Ford slashes prices of F-150 Lightning trucks as EV wars heat up | Hacker News Reader

Ford slashes prices of F-150 Lightning trucks as EV wars heat up

reuters.com

31 pointsoblib93 comments

$92,000 for their "Platinum" model. I am surrounded by farmers where I live and there's no way they'll be buying those. I'm stunned that anyone would pay that much for a pickup truck.

A new Mercedes-Benz E-Class E 350 cost $56,750, just slightly more than Ford's lowest priced EV Pickup.

Ford's leaders seem to be way out of touch with working class folks and their sales reports are showing it.

> Ford's leaders seem to be way out of touch with working class folks

To be honest, I think you're the one who is out of touch. The vast majority of pickup trucks sold in the United States are luxury vehicles bought for the purpose of conspicuous consumption, and haul goods only incidentally. Ford knows this and markets/prices the F-150 accordingly.

Correct. Most F-150s are toys. My family were die hard, dyed in the wool union Ford guys, but they finally, begrudgingly, had to switch to Toyota in the 2000s because they 1) couldn't afford Ford trucks (even bare bones ones) 2) were clearly designed for weekend toy pursuits and not real work (everything switched to electric actuation and control panels, carpeted interiors) 3) were too tall for even a tall man to reach in and grab something out of the bed from the side and 4) had a lower ground clearance than the older trucks even though they sat up higher.

> had a lower ground clearance than the older trucks even though they sat up higher

Honest question… do we know how?… (I believe it, FWIW)

I seem to recall it had some parts of the transmission that hung down low and part of the..braking? system that was also very low. Everyone was very upset about it at the time.

Ground clearance is limited by your drive train while ride height can be as tall as you want it.

Portal axle like on the Mercedes G550 4x4 squared.

Older trucks exist. You can actually drive them. And it's summer, people are out driving their classics and taking them to shows. Most of those folks try to keep everything original.

Taller panels on the side of the tub combined with lower hanging side steps, wheel wells and transmission components.

Next time you're out, count how may pickup trucks you see hauling things vs ones that clearly have never hauled anything bigger than a set of golf clubs, which would actually be put in the back seat of quad cab because you don't want them rolling around.

Especially the Lightning, whose range gets decimated the minute you haul any serious payload with it

This has zero to do with what people want to buy. If people actually thought the way you seem to think they do, they'd have switched out for a small efficient gas mileage vehicle long ago. No one buying a truck cares that it's only for occasional haul use. They want that option to be there when they do use it.

You're welcome to go explain to an average F-150 buyer why they shouldn't get to have what they want, or what they paid for with their hard earned money. I'm sure you telling them they only haul stuff occasionally will totally change their minds.

You're reading a lot of stuff into my comment that I did not say, and getting furious at a strawman of my beliefs.

I'm not reading into anything. This is a discussion about people buying stuff and Ford cutting the price because no one wants it.

You disagreeing with them buying a certain vehicle because you subjectively don't think they need it, isn't relevant to the discussion at all.

Would you like to explain why your subjective take on disliking F-150's or trucks in general has anything to do with whether the Lightning is a competitive product? What does this have to do with the average truck buyer wanting a truck?

You responded to a comment telling someone else they were out of touch with what people wanted. You response to this individual was that YOU personally don't like trucks and don't think people need them. How is this representative of the truck buying market?

You clearly don't talk or pay attention to your neighbors.

Trucks are _the_ conspicuous consumption good for rural Americans. It's the easiest way to project wealth. Have you ever seen an F-250 Platinum or an F-150 King Ranch? Those aren't for working class folks, they're for owners.

Farmers buy their trucks as a business expense, before the money has been taxed and disbursed to them personally.

Still expensive, but it's not the same as an individual spending $60-90K of their own personal after-tax money on a truck.

Trucks also don't depreciate as fast as normal cars. If you're getting a significant effective discount by avoiding taxes and then you can sell the truck for half of its original value after 5 years, you may only be "paying" a fraction of the truck's true total cost to drive it.

Source: Grew up around farmers. They loved accounting and tax tricks that could be used to purchase nice trucks.

I'm sorry but neither of those trim packages are out of reach for middle class, and especially if bought used, within reach of "working class" people, whatever that means as there is no fixed definition.

Trucks have shot up dramatically in price in the past few years, however.

The King Ranch starts at ~64k and I bet most go for more, once they are optioned out. These are luxury vehicles at those trim levels.

Average price of a new car is around 49k. What’s an extra $15k-20k when you’re financing for 5, 6, 7 years? Yeah, it’s financially irresponsible, but this is America. The entire system is built on spenders vs savers.

That's a fair point, though I think interest rates are putting a damper on the mentality at the moment. Then again, Ford offers aggressive buydowns to fix that.

The market is weird.

Do you see what working class people drive? It isn’t new $65k vehicles.

The working man’s truck around here (North Bay Area) are late 90s / early 2000s Toyotas and Nissans that can be had for under $10k. Not fancy trim level recent model American trucks.

Not sure you’ve been in the truck market lately, but the only Tacomas under $10k have almost 300,000 miles on it. $20k will get you one with 200,000 miles on it. It’s amazing how well they hold value.

The North Bay Area is not representative of America at large.

I've lived all over, including 20 years in Ohio.

So first of all there is a premium for buying an EV. It’s going down in general, but it’s there.

The 4x4 Limited 4 door SuperCrew 5.5 ft. SB (don’t know what that means) gas F-150 lists for $84k new. People DO buy them at these prices.

You may not think it makes sense, and I agree a fair bit, but they sell.

I was unable to find the average selling price over the last year but I bet that it’s in the 50 to 60 territory.

Gas F-150s really target more of the luxury-recreation suburbanite crowd than the farmer crowd.

If you're going to be regularly towing a lot of weight, or need to move something big, you probably want a bigger model, probably diesel, and probably not the crew cab.

A new F350, regular cab, starts around 50k[0]. The crew starts I think around 60, but most I've seen are definitely at least 75[1].

Anyone paying 80+ for an F150 is gonna get one hell of a nice ride, but it definitely isn't aimed at farmers

0 https://www.kbb.com/cars-for-sale/vehicledetails.xhtml?listi...

1 https://www.kbb.com/cars-for-sale/686365914?vehicleid=464874...

I believe SB is short bed

The most premium model is not for farmers, it's for suburbanites who like to imagine all the projects they want to work on. Likewise, the top-line ICE F-150 isn't for farmers, or you'd be complaining about how the 2023 top-line ICE costs about $85k (according to ford.com)

The existence of that overpriced ersatz luxury work vehicle doesn't stop farmers from buying more reasonably priced, less luxurious versions, and the "Platinum" F-150 Lightning won't stop farmers from getting the more reasonably priced version of that either.

https://shop.ford.com/configure/f150/model/customize

A lot of farmers drive new top-of-the-line F-150's. But they're used the same way suburbanites use them. They're not for work, they're for show. They're not used for anything that could possibly scratch the vehicle.

But any farmer driving a new top-of-the-line F-150 also has a beat-up old work truck, which is the eventual fate of their "go to market" truck.

Mental short-handing that says "Mercedes = luxury" and "Ford truck = working class" is entirely marketing. Whatever the marketing, all F-150s are what their price shows them to be: luxury vehicles.

The median F150 does one-person commutes, groceries, and perhaps an occasional Lazy-Boy, never leaving pavement in its lifetime. Six of the eight varieties of ICE F-150 start at more than than that Mercedes E-Class.

Actual working class folks would buy used trucks from 3-4 years ago whose leases are up, or perhaps the Ford Maverick (https://www.ford.com/trucks/maverick/2023/), which sold so well Ford couldn't keep it in stock.

Unless they significantly improve battery capacity when hauling and towing, I doubt many farmers will be interested in it at any price.

This seems aimed at suburban buyers instead of farmers to me.

In my experience most farmers have solar panels and spend thousands per month on fuel. The thought of "free fuel" will have farmers salivating.

Also, they're heavily self-reliant, so reducing their dependencies on regular fuel deliveries will also be highly appealing.

No, most farmers don't have solar panels. But nevermind free fuel, they have practical work to do. Most farmers are using diesel F350 or similar class pickups because they need 20K to 30K pounds of towing capacity. The F150 lightning or regular gasoline F150 even cannot compete with a diesel engine for doing work.

Farming must be extremely different in America. Here in New Zealand, where agriculture is our primary industry, those massive trucks are extremely rare. The biggest selling cars for farmers are, by a massive margin, the Ford Ranger and the Toyota Hilux.

Yup. Just like in America, construction needs those huge pickups, while around here everyone just uses a van.

In America a lot of our farmers need to haul things like livestock, feed, and hay bales in trailers. The F-150 is very poorly suited to this.

Umm farmers over here also need to haul things lol do you think we're using donkeys?

F150 towing capabilities are far higher now than they used to be. The use case for the 250/350 versions is slimmer as a result.

Isn't the usual line about diesel that CI engines provide superior torque vs. IC? Electric engines are insanely torquey, though, right?

On our farm we pulled trailers containing hay, trash, or a couple of farm animals. Most other stuff (like bags of feed or fertilizer) fit in the bed and didn't need a trailer. A plain 1/2 ton truck is perfectly fine for this kind of work.

In my experience farmers have proper vehicles for towing: a class 8 truck and several agricultural tractors.

And they all also have a light duty truck for chores.

Most of the farmers I know definitely use their pickups for hauling trailers.

A class 8 truck would imply a very large operation, not a typical rural family farm.

As I said, "in my experience". Which is Saskatchewan, where a typical rural family farm is 5000 acres. That's too small to support any employees.

And yes, they use light duty trucks to haul trailers for chores, but those are 5-10,000 pound utility trailers with a bumper mount hitch, not the 20-30,000 pounders with a (presumed) goose neck hitch like you're talking about.

I think you're wrong about this. I grew up on a farm and most of our daily truck trips were 50 miles or less. Given the awesome towing capacity of this beast and roughly 1/4 the cost of fuel per mile, we'd have bought an F-150 Lightning in a heartbeat.

You might have been disappointed with the towing capacity…

https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/ford-f150-lightning-elect...

I have no illusions about pulling RV trailers with an EV. I know about the range hit trailers cause.

But for utility trailer towing for short trips (which is what my comment was about) that's irrelevant. I haul utility trailers with my Model Y all the time. Range doesn't matter because they're all short trips.

I dunno; a farm-use electric with range for a day or two of work plus a trip to town is probably a slam dunk for many working farmers, especially with the other electric benefits.

This is a dishonest cherry-pick. Those farmers are probably targets for the base Pro version. 92k is not way above what a Denali or F-150 limited costs.

"The base Pro variant of Lightning now carries a suggested retail price of $49,995, compared to its prior price of $59,974, while the higher-end Platinum model will cost about 6.2% less, at $91,995."

The disconnect you're missing here is that a max-spec F-150 is a luxury vehicle, not a working vehicle, and the Lightning is a sidegrade to that with other perks.

Maybe not a 92k platinum model, but a family member does farm bankruptcies. I doubt a 60-70k truck would look out of place in many farm communities.

It's not uncommon to buy a nice new pickup every 2-3 years even if the old one is still working fine. Some people have an aversion to paying taxes, so they buy new equipment they don't need but could use.

It reduces their taxable income, but minimizing taxes and maximizing net worth are not always aligned.

I'm surrounded by ranchers mostly driving very expensive diesel pickup trucks. They're not going to buy electric for cultural reasons, but the price seems in the ball park of the vehicles they're already buying.

> They're not going to buy electric for cultural reasons

I know there is a strong desire to hate on rednecks, but farmers/ranchers are extremely quick to pick up on reliably useful technology, and that would include EV trucks. They will sit back and wait for a generation of trucks to show them they are worthwhile.

Sorry, but coal rolling is a widespread cultural phenomenon. Truck drivers deliberately and very publicly harass electric cars on the road. That doesn't mean they're "rednecks," that's your word, and talking about the prevalent anti-electric cultural trend is not "hate."

>Truck drivers deliberately and very publicly harass electric cars on the road.

I'd be interested to know where this is, and what it looks like. I haven't seen this, and while I don't live in rural area it is a big agricultural area and is fly-over country to most at HN. Maybe this is specific to certain brands of electric cars? Or maybe the 2018 and later Nissan Leafs aren't distinctive enough to immediately identify as electric?

I live in rural upstate NY and get coal rolled just for having a normal sedan. Anything perceived as inferior makes you a target for trumpy idiocy here.

I typically see people rolling coal on bicyclers much more often than on EVs.

It’s absolutely hate bread by a superiority complex.

That's because your farmer friends are still driving their 1952 FarmAll chain drive grain truck they've fixed over 1,000 times, which was designed to be repaired, rather than disposed of.

So don't get the Platinum model. I'm surrounded by oil rig workers and they all have $90k trucks

They get 10 year loans….

"slashes" prices to only $10,000 more than when it was introduced...gee

Isn't this like 10%? That much of a discount on a new vehicle certain constitutes "slashed" in my experience, especially lately.

That's the manufacturer's list price. Now there are discounts, too.[1] Big discounts and plenty of inventory on the Ford Mach-E, too. Real prices are below MSRP. There's unmet demand for the small hybrid Maverick pickup, which lists for around US$22K. The giant overpriced pickup thing may have peaked.

There was no good reason that electric vehicles should cost more than comparable gas cars, and reality is setting in.

[1] https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1140181_2023-ford-f-150...

Knee-jerk reaction to Cybertruck's imminent launch? https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/teslas-austin-based-gigafac...

Better input supply and lower costs.

The Mach-E has similarly been going up and down in price based on (mostly) battery cost.

I don’t think Ford is scared of the Cybertruck.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/slow-s...

https://electrek.co/2023/07/13/tesla-most-wanted-car-brand-u...

Tesla is a lifestyle cult. It’ll never convert legacy buyers (Ford and GM loyalists, broadly speaking) in material quantities. Brand demand is young folks that will buy and stay with Tesla.

Tesla can convert me at any second by firing Elon.

They sell almost 2 million vehicles a year. Global auto market is almost 80 million units/year. No need to worry about individual purchases like that.

Imagine you are selling widgets that cost you $40 to make, and you have figured out that the price of widgets where you make the most money is $50. Any higher and you sell too few widgets to make more money. And less and you don't sell enough extra widgets to make up for the lower margins.

One day you found a supplier that is cheaper and reduces your cost to $30. Do you change your price?

If the price was a major problem I had selling my product?

Yeah, I would.

They also just got a $9.2B loan to build out battery factories, so I'd imagine they are keen to keep sales coming in.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/22/23769966/ford-doe-loan-ev...

> I don’t think Ford is scared of the Cybertruck.

I think they don't want CT to pass them in total sales in less than 12 months. Given old pricing, that'd be a real possibility.

They also have inventor building up, due to being priced well above the market.

Musk has already warned, in the last 24 hours, that CT price will be much higher than previously expected. I don't think it's a genuine threat.

He's also warned that Lightning pricing is too high. Given Tesla's manufacturing capacity, it is a meaningful threat. They aren't installing all those casting and stamping machines with the intent to do a Lightning-esque <1k/week.

I think Ford might be scared of the cult-like culture that has been created around Tesla and/or Elon Musk.

I'm not sure it's entirely clear what the Cybertruck means for Tesla or the car industry, but it's obviously not a minor event in this landscape.

Especially after so much speculation on whether or not this truck would ever become a production car.

No one is going to respond to the, CT "imminent" launch until it actually launches. It was revealed 4 years ago and still doesn't have a release date.

They built the 1st one at Giga Texas a couple of days ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeBoij9ISaY

Yes surely the dealers will reduce those prices and not just add on to their "market adjustment".

I don’t think Ford HQ is that stupid. Dealer inventories are up quite a bit.

https://jalopnik.com/dealers-now-have-nearly-two-million-new...

I hope they follow through and go to flat pricing on these. I loathe my local dealership.

Why are they slashing prices at all? Who is their competition? They're worried the market is saturated with the 1 cybertruck that just rolled off the "production line" 4 years late?

Are these imaginary prices like healthcare and college tuition? Is there a good source for what people are actually paying for these vehicles (which could be above or below list)?

Edmunds seems to track prices paid. The data isn't extremely available though as far as I'm aware. They expose it when pricing an individual vehicle as part of their sales referral program.

So now they're almost back to the prices when they were introduced before Ford started price-gouging. Nice.

This is like a competition to see who can lose the most money

Exactly!

EV wars heat up?

That is a great way to describe falling demand.

It’s the opposite. It’s a fight for market share for a growing user base.

Or supply going up. Which most articles on this topic attribute the change to.

Tesla dropped their prices across the board recently too.

Oh weird... I can't believe no one wants to pay MORE for a truck that does less and does it worse than it's ICE counterpart.

It does way, way more. Not only can it haul and drive for essentially free if you have solar panels, it can power your worksite and home for a couple of days for “free” as well. With cheap solar, it can be your daily driver and your farm vehicle.

It doesn't, and you're misrepresenting its hauling capabilities. It cannot haul anywhere close to the range of an ICE vehicle. It's too expensive for the average person as well. There's not a used market etc.