Ford again hikes the starting price of the F150 Lighting now up 40% since launch | Hacker News Reader

Ford again hikes the starting price of the F150 Lighting now up 40% since launch

cnbc.com

61 pointstiahura96 comments

That original $39,974 price point was always BS and probably just easy marketing to get "Electric truck for under 40k" in the headlines.

They announced it over a year in advance during a time of high inflation when you couldn't even buy a new ICE pickup truck for 40 grand.

That original $40K price was because Cybertruck was announced at a $40K price. If Cybertruck actually gets released at $40K Ford will lower prices again, although perhaps not all the way down to 40K. And I'll eat my hat because there's no way Cybertruck will start at $40K.

I was considering purchasing a Lighting if even as just a battery for my home, it was a really great value compared to buying a powerwall, plus you get a pickup truck!

Can't wait until a company makes a 7-8 seat minivan with the Lightning's two-way battery function. The ultimate consumer utility for moving people, cargo, and electrons.

There's an E-Transit coming out, not a 'mini'van of course but presumably there'll be a e-transit connect sooner than later.

I'm intrigued by the CANOO whenever they start making a consumer vehicle.

Closest so far is the plug-in Pacifica hybrid, which is really annoying - I'd love an all-electric minivan, or even a plug-in Sienna.

> it was a really great value compared to buying a powerwall,

Is there an explanation for this? (I can't think of one). Why would embedding a battery in a vehicle be a better "value" than a battery permanently installed?

And don't you need to install some protective devices (for the grid) into your electric panel if using a F150 battery to power your home wiring? Is that cost included in the calculation?

I think they're saying that the cost of a power wall and the F150 were basically the same, and would do the same for what they needed a power wall for and the F150 also happened to be a truck.

It's like the situations where the cost of adding a shed to your property is so high (permits, etc) that it's cheaper to buy a box truck and park it in your driveway forever. It's a shed, that has wheels and can move!

> I think they're saying that the cost of a power wall and the F150 were basically the same,

A pair of Power Walls costs about $25K. Surely a Lightning is more than that?

A powerwall is only 13.5 kW-h. Less capacity than my Chevy Volt.

A F150 is minimum 98kW-h.

Powerwall gets a 30% federal tax credit (plus possible local, state, or utility rebates). Also in certain circumstances receives revenue share per kwh provided when called upon for grid support in Virtual Power Plant (VPP) arrangements. Vehicles receive a lesser EV subsidy ($7500 or roughly 15% assuming $50k purchase price).

I mean, sure? I'll take your word for it, I'm not in the United States so this is of no relevance to me.

Powerwalls are $11k before installation and have 13.5 kWh capacity.

Lighting truck is let's call it $90k with 131 kWh capacity.

By pure capacity/$ perspective, the truck is the better deal -- plus, if you look at it that way, you get a free truck.

Just throw main breaker off and wait out the power outtage. When it comes back on, disconnect the truck, flip main back on, and then drive your battery to help you get a latte from starbucks.

Energy utilities dislike this due to the potential for homeowners to electrocute their workers.

You must install Ford's "home integration system" that costs $4k to use the truck as home power backup. It's a transfer switch, small battery to power it, etc.

I appreciate the replies. Still wondering why this could be -- what is it about the truck battery that makes it cheaper? Or are powerwalls simply over-priced?

Powerwalls aren't a business' core product, so they're priced at "how much to make it worth our time".

Powerwall should still benefit from the economies of scale being put into Tesla cars and their battery plants. It’s a fair question why a truck would still be competitive.

but again, they don't actually want to sell powerwalls, they want to sell cars, they're just willing to sell powerwalls.

There are a bunch of companies selling powerall type stuff as their core product. Ecoflow, Bluetti, etc.

Powerwalls are both a niche and premium product, provided by basically one company, EVs are neither.

There are probably more companies making powerwall type products than there are car companies. For example, emergency power generation companies like Generac have them, there's an ecosystem of companies competing with Jackery that are attacking it from the bottom (ecoflow, bluetti, etc), a lot of solar and solar-adjacent companies have one (enphase, myenergi, etc).

I doubt what you said is true but irrespective, number of companies != size of market, and the companies you mention serve different markets/functions, so a consumer product company also != an EV company. It is relatively easy to design/build/sell a functional powerwall or generator equivalent, but one person cannot get into the market with an EV.

Your last statement is the reason why mine is true. I'm not trying to imply that the average powerwall company is comparable to an EV company.

Then isn’t it also the reason why your statement isn’t relevant to the point I was making?

Your original statement was "Powerwalls are both a niche and premium product, provided by basically one company, "

Tesla has a very small fraction of this market. Most of the market is outside the US, and Tesla basically only operates in the US for power walls.

Regulatory credits are a huge subsidy for EV cars.

Powerwall and Tesla's solar offerings have always been terrible value, so it's not exactly like it's a high bar to clear.

I’m amazed they don’t have a commercial of the F-150 powering a home.

The closest I've seen is a youtube commercial of them being used to power a movie set in a remote location.

There was this one (skip to 36 seconds):

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/OKad/ford-f-150-lightning-the-only-e...

Amazing, how can you not want a truck, imagine rolling up to your significant other's house and saving them from a power outage with your awesome truck. It's like being a light-bringer.

In this post is where we learn that trucks have evolved to occupy multiple niches over a period of about 100 years and making an electric version of the derived beast is going to break some niches and enable new ones.

A lot of people not realizing behavioral patterns of vehicle usage are a learned thing, and can shift dramatically. An example of this is “I need to refill in 10 minutes” when you can refill overnight anywhere that has electrical service. Outliers aside, most people will never need to refill away from home unless they take a road trip.

In places where job function has molded around derived truck function, people will stay with ICE, but there will be opportunities to innovate in related areas where we haven’t seen any in fifty years.

While being a commuter vehicle is probably the most common use of a truck, there are plenty of other use-cases where refueling time matters that I wouldn't exactly call niche. For example, travelling out of town for outdoor activities. Another is using a truck as a work vehicle, where it makes numerous trips during the day, carrying heavy loads on a tight schedule.

You can sub use cases for niches if you like, I meant it in an ecological sense.

They got the 'cheap electric truck' marketing they needed, it was never available to buy for $40k anyway.

Tesla has been doing this for years; didn't the "cheap" model of one the cars never come out at all?

As it is, I'd rather Ford get the money from demand outstripping supply than dealers or resellers.

Yeah I was also excited to get a $35k Model 3, didn't really work out either.

Is it that hard to make a cheap EV? Like 20k or less? China seems like they've made a few models but nothing in the US.

It's not hard, it's just that they're supply constrained.

And if you're supply constrained, you only make the expensive ones.

And if you start making some, you make expensive ones because why not get that profit whilst you can?

I was seriously considering trading my ICE F-150 on a Lightning (even had my house electrical service upgraded), but at this point I can’t justify the price.

The Lightning has quickly gone from the everyman’s electric truck to something unobtainable for most.

Is that true? The top two F150 trims are like 65k and 77k. I see tons of those driving around. Not to mention F250s and other big trucks.

Tons of top trims? Sure, but only because it’s the best-selling truck.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of F-150s (like mine) are XLT trim or lower.

Moreover, you might be surprised at how small the price premium is on F-250/350 over the F-150 in work truck trims.

They should just do an auction. Every week, auction off the trucks in a Dutch auction.

I'd love to see this for many supply-constrained items, not just E150s. People complain loudly about "price gouging" when it's done, but I don't really care. If people are going to resell at a profit why not let the company reap that directly? And attempts to prevent reselling have usually floundered or failed.

I understand why society looks down on price gouging essential items like bread or toilet paper. But for things like GPUs and trucks it is really weird how we refuse to use the normal price discovery mechanisms

First gen dog. Wait a couple of years for the debugged version

Factory build tour video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Jlod53BCU

That video was pretty neat. I did not take away from it "first gen dog."

https://www.autotrader.com/car-shopping/should-i-avoid-the-f...

Major shift in drivetrain and electronics, early reports indicate abysmal battery performance when towing. A lot to get sorted out in the coming months.

Towing with my Ford Lightning EV Pickup was a TOTAL DISASTER!

https://youtu.be/3nS0Fdayj8Y

etc

So it's 1/2 of the advertised range if you tow a 1500 lbs trailer and 1/3 of the range if you tow 4000 lbs. An expensive toy, basically. Btw, beware that if batteries in this EV catch fire, it will be impossible to extinguish, so keeping it in your garage will likely void home insurance.

They’ve been building F150s for years

I placed orders for a Tesla Y and a Lightning at the same time. My Model Y came up in about 6 months and I paid $52K for it. Same order goes for about $68K now (unless it's dropped in the last two weeks, I saw stories but didn't dig in).

The Lightning I wanted was about $65K but the cheapest model that was available to order when my reservation came up started around $85K. I cancelled and got my reservation $ back. Not even thinking about it anymore.

Aren't these very different vehicles?

Probably why he ordered both.

They are, but the pricing was similar so they're comparable.

Yes, this.. plus, I wasn't sure which would come up first.

I really liked the idea of the F150 Lightning, and I liked the idea of a not-Tesla quality cabin, but I wasn't sure if I could do the size of the F150, and I also figured if the F150 took two years to deliver, I could live with a Tesla for 2 years, sell it, get the Lightning, etc. I also wasn't sure if I was going to be living in SF, east east bay, or Tahoe.

But even with that, I'm not paying $85K+ for a forced-upgrade F150 when I really wanted the $70K version that they said they would sell. I had even called my local Ford dealership and they affirmed they would be selling the Lightnings at sticker, no dealer add-ons/surcharges.

Well its still alot cheaper (at its current pricing) than the soon to be released GMC Sierra EV with a insane price tag of $107k. I think Ford will own the electric truck space as others - Rivian, GMC etc are all way overpriced and with Rivian you have severe reliability issues and availability is next to impossible.

I bought a Rivian and it's been more than fine. Heck, I really like it. Nobody on the forums I've seen have had reliability issues, either, and people are pretty critical & non-fanboyish there. Everything from panel gaps to tire options to material choices is generally taken to task, and I've seen nothing about reliability.

It is a long wait while they ramp up production, though, so I'll grant you that point. But that's true of everyone at the moment - even Ford - and a similarly-spec'd F150L and R1T are currently similarly priced.

I am on the waitlist for one, I joined before I heard about the recall[1] and hope by the time I get mine things will have settled down. Glad to hear your experience is good.

[1] - https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/07/rivian-voluntarily-recalls...

what have the Rivian reliability issues been?

Axle issues for one - see this forum post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/comments/wlleff/rivian_r1t_c...

meanwhile they can't tow worth a damn due to their range issues, and when the temperature drops the same problem exists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8gH52gKejE

According to that video, 37F is cold? Now I am curious what that truck and the soon to be EV UPS trucks will be doing in my neck of the woods. It was 5F this morning and is now 18.1F at 11:47 AM Mountain Time. It can get down to -25F on some days but that is the extreme. Usually it does not get below -10F during the winter.

[Edit] Corrected temp. Sun as hitting the board the sensor is mounted on.

If you're buying an eF150 (E150?) to do more than just very intermittent towing you're making some sort of category mistake.

e150 is the old van model

Yeah but it'd be such a good name (or the EF150? Effing150?)

There's a typo in the title of the CNBC article, Lighting should be Lightning. Maybe there should be a [sic] in the HN topic title?

It's a novelty. This is the wrong tool for anyone who actually needs a truck.

no. You're just wwrong. It's the wrong tool if you need to tow for more than 100 miles in a single day. It's become very political tool to state that if electric vehicles cannot be better than gas/diesel at every single metric it's a failure. All the reviews are glowing about electric vehicles. Every manufacturer is scrambling to produce one. Demand is insane. Performance is better than anything comparable, and event to things incomparable. A Lucid air performance is faster than a Bugatti Chiron in the quarter mile.

Also I believe 90% of truck owners only use their truck bed once per year or less. Is it stupid they want trucks? Probably, but that's the way it is.

Where'd you find that usage data on trucks? I'd love to see it, especially if the people running the study broke down the usage of the truck by commercial vs residential ownership and rural vs urban location.

Would you mind linking it? You don't want people thinking that you just made up a number

> According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...

So they're close on towing but way off on the bed.

It also overlooks that people who only buy ONE vehicle are best off buying a truck or largish SUV so it can do "all they ever need" - to have a small car you kind of really need to have a second vehicle that's larger, or it gets quite annoying.

The thing I don't get is that a common retort to critiques of the usage patterns is "who can afford to buy two vehicles!?", but if you look at the cost of these trucks, and the number of comfort features they are marketed with, the market could provide a work truck at a lower price point with enough left over for a comfortable more reasonably sized vehicle. And that's what tradespeople in other countries (where purchasing vehicles is usually felt more in the purse) do: own a base model work van and an everyday car. But people who work in offices that own trucks? Those are purchased not to move the odd couch while also giving a lift to 6 people, it is pure cosplay.

That covers insurance, parking, maintenance, etc?

> It also overlooks that people who only buy ONE vehicle are best off buying a truck or largish SUV so it can do "all they ever need" - to have a small car you kind of really need to have a second vehicle that's larger, or it gets quite annoying.

Logically, it appears to be a trade-off between money and convenience. The money argument is trivial as the total cost of ownership is basic math. The convenience argument is less obvious to me as it's very inexpensive to have Lowe's/Home Depot ship to home and hiring someone to haul a couch once a year is also much less than the cost to own a truck versus a car.

There is also the moral argument if you care about such things as climate change and being a role model for others in your community; and whether or not your need to own a truck/SUV outweighs those considerations in your own mind.

The one argument that does make logical sense to me is the one around safety. Outside of that I agree with the other commenter and would suggest that for the majority of truck owners, it's mostly cosplay.

The convenience argument is huge - the additional TIME hassle for the Lowes truck/hiring someone is substation if you have the money to not have to think about it.

A modern SUV can get quite decent gas mileage, too.

Obviously there are people who buy an F350 just to drive to work for no good reason, but it's not as clear-cut as "nobody ever needs a truck/SUV and anyone who buys one is ontologically evil".

I don't know the "actual new vehicle" cost breakdown, but I wouldn't be surprised if the average car price is quite high, comparable perhaps to the average truck. Most people who are "price sensitive" don't buy new anyway, and a number of manufacturers aren't selling cars at all anymore, only SUV/trucks.

Totally agree that the rare times I need to rent a truck, it's a major hassle. I wonder if there is an opportunity for an Uber/Lyft type of truck share service.

I've started to use delivery from places like HD, it's often not that expensive. The problem with the little rental truck is you have to drive it back and get your car.

For largish but still not huge truck items Uber "SUV" might work, but most people just call their friends with a truck.

A smallish vehicle with a trailer hitch is pretty good, but you have to know you're going to get something big so you bring the trailer.

EV is an exciting space but this is overstating things by more than a tad. There are still plenty of limitations and tradeoffs compared to ICE vehicles, and pretending otherwise isn't going to help aboption. I considered buying an EV for my latest car but ultimately opted not to for reasons that have been widely discussed (range, UX, price, availability).

I'm not sure I totally agree.

I have a truck, and you're right, for most of my truck use-cases this won't work, primarily due to range issues and lack of ability to quickly top up.

However, for some of my uses where I'm driving a lot of relatively close forestry roads and just hauling survey/engineering gear and the like, it's basically got enough range although it might get tight every once in a while. But it's got the 4wd ability, it can tow a modest trailer, etc. The lack of ability to top off at some rural gas station though is still kind of a deal breaker.

For short duration / light-weight hauling/towing in town, I think this would do fine.

Combine the truck with a gasoline range-extender and it would probably work for me though.

Curious why you say that? I’m seriously considering an EV pickup in next few years. I currently am using a minivan with seats removed for most of my construction and hauling needs (fwiw, I beefed up brakes, monitor tranny temp w/ heavy loads, etc). I don’t usually travel more than a 30mi radius in a day so an EV would be ideal; throw in features like 120/240v or compressed air hookups and I even start rethinking workflows. For now my minivan gets it done as long as I’m careful.

If we’re just making flippant generalizations, I’ll throw out that most people driving brodozers don’t actually “need” a truck and just enjoy the novelty.

I mean, sure, you don't wanna pull a boat, if you're not close to shore. But probably works for construction sites where you might be towing, but not for long distances. Possibly, for smaller site it may mean not having to being your Ingersoll-Rand.

That's an awful lot of money for such a niche tool. I can see it happening regularly and the numbers penciling out if a company regularly worked on say, large commercial projects on large lots. Similar to how the very large trucking companies getting a yard truck for their big trailer yards, for example.

Personally, I'd have to be convinced that these amounts of capex could be amortized over a commensurately longer time period to balance out more traditional solutions.

E150 - $56k

Gas - $3.29 gallon

F150 city fuel economy - 20 mpg.

So if you drive your F150 320k miles in-town, the gas pays for the E150.

This ignores electricity costs, but that makes it worse. So it's not quite worth it yet to buy an E150 to supplement an F150.

150,000mi is approx break-even, taking the price difference into account.

That's assuming you never need the range/capacity of the bigger truck (which may be the case if you have multiple trucks).

I think it would be the perfect farm truck. The bed to move things, like fuel, seed, chemicals, and tools, from field to field, the cabin to move people from field to field, and electricity to power things, like welders or motors, in the field. You don't need much range and you've got tractors (field or highway) around for when you need serious towing capacity. The price is a little much for a farm truck, granted.

Eh, I have a farm and while I was initially excited, the lack of tow range is a dealbreaker. If you have livestock, you need to be able to pull a gooseneck trailer. Since this can't do that for any useful distance, you'd have to have another heavy duty truck around just for this. You're going places like auctions, other farms, slaughterhouse, etc. that are usually out of tractor range.

I was imagining it being a 'service' truck, particularly for grain farms (the kind of farm I have). They don't do much other than cart light things around and don't have to travel that far between fields, and often get towed there behind a tractor anyway. The problem is that nobody keeps a brand new truck as their dedicated service truck. If a good used market ever opens up, though...

Don't the agricultural diesel subsidies Bork the economics on this specific use case?

The only diesel "subsidy" I am familiar with is colored fuel, which exempts the road tax for off-road vehicles. A pickup truck would not be eligible to use such fuel as it is deemed an on-road vehicle. Maybe there is some other subsidy in your jurisdiction?

They're probably imagining a truck that never leaves the farm but even then in most jurisdictions you can't run red-dye in it (though nobody will ever catch you).

And if you never leave the property than you can get one of those electric cart things I guess.

That was indeed what I meant. Lightning vs old red-dye rust bucket farm truck never on the road (wink). The latter seems like it has to be wildly more economical over a full lifetime.

Such a truck doesn't get much use. Even if you broke the law I'd think you'd be hard pressed, at least based on the road tax rate in my jurisdiction, to save more than tens of dollars each year. Hardly makes a difference and certainly not worth the risk for trying.

But you're right that because such vehicles are barely used they start life on the farm as old beaters. That's what I was meaning when I said that the Lighting is too expensive to be a farm truck. Aside from cost, though, they otherwise look quite ideal for the task.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see them doing the task years from now - 20% battery left wouldn’t be an issue and by then probably easier to buy a new one.

The rust bucket is gonna win every single time no matter what, because it already exists and is cheap as hell, so even if it has more costs and emissions when running, it still will be a win over a brand new truck.

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