I doubt that Tesla's Cyber truck will be out anytime out in the near future and at a price that can compete with the F-150.
Alkso Tesla hasn't shipped a truck. Rivian has shipped, Ford has now shipped. If and when the Cybertruck makes it to market, Ford and Rivian will finally see some competition.
Once GM gets on the electric pickup market, it's game over for the wonky Tesla unless they end up selling exclusively to the types who don't actually do truck stuff (the G-Wagon crowd).
Once the lightnings are easy to acquire at a dealership, I think Tesla will have its work cut out for it. The F150 is the best selling car/anything in the US.
That being said, Ford has announced they're splitting their company into two: One for ICE vehicles, one for all electric. They're not saying much about who'll be handling the selling/distribution of the electric vehicles in the future. And dealer associations are rattling their legal sabers looking for answers.
Also, VW and their announced release of an all new Scout, under it's own brand, has also made little comment if current VW dealerships will carry it or what...
So there seems to be a move by Ford and VW to try (with new brands) the direct sales route with delivery/service centers similar to Tesla. However, that may be a long time coming with all the potential legal battles, etc.
I, however, also wonder if this move by VW/Ford is just to get the dealer associations to spend more lobby money and get direct-to-consumer car sales illegal in many more states, which seems the likely move by Dealers. This, then, would be a feign by the Manufacturers to hurt on particularly strong brand in the EV space.
I hate having to wheel and deal. I usually go through craigslist or some other marketplace since I buy used and it's so much better than having to worry about coatings, etchings, addons, and warranties.
EVs won't have oil changes, regular brake work, oil leaks, etc. There will be occasional air-conditioner repairs or window problems, but the bread-and-butter service revenue from ICE vehicles will be gone.
Dealerships might not be profitable enough to stay.
If a dealer does bad work or tries to scam you, you can find another one. If Tesla denies your warranty claim you're out to dry.
The additional levels of trim on the F150 are decent (esp. extended range) but the base model is amazing value for the price.
Hopefully this puts pressure on Tesla to stop touting the high end BS (like dodgy autopilot) and focus on adequate value for their base models.
For my part while I'd like a vehicle with Tesla autonomy, the appalling QA/finish (Teslas still look cheap) and the support policies mean I'll go to an EU or Asian brand when I finally pick an EV (at least if there's anything left by that time that doesn't look like some trashy gamer mouse on wheels).
Trying to charge a non-Tesla during a trip can be a bit of a crap-shoot. Will the station be available? Will it be functional? Do I need to create yet another new account on yet another new app to access it?
This won't last. But until the competition makes their charging network better, it's a selling point for many buyers.
How many truck buyers are realistically driving their trucks cross country? The ideal truck EV owner is the ranch owners in Texas who drives to the local TSC, grabs his stuff and then is doing work somewhere on the 10 acres ranch. If it meant never driving to the gas station that's a huge time saver. F-150 is a great fit for that.
The people I know interested in the Tesla cybertruck are tech bros who have enough disposable income that buying a cybertruck is basically a solution in search of a problem. They'll end up using it to tow their boat or go camping.
I'd consider a Lightning if my Honda Ridgeline wasn't only a year old. Except I'm not sure it has enough range to actually get me from DC to Canaan Valley and back without a long detour to charge on the way home. Using ABRP, it has 90 minutes of charging and another 30-45 minutes of extra driving to get to a charger. This is over what should be a 6 hour drive (3 each way), so pretty ridiculous.
Compared to a Tesla Model X (standard range), which needs 45 minutes of charging, but no extra distance because there's a Supercharger on the way (using Tesla's maps). The 45 minutes charging is still pretty silly, given an ICE can do the round trip on a single tank, but that's way better than the non-Tesla option.
Regardless of patent portfolio, I think it's a safe bet that Tesla views their (vaporware-ish?) self driving tech as a competitive advantage. Probably why they emphasize it so much and Elon seems absolutely fixated on it.
It just feels like we're at an inflection point where Tesla's production will soon be dwarfed by competitors and consumers having the choice of dozens of EVs vs a handful is going to drastically shift the market.
[0] - https://www.tesla.com/legal/additional-resources#patent-pled...
> where Tesla's production will soon be dwarfed by competitors
If theycan get enough batteries, that's currently the bottleneck for most manufacturers. Tesla has spent the last decade securing battery supply.
https://www.engadget.com/electrify-america-ev-charging-payme...
It's kind of an unoptimal result because CCS is a big ugly connector while the Tesla connector is small and sleek: Tesla uses the same pins for both AC and DC, while CCS requires separate pins.
Oh well. VHS beats Betamax again.
That said, I think 150-180 miles is plenty of range for people who would just drive this thing to work and back.
The Mach-E for instance has a -48 mile EPA range compared to an M3LR but only a -4 mile range in the edmund's test.
Same for Taycan, EPA rating of 203, edmunds got 323.
Tesla M3P EPA is 310 but edmunds got only 256.
When you factor in actual expected range and price (especially the federal tax credit) Tesla's range advantage is rapidly disappearing and as far as I'm aware there isn't anything coming down the pipe that will radically change that (4680s maybe, but we haven't seen any of the touted benefits proved out yet).
https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/electric-car-range-and-cons...
Teslas tend to come pretty close to their EPA highway rating when tested on the highway under similar circumstances. But the EPA highway rating isn't the one that gets advertised. :sigh
Although for me traveling up and down 95 is so slow that I end up hitting the city number on my hybrid :)
TBH, comparing my Model Y to the Lightning, the only range issue that I see is the charge speeds. The Lightning's 400V CCS system limits it a bit, so charge times would be quite a bit higher on longer trips.
You don't want to frequently charge over 90% to preserve the integrity of the battery. Same with the bottom 10%. You don't want to frequently drive the car down to 1%. I think it's not a huge deal if you drive it down to 5% or so, but as an owner of an EV, it gets pretty scary to go below 10% before you charge if you're on a trip. If the wind speed/ temp/etc gets out of control, it can sap your battery before you make it to the next station.
Ignoring 20% of the battery is pretty much the standard on today's EVs.
You're comparing something that exists to something that doesn't yet exist, and you have no information on future volume, then calling the first thing "meaningless." I don't understand that at all.
Your point is entirely predicated on Tesla producing Cybertruck in such large volumes that it dwarfs Ford's F-150 Lightning, but you have no factual basis for that claim.
They're comparable, but not identical, so domain knowledge for one doesn't always translate into the other. Witness the Bolt / LG Chem battery fiasco.
So yes, Ford is the first (or second? third?) over the line to make engineering samples available to the public. They also have their ICE platforms to fall back on if they don't execute perfectly. Plenty of time no worries.
Tesla (and rivian?) are in the deep end without any option but to figure out how to swim / mass produce their product, so they've got incentive to execute.
There are plenty of companies that got their product to market only to be destroyed by warranty burdens. It is instructive that the bolt was first to market (vs the model 3).
So the story hasn't been told yet, but certainly tesla's not in a position of strength here.
We know that this was considered the minimal benchmark for the Model 3 and that their targets for CT are higher.
Its a guess about future state, so surely not certain, but noone has this "won" by getting ~50k units done over the next 12 months.
You say that as though, oh no problem Tesla will have that minimal benchmark immediately. But in reality, it wasn't until 2 years after they started delivering the model 3 that they hit that "minimal benchmark" for it.
If they failed like that again, they'd still catch up pretty quickly. I have doubts, though. Cybertruck doesn't seem to be getting the same attention and drive behind its launch that the 3 did.
Far from it. One, they're pre-selling (note: selling, not taking deposits for). Two, they're making 150,000 a year and plan to make 600,000 in 2023 [1], the latter representing about 5% of the American light truck market [2] and about 50% of the total number of vehicles Tesla builds in a year [3].
[1] https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1134628_ford-f-150-ligh...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/199981/us-car-and-truck-...
[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/715421/tesla-quarterly-v...
And that's the measure that matters. A truck isn't available unless you can buy it, and given the number of pre-orders that both Cybertruck and F-150 have, unless you already have a reservation you won't be able to buy either truck until annual production reaches the 500,000/yr mark or so. And it looks like both Tesla and Ford will reach that rate at about the same time, so the race is on. Hopefully Ford has secured enough batteries to reach that level, because that's likely going to be the limiting factor.
They almost quadrupled output from 40,000 to 150,000 because of demand.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/04/25/ford-f-150-lightning-ele...
Getting US consumers to want EV’s in large numbers is the real problem. Sounds like Ford is getting people excited. I’m sure they’ll be ready to double output as needed.