicle are designed to keep the occupants safe but not designed to keep any other road user safe.
The moose test is about safely dodging around a moose that wanders out onto the road without wrecking the vehicle.
Why did you write this long comment as if you were an expert on the moose test if you don't even know what the moose test is? That's an incredibly disingenuous thing to do.
Tall SUVs typically fare worse at this because of their higher centre of gravity causing instability:
Completely wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_test
The car fails the test (at that speed) if the "moose" is hit at all (or it skids, turns or tips over).
These zones are explicitly designed with pedestrian safety in mind, as it is a specific area of testing for roadworthiness certifications: https://www.euroncap.com/en/vehicle-safety/the-ratings-expla...
> Switching our road transport to electric will probably save more children, and the adults they will become, from a lifetime of lung problems and premature death from pollution than better pedestrian safety features ever will.
Do you (or anyone) have order-of-magnitude estimates for either/both of these figures? I mean, electrification in general is great, but the F150 cannot take credit for all of it. I am interested in reduced pollution deaths/QALYs that can be attributed to F150 electrification specifically -- that's the topic of this article and thread.
Edit: Here's relevant data to the other side: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/10/vehicle-... https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/asthma_stats/asthma_underlying_de...
https://youtu.be/Jzfpyo-q-RM?t=355
On average in the US, the CO2 output required to power an electric vehicle is 1/3 of an ICE vehicle. So theoretically this would translate to less deaths as bb123 suggests, but hard to compare to direct pedestrian deaths. (Yes there are some logical gaps as ICE C02 output is a very low percentage of total fossil fuel output).
Source: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1129478_lifetime-carbon...
Electricity only accounts for about 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, but it also enables industry (20%) and transportation (15%) to decarbonize too, by allowing them to replace their fuel with electricity.
A 50% reduction is already massive, but electrification of both vehicles and the industrial processes creating the vehicle will eventually let that number go to zero which should be our goal.
Crumple zones don't help pedestrians.
The new F-150 will be bigger and heavier than the absurdly huge early-00s Hummers. The hood is so tall and long that they're talking about putting forward-facing cameras inside the cab because you can't see anything in front of you shorter than 6" tall out the windshield.
If Ford was interested in safety, they would reduce the outrageous length and height of the front end which is now no longer even pretending to be necessary housing for an engine. Vehicles made to work prioritize visibility, Ford trucks are made to intimidate and kill.
Citation needed
New F-150 Lightning curb weight estimate is 6500 lbs.
H1 is 7200-7500 lbs.
H2 is 6400-6600 lbs.
The F-150 is a couple feet longer but both the H1 and H2 are wider and taller.
Use those numbers to make your own determination. F-150 specs are from here: https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America...
See https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/04/28/vehicle-safety-standa...
And a Tesla Model 3 long range is heavier than a 2020 F-150.
Not the kind you're thinking of.
But the top half of the bulbous front end that basically every modern car has is mostly empty space and flimsy plastic to create what's basically a crumple zone for pedestrians.
The sizable majority of modern car pollution comes from particulates that come off asphalt, not emissions from engines. It's still important to go EV to reduce carbon, but that doesn't improve local air quality. Modern internal combustion engines have pretty minimal pollutants in their emissions.
Getting older cars off the road is the major way to improve emission pollutants. Beyond that, improving air quality to any significant degree requires either fewer cars on the road, or less heavy cars on the road. Asphalt particulates scales quadratically with the weight of the car.
this is important. It is an option they DID IGNORE! for marketing.
The thing that kills pedestrians (both physically and preventing vision) is the high trunk. They could have lowered it since there is no 9L engine or whatever inside. But they decided to keep it for "frunk" marketing.
If you get hit by any vehicle you're going to have a bad time. This vehicle is not an exception.
Instead, they kept the high nose and used the space as a trunk. After all, injuring fewer pedestrians sells no cars. Indeed, the market prefers an enormous, deliberately threatening-looking chariot that makes you feel big and virile.
Ford are behind this game in that they haven't given their truck an explicitly hostile name like “People Mulcher”.
It's also why cities are taking back whole roads from cars when they can, as it's so hard to preserve a middle ground in a lot of areas.
The air was co-opted by planes... should we turn that back over to avian only traffic?
For the main point was that roads weren’t built for cars - cars co-opted them from people. It doesn’t have to be that way.
If what you say is true, then cities should not have roads.
Don't hit anyone with your vehicle and you won't kill anyone. I've been hit by a truck bicycling, thankfully not too hard. But I don't really think it would have been better to have been hit by a low slung sleek car. It would have put all the force through my legs.
When designing mass manufactured items, it is a responsibility of manufacturers to ensure that their products are as safe as they can be.
Even HN cannot see past the perverse dangers and flaws of modern auto design responsible for the current vulnerable road user epidemic in America. [1] When it comes to cars - it's "personal responsibility". When it comes to treadmills - it's a "manufacturing flaw" [2]
[1] https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/06/28/suvs-killi... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26846641
Ford trucks are the #1 killer of children and adults at crosswalks because drivers can't see what they're about to run over, vehicles of that front-end design account for 40% of all pedestrian traffic deaths.
Do you own a truck? I do. I've owned a truck for 15 years. Some of them lifted, and unless you are pretty much parked on top of a crosswalk, there is no problem seeing the crosswalk. Especially 3-4 foot objects in said crosswalk.
Edit: F150 is the most popular vehicle in the US. So, yeah, it stands to reason it will kill more people than any other vehicle, too
There is a such thing as good and bad design. If I sell a hammer that shoots a bullet whenever you swing it for no good reason, I'm responsible for people getting shot.
What I'm telling you is that you have an opinion that is different from mine and also probably an ignorant one since you didn't answer my question about whether you have ever owned a truck.
That's why professional models typically have cabover or sharply-sloped hood designs, not the enormous flattops that are marketed at suburbanites.
I have owned a truck, I drove a 1999 Chevy Silverado for ten years, it could haul just as much stuff as a 2020 F-150 but it also let me see the road.
"1999 Chevy Silverado for ten years, it could haul just as much stuff as a 2020 F-150 but it also let me see the road" - this is also utter nonsense. A 1999 Silverado 1500 is a 1/4 ton truck with a TC of about 4,000 pounds. A 2020 F-150 is a 1/2 ton truck with a TC of about 7,000 pounds.
So the more apt comparison would be with a Ford Ranger, which obviously sits lower to the ground than an F-150, but having owned both a 2500 Silverado and several F-250, the front visibility isn't much different.
What's an acceptable blind spot - where if someone hits a laying down/sitting kid in front of their car, it's the driver's fault and not the vehicle's?
Vehicle safety regulations aren't about "blame", ever. They're designed to save lives. If you can do that with better driver behavior, great. If you can do it with assistive technology, great. If you can do it with different vehicle designs, great. You do what you can, based on the techniques available and the costs involved.
To wit: if you start your safety analysis with "fuck the pedestrians, that's the driver's fault, not Ford's", then you're doing it wrong.
Most people with a truck are just trying to get their job done. They aren’t trying to look or feel anything.
No insult intended here: I assume people who have never had this thought have also never done things like replacing their kitchen cabinets or some other simple home improvement project. That's fine, but it's also quite relatable to many people, and it has nothing to do with penis.
I bought a truck for two reasons. Hauling the occasional thing around (having a home makes this happen more than I had initially thought) and it fits 6 (we just had our last child in January).
I WFH so it's lower fuel economy is a non-issue to us.
It has literally _nothing_ to do with "feeling big" or any compensation thing. I had no idea how much I'd use the utility until I bit the bullet and purchased one.
I'm incredibly excited for the F-150 Lightning because I am a perfect candidate for it.
I used to work at a horse racing track and every single jockey (really small dudes) had the hugest truck you have ever seen. We're talking Ford F-350 with a lift kit and bigger tires. The works. You needed to use a ladder to get in them.
There is definitely a thing that some people want bigger, taller vehicles because it makes them feel bigger and stronger. And there is definitely a thing that truck size becomes a pissing contest for some men where it's not just enough to have a big truck, you need to have the biggest one among your peers.
(And if you think nerds are immune to this phenomenon, perhaps take a more critical look at your gaming PC, boardgame collection, etc. We're a tribal species competing for mates using status symbols. Few of us are totally immune to this effect.)
At the same time, many truck owners are not motivated by that and painting them all with the same brush is uncharitable and unkind. I drive a pick-up. I absolutely love it. I have yet to kill any children, destroy the ozone layer, crush another car in a parking lot, or any of the other many moral crimes this thread seems to accuse most truck owners of.
Paraphrasing Freud, sometimes a truck is just a truck.
Trucks designed for work have low frontends for maximum visibility. I drove a 1999 Silverado for 10 years, went offroading often, it had just as much horsepower as last year's F-150, but with a front-end that was basically indistinguishable from a sedan's, instead of the new ones that are so tall they have to put cameras in the cab so that you can see what's in front of you.
The frontends of modern trucks are for intimidation, not work.
This in turn has actual effects on their behavior, including but not limited to making certain purchases more likely. Obsessing about power and speed and commanding the road definitely has an impact on how people drive - especially younger folks.
Car choice influence an incredible array of things up to how cities are built. Car commercial are omnipresent and include product placement in movies as well as, apparently, US presidents gunning it in a new truck, which is the topic of this whole thread.
The trend that they need to be an everyday vehicle for anyone is something that should be looked at. What is the psychology and intentional planning that's caused this shift? What subtle population engineering has lead to this without people realizing it?
The cost premium of hiring someone for home improvement jobs vs. DIY seems to have gone up. And the difficulty of finding someone qualified, reputable and with available capacity seems to have become exponentially higher.
"So I guess I need a truck" is what I've recently been thinking.
Vans are nice and in the used market often cheaper. I used to rent/borrow a friends full size van before having a truck. Still, the roof creates limitations. Can't transport a fridge or water heater upright, for example.
And for towing as mentioned, a van is limited to a bumper pull trailer whereas a pickup can pull a fifth wheel or gooseneck.
There is another group that doesn't need any of things but is convinced that they might some day. They are aspirational requirements. Why are those people convinced they need these things? The same reason anyone is convinced they need anything in the modern world. Advertising. Truck ads tell you that the Ford F150 is a tough truck for men who are tough (or want to be) and don't take nothin' from nobody (once they get out of this crappy job) and are masters of nature (or surely would be if they didn't live in the suburbs).
They buy product placement in all the badass movies, their commercials look like b-roll from a transformers movie, and the trucks themselves get more comfortable and less utilitarian every year.
Ford is not in the business of selling (light) trucks - they are in the business of selling an aspirational lifestyle to a population that thinks they might one day become an action hero. The F150 is, and has been for a long time, a consumer toy and not a serious work vehicle.
Could you ever see yourself buying a panel van? Why or why not?
However for my truck in particular I got a somewhat luxury trim with 50k miles for only $20k, so it was a good mix of things I would want in a vehicle generally as well as the utility. Panel vans aren’t really offered in that configuration, and I probably wouldn’t get one now because I plan on just keeping this truck as a secondary vehicle long after it’s paid off and I eventually get a smaller daily driver.
All that being said the one thing that could make me change my mind is an electric van with extensive usage of solar panels. That has a rather unique value proposition so if it existed in the future I’d be interested in it at least.
There are a good number of legitimate uses and legitimate users for these vehicles (I know a lot of legitimate users), but the vast majority of the giant vehicles on the road have only 1 visible occupant and no visible cargo.
And although I am doubtless projecting, I can't help but envision a fresh hot latte in their cupholder, which the driver is on their way back from procuring.
I can't speak to the more general, aspirational subculture to which you refer, but the aggravation of multiple vehicles is in some ways the first stop on this tour.
I think the attitude of “you don’t need a truck unless you’re a blue collar worker” is pretty elitist and ignorant, honestly. As if the decision to buy a truck is somehow invalid because white collar workers don’t see the need for one.
A sedan with the rear seats folded down will likely hold as much as you can get in a Costco run.
Or two bikes you throw in there.
I know because mine does both of these things.
I'm pretty sure the vast majority of current truck owners 1) don't own boats 2) rarely, if ever, haul furniture 3) use the space in the rear on a regular basis.
Against this we have the known statistics of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities due to the obstructions to visibility provided by the very high front grille and very high ride height (plus wide A-pillars, etc.)
So it's therefore not only a waste of gas but a public health hazard, and making that claim is not "elitist", it's merely "rational" and "empirical" (and allow me to add, "humane")
https://smartgrowthamerica.org/bigger-vehicles-are-directly-...
"Recent research from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found the share of pedestrian deaths involving trucks, vans, and SUVs has increased from 22 to 44 percent since the mid-1980s. More SUVs and trucks in the fleet = more pedestrian injuries becoming deaths instead."
https://www.outsideonline.com/2411345/suvs-trucks-deadly-cyc...
Most sedans have a max payload < 1000lbs including all passengers.
An F-150 has a payload over 3000lbs and can tow up to 14,000lbs.
Do you need that for your groceries? No, but if you don't live in the heart of the city the F-150 enables you do many many things that a sedan can't do around yard work, home ownership, agriculture, hauling gear, etc..
A sedan is about the worst car design anyway.. you'd have more of a leg to stand on if you had argued for a hatch or a minivan.
I've never owned a truck, but they have their uses.
it's also hard to find anything smaller than a truck with 4WD. if you live outside the city/suburbs, this can be a pretty important feature by itself.
The mystery to me is how very occasionally that seems to be, at least anecdotally. Perhaps >95% of pickup trucks I see are not hauling anything bigger than groceries. Yet, they’re hauling around their own ridiculously giant metal frame and emitting huge amounts of fossil fuels in the process. Those occasional boat trips are very net expensive in atmospheric carbon! Thankfully electric pickups will partially mitigate that problem although pickups will be hogging space in commuter parking garages for many decades hence I’m sure.
I mean, it sounds like your real reservation about trucks is not that they emit carbon, but that they are hogging up space and inconveniencing you, which is not a very persuasive argument.
I didn't mention rural truck drivers and made no comment that could reasonably be interpreted as such. If you have to deal with corrugated dirt roads and hauling materials etc on a daily basis then it's perfectly understandable you won't exactly be driving a hatchback.
> I mean, it sounds like your real reservation about trucks is not that they emit carbon, but that they are hogging up space and inconveniencing you, which is not a very persuasive argument.
Or, numerous city and urban commuting giant truck drivers is an effective image of the ridiculous excess they represent in the vast majority of their uses whereas carbon is a less visible but extremely negative externality from that excess.
/s But yes, those that point out this are the real problem.
The F150 has fuel economy close to that of wagons sold in the US. The F150 is less efficient, but it has way more than half the fuel economy of a wagon. Examples:
A base E-Class Wagon gets 24 mpg (22 city, 28 highway). A 4WD V6 F150 (which I think is the most popular) gets 21 mpg (19 city, 24 highway). The most efficient F150 available (the 2WD Hybrid) gets 25 mpg (25 city, 26 highway).
Wagons aren't super popular in the US so there aren't that many on the market. Here is a comparison of the fuel economies of the F150 vs several wagons available in the US: https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=43464&...
Of course the E450 is going to get atrocious mileage, it’s a V6 turbocharged luxury car
It’s crazy that the choice is so limited in the US. I can understand why the Prius was so popular with you guys, despite handling like a whale on wheels.. there are nearly no options in the big hatchback segment .
I'd argue there is a societal disadvantage regarding the emissions these trucks kick out.
Americans want it because everyone else has one. Down here in TX, the number of pristine trucks that have never seen a speck of dirt, never had anything in the bed, and that are parked on their 1/8 acre lots in the city is staggering.
An EV truck presumably can be any size, but there's no current small truck platform to build on.
My dad had a Ranger in 97 that was just about the perfect truck for day-to-day use. It fit 2 adults comfortably, had a tiny 4 cylinder engine, got great gas milage, and could be used to pull a small trailer. He was crushed when Ford got rid of the Ranger. And what they've released now is basically the size of the old F-150 from the 90s
You're right that CAFE is literally designed to favor trucks. And the definition is so vague that even vehicles like the PT Cruiser are considered Light Trucks for the purposes of CAFE. It is also designed to hurt small cars, because vehicles with footprints (wheelbase * wheel wide) smaller than a Mustang (literally, to the square inch) have to face ever-more-strict CAFE standards.
As a result, cars like the Fit are might face a CAFE penalty while a base F150 does a-okay despite getting like half the fuel economy. And that's not even getting into BS like flex fuel credits (basically, being flex fuel capable is like adding ~5mpg to the vehicle CAFE score).
This is exactly why every small vehicle is a crossover anymore (they are light trucks for CAFE purposes), and why cars like the Civic get are today, the size an Accord was in 2005 (CAFE is less strict the larger the vehicle is).
Which seems pretty crazy if the net effect is that any car manufacturer has to produce a full line if they want to build any inefficient cars.
Huh? The shorter/narrower wheel base is better in any off-roading situation.
"The tariff affected any country (such as Japan) seeking to bring light trucks into the U.S. and effectively "squeezed smaller Asian truck companies out of the American pickup market."[16] Over the intervening years, Detroit lobbied to protect the light-truck tariff, thereby reducing pressure on Detroit to introduce vehicles that polluted less and that offered increased fuel economy.[15]"
Having a 40 mpg target for a small truck and a 25 mpg target for a big truck makes it pretty hard to build and sell a small truck.
A modern version of, say, a Datsun 620 [3] or an 80's Ford Ranger [4] could be pretty popular. One might even be able to circumvent the chicken tax by importing the body/frame of a foreign-made truck and building an electric drive train in the U.S. or NAFTA country.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datsun_Truck#/media/File:Datsu...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ranger#/media/File:1st-Fo...
Well, the third really; Ford made 1500 1998-2001 Ford Ranger EVs, and Chevrolet made a few hundred 1997-1998 S10 EVs. But yeah, one with modern batteries and drive trains and (therefore) decent capacity and range could sell a bunch.
But newer vehicles also have AEB with pedestrian detection. If these vehicles displace older existing vehicles without those safety systems we will see fewer fatalities overall. Most kids and pedestrians are hit at low speed, not at 60+ mph due to the driver not paying attention or not being able to see the pedestrian. While AEB can’t save all pedestrians that would otherwise be hit, we know that these systems lead to big reductions in preventable accidents [1].
The reason an entire car hide in front of the bumper, out of the driver's view is that it makes the truck look cooler. The window sills are also at a silly height, to make the truck feel bigger, but at least that doesn't create the same safety issues (for everyone outside the truck) with no real value.
"Compared with cars, buses were 11.85 times and motorcycles were 3.77 times more likely per mile to kill children 0–14 years old. Buses were 16.70 times more likely to kill adults age 85 or older than were cars."
If you count crossovers as cars, trucks make up like 35% of auto sales and account for 39% of pedestrian deaths.
There is nothing to be concerned about.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/276506/change-in-us-car-...
I’m not sure how much the weight really matters if you’re colliding with a cyclist or pedestrian anyway though.
Valid point about the height, but it’s no different than any other modern truck on the road today (all of which are too high if you ask me).
Which sounds like some city-slicker talking down to the cheap seats, except, I grew up in a town named Farmington. (Go Farmers.) I know pickups. I know the people who drive pickups. My dad sneers at fancy new pickups because he used to shove a good 700 pounds of mink pelts in a pickup, and he thinks all that leather would get stained by the blood nowadays. And pickup truck buyers love their macho trucks. They like the burble of the engines and the swagger and that it’s not some little penalty box of a green car.
An electric pickup? Sure, sounds rational, especially with that torque. But does it trigger the libs enough?
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Something that might help, though: that price.
“but rather its price because the 2022 F-150 Lightning will start at just $39,974 before any government rebates.”
Given the just eye-watering prices of pickups these days: that’s cheap, relatively.
That helps with the overcompensation buyer.
There's a couple classes of 'Truck guys'. The Truck guys that just want power, yeah they'll probably go for this.
The Truck guys that like throwing turbodiesels in to get HP/Torque numbers like what we see in the lightning, I would say it depends on whether Ford makes it 'Moddable' or not.
My concern with the Lightning (and EVs in general) is range anxiety. I can fill up my F150 in what 3-4 minutes. How long before I can go 400 miles on a charge? What happens during an extended power outage, can I carry 100 miles worth of range in a portable container that's as easy to handle as 5 gallons of gas?
None of these concerns have anything to do with this vehicle making me feel more manly ;)
For those infrequent long trips I stop every 3 hours/350km and charge for 30 mins. Watch some Netflix, use laptop, or have a short nap and move on. Works out ok.
Ford's marketing department knows what they're doing, they're marketing this truck as tough and powerful. I like it.
If the world turns Mad Max, someone with an electric truck and a few solar panels won't have to worry about the gasoline gangs.
In the case of societal collapse you're probably not going far with your truck so taking a week to charge is probably OK.
But of course it's not about what you really need, it's all about perception. In that race, trucks and guns are the most important.
I give them six months of survival.
Those are weasel words unless you can back them up with data. Ford sells over a million pickups a year, and they're just a third of that market. There's no way to get an audience this large by going for machismo, pickups sell because they have broad appeal.
At any rate, what exactly would objective supporting data look like here?
I don't know, which is why I wouldn't stereotype such a large group of the population. To a reasonable approximation, everyone in America is a truck customer. It's way too broad to have a common defining characteristic.
I agree that there is a subgroup (think of them perhaps as the 'brodozer' crowd, I guess) that seem to be who you're thinking of. They mostly don't drive F150s, they're more likely to go for a diesel HD pickup. And even then they are just a niche of that market. I know lots of superduty owners that want nothing to do with those folks.
So while there might be pushback from the "salt of the earth"-type, I suspect a lot of urban truck owners are very far removed from that. The gas/long bed/bench seat base model may continue to sell for the rest of my life to farmers and construction crews, but most people buying a truck likely don't need a truck: It is just a utilitarian general vehicle that may haul gardening supplies, camping gear, and dump runs every so often.
So you likely are correct, it just may not matter for the more common demography for trucks in 2021+.
A lot of people just want to move stuff, they don’t want to like…burn your house down while wearing a MAGA hat or something. There’s no reason to have an irrational hatred of a vehicle that is pretty practical in non-urban settings.
Edit: since this ended up as the top comment I’ll add some thoughts on the truck itself in the spirit of not being overly-negative. I’m interested to see what exactly is included in the base model and when that will become available since they’ve only given us information on higher trims so far. $40K for this vehicle is very affordable, that’s about as cheap as you can get a new Model 3 right now but at least for awhile it could be eligible for electric vehicle tax credits. Especially if the government extended these credits they could get A LOT of people to buy these trucks (and more Teslas which would help with EV adoption since demand for the Bolt and Leaf seem pretty low)
It's actually really nice, because if you buy your goods before you rent the truck, the person that shows you to the truck will usually help you load your stuff into it. That can be a godsend if you're trying to manipulate big sheets of plywood or something heavy. I also like that they clearly treat them as work vehicles; when they inspected it before I took off, they were only interested in fairly significant damage to the body. The truck I got already had scrapes on the body, and they really only noted the large and/or deep ones.
The truck I got about 9 months ago has already paid for itself by saving me from having to hire people to do things that I could have done myself if only I had a truck.
Renting is fine once in a while, but if you're hauling base rock or lumber every few weekends, I cannot imaging having to deal with rentals every time. It doesn't make sense, and would be such an enormous waste of time.
Yes, exactly. If you've actually got a use for it, great! The comment I was replying to was suggesting that realizing you need to get one more bulky item would happen frequently enough to make up the difference for someone who would otherwise rent, which is ridiculous.
Even used, the marginal cost of a truck in maintenance and higher gas bills really adds up. Comparing a used F-150 to a used Prius, mile-per-mile, the truck is going to be more than twice as expensive.
> Even used, the marginal cost of a truck in maintenance and higher gas bills really adds up. Comparing a used F-150 to a used Prius, mile-per-mile, the truck is going to be more than twice as expensive.
Again, depends! For me, the cost of a truck in maintenance and gas is much cheaper than a Prius, because the Prius can't do most of the things I'd want a truck for to begin with. Gas included: I don't take the truck on long road trips. But I'm lucky and have a honda and a truck. If you only have budget for once vehicle, then yes, weigh the pros and cons much more carefully. If you have a used car and a used truck though, you can pay about as much as you'd pay new for either of them (less, even), and have much more utility.
Lastly, I'd wager that an F150 from the 90s is going to be a lot cheaper to maintain than a Prius in the long run due to the Prius' overall complexity. I wouldn't make that same bet on any truck built after 2005, though.
Only if you insist on buying new, you'll pay a lot. My pickup is about as big as it gets (4 door, 8ft bed, diesel dually) and it didn't cost tens of thousands since I bought an older one.
Diesels don't depreciate that much, so I'll probably get most of it back whenever I sell.
If you are buying wood you can measure the size of the wall. Estimate the studs you need based on 16" gaps. Buy that much plus a few extras.
The constant trips back and forth to home depot is generally smaller items that you forget. You need a special socket size, you need a different type of nail, etc.
What do you think is so bad about the process?
As long as nothing goes wrong they don't care, but if something does go wrong the lawyers will jump on that.
2) The $20 is for the first 75 minutes. I guess I'm wrong, but I couldn't imagine a use-case where you're only going to need the truck for 75 minutes.
3) Use restrictions. Home Depot greatly restricts what you can use the truck for, including no towing.
4) Availability. At the three HD's near me, good luck getting any rental truck let a lone a diesel (mentioned above). They're always checked out, sometimes weeks in advance.
The idea is that you drive the truck home, unload it, then drive the truck back to the store and return it. If you live less than 30 minutes away from the Home Depot then it is completely reasonable amount of time.
Example: 30 mins driving home + 15 mins unloading + 30 mins driving back = 75 minute rental.
It seems very practical to me. Most people live less than 30 mins from a Home Depot. In fact Home Depot has an internal goal that they want 95% of Americans to live 15 mins or less from a Home Depot store. So if you fall into 95% of Americans, then you can rent a truck for 75 mins, spend 15 mins each way driving and have 45 minutes to unload or mess around before returning the car.
Home Depot really rents the trucks with the idea that you drive to the store in your car, buy something at the store, use the truck to take it home, drive back to return the truck, and then drive your car home.
FWIW after reading the other thread specifically about home backup power, I was thinking this new F-150 sounds interesting. But then reading this whole product page and coming to "automatic software updates" I remembered why new vehicles are non-starters for me. I'd rather keep dealing with gasoline than resigning myself to surveillance culture.
I do really think the idea of an electric truck seems cool, and the F150 looks capable, but I'd rather not have yet another connected device. Give me dumb toasters, dumb refrigerators, dumb laundry machines, dumb vehicles. I'm tired of this "smart" bullshit. It doesn't need to be smart because I can tell it exactly what I want.
Pick-ups are also useful for larger furniture and machinery, but don't discount thr carrying capacity of a car just because it's a car.
I got a rental car recently and they gave me a bright red pickup because it was the fastest option. I was surprised by the good vibes I got from all the other pickup drivers, lol. It's like I got inducted into a secret club for a day with a lot of waves and thumbs up. A woman went up to my group in a parking lot and said something like "Hell yeah, you guys look like you're having fun."
And I thought, yeah -- I fucking love this. Kinda subverted my perspective on the aesthetics of these trucks and the people who drive them. Led to some self-awareness about how silly the city stereotypes are of such people.
Is that in the same category as racism?
Of course, it's an elective choice, and in that way very different from prejudice founded on appearance. But the incomplete analysis, and the contemptuous reduction of the target's motivations, are in common with racist tropes.
My self concept changed. Suddenly I was someone who could move anything anywhere. I felt like an animal that had crossed over into a new phylum.
Now I’m someone important to all my friends, and I have new friends. I’m in the club, wherever I go.
Nobody tailgates me. Life is good.
For the UK if you are mad enough to ride on two wheels in our weather you are in the club.
I'm sure rural pickup drivers are lovely folk when you conform to their cultural, racial, and/or lifestyle choices -- that's the point!
But I've never met a Prius driver who felt the need to key or slash a pickup trucks tires, both of things which have sadly happened to my Prius in rural parking lots.
Well, the dirty looks I got every time I belched black smoke on the streets of SF were a given. What I did not expect (or notice previously) was the other truck drivers (however few) there were in San Francisco. It seems I too was inducted into a little club. Whenever I saw another truck there was always a thumbs up, or a "nice truck". Kinda funny when all I got was dirty looks from everyone else.
If you've got visible smoke coming out of a diesel (in any color), something's wrong with the engine.
Great truck.
Went to surf toyota.com today thinking maybe it's time to get another one, almost exactly the same.
That's interesting ...
Our ranch truck is a "work truck"[1] - basically a fleet vehicle, colored white, with an 8 foot bed.
I get no vibes at all :)
[1] Silverado 1500 with no options.
It's kind of ridiculous, really. You know who buys F150s? Everyone. If there were a stereotypical "truck owner" then Ford wouldn't sell better than a million of these every year. They have broad appeal to diverse demographics.
(Edit) consumption waste of traditional F150s, and yes, even that of my beloved Subaru is not great, but the absolute worst are coal rollers and those with loud modified exhausts. That Newsom didn’t veto legislation that undid AB1824 was very disappointing to me.
While nationally Subraru marketing emphasizes being different by owning a Subaru, around here its far and away the most common car. You exit Costco, look at the parking lot and ask "which of these 10 gray Outbacks is mine?".
It's a pig of a car in traffic. Mine is a 2013 with the smaller engine and it struggles to get 20mpg in traffic.
It was a cheap vehicle, but it most certainly is horrible on gas for it's size & work capacity.
By contrast, here in Idaho owning a truck is just blending in. Owning a Tesla out here would be signaling.
It is interesting how perspective changes so much based on where you are.
In Oregon I swear 80% of the population owns a Subaru Outback. The other 20% owns a Prius. So owning a Subaru in Oregon is just blending in. It doesn't mean anything. But if you drove that Subaru to San Francisco, now everyone thinks you are "outdoorsy".
except those strange ones that buy Chevy or GMC.
Or the real outlier, those with Ram Pickups....
(I didn't realize this was a thing till my civil engineering company last century bought a GMC to replace the fords).
To this day I remember a Huge Ram diesel dually with a big dog in the bed towing in a single roll of landfill liner (23 ft long and About 2000 lbs of plastic) and thinking.. wow.
Toyota is the “not quite first tier, not Nissan or a baby truck.”
Whereas Toyota approaching Tier-1 makes a bit more sense. If nothing else, based on the fact that they're now more ”American" built than the three "domestic" truck companies.
Ram has always been a popular truck. It held they have UConnect and one of the better infotainment ecosystems. A lot of people Still don’t think of trucks as luxury vehicles because the higher end brands don’t badge one, but the top fit and finish Trucks are trying to be something else.
I mean it philosophically. "Everyone," to a rough approximation, are customers interested in a pickup. Whether Ford, Chevy, Ram, Toyota, etc.
In the suburban environment where I live, the majority of pickup trucks are effectively commuter cars. They haul their owners' asses to a cubicle farm and back home again. These are people who fully buy into the stereotype and have bought a truck so they can purchase their masculinity on a monthly payment plan.
When a vehicle is driving in front of my house with a grill that's a foot higher than my oldest child... yeah, I don't much like those aesthetics. And it has nothing to do with "moving stuff". The UPS delivery vans that are actually built to, ya know, move stuff, have lower grills and way safer sight lines.
You won't find them in the typical dealer though. They are a niche, and most customers are buying several at once for their business and so the way the whole process works is different. Though there are just enough small buisness buying exactly one that you won't confuse them by buying one - but they may have trouble figuring out what tax applies.
You can find used ones in running condition relatively cheap.
People would have me load this stuff for them into SUVs of course, and we would do our best to line them with plastic first, but it still made an awful mess everywhere.
And that’s not even getting into towing, there are common things having a truck bed is just better for.
As for the tallness, you can partly blame EPA regulations for that as it’s more cost effective for manufacturers to make trucks taller and wider than more fuel efficient. That’s the #1 reason why the small truck market declined and why smaller trucks got bigger
>In other words, the regulations put in place to get better mileage out of vehicles also led to an increase in truck size. “There was kind of an incentive to maybe stretch the wheelbase a couple of inches and set the tires maybe an inch [farther] apart, because you get a bigger platform and slightly smaller target,” said Edmunds. “Now, the bigger vehicle would be heavier and might use more fuel, so it’s not as easy as just doing that. But certainly there was a feeling that if they did need to make it bigger to accommodate more passengers, the fuel economy target wouldn’t be onerous. They could do it.”
That statement is not very convincing that the regulations lead to bigger trucks.
If the goal was to reduce fossil fuel consumption, then fossil fuels should have been slapped with a huge tax.
Immediately the automakers would have been incentivized to produce more efficient vehicles.
Of course, it’s politically impossible to do the right thing due to the general public wanting to have their cake and eat it too.
I think a lot of "environmentally conscious" people don't realize that more and more of these types of environmental regulations will come at some direct cost in terms human-safety.
And also that a surprising number of politicians/activists/people are so committed to the dogma that they don't have any problem with that.
So net result of indirect regulations to decrease fuel consumption is increased fuel consumption, and more dangerous vehicles for everyone to contend with who is not inside as large of a vehicle.
Simply making people pay more for fuel would have incentivized them to prioritize what kind of vehicle to buy, and make it possible for smaller pickups to still exist and/or a rental market for pickups to flourish.
The automakers have determined that this is not practically achievable, and so you can't buy a truck like the old S-10 or a pre-Tacoma Toyota pickup anymore.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...
EPA regulation and govt overreach/ unintended consequences are what led to these design changes, not market demand.
The blue-book price for my 12 year old steel-framed truck has gone up every year since I bought it used.
>before they turned into a political/biological/emotional statement piece
The anti-truck crowd, which supported all the regulations that led to the current state of vehicle design, are the ones that made this a political/emotional issue, whether they realize it or not.
It's also super easy in these situations at a nursery, etc.. that the car or SUV owner has to make multiple trips and waste tons of gas because the vehicle can't hold much.
People who don't own homes too easily forget it's really really common to have jobs around your house/yard where you're dealing with thousands of pounds of supplies.
You can overload an SUV/Wagon/whatever incredibly quickly with sand, mulch, rock, etc.. and it will be nowhere near full.
People should do what is generally done here in Northern Europe. Get a Stationwagon/Estate with a tow hitch and a trailer. With that you get a smaller, more practical, car in terms of day-to-day driving. And when you really need to move something bigger/something you don't want inside your car you still have options.
Renting a trailer locally is incredibly cheap too, costing just $26 at a nationwide gas station. IKEA, and similar local stores, will lend you a trailer for free.
Here's how two friends and I transport our gokarts. One in the trailer, another secured on top. The car on the day of the picture is a Mercedes CLA Coupé. Other times it's the other friend's Ford Fiesta. And yet other times it's one of our dads driving an Audi Q5 or a Peugeot 3008.
A hitch gives you the price and size advantages of e.g. a Ford Fiesta while still having the option of hauling several hundred kilos worth of stuff. The Q5 can haul a ton and a half. I'd wager that very few people regularly (weekly) need to haul several tons worth of stuff, and the few that do have a legitimate reason for owning a pickup.
F.ex. where I live a Hilux or a Landcruiser is a must.
What I wanted to say is that a 'station wagon' is useless for half a year in some climates. And it doesn't make any sense to keep two cars, one for 'summer' and one for the 'rest of the seasons'.
The best vehicle I’ve ever driven in the snow was a tiny 2001 Mercury Cougar. Snow tires make a world of difference.
I have seen a lot of trailers reversed into expensive cars, flooded cars, trailers falling off and hitting things at speed, cars driving into the sea because the driver got out to check the trailer, etc.
A lot could be fixed with better software and sensors. For example a car should be able to measure the angle of the trailer and apply the brakes when someone tries to reverse-jackknife. It should measure oscillation frequencies and damping factors at highway speeds and set a safe max speed. It should refuse to start the engine at all if a trailer isn't correctly hooked up including electricals and brake lines, etc. Finally, trailer brakes need an overheat/wearout sensor so the driver is aware if their trailer brakes have failed before they find out when going down a hill at 70 mph.
As a kid we would sit down at our neighborhood landing in the summer and watch boat launches for entertainment. I saw at least 2 cars get submerged, people run into each other, many many fist fights. Prior to allowing me to pull our trailer, my dad made me back up (with trailer attached) in circles and figure 8s in a parking lot and then in and out of the driveway many times. Showing up to busy landing on summer holiday is NOT the time to learn how to back down a trailer.
In the past few decades, we've seen many cars here go from having some decent tow rating to a very low tow rating or saying in the manual not to tow.
Just for example, the Mazda 3 in Australia has a tow rating of 1200kg. In the UK it's 1500kg. In the U.S., towing is not allowed at all per the owner's manual.
I'm not sure what all the reasons for this discrepancy is. I know when I lived in Germany where towing fairly big things with fairly small cars was more common, I noticed some differences in towing practices:
1. They use a different style of hitch that flips down under the bumper instead of the receiver style hitch in the U.S. The German style hitch kept the ball closer to the bumper, which improves stability.
2. The trailer is loaded with a fairly balanced weight distribution so that there is not much weight on the tongue of the trailer. This keeps the rear suspension of the car from being compressed and keeps weight on the front wheels of the car. It has the downside of making the trailer less stable at higher speeds.
3. Presumably because of this lower stability, many trailer/car/driver combinations are limited to 80kph. Car/trailer combinations tend to have a critical speed where they become unstable if the weight from the trailer is not loaded in the front, and 80kph is a typical speed where this can start to happen.
4. Germany requires extra licensing to tow a trailer. Someone who actually gets some training and has to pass a test is going to be a lot safer towing than someone who got 5 minutes of instruction at U-Haul.
It effectively means trailers are now only for professionals.
To elaborate, since I've even had to explain this to some "eco-conscious" engineers:
This is also partially why trucks have gone from steel to aluminum, which is lighter (to gain a marginal increase in mpg), but also requires larger shapes (moment-arms) to achieve the same amount of strength and resilience (crumple zone rigidity & required crumple zone size, etc).
Of course the other side effect is that using aluminum frames/engines won't last as long, since they deform easier, so all that saved energy from increased mpg doesn't make up for the wasted embedded energy from decreased useful lifespan.
A friend started construction and bought a Tacoma new because he saw everyone else using one - and it had to go in for a repair and during that time the dealer lent him a van, and at that point he had serious regrets about buying the truck.
But then again visit most construction sites and you'll see one or two company trucks full of tools, a delivery semi or two, and acres of pickup trucks with nothing in the bed.
It's all about using the most suitable vehicle for the job.
There is also a huge variability in pickup sizes because many of them have been customized. But truthfully the standard stock pickup truck doesn't have a grill much different than many SUVs. In fact most SUVs are built on truck frames.
So I know there are trucks out there that have been lifted with 24" tires. But the standard truck that you buy from your dealership isn't much different than an SUV in size. They might be longer because of the bed... but your concern seems to be height, and they are often identical to SUVs.
Edit: Crossovers are a bit different. Those are designed to be more like cars (hence the name). But a standard SUV is usually built on a truck frame. So the body is different, but the main vehicle is similar in size.
Obviously some people take this way further than practically necessary, but the basic form of a pickup does have a legit reason to be different than a delivery van.
Yet the top comment is a reflexive jab at those woke folks with zero content about the truck in question. That's very much on brand for HN.
I’m interested to see what exactly is included in the base model and when that will become available since they’ve only given us information on higher trims so far. $40K for this vehicle is very affordable, that’s about as cheap as you can get a new Model 3 right now but at least for awhile it could be eligible for electric vehicle credits. If the government extended these credits they could get A LOT of people to buy these trucks.
To me this is the same as someone who smokes one pack of cigarettes a day judging someone who smokes 2 packs a day.
We buy a freezer at Costco. Checking out, we ask for details on delivery. Costco employee says "Oh, we don't deliver". We had been used to Costco in CA which at the time would deliver large items.
I ask "Well, how do people get big things like freezers home".
Costco person says "Easy, just put it in your pickup, we'll help you load".
"Hmm...we don't own a pickup".
Costco employee looks somewhat confused.
Then says "Easy, just get your neighbor's pickup".
The next week we bought a pickup.
We've moved 5 times in the past 6 years and I spend a lot of time with outdoors hobbies (mountain biking, surfing -- pickups are hugely popular for both). But not owning a truck has never been an issue.
When I buy sheet steel I use a station wagon because it's easier to plop it down on a roof rack and get it off later then it is to stick it in a truck or van.
I’ve always considered myself a GM//Chevy guy, but I’m strongly considering this truck.
And I love that it doubles as a Powerwall...
Eliminates the need for a generator (I work from home so if the power is out I can just take the ICE for errands and have the truck power the house — you don’t have to be a truck person to find that pretty nifty!)
That is a really cool feature. I think for extended outages (which we do have) a propane generator fed by a big tank is great. But most outages are a day or less, so having that all ready to go in your truck is really cool.
Miata
Is
Always
The
AnswerBe aware of the weight limitations of your car.
Over-specing vehicles is one of the ways the well to do advertise their well-to-do-ness. It's like a marble countertop but for the roads.
Sure you can put three kids in the back row of a Sentra, it has three seatbelts there after all. Sure you can haul plywood on anything with a roof-rack, that's what it's there for. Sure you can shove a washer in a Prius. All those things work great. Bust for most of HN to do them regularly would be "behavior below one's pay-grade" so to speak.
Here every family basically owns a pickup. Idaho has a lot of BLM land, (second in size only to Alaska). So sports like boating, RVing, and ATVing are very popular here. As we got more ingrained into the culture here, that is very outdoor activity oriented, we decided that with a truck we could own an RV. We have always been huge mountain bike riders and the convenience that a truck offers for mountain biking is incredible. We also drove in friend's trucks and realized that with the Platinum trim from F-150 for example, you get a very luxurious experience inside. Trucks offer HUGE cabs (larger than a lot of SUVs), with the convenience of a huge bed for throwing toys or moving things, a hitch to tow incredible amounts 10,000lbs+ and 4wheel drive that can take you anywhere. There is a lot to love about modern trucks. Even the gas mileage isn't much different than SUVs (mid-20s mpg).
Yeah, we ended up buying a truck within 6 months of moving out here. Our family was shocked because "they never saw me as a pickup truck driver". Every time I told someone back home that I bought a truck it was always pure shock as they reconciled the stereotype of a pickup owner with what they knew about me.
When my parents visited they were absolutely fascinated by the endless sea of pickups. When you parked at a restaurant for dinner, the parking lots are almost entirely pickups, with only a handful of cars scattered throughout.
When my mom first drove in my pickup, she was shocked at how nice it was. It offered great views of the road. It has heated, cooled, and massaging seats. Panoramic sunroof. A huge interior. A huge mulimedia touchscreen. And they drive like any modern SUV in comfort. She eventually said "Yeah I see the appeal to pickup trucks now".
Eventually I convinced them to move out here during COVID. They have been really happy with life out here. But now my dad is getting the itch and now he too is shopping for a new pickup. He never considered owning a truck before in his life.
I don't fit that stereotype for a pickup driver. And whenever I meet people through work or whatever that find out I drive a pickup, they are always taken back. Everyone has a certain type of person in mind for a pickup, especially people in the city. But pickup trucks are the best selling vehicles in America. Much of middle America lives and dies by their truck and they are standard purchases for a lot of families.
Edit: Ok so I'm seeing from a lot of the comments now that everyone is quick to say "You don't NEED a pickup", "You can rent one when you need one", or "I go mountain biking all the time with my Prius/Tesla". So just to be clear. I am not saying that you can't go mountain biking unless you have a truck. I mountain biked for 10 years in a VW Passatt and Toyota Corolla. But the truck offers a lot of convenience and is nice to have. I love having it and thats why I bought it. I'm sure I could jigsaw stuff I am hauling into the back seat. I did exactly that for several decades. But I love tossing stuff in the truck bed and not worrying about it scratching the leather, making a mess, or making it fit. Just toss it in the bed and drive off. Wash the bed out with a hose when you are done. Go anywhere in the truck. Tow anything. It's Comfortable and safe. Try fitting a kayak and/or paddleboard in your car. Yes, again you can buy racks to put it on the roof, and I used to own those. They are a royal pain. Now rent a pickup and throw it in the bed and drive off. You'll be at the lake before the Prius has finished safely attaching their kayak to their roof. I enjoy it and that's why I bought it.
Adult Bobby buying his first pickup truck but it being a Toyota Tacoma feels like a real episode of a KoH sequel
Robert starts his new remote office job and buys a new truck for its utility as a non-commuter vehicle. Hank desperately tries to hide the fact that his son would buy a foreign-made truck. The Gribble boys unravel it all.
This episode brought to you by Toyota.
> Trucks offer HUGE cabs (larger than a lot of SUVs), with the convenience of a huge bed for throwing toys or moving things
Generally, the huger the cab, the smaller the bed. It actually annoys me how popular 6 ft (or less!) beds have gotten in recent years. Especially when so much lumber comes in 8 ft length.
Most people buying pickups don't use the beds for anything other than groceries. Buying a pickup is just a form of social signalling that you belong to a certain in-group. Those people buying trucks with 6-foot beds don't care that lumber doesn't fit in them because they use their trucks exactly like I use my Volkswagen. On the rare occasion they need to put lumber in the bed they'll let it hang out the back, just like I put it on my roof bars.
I love it
But I'm a bit of a cheapskate and I only ever get the XLT, not the Platinum. Only luxury I really care to pay for is CarPlay. But to each their own!
But in all seriousness, he gets asked about 1.5x a week if someone can borrow his truck, it's insane how far this "ask" stretches itself. It drives him a little bonkers, but he's also a pretty nice guy so he says yes more than he should.
Anyways, I'd probably buy a smaller pickup because of how often my partner buys and sells used furniture as a hobby, but I don't want to be the friend with the truck in the city.
Also, I have to laugh at all these anecdotes about owning a pickup as a personality trait. I wasn't inducted into some pickups dudes club when I got mine. People haven't treated me any differently - still a nerdy, introverted guy who does a lot of outdoors sports. I drive to the grocery store or trailhead or city park in my truck, do my thing, and go home.
Maybe we have different definitions of what "much trouble" is. It takes like an hour to do anything with UHaul where I'm at. It's insane how bad that company is at doing the most basic thing that they've been doing for like 4 decades.
The return was easy.. just take a few pics on my phone as part of their return process, and then drop the keys in a drop box.
My neighbor did the same thing, and built his entire deck, brought in all his concrete, boards, materials, etc in with his Mazda 3 on a small utility trailer.
These small trailers are so useful and cheap, I don't know why you'd spend any money renting one. And they're actually more useful than these pickups with short stubby beds that are only good for a half ton anyways.
Mind you I don't have a pickup truck either, I have a Honda Fit-sized car. (See re: no space). Just considering it for when this car wears out.
So many instances of showing up after reserving online, and the staff says, "Uh, we don't have that truck."
Most recently, my friends couldn't get their reserved truck (on their moving day) because their site (and backend) was down nationwide. They had the truck, but _because_ everything's digital now, they had no fallback ability to rent out the reserved truck.
But then they are happy to slap a receiver onto any passenger car that is not rated to tow at all and let you load up as much as you want into one of their box trailers.
But I haven't had a terrible experience at UHaul, as long as you go to one of their big locations. (I always go to this location in Chicago: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8543365,-87.6406812,3a,75y,1... , even if it's not the closest, it's easy enough to get to and they don't run out of stuff...)
I love it myself. I've moved with it, carried music equipment to gigs with it, brought home countless DIY projects from the hardware store with it, and even camped in the back of it. But I also have done many many favors for friends.
But if it makes you happy, I guess that’s all that matters!
Initially, they take pride in being able to help someone, but eventually they’re giving much more than taking, and they cannot bring themselves to say no, whether it be to keep themselves happy because “if I’ve helped them before, why should I not help them now…even though I don’t really want to”, or to avoid confrontation.
Pride is always a liability, so I like to try to keep away from it as much as possible.
That statement seems so broad that it can't possible be true in every circumstance. Always?
It is more of a general principle of keeping one’s emotions at bay to prevent your biases from clouding the data and your judgment.
I am sure there are evolutionary reasons for pride (i.e. ego) such as helping you fight with intensity for scarce resources or for maintaining tribal bonds. But in the modern world, it those circumstances are rarer and someone can use it against you pretty easily.
I think pride has all kinds of positive and negative features in the modern world. When I take pride in my work, I think about it more carefully and try and deliver a higher quality work. “Pride” and “Craftsmanship” seem very linked to me. That pride helps me deliver high quality work, which keeps clients around and earns referrals, which keeps me paid and food on the table.
When I don’t take pride in the work I do, the standards and quality can slip. I’m much happier if I can deliver work to a client that I can stand behind and be proud of. I think that’s in many ways an asset.
I certainly don’t disagree with you, though, that there are many scenarios where pride , hubris, and ego end up being problematic.
Of course a minivan has other associated stigma, but you can haul things around without being asked to haul other things.
I once read an article by a crane operator that mentioned something like 40% of his jobs were for people who saw him craning something and asked if they could hire him to crane something else nearby.
...I helped a lot of friends move.
Some people have asked to use my truck, or asked for help loading a moving van.
I have asked for free legal advice, tax advice, help installing flooring, help loading a moving van. I have borrowed a neighbor's truck.
I have asked for tons of help debugging code or learning some new concept.
Sometimes I have turned people down who asked for help. I am grateful to the hundreds of people who have helped me in ways big and small. I understand when people can't. For the most part, I am happy to lend out my truck on occasion. While it is getting used, I'm probably using a browser for free on an operating system for free.
A while back I was using a park "for free" when I noticed a family I know working together to pick up all the trash. I know they weren't being paid. They're just super cool like that.
Sometimes it just feels great to be super cool in some small way. Some people go out of their way to feel like that at least twice per month.
Hasn't been a problem for me, but I recognize that this is probably because all my friends have some kind of pickup of their own.
But... the idea that you would have to plug it in on a multiday trip... yeah, I'm laughing. I just drove central AZ->Sacramento->Ft. Bragg->SF->San Jose->Sacramento->AZ in a Prius. Nope, I'm not digging the charging idea.
I don't recall having that many problems with the borrowers. I helped some people move, maybe once a year. The way it works is they reciprocate with something else, or else, you discover they are not your friend. That's useful to know.
I fully expect that to be something the local u-haul rents out for cross-country road-trips.
Electrical motor torque (from rest) screams to be marketed to American truck buyers. It's the one EV market that probably didn't ever need environmentalism as a boost to be successful.
I gazed with amazement at all the fanboyz in the threads above about what a gamechanger this E-truck is. Oh. 230 mile range OPTIMAL. Some hope of a range extending $$$ option.
wrt to your comment, of course that would be a game changer, if a hybrid E-truck could get 40+ mpg with a 400+ mile range. (No comment on the aerodynamics and efficiency at speed) And the imagination goes... yeah, you could now financialize on-site construction generators... emergency power generators... whoa baby let me in where do I invest. Because you could market this to sportsball enthusiasts and then scale. In the US, maybe?
Well, I in fact own a 2001 Tundra V8 4WD which I recently refurbed $3K into because it just works. But I sure wish it got 40 mpg instead of an optimistic 13 mpg. Extra gas tanks are a well known technology for extended off road excursions, for a century now.
There were a few times I wanted to let him go but we needed his truck.
It is much less hassle and money to throw a few bucks an hour at the guy who is willing to use his own to run the errands if thr company doesn't need the truck for anything else.
That does not go away.
We weren't doing things the buttoned up proper way at the time but most small businesses cut corners to make things work. You can go broke being excessively compliant.
Also, don't get a fancy-boy pickup. You can get a capable truck under $10K if you look around for a bit, and it will pay for itself in no time if you do a lot of your own work around the house.
>> I don't drive that much.
^^
They showed up outside of the expected delivery window, left a stack of drywall in my front yard in the rain, and didn't ring the bell or notify me in any way. I found it several hours later.
While I understand they were likely overworked due to Covid in this instance, this kind of thing happens often enough I can only use it when I have space to securely store materials delivered several days before I need them.
To their credit, Home Depot did refund me; but I still had no dry wall when I needed it.
Also, you can't get immediate delivery when you're in the middle of a project and mess up a cut on your last sheet of plywood. There's no ctrl+z with a saw.
If you’re doing a project you very much need to be able to run to Home Depot that same day and pick up additional bulky items.
Oh, the hill is starting to give way. Cool, build a retaining wall (including getting the base rock to fill it). Oh, we ran out of firewood this winter. Cool, build a bigger wood shed (BTW, firewood is a lot cheaper if you pick it up yourself). Oh, the siding on the house is rotting. Cool, grab some plywood, tar paper, and siding and fix it myself. Oh, the weeds on the property have overgrown again? Rip them all out and haul them to the dumps.
I've saved probably tens of thousands of dollars including the price of my truck by doing these things in-house instead of hiring. All thanks to my truck.
When you don't have one, you don't do these things (because hiring people is expensive). But once you get one, it opens a completely different world of "wow I can do this myself." I found rentals don't cover that gap. I resisted getting a truck for so long, but once I got one I kicked myself for not doing it sooner.
Not someone you want to share the road with. He was a big guy, married with two teenage boys and a dog. He was so far over the payload limit on that Jeep...
I don't drive the pickup during the week though (I mean pre-covid when I drove places), too inconveniently large for that.
And one step up from that, full truckload delivery is often $75-150, and sometimes even comes with a forklift. Often you can get it thrown in free if the order is large enough.
Also, HD is not the only place I buy supplies. Sometimes I drive an hour one way to get supplies at a rate _far_ better than HD.
Seems like madness to buy something as big as a pickup and drag round that weight (with the poor MPG that comes with it) and deal with parking such a behemoth, all for something you do so rarely *
* obviously if you're a farmer or running a business or something, that's different - but that's not what this thread is about.
Having a truck in a big city if you're a in tech or some other desk job is probably kind of pointless. But if you're not in the city and plan on saving thousands and thousands of dollars doing some of the work on your property yourself, you can't really live without it. Seriously, the thing has paid for itself already (bought it used) and haven't even had it a year.
But its only an old Ford Ranger and not a F950 that is raised enough to crawl over boulders on Mars.
So another vehicle was warranted: why not get one with the trailer "built in" (truck bed) so I don't have to have an SUV and a trailer that I have to hook up every time? There's other reasons I needed a tow-capable vehicle, but the utility of a truck just made the most sense.
I agree that there's an entire class if stuff (lumber/plywood) you can strap to your roof or get a little trailer for that doesn't warrant a truck, but having one makes a lot of the stuff I do weekly so much easier.
Your list of items "(getting plywood sheets/siding/lumber, dump runs, towing, etc)." all seems perfectly doable with a trailer. I never had any trouble hauling trailers with my Subaru WRX sedan.
I don't understand the weird fascination with people trying to convince others that they don't need a truck. Does it occur to you that I was aware that trailers existed before getting the truck and that their existence factored into the decision?
I don’t live in rural US (neither rural nor US). Here in UK you see more 4x4s in the countryside, part fashion, part poorer roads - but there is definitely plenty of countryside perfectly well served by regular cars, and you do see a lot of them about. Few trucks meanwhile.
So my imagination can’t quite figure out the difference.
England has a population density of 275 people per square kilometer, 281 if you consider the entire UK. UK also has an agricultural area of about 23 million acres, at 70% of available land. That means that a huge majority of UK land is developed and actively used, and over an area of 23 million acres.
The US population density is 36 per square kilometer. That is about 1/8th the population density, which is already a huge difference. In addition, the total USA land used in agriculture is about 900 million acres, which is nearly 40x greater an area. So we are currently at 40x the agricultural land, at 1/8th the population density.
The kicker to this is that the US agricultural land use is only 44%. So not only do we have 1/8 population density, 40x the agriculture land mass, we also don't even break 50% of land use for agriculture purposes. This all combines to mean a few things.
1. People that have land in the USA tend to have a lot more land.
2. There tends to be large amounts of unused land all over the place with no development.
3. A lot of land is being developed for the first time, instead of redeveloped.
This doesn't directly answer your question as far as needing a trailer vs a truck, but it should give you an idea that the USA is much less developed and a lot more rugged than the countryside of a much older and more established and smaller land mass like the UK. Trucks make it a lot easier to handle all the unexpected situations that occur from having the land situation we have.
One other point I'll add at the end of this. The USA also has extremely different and varied climates compared to the mild oceanic climate of the UK. This means more of every type of weather and bigger extremes. This takes huge tolls on both the roads and how tame undeveloped land is. For instance, in the midwest, it is not uncommon for large semi trucks and pickup trucks with huge tires to be the only cars capable of driving on the highway as the highway is covered in a foot of snow and they're the only vehicles capable of driving in it.
There have also been a number of mudslides in the neighborhood that block the only exit road in the past, and having a 4x4 vehicle would be the only manner of escape. Similarly, it's in the forest, so a when a tree falls across the road (and they do), freedom is only a truck, some straps, and a chainsaw away.
So how much of this could have been done with an SUV? Maybe 60%. And SUV and a trailer? 90%, and a lot more of a pain in the ass to deal with. So why get an SUV and a trailer when the workload specifically calls for regularly hauling oddly-shaped or bulk items? That's exactly what a truck is designed for. If I already had a vehicle capable of towing a heavy trailer, the truck would have made much less sense. But given the needs, another vehicle was warranted, and mid-size 90s 4x4 truck checked all the boxes.
I see a lot of fashion trucks but most of them also get used for towing or hauling on the weekend, and a lot of that stuff wouldn't fit in a car and would be unsafe on a trailer. A lot of people around here also have motorboats that would be too big to safely pull with a car.
Snark aside, why would I buy an Audi A3 when I already have a Honda? My truck is much more capable than your A3 and was probably much cheaper. Regarding safety, it's actually really safe because I only drive it when I need its hauling or towing capability.
That said, as a former A4 owner, towing 1000+kg with an A3 seems like a death wish to me.
Agree with you on the tow ratings though. It's a really good idea to have some healthy margin between the stated limit and the actual load, unless you're just going down the street.
Not only that, but in some applications the stated limit is irrelevant. Utility trailers aren't usually a big problem, but a lot of people mistakenly think they can tow a 7500lb RV with a half-ton truck just because the manufacturer says the tow rating is some ridiculous number like 11,300 lb.
But realistically, payload is what you hit first, especially a family towing a travel trailer. A very typical half-ton pickup will have around 1500 lbs of payload capacity [0]. This includes driver, passengers, cargo, everything but fuel. The authoritative number is particular to the truck and is given on a sticker on the door jamb. So if you have a trailer with a 7500 GVWR, you need to plan on around 1050 lbs on the tongue, which leaves you ~450 for everything else. Two adults could easily put you over. Add kids, dog, coolers, firewood for the campsite, etc, and suddenly a half-ton isn't looking like a good choice for a trailer this size (7500 GVWR is what a typical ~30 ft travel trailer is spec'd at).
There are other factors that also come into play, like wheelbase vs trailer length, but in general I think most people don't have much to worry about if they respect the payload rating on the truck. Many people ignore it (on purpose, or not) however. I've seen more than one F150 towing a 35 foot trailer. On anything other than flat, level highway with no crosswind and little traffic I think that would be dangerous.
[0] Technically Ford will sell you a particular F150 configuration with a 3270 payload, higher than many F250s, but IMO it's still not as comfortable towing as a bog standard F250. But if you don't tow very often the compromise may be worth it since the F150 is significantly more comfortable for daily driving.
> 7500 GVWR is what a typical ~30 ft travel trailer is spec'd at [...] I've seen more than one F150 towing a 35 foot trailer.
I see what you mean now. I cannot imagine towing a 30+ft trailer with a half ton. I feel iffy pulling our 16ft TT with the T100. It's well within capacity, but I definitely feel the truck working. And yeah, flat ground is smooth sailing, but the first hill you hit and the pedal is down all the way and if I don't hit it just right I've got to tell the auto to shift to 2nd.
Probably could have gone one size up, but I'm honestly really happy with the T100.
P.S. Trucks are just more fun! P.P.S. They're also cheaper to lease than SUVS thanks to crazy resale values.
In America at least, its rare for a non-SUV or truck to be officially rated for towing. So when you put a trailer on your little sedan and your brakes fail going down a long hill, insurance will have your head.
Yes. Don't remember if it is 1500 or 1600kg. If a trailer is heavier than 750kg it does also have brakes, so that isn't a problem. It is an American thing thinking that you need a car 2x the weight of the trailer to tow it
... to tow RVs. Different game entirely than towing a utility trailer, which is more commonly all that you find Europeans towing behind a sedan.
Most people also do not realize - you need to count the weight of the trailer, hitch, cargo and passengers against the rated tow capacity of the vehicle.
I own a consulting company and I am a civl / environmental engineer that ends up driving a lot of forest service roads. ...so I have a 4wd truck. There are definitely weirdos out there that make a lot of judgments about me because I drive a truck.
So they don't constantly ask to borrow you and your truck? ;)
The reason for this is different countries have different ideas of trailer safety- the US prioritizes allowing larger total weights to be towed at higher speeds, but Europe prioritizes allowing people to tow larger trailers with smaller cars.
The European approach is to have less weight on the tongue of the trailer, which allows a smaller car to tow more without being overloaded, but results in a less dynamically stable configuration. They compensate for this by having lower speed limits for trailers and additional licensing requirements for drivers towing heavy trailers.
See here: http://web.archive.org/web/20150520115726/https://oppositelo...
You're of course welcome to own a pickup truck if you want, nothing wrong with that. And I'm sure plenty of people don't live in suburbia with U-haul dealers everywhere. But if you do, it's stupid simple and you can save a ton of money.
I'm sure the experience varies somewhat by location but it usually involves some combination of:
- very long lines, particularly on weekends. understandable, but adds hours and stress
- the vehicle you "reserved" online last week so you could do that job today? yeah, it's not really reserved. it may or may not be available; they "overbook" because they expect a certain number of cancellations. again this is understandable and something you see in a lot of industries, but yuck.
- lots of bogus-ish fees like "cleaning fees".
That all said, I own a home and have never felt the need for a pickup truck. I do fine with a hatchback and a roof rack.
The main disadvantage is that you're driving something larger and more unwieldy, like backing up.
But the advantages are numerous. Still lots of seating in the minivan. Much lower deck to roll/drive/ride things on (I can't recall if the trailer tilts).
It's basically a portable pickup truck bed, maybe it's even bigger.
It all still feels a little weird to me. There was a time not long ago where I never thought I'd own a car, much less a big pickup! I'll admit that this lifestyle feels very inefficient.
Though, I wonder if my carbon footprint is actually smaller, since I spend most of my vacation time working on stuff at home (rather than flying places).
Offroading, boating, horseback riding, dealing with snow, hauling firewood. Sure, you can get a 4x4 SUV like a 4runner but just get a dang truck. lol
What kind of activity requires so much transportation?
You may live in a city, and never need to move anything, but for lots of people they use a pickup every weekend.
There has hardly been a weekend since I bought the place in that time where I don't have some project that involved some amount of construction material. Even just a weekly shopping trip can fill up a full sized truck when you live 30 miles from town and do all of your shopping at once. Also, I have 4 horses on the property (not at all uncommon here), so that alone justifies the truck since I have to go get a few thousand pounds of hay every so often.
... how expensive is renting a vehicle there ? here in france it's like 40-50€ for a day
Also consider that you get to eventually sell / trade in the truck. Vehicles depreciate, but you get some value out. Rental payments all disappear.
I every one owns a pickup, why don't you simply rent one (à la Airbnb, e.g with GetAround) for just a day?
I've never owned a vehicle (other than a bicycle, but I live in Paris) but can easily rent any kind of car/truck/van anywhere in Europe. It saves me a lot.
So at the end of the day, you need a car, period. I live in a midsize American city after living in a major Canadian downtown and wish we didn't need the car (we both bike a lot), but I really do. And personally, an electric pick-up is gonna be mighty appealing for my next car in however-many years because it removes the main reason I've never gotten one before: gas. I can only imagine how big a win the lack of gas is gonna be outside of America where gas is hilariously cheap.
This works when you're the outlier. If we are ever successful in making cars the exception rather than the rule, it will be far more difficult to just go rent one on demand.
I found that since I didn't need it most of the time the Home Depot Truck Rental for a couple of hours shifting freezers, flooring and other bulky items worked out well for me.
Saved on gas all the rest of the time.
But it really requires a Home Depot within 30 mins so not for everyone and if this had been an option, I probably would have just gone for the truck.
A lot of people around here have big, tall pickups with tiny beds that they drive very aggressively. They rarely use them for anything I couldn't put in my Fit (I've known several people who would never haul dirt or the like because they don't want the truck to get dirty). Many modern pickups have a high front grill that is dangerous for pedestrians and designed to be intimidating. It sucks to constantly run into trucks like that being driving fast and aggressively when I'm just trying to walk to the store.
I know that's a minority of trucks, but the worst cars by me are invariably pickups and it's hard not to generalize it.
I get what you are trying to say, but had to mention that all front grills of vehicles are dangerous to pedestrians.
It's just a bit of a strawman argument to say "Well when I hit people with my car it will be worse if I own a truck, so I'm going to own a Prius so that the pedestrians roll right off".
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/14/21065319/suv-truck-front-...
There have been changes made to these trucks that do a great job of looking aesthetically "tough and mean" and selling trucks, while also making them more dangerous to other road users: not just to pedestrians, but to other cars via the bumper overlap issue.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-11/the-dange...
https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1338051592856092672
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-11/the-dange...
https://theweek.com/articles/929196/case-against-american-tr...
As a cyclist and pedestrian in the city it's a nightmare - you can never tell if the driver can actually see you vs sedans and hatchbacks at your eye level.
Unsurprisingly pedestrian deaths from drivers have spiked in the past few years.
Until then, I (and presumably many others) will view trucks as objectively more dangerous, and contributing to a less walkable city. I recognize going under a vehicle is a bad time regardless of how tall it is, but my girlfriend can't hide right in front of a Toyota RAV-4 or Audi Q5.
If you live in an apartment complex it's ridiculous to have a truck.
But Even if you own just a reasonable suburban house with a small amount of land you need to do a lot of dirty truck type jobs every year.
I only have half an acre of land, but due to tons of trees I have yard work every year that causes me to have to do many many trips to the compost center with my car (Outback) that could probably be accomplished in one trip if I had a truck.
And almost without fail every year I have times where I have to make multiple trips so that I don't overload the cargo capacity of the car. Even a gas F-150 would use less gas to make these trips and save CO2.
I couldn't see driving an F-150 to work solo commuting with gas as something I could ever stomach, I hate that my Subaru barely gets 20mpg doing that.
But with electric I could see it. The ultimate joke would be someone driving a CUV that burns gas or even a hybrid and trying to virtue signal over someone with an electric pickup truck.
Do I want to spend $50k on a Tesla Model Y and put yard waste inside it's luxury interior on a semi-regular basis? I'm not sure. Versus destroying a luxury EV an F-150 looks pretty cool.
Bottom line you live in an apartment you don't need one of these, because you're paying someone else with a truck to take care of you. When you have to maintain property yourself you either start paying a contractor with a truck to do things for you or you start doing it yourself. When you do it yourself you start going down the slippery slope to wanting a truck.
There's nothing "ridiculous" about people loving their toys. (People often own things not because they need them, but because they want them.)
Point being people who live an apartment are far more likely to be buying a truck because they want it, and far less need for it for actual jobs & chores.
There's even a whole class of pickups for the people that find the occasional use but don't need the big ones, and want to fit easier in places designed for cars. The small pickup.
Toyota spends good money on market research. They know the difference between Tacoma buyers and Colorado buyers.
The relative risk of being killed by a light truck compared to a car is only 1.45 (i.e. 45% greater) and is 0.96 for a heavy truck (in other words less likely than being killed by a car). Buses have a relative risk of 7.97.
So living in a city and driving at night is custom-designed to kill pedestrians and selfish to do so. Encouraging public transit is even worse.
Or you could just, you know, not turn this into a giant moral argument.
You're 5x more likely to kill someone in an urban area because more people live there (in fact, well above 5x more, so...)
> being killed by a light truck compared to a car is only 1.45 (i.e. 45% greater)
"Only"? "You're 50% more likely to die if a light truck hits you than a car, that's "only" a bit more!"
> and is 0.96 for a heavy truck ... buses have a relative risk of 7.97
People tend to bounce off of heavy trucks, for better or worse. Buses are 1) significantly different in design than most heavy trucks, and 2) for obvious reasons, operate in very heavy pedestrian environments.
It's a slippery slope to go down to say you know better than others what they should be allowed to own.
It's also really nice to be in a situation where literally everything I own can be moved with it. Strapped my box spring / bed frame to the top of it once.
It's not necessarily worth it with my Outback, which is itself a large car that city folks would sneer at.
But until this F-150 EV was introduced I was pretty much fully convinced I was buying a Tesla when my Outback needed to be replaced.
Spending $40-50k on a Model Y vs one of these F-150s is a whole different scenario, that's all.
Gas F-150 I'd feel like a jerk on my commute, EV F-150 I would not, I'd feel better than doing the same in my Subaru, and in many ways it would fit my use case better.
My Outback was < $30k and it's 8 years old. Putting dirty stuff in the back of it is not the same as putting dirty stuff in a brand new Tesla.
In general the first step to cutting emissions is electrifying everything that can be electrified. Whether moving lots of metal around in a vehicle is efficient regardless of energy source wreaks of the perfect becoming the enemy of the good - or in this case the perfect being the enemy of the critically needed change.
Try crunching the numbers: you'll see that it's not going to be feasible to replace all of the vehicles on the road with electric cars and trucks, while also electrifying everything else. We need to take a triage approach to energy use, strictly rationing the remaining fossil fuels.
There are work a rounds, but they are limited (home depot will rent a truck but the fine print is only to go from home depot to your house, no other trips). If you have a CDL you can rent a commercial truck that lets you work it. However for general purpose I need a truck to be a truck the average person can't rent.
I damaged a U-haul once and it was fine, it was all covered.
We rented a U-haul this year and hauled about 2000lbs of stuff to the dump with it in one trip.
As long as you bring it back and it's not on fire they're unlikely to care.
You can even optimize by buying your own trailer so you can load and unload at your convenience, and only rent the truck to move the trailer - and trailers (even enclosed ones or dump ones) are significantly cheaper than trucks, and really only need tires as maintenance.
And most people on this site are driving ICE cars and SUVs which are much less efficient than an F-150 EV and are themselves very oversized.
And I say this as someone who owns a fleet of station wagons.
Though the real answer is a truck for times when you need a truck, and bus/bike for everything else. Too bad transit in the US is in general horrible.
I'm considering buying a Truck, but I work from home and drive only a few thousand miles each year or less.
The attitude in this thread is even more ridiculous considering that this is the exact sort of product which could bring EVs main steam (so you would think environmentalists would love it), but of course this vehicle is unacceptable because you aren't forced to make a whole series of quality of life compromises to use it like you are with a bike, public transportation, or an impractically small car.
If someone's not buying their EV out of a sense of guilt (for the original sin that is exhaling CO2), then how are they supposed to exploit that guilt into other forms of behavioral modification?
If you're considering shopping for your next $40k monstrosity of a vehicle, try to take a broader perspective than your own short-term desires.
Many tradesmen that don't get company vehicles like to own pickups because they can haul stuff for work and their jobsite. Some of those people might even live in apartments. Imagine that!
The amount of arrogance on this site is ridiculous. Just because you might know how to hook up a NAND gate or write some javascript code doesn't mean you are qualified to decide what vehicle someone should own. Please just stop the judgemental posts.
Both sides are right. There’s a significant portion of the population that think trucks are “men’s vehicles,” even if they never actually use the bed. All of the dealerships around here (usually) have their front highway facing row all pickups and maybe one sports car.
Maybe better to say, if you live in an apartment complex, it can be difficult to keep a truck.
There are a lot of people in the trades (carpentry, construction, etc.) who can't afford to own a standalone house.
Trucks get shitty gas mileage and potentially cause more wear and tear on the public roads, and are definitely not good for the environment.
IMO - Trucks should be taxed accordingly - if you are a farmer or work in construction you get a tax break, if you just want a truck to have one, it's gonna cost you.
The Model X weighs more than a standard F-150. It technically does more damage to the roads than F-150s do.
The F150 Lightning will have this advantage too, of course.
But then again, I do notice (and sometimes make fun) if they've got a lift kit on it, tow mirrors when I've never seen them tow anything, big roof mounted light bar, etc. So maybe it's just a matter of degree as to where you draw the line and make stop-liking-what-I-don't-like judgements.
Considering vehicle sizes & speeds here, wife doesn’t feel safe in anything smaller than an older Ford Explorer SUV.
I think this is the key point in the whole thread. I have no idea how many people who live on my street have pickups -- I've never noticed.
The only pickups I notice are the ones which are "coal rolling", have multiple flagpoles flying political slogans in the bed, or are lifted so far I have clear sightlines beneath them.
I have never seen a "coal rolling" Honda Accord, in contrast.
Truck owners don't just use them to carry rocks and trees, they also drive them to the city, where the high grille, large footprint, crazy rate of acceleration make them threatening, dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists, and frankly just detrimental to improving the quality of life in cities.
It's absolutely rational that a vehicle optimized for rural workload isn't going to be ideal in cities.
What's irrational is pretending they have to be taller and wider every year.
I tried to find a regular cab, regular bed F-150 about four months ago. To do that, I would've had to buy a fleet vehicle intended for a manufacturer or to be converted into like a plumbing truck. Everything else has 4 doors and a 5' bed. I don't want an SUV, I want a truck with a full sized bed.
The sales people were genuinely confused as to why I wouldn't want a quad-cab, and why I needed an 8' bed. They legitimately never had that conversation with anyone unless they were looking for a fleet truck.
What a world.
But after you get above the base model, the only thing available is "crew cabs" which is the full 4-seat SUV size interior.
Really trucks have become 4 seat vehicles now. The super-crew (4 seat) cabs are essentially standard at dealerships. The only way to get a 2 seater truck is by buying one through a fleet program. And right now that would be essentially impossible. Trucks are hard to get right now and most dealerships won't sell a fleet vehicle to a consumer because the demand for fleet trucks is too high right now.
Looking at ford.com, I could order an F-150 with regular cab (2 door) and 8 ft bed for $30K.
Looking at Dodge, the 1500 doesn't seem to have an 8ft bed option, but I could order a 2500 with regular cab and 8ft bed for $36K.
With almost the same interior dimensions. Those tree-trunk pillars, thick doors and smooth sculpted aerodynamic shape all take up space formerly reserved for drive-train and passengers.
Safety and fuel economy are not free.
I live in a wealthy town, and you can tell someone's political affiliation like this:
- Tesla -> Democrat
- Immaculate crew-cab pickup truck -> Republican
- Beatup truck with 8' bed -> rancher
Now for the tongue in cheek ironic part of the post Finally had to just stop visiting sites like Jalopnik(a car site written by people who hate cars), TTAC(used to just be the right leaning car website, but now is having Jalopnik envy), and The Drive(A new car site by the guy who started Jalopnik and decided only one toxic car site attributed to him was not enough).
What doesn't make sense to me is when someone who drives any gas car judges someone who drives a truck. Do they feel validated in their choices because someone made worse choices? Or do they decide that 30mpg is such a morally superior position than 20mpg that they have the right to judge others?
This is what is referred to as a moral hazard, because the people driving these trucks are not taking any risk, even reducing their own risk, but at the cost of increasing the risk of everyone else, and most importantly people who didn't drive to begin with and opted out of the risky activity. Particularly when deaths are involved this is obviously behavior worthy of (1) popular condemnation (2) fucking regulatory action.
Have we decided we're okay with the number of pedestrian deaths caused by compact cars and SUVs? Some SUVs are heavier, have less visibility, and would presumably lead to more pedestrian deaths than cars, so why isn't there a similar condemnation against those vehicles? Or maybe there is?
But the trend of stock pick-up trucks getting lifted, having high hoods, small windshields vs their equivalent models 10 or 20 years ago is so much worse than the default cross-over SUV in the US. Sales of trucks have gone up, so have pedestrian deaths.
https://theweek.com/articles/929196/case-against-american-tr...
Given the choice of hitting an inclined windshield and rolling over the top of a vehicle vs. taking the full force of a giant body-length grille, I'd rather take my chances with the windshield.
Relative risk for light trucks is only 45% higher than cars and is lower than cars for heavy trucks. Buses are the real dangers on the road.
I suspect most of the increase in pedestrian fatalities is from pedestrians and drivers staring at their phone instead of where they are going. I have definitely had close calls where I watched someone looking at the phone start wandering through an intersection without seeing if it's clear.
Seatbelt and airbag regulations were fought on the grounds that bad drivers killed people, not good drivers. It was the drivers responsibility to be safe. Since airbags and sest belts have become important safety features, hundreds of thousands lives have been saved in the United States alone.
Problem solved.
There are obviously many cases where a truck of some kind is exactly what you need to do some task or other.
I think it's more like there are a bunch of people who have never owned a pickup truck, and have rented trucks when they needed to "move stuff", and are suspicious of the explanation given by others about why they bought them because those explanations don't match their own life experience.
If the answer to "why did you buy a pickup truck?" was "I like to see past the other traffic, I'm worried about the safety implications of a smaller vehicle when there are so many pickup trucks on the road where I live, the infrastructure here is set up for them with wide roads and ample parking so it's not really a thing, plus I very occasionally avoid needing to rent a truck when moving lumber" then things would be less contentious.
Of course, one can then proceed to the question of if there's a double-standard on why the question doesn't get asked to owners of sports cars with speed and handling limits that are of no relevance to public roads.
I suspect most people with big trucks rarely use them for moving stuff. Not to say they never do, but from my observations owning a big truck has a lot more to do with signaling a certain status to others who value big trucks.
Owning a Geo Metro signals that you don't give a damn about status or what anyone thinks and you don't care much about how long it takes to get to your destination. The Geo Metro owner in 2021 is truly the most independent thinker.
On top of the landscaping and project work I use it for, it's perfect for going dispersed camping in rough areas that need high clearance. I would never be comfortable risking a rental for such activities.
Same deal with almost everyone I know nearby - the ones with a pickup I know are farmers, or one guy that's honest and just likes the aesthetics and the way it drives (and it counts as a "commercial vehicle", so it was some kind of tax dodge too).
I get it's indispensable for a farmer or business owner, but for for the vast majority (not all, obviously) of regular folks, even outside of cities, it's really not needed.
In reality the average is 2 out of 100 trucks carried anything in my counting. The highest I have seen in Los Angeles with 6 trucks carrying something.
That makes me believe that when you own a pickup truck, there is a small change of needing its large bed and powerful engine.
It maybe like gaming ready computer, swimming pools or fireplaces - usage is very low for most people, but you just might need it urgently someday. Or you think you might change your habits if you buy it
No, I am not a Trump flag flyer. I just happen to really like useful vehicles.
The vehicles are gigantic and are capable of carrying thousands of pounds but are operated by people who may not be able to handle something considerably smaller without getting into an accident. Suburban neighborhoods are plagued with tailgating road warriors in consumer tanks that endanger people for the sake of having an adventure on the road. The aesthetics of a truck are as much a problem as the drivers operating them.
Not to mention that the cybertruck has nearly the same dimensions as the f150 (https://youtu.be/sLvopc9oI4A?t=199) and has a shape that is more likely to cut you in half if it were to hit you. It also has a payload that's more comparable with a ford super duty and will likely weight more than the lightning to support that.
Pro-Tesla, ftfy.
The first thing I did when moving to a rural area was to get a F-150. I plow my own driveway. I pick up dirt by the yard for lawn/garden use. Tow. Get big things. I look back now three years later and am thankful I did not waste any coin on a bed cover as I'd be very tired of putting it on and taking it off. Living nearly two miles in on a dirt road I only bother washing the truck twice a year as 'clean' is very fleeting.
The issue with this e-F150 is the low payload and tow capacity of the standard models. Think I'm rated 2350 payload and 13K tow on an out the door $44k XLT supercab.
For me it's the increasingly large size of all trucks which have made them hugely inconvenient, and frankly dangerous, to circumnavigate. You know how you feel when you get boxed in by a couple tractor trailers on the freeway? That's how everyone else in reasonably sized vehicles feels driving around your truck. There are way more blind spots involving the modern truck compared to other cars which present a danger to everyone else on the road, I don't care what kind of whizz-bang "safety" cameras you have. And you also create blind spots for everyone else who can't see around your absurdly bloated truck in places like parking lots and passing lanes.
It's a safety and practicality issue which goes beyond the "you don't need that" mentality, there's legitimate reasons for people to NOT like them.
That being said they are generally unnecessarily large now & at this point midsize trucks are more than capable enough for most people. I think they mainly buy full size trucks for roomier cabs and more luxury features at this point
That... What?!
At the local MFA, when buying feed or fertilizer, you back your vehicle up to the warehouse-style loading dock, where the raised floor of the storage facility is about the height of the average truck bed off the road height. When I buy things in my sedan and load them into the trunk, I either have to drop them off from a great height, or take them down a small set of stairs. When people buy in a truck, the employees use a forklift to put the pallet directly into the truck bed.
At the farm, it's not uncommon to have a tractor with a front end loader either with a bucket to dump things into the pickup bed, or a set of pallet forks for loading/unloading solid or bagged objects.
How can you _possibly_ say that there's "literally no utilitarian use" for truck beds in agricultural settings?
Step one on Ford's site is to select a dealer. Already I'm thinking about how much I hate my local dealer and the whole dealership system in general. Step two is a login screen with create an account burred at the bottom. Now I'm thinking about all the ford spam I'll get if I give them my email. Step three is me checking on the cyber truck status.
It took me 2.5 hours to buy my truck where the price had been determined before I walked in and I had a check in hand. That's after the research to get a price upon walk-in ($6000 less than on the sticker). The process of walking in and looking at prices that everyone knows aren't real and negotiating with someone who is lying to you is beyond tiresome.
They were very straight forward online - all in print in e-mail. You want x car, in y trim level, it costs $z. Are you financing or not?
The only thing they tried to sell us was a maintenance package that, if we lived closer than 3 hours away, actually was a good deal for the cost.
Maybe it's situational based on specific dealer?
Sure, "transparent" pricing that can change on a whim, even after you've purchased the product. "Take-it-or-leave-it" delivery if you find flaws with your car.
>Step three is me checking on the cyber truck status.
Let me know when you take delivery of a Cybertruck for <40k, similar pricing to the Model 3, like the "transparent info" claims.
Also, other car manufactures actually change their prices all the time based on cost of materials, shipping, etc. The Dealer will change the price based on inventory space, cost to hold, etc. You just don't see it as much because it is hidden behind Dealership "Deals" and "Promotions" that come and go.
Traditionally, it has always been the best to buy a vehicle at the end of the year, when the dealers are trying to make room for the next "model year".
This is still fairly true with the Tesla. They change more often but they still do larger changes that seem to sync up with the calendar year. At least the Model 3 interior refresh did.
Although the best time to buy a Tesla is when Elon needs to hit an earnings goal.
I can list off the top of my head a good 20 or so considerations that would go into buying the right truck for my needs. All of them are more important to me than the famously shitty minutia of the actual sale process. Buying a vehicle is a whole can of worms, and Ford's site forces me to open than can before I can even start imagining life with my fancy new truck.
While Tesla's are neat, they seem kind of junky to me. Honestly, I don't want a web site experience when I'm buying a car - buying a car is not like buying say a flashlight. Cars require a 'trust but verify' approach - especially a Tesla.
Yes: it is absolutely unacceptable that Tesla's quality standards are lacking to the point where you are encouraged to give your car a look over before picking it up. Genuinely, the car should have already been looked over on the lot -- but I guess that's the price to pay for the make-to-order process Tesla has embraced.
But you are absolutely _not_ in a position where you "take it or leave it." You look your car over, note what needs to be fixed post-delivery, and make a (free) appointment to have those issues corrected. The best part? Depending on the severity of the issues, Tesla will send some to your home instead of you having to bring the car to them.
My story is the same as yours: I test drove the car on the 15th, I put my deposit down, and on the 30th I drove off the lot in my new car. There was no negotiation, no up-selling, just me paying for my car and getting what I expected.
Best purchase I've ever made.
Why? Everybody else pays for the privilege of the dealership rep to do it for them. It's called the pre-delivery inspection.
If Tesla has no PDI then I suppose it's just them pawning it off on the end user. Sounds very 2020 of them to do that.
imo, though, the "quality issue" with Teslas are greatly exaggerated. At worst, my 3 has inconsistencies between panels, but you don't notice unless you're looking for them.
But of course Ford is even worse here but not in the dealership rating (which I of course can't find atm. as it were in last months issue)..
Now add the chip shortage.
I guess my point is that one size doesn’t fit all. That said, I do hate going to the typical car dealer.
The price they show you include "fuel savings" and tax rebates you may not be eligible to. The situation is better now but you had to go out of your way to get the real price.
You don't really know what the "full self driving" package is about. Hint: it is not fully driving itself. It is an improved "autopilot" that may get to full self driving in the future, no guarantee.
And I've just saw an "engineering explained" video about how they put deceiving numbers for acceleration.
They use all the marketing tricks in the book and then some more.
But they really nailed down the "tech" part. It is almost like something from Google or Apple. They are smart enough not to put any obstacle if you are ready to spend your money.
TSLA literally lies about the cost of the car on their website though.
"* Costs above include potential incentives and gas savings of $4,300."
Gas savings... What? This isn't some special tax credit you get, they lie about their pricing by including savings over time of ownership...
Similarly, the public has a definition for what "unlimited" means and mobile carriers using asterisks to redefine the word is exploitative.
You don't see the prius product page saying "well actually it's cheaper because it's a hybrid, you save 2300 over the life of the vehicle on gas!" No, they just tell you what the damn car costs.
Tsla is doing many things right, but that's just a perfect example of some of their deception, which I don't love.
I can't recommend enough just how refreshing it is to go to a no-haggle dealership after having experienced a regular dealership.
The wife and I walked into the dealership, test drove a vehicle, and walked out with the signed proof-of-sale in just over an hour.
Obviously, you're not getting THE BEST price, but the no-haggles in our area handily beat the prices of every single neighbouring dealership by a heck of a lot more than I think I'd be able to beat them down to.
Last time I bought a car it took probably close to 6-8 hours of back-and-forth, telephone game with the manager, and I still felt like I got ripped off. Never again.
At one time it was a useful financial tool to keep production high and reduce the shock (to manufacturers) of fluctuations in demand. Today with a streamlined and JIT supply chain, easy financing for buyers, and the internet, the independent dealerships really have to fight for every penny and the only way they can do that is by screwing you.
How is Tesla's process much easier than that?
> "We're working on performance improvements that will hopefully allow us to go back to HN's original style of one big page per thread (not infinite scroll, don't worry). In the meantime please look for those 'More' links when the total number of comments is over 250 or so."
(I've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27239842 so there isn't extra offtopicness up there.)
I meant it for all these car manufacturers pushing new EVs.
Tesla deserves a lot of credit for pushing the industry forward, but they are going to have a lot of competition in the next 5 years.
I'm 6'2, overweight, prefer to have seat in the highest position and fit my Subaru Forester with full comfort.
Because of the rental vehicle shortage I was free-upgraded to an F-150 recently. You can haul stuff in it just fine, but in the front it's too tall, ridiculously tall. It's a bloated and stupid vehicle. The feature bloat you read about here, well obviously that's just more bloat of a different kind.
The problem isn't that it's electric; that part is great. The problem is that it's an F-150.
Not FUD, as I have no dog in the fight and personally don't care if anyone else buys one, but its a make of automobile I avoid.
This has nothing to do with your random friends hating Ford lol
Our 2011 F150 has been very reliable, mechanically, but the audio wiring is broken in interesting ways. My buddy's older F150 has exactly the same issue. Otherwise it's been trouble free.
#1 - How long has this engine design been used?
#2 - How long has this transmission design been used?
Accessory / electrical problems are annoying, but fixable. Powertrain problems are... the vehicle itself.
That's rip-out-every-wire-in-the-truck labor totals.
What were the symptoms?
I'm really happy to see Ford step up in the EV field. The Mach-E looks fantastic, as does the F-150. I have no ill-will towards them and I want them to succeed. But there just isn't anyway I can get over the sour taste in my mouth from owning my Ford Fusion and it is hard to take a leap of faith with them when they are new at the EV game.
I still have an old Ranger that I use for those purposes today.
It seems insane to assume you can be the judge of what's "useful" or "utility".
It's basically a massive kick-back to Ford and Chevy.
a) reduce road and parking space in order to encourage better forms of transportation ,
b) reduce our consumption of natural resources
,maybe we need to discourage individual ownership of 3000kg utility vehicles?
Because of the increased demand on raods, reducing road space probably won't happen. When cars can get to and from parking spaces by themselves, parking space can move into central towers or edge lots, but the number of spaces is probably going to increase, not decrease.
We all want better forms of transportation, but there's a lot of disagreement about what's better.
>a) reduce road and parking space in order to encourage better forms of transportation ,
I don't see that happening. SUV's and pickups are so popular in the US because most cities are more similar to Houston and LA than NYC or Chicago.
My wife at the time bought an SUV, a Toyota Highlander. She never went off road, we didn't have any children, she never hauled anything. 90% of her driving was to and from work on paved roads, a job that could have been accomplished with a Honda Civic.
Now let's play another fun game: how many truck and SUV owners do you think are like you, and how many do you think are like my ex-wife?
As a homeowner and a parent this would be a great vehicle for me — having the utility of a truck bed.
Not everyone that owns a home does work on it themselves but trucks are very useful. Today my only options are rent a truck or put a trailer hitch on my van and pull a trailer when I need to haul stuff. That’s so much more hassle.
I currently own a Ridgeline - it's not quite compact, but rides better than a Taco or Ranger and the trunk under the bed is useful.
If the Hyundai existed earlier this year, I'd probably own it instead.
My understanding was that classification meant there was a disincentive for manufacturers to build smaller trucks (fuel efficiency and/or emissions?).
obviously a truck would be much easier, but if I'm redoing a house I'll need to rent a light dump truck anyway for at least 1-2 days just to get all the old junk out, so I do the big material buy at the same time
2003 ranger:
188-203″ L x 69″ W x 65-68″ H
2021 ranger:
211″ L x 78″ W x 71-72″ H
2003 F150
207-244″ L x 79-80″ W x 71-77″ H
Yeah, I feel this. I used to have a big work truck, but it was for work. Everyone has a truck in my hometown (seemingly). Last week I saw a big F-250 super duty pull up and the dude that got out was in scrubs (a nurse).
Friends of mine have considered the super duty’s for towing, but now they’re interested in the lightning for the same reasons.
Saddest emblem of modern Eurocapitalism that I know: the BMW "Mini". It's a vast, charmless travesty of the original.
1. Take a bunch of trash/old furniture/whatever to the dump
2. Move furniture
3. Pick up materials for a home renovation like 16 foot long baseboards, drywall, a few dozen boxes of laminate flooring, etc. (no need to be a professional construction contractor here)
4. Tow a camping trailer
5. Much, much more
I'm literally using my truck tonight to pick up ~500 square feet of flooring material, which is saving me ~$300 in shipping costs. The truck itself only cost me $3,700 to begin with, and between this and several other home improvement projects it has saved me ~$2,000 in shipping/moving/other costs so far in just the two years I've owned it. And I'll be saving a bundle in shipping costs on new kitchen cabinets in a few months as well. That's before you get into the convenience factor of not having to rent/borrow a truck anytime you need to move something big.
Both Lowes and Home Depot offer free delivery for orders over $45. I've also done several home improvement projects, and never needed to pay a dime in shipping. Are you buying directly from the manufacturer or something I'm missing here?
Cars and mid size SUVs all seem to be converging on the same shape with minor differences where as trucks still have some individuality.
So I went to check this supposition out and whew, I’m confused.
CAFE standards, harmonic means, compliance flexibility, offset credits are all more than I can wrap my head around from my smartphone.
Not to mention trying to read the actual CAFE regulation is very convoluted.
Anyways, I thought I had an answer for you but all I’ve got is a rabbit hole in crawling out of.
"For example, Ford sells both the Focus, a mid-size car that gets 31 mpg on highways, and the F-150, a midsize truck that gets 25 mpg on highways."
I mean, just think about how similar those numbers are given the vehicles. Pretty wild.
Compared with, say, a Honda Odyssey, the F150 is a better family vehicle in many cases. The only reason I can think of to go with the Odyssey (which is another vehicle I love) is vehicle footprint and long-term reliability.
There's a reason the F150 sells so many units in the USA: it's the ultimate vehicle, and it comes with almost no drawbacks.
New pickups do still get used for construction - but only by the owners and some management can afford a new pickup. New pickups on construction sites pull trailers to put cargo at a human accessible height.
Pickups in lumber jobs are also a luxury. Any vehicle driven to lumber sites will effectively be destroyed, they get bent, bashed, and permanently embedded with filth. The rank and file drive what they can afford and don't mind destroying due to the nature of the job, or they ride in with the rest of a crew, or more and more often they don't drive to a site because they're forced labor rented from prisons.
People who need pickups for everyday, practical uses are using vans, trailers, or buying older pickups. 20 year old pickups are so much more practical than new that certain models in excellent shape will sell for more now than they did when new. New pickups and their predecessors are entirely different vehicles.
But selling cars has always been the business of selling a story as much as it has been about selling a transportation technology. This goes back to the earliest days when cars were hulking machines owned by the uber-wealthy.
> or lumberjacks.
Hah, I bet a puny pickup truck isn't very useful for lumberjacks' actual work. I think they use giant tree felling machines and specialized trucks instead. Pickups seem more like small support vehicles for them.
Folks who sit in their Civic every day for a couple of hours because they need to live here and work there.
Folks who own Subarus who rarely, if ever, make use of the AWD.
Folks who never ever use the back seat of their cars and might as well have a car that's 3 feet shorter.
Folks who own cars that can go over 70 mph.