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Comment by leesec | Hacker News Reader

I'm really happy Ford and others are starting to actually deliver on EV's. I do however think there will be a long list of issues as they scale the roll out, given the newness and complexity of this product. Here are some concerns I think people should be aware of:

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...

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Re autopilot:

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.

You shouldn't trust driver assistance features, Bay Area tech or not. They're there to assist you and decrease the burden of constant throttle / steering wheel management; you should still be constantly monitoring and ensuring the driver assistance tech is doing what it should.

That leaves Korea and FCA? Japan has fallen behind in infotainment/software. Hyundai has a Santa Fe and the Ioniq coming out, so probably a combo of those two shortly after.

I don't "trust" autopilot any more than I "trust" basic cruise control. They are both nice to have, though.

>4. No Autopilot. This is a big sell for many EV users

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.

I love driving, but AP is also really useful on the highway and long stretches of road in general. Its a much bigger advantage than I expected, tbh.

Ford has something similar, but it fails more unexpectedly and often. Although, Tesla AP still has major phantom braking issues... sigh.

I like driving, but I don’t like bumper to bumper traffic. That’s where autopilot comes in handy.

> No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still.

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.

This info seems a little out of date at this point. This is a map of 120 kW+ Electrify America charging stations from PlugShare: https://i.imgur.com/1dcM6UX.png. I agree we need more, but I don't know if it feels right to say there are "very few", when they line most of the major interstates.

> 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...

[2]: https://www.electrifyamerica.com/pricing/

And as a note for everyone else, Electrify America is just one brand of chargers. Other brands currently exist and as more CCS compatible cars hit the road I imagine even more chargers will spring up.

Only five in New England?

> 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.

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.

Honestly, Electrify America has caught up to where Tesla was about 2-3 years ago. That really isn't a bad place to be for much of the country. The biggest issue will be that many of their sites are smaller. They are going to get crowded fast!

I agree with your issues 1 and 2. Batteries do not yet match the energy density of petrol. There are plenty of cases where the shorter range isn't a problem, but buyers need to know have a clear understanding up front.

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.

Autopilot sure but software updates are obviously an issue if they can brick your car.

Well, at least the exterior design has given the F-150 a fitting shape for that.

Autopilot is commonly lumped together with electric cars, but they’re really two completely unrelated things.

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.

Agree in theory but no one has built in a similar sensor suite to Tesla or added a powerful enough computer chip in their cars. This roots back to Tesla treating the whole car like a unified piece of software and having much better programmatic control over it. I only mentioned autopilot because the leading EV does have it as an included feature and so when weighing options people might question why it's not there on other models.

It's not an included feature on the Teslas, it's a $10k option.

Several pieces of the Autopilot software suite are included at no charge. The "FSD Capability" (pre-payment for a future delivery of full self-driving) is the $10K option you are thinking of.

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.

You’re not wrong about ‘full self driving’, but “Autopilot” - which is just lane steering and adaptive cruise - is standard on every car you can get from Tesla’s site (you might still be able to get a model 3 without it by calling sales, but I haven’t heard of that working as of recent).

All Teslas now have the 8 cameras and computer chip and Autopilot comes standard. it's 10k to enable the FSD via software.

> No comprehensive supercharger network.

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!

>>> US highway speeds are crazy

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

The legal limit might be 70mph, but when traffic is not heavy it typically flows much faster than that in my experience. I used to make a regular commute along I95 through Delaware, and even though the speed limit was 55 (later upped to 65), it wasn't uncommon to be going 75-80 alongside other cars. Not everyone went that fast, but most people seemed to. Note that the speed of traffic hardly changed when the limit was increased.

I'm not sure they were drawing a specific comparison between the US and some other country, and there's quite a bit more diversity among European countries. There are at least many in which speed limits are stringently enforced using speed cameras or other more "ruthless" methods, accompanied with even heftier penalties than in most of the US. Meanwhile, I don't know if there are any states in which minor speeding is systematically enforced.

> Same way you won't get good mileage on any car if you do that

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.

> 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.

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.

The tool at https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.jsp shows 50 mph as the cheaper speed even for 2021 vehicles.

Not sure it's doing much more than inputting the single number fuel economy into an equation though.

The advisory speed limit on the Autobahn in Germany is 130 km/h = 80 mph. If you drive 55 mph (90 km/h) on an unrestricted or 130 km/h section during your driving test, you will fail.

Agreed with most of your points, just curious about:

> 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.

The sweet spot for your car is actually more like 45-50 mph, but you are not really going to find long stretches of road with those speeds.

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.

> Aren't ICE cars often more efficient at highway speeds?

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.

>> No Autopilot. This is a big sell for many EV users.

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

> No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still.

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.

And I've used (checks file) 56 different superchargers in the last 4 years, some of them many times. It comes down to how many long road trips you make. Fast chargers are totally unnecessary for local-only driving if you have a slow charger at home, but critical for convenient road trips beyond your vehicle's range.

Indeed. Also, GP comment might want to remember we're in a thread about the F-150, a truck that many consumers will want to use to get to job sites. Arguably, such a use case needs even more charging infrastructure than average electric vehicle use cases.

I think GP is pointing out that most people who own an ICE vehicle aren't used to having any limits on refueling their vehicle. If they need to take a long trip they just go. In the vast majority of the country there's a gas station at basically every interstate exit and refilling the tank takes 5 minutes.

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.

I very, very rarely drive my car further than a hundred miles in a day; for my day-to-day work, a 200 mile range would be more than comfortable, and I'd be able to recharge to full overnight.

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.

With Teslas, you plug in your destination and it provides directions with charging stops. For example: I drove over 600 miles from Portland to Berkeley starting at 25% battery. It routed me to three charging stops[1] and included times for both arrival and how long charging would take.

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.

1. https://i.imgur.com/n8QmiPb.jpg

Tesla's handle this pretty well, it auto routes you to supercharges and tells you how long to charge, etc.

> I don't know the state of the charger system on the highways we use

I totally understand your situation, but sorry, that had me laughing: Yeah sure, there is nothing to be done about that :)

Whether you ever take a roadtrip is not 99% psychological. Sure you more commonly stay within range but for instance I drive several hours to see my family regularly. No supercharging stations would prohibit that or 2-3x the time taken.

Depends on where you live and what you do. I would agree, based on population density in most of the world, that this is probably true.

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.

What do you do for road trips? The supercharger network is essential for that.

I use DC fast chargers for road trips, yes. I don't have my Tesla anymore, just the wife's Bolt, but conceptually it's the same.

I'm surprised you find it tolerable. My Model 3 can get from Portland to Spokane (350 miles) with one charging stop in Kennewick, taking about 6 hours total.

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...

2. https://www.plugshare.com/location/1538

> With the supercharger network, you know in advance if the station is having any issues (including simply being full).

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.

> software rollout Nope, don’t want automatic over the air software update. I want it in the field when others have tried it, found issues and then I get it.

> 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.

For the first one, are you considering the Electrify America network? I follow a guy on YouTube who takes road trips using the EA network. The issues he has are not so much that the stations don't exist, but that the charging is slower than optimal and buggy due to bad software. He's still able to roadtrip though, just with more hassle.

> 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.

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.

>1. No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still.

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.

I don't think many people will be driving an EV Ford F-150 cross country.

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.

One of the things I need a truck for is to tow a trailer with cows inside to (and back from) a facility that can extract eggs, implant embryos, etc. Unfortunately, that route doesn't follow any interstate highways and is about 180 miles each way. I'd absolutely LOVE to tow them with an electric truck and eliminate emissions from the picture. I've been eagerly awaiting something like the Cybertruck/Lightning, but until they get MUCH more mileage or hot-swap batteries I just can't make the switch. There is one fast-charge station in the middle, but none near the destination--and even if there was, I can't add charging stops with a trailered cow.

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.

Then...don't get an EV truck? You're not the target audience. Might be a 360 round trip capability. Someone else will need to take their cows 400 miles round trip...then 420? At what point is good enough is good enough.

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.

I reread my comment and I sound like an ass and I'm sorry. I'm just frustrated that I think we'll have a long road ahead in reaching mass adoption if people keep hearing these one off scenarios and think of the vehicles on a negative light when families can purchase 1 EV and retain 1 ICE for now and use the ICE for long trips - or, rent for long trips but my friends keep holding out for the "perfect" EV.

Why not have every dealer install a couple of fast chargers? They could build out a nation-wide fast charge network in a month.

Nissan did this and it sucks. Because dealers have to sell their vehicles too, so guess which vehicles get plugged in those stations? They are almost always busy.

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.

Sure but it's not just about quantity. They need to be along the highways to be useful for roadtrips. And no one else even has the tech for supercharging at the moment, it's 72kwh supercharges vs 50kwh (rare) ( as far as I know ).

Various CCS charging networks have 350 kW chargers. For example, Ionity does (https://ionity.eu/) and Electrify America does (https://www.electrifyamerica.com/). Repsol has been installing 400 kW chargers (https://insideevs.com/news/375020/repsol-most-powerful-charg...).

At least for my use cases, I think Ford actually has an edge over Autopilot. Any car with adaptive cruise control and autosteering is gonna behave identically to a Tesla with autopilot for 99% of the time behind the wheel. Ford doesn't do lane changes or summoning, but from what I've seen both of those features have some jank with Tesla and I wouldn't use them.

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.

"Any car with adaptive cruise control and autosteering is gonna behave identically to a Tesla with autopilot for 99% of the time behind the wheel."

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'm not sure about most systems, but whatever Subaru puts in their cars works pretty well in my experience. It has a little trouble on windy mountain roads when the shoulder isn't well marked (it doesn't drive off a cliff or anything, but the autosteer disengages), but on the freeway I can usually go 10+ minutes without any manual interaction.

Autosteering / lane-centering (which is increasingly standard in driver assistance technology, including bluecruise which will be available on this truck) is not the same as lane-keep assist.

We owned a Ford plug-in hybrid. Amazing power, every creature comfort imaginable, great price-- what could go wrong? Sort answer: everything. It was an absolute nightmare. First and last Ford I'll ever buy.

Can you elaborate? What went wrong?

I could rant for ages, but already got downvoted so I'll keep it short. It was the only car I've ever owned to leave me stranded. It did so at least half a dozen times. The 12V battery (which we replaced) would be drained flat by the janky electronics of the car. It would be 100% fine when you park, and the dead when you're done shopping. Eventually I bought a battery charger to top it off every weekend.

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.

While it's unfortunate you had so many issues, I think some of them can be chalked up to the risk of being such an early adopter. EVs in 2013 vs 2021 would seem to be quite different machines.

By way of counterpoint: leased a C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid from Ford for 3 years; never needed any work doing to it. Was a disappointment when Ford announced they were walking away from the car market for trucks and coupes only.

regarding 2.

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:

The Volt was "hybrid done right". It was 90% an EV, it just had backup generation, which didn't even have to provide that much power. It can run at a constant (optimal) speed, with the variability absorbed by batteries. It doesn't take that much power to maintain speed in cruise, as opposed to accelerating.

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.

Completely agree about the Volt. PHEVs are ideal, and best for the environment. Who cares if you have to use gas a couple times a month for longer ranges if you don't need to mine so much lithium and cobalt for the battery?

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.

The BMW i3 has a gas range extender option[1] (though it's not exactly a pickup truck...) I personally went with a Toyota Prius Prime[2], which has been a solid vehicle.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_i3#Range_extender_option

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_Plug-in_Hybrid#Dr...

I haven't kept up with Ford, but I know they have lane keeping and some sort of adaptive cruise control.

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.

Ford also has a hands free driving mode called Blue Cruise. It relies on highly accurate mapped roads as well as on-board sensors so it probably mostly works on just major highways. Still though, major highways are about the only time I'd really trust technology like this at the moment.

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2021...

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