Ford lays off 700 who were building electric version of F-150 | Hacker News Reader

Ford lays off 700 who were building electric version of F-150

cnn.com

94 pointsbelltaco129 comments

Ford is cutting back from 3 shifts to 2. Running 3 shifts is unusual in automotive. You need some downtime for maintenance.

The thing is overpriced. It ought to be cheaper than the gasoline version, but it's not. The legacy automakers treat electric as a trim line - electric comes with every overpriced accessory they can load onto the thing. The base F-150 electric has dual motors and costs $50K. The base F-150 in gasoline costs $35K. There's still that $15K electric premium.

Why ought it to be? Batteries are still expensive.

Are they more expensive than motors? Maybe ford has good economies at scale already to make it up.

For now, yes, a bit more.

Yes, they are more expensive than motors. The F-150 Lightning has ~100kWh of capacity, and last time I looked it up, batteries cost the manufacturer ~$140/kWh, so, $14,000 in batteries. I don't know what the motor costs, but if they're selling for $35k, I can't imagine the motor costs $14,000. Probably a lot less than this.

Where did you find $14K? I'm seeing $35K for a replacement--is Ford really marking these up $20K / 250%?

I was using the most aggressive estimates of how much it costs manufacturers to buy batteries on a per kwh basis. Retail replacement cost for the battery is not anywhere near the cost to manufacture the battery.

It is my understanding that 250% is lower than normal markup on automotive service parts bought from a. dealership.

Economy of cars is weird. As a manufacturer You sell today for a single price. But you have to account for free, expensive warranty work for many years. And recalls. And you have to manufacture, stock, and make available random parts in somewhat predictable but somewhat not quantities for decades.

So a gadget that may have cost 50c to produce technically, will be priced at 8.99,for any of the above reasons - subsidize warranty costs, storage costs, etc.

Basically, I wish most car parts had only 250% markup!

According to some rudimentary Google sleuthing, the battery alone costs about $35K which is about the starting cost of a new gasoline F-150. So yes, the battery alone (i.e., excluding electric motors) is much more expensive than an entire ICE drivetrain.

It's essentially very difficult to make a cheaper electric pickup truck because batteries are expensive and you need to have a lot of battery capacity to move a big, boxy pickup truck ~300 miles on a single charge. If you trade off range, people won't buy it (it's already hard enough to persuade pickup truck owners to buy something that has very little towing range and for which there aren't good charging options for a truck with a trailer in tow) and there isn't a lot you can do to make up the range by lightening or streamlining the vehicle without increasing costs. Maybe economies of scale could help, but it's hard to imagine economies of scale without increased demand, which is hard to imagine without lower costs, etc.

It's worth mentioning that electric vehicles in general have to contend with the Tyranny of the Rocket Equation[1][2], and something like an electric truck that demands bursts and even constant high power draws exacerbates the problem severely.

The gist of the problems EVs face right now is that the energy density of batteries do not compete with fossil fuels.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation

[2]: "In what has been called 'the tyranny of the rocket equation', there is a limit to the amount of payload that the rocket can carry, as higher amounts of propellant increment the overall weight, and thus also increase the fuel consumption."

The rocket equation is not directly applicable. An electric car still works if it has less capacity and lower energy density. It is just slower and or has a lower range.

Rockets need to produce >1g of acceleration or they don't get to leave earth.

It is because an electric vehicle needs to move its own batteries as part of itself (obviously), but you also need more batteries to provide competitive driving range/power because the energy density is so low.

Thus, you need to install more batteries to compensate for the increased workloads that a truck would forseeably experience, but you need more batteries to convey those batteries which requires bigger motors which requires more batteries and herein lies the Tyranny of the Rocket Equation.

At some point you need a breakthrough in energy efficiency or energy storage density because you hit an upper practical limit on how much energy storage you can haul around.

ICE cars and trucks must also technically contend with this, but in practice they do not because fossil fuels are so energy dense that we almost never meet that upper practical limit.

Not really though? You have a similar (but not quite as bad) multiple for ICE cars with engines/transmission/fuel.

Rockets it’s exponentially worse. Which is why the saying.

The rocket equation says nothing about how much acceleration you're going to get. It relates fuel mass and exhaust velocity to payload mass and delta-v. The 'tyranny' isn't 'you didn't accelerate fast enough and you will not go to space today', it's 'for a given rocket exhaust speed capability, there is a maximum payload you can possibly lift to a target delta v (i.e. to a target orbit or planet or whatever), no matter how much fuel you throw at the problem'.

The metaphorical rocket equation's worse for batteries than for gasoline, since they don't get appreciably lighter as the energy is used up, whereas with a gas engine you can throw the spent fuel out into the atmosphere for someone else to deal with.

The rocket equation's only metaphorical here because the rocket equation's tyranny is really about how much reaction mass you have to carry, not so much the energy store. Chemical rockets kill two birds with one stone by extracting energy from fuel+oxidizer then using the waste products as reaction mass. But you can go with a nuclear powered rocket that gets all its energy from uranium and just uses plain water or something as reaction mass. The rocket equation's 'tyranny' is that your rocket constantly has to accelerate the reaction mass it plans to use later.

Cars - electric or gasoline - do not require any reaction mass, though.

Isn't that precisely why brand establishment and range per dollar for EV from that brand seem to inversely correlate? i.e. Toyota < Nissan < GM < Ford < VW < Volvo < Tesla < Lucid.

All those cars do 0-60s in 5s, differentiation is in range and newer brands always mysteriously do better in that column. Can't be just lower Cd or magic especially when Toyota has been shipping Prius since 1997.

Yeah, this is my assumption. According to a quick Google search, the battery alone costs as much as a new ICE F-150 (~$35K per Google). I've got to think that a minimalist F-150 lightning would still cost at least $60K and there probably isn't a very big market for people who are willing to pay almost double just to have an electric truck. The bells and whistles help to make the thing compelling.

F-150 Lightning has no transmission and uses vastly simpler motors instead of an engine. The drive train is also a lot simpler.

All new R&D

All new supply chain

All new tooling

All new mfring procedures

All new distribution and sales channel

More than your usual front end costs. It kinda adds up

That goes for any new lineup. It cost Tesla roughly half a billion to get their Model S to production, but at $48B profit over the past two years, I'm sure it's just the cost of business for Ford to enter a rapidly growing market.

Tesla was artificially subsidized by selling carbon offset credits to traditional manufacturers, for example Ford. Otherwise they would not have been able to sell cars at such a huge loss. I don’t have a citation for this, but it was reported in the FT.

if it wasnt for govt subsidies, there wouldn't also be any cars made by USA ownership from GM, Chrystler etc on the roads, at least for the for the last decade or so.

The primary funds for the development of the Model S was a government loan for renewable technologies. That loan plus interest was paid back.

That doesn't mean the manufacturing is as well tuned.

To end consumers you're asking them to pay 15k+ "for the same thing". Obviously not true but when the F-150 vs F-150 the 15k is a lot?

People are used to paying some 10-20% for "extras" but 35k + 15k?! that's a big leap.

It's not the same thing. The F150 lightning is faster and electric.

Utility-wise it's "the same thing" for many.

You don't need a pickup truck if those are your deciding factors.

The F-150 Lightning is pretty useless as a truck, with the largest battery storing as much energy as 4 gallons of gas[1]. If you want a truck get a gas or diesel truck, if you want fast and electric you have better options that don't waste electricity hauling around a heavier vehicle and unused truck bed.

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

> You don't need a pickup truck if those are your deciding factors.

And yet… gestures towards US car sales figures

Hah, yes rational markets and all that

Okay, but people buy all sorts of impractical to things. I just said it was different and listed how. Sounds like there are more ways it is different.

>with the largest battery storing as much energy as 4 gallons of gas

And? You're comparing apples and oranges. I don't care how much energy my vehicle can hold, I care about how far I can go with that energy.

You're making a 'feature' out of an ICEs inherent inefficiency.

Electric car will very soon be far cheaper to produce because they are not as complex and use less man hours to produce.

Cost of batteries is the limiting factor. They are expensive.

They are falling in price by around 10% / year. That’s not even counting cheap Chinese battery chemistries.

Consumers of the truck don't care. The car and the price has to make sense. Just making it "electric" is not good enough. If it charges longer, is heavier, or has reduced range or towing capacity, it better be a lot cheaper to operate/insure or have other pluses to compensate. If it doesn't people won't buy it.

Consumers of the truck overwhelmingly buy it because it looks like a truck, not because they actually have any need for a truck. Not entirely sure they care about the price making sense.

But it’s a heavier, more expensive and taking longer to “refuel” truck. Even people who buy it and rarely use it for towing or hauling stuff like to at least imagine themselves doing it.

But, yeah, I electric cars are cool, and sometimes are people splurging for that feature, but I don’t see it for consumers traditionally buying trucks. If anything it’s an anti-feature almost for them.

It doesn’t take longer to refuel necessarily, for those that charge at home and only do rare 200+ mile trips they will actually save time. Since I got my home charger 3 months ago I’ve spent the same amount of time “waiting” on my mobile phone charging as my car - none.

Probably close to an hour saved at petrol stations over the same period.

That's a fair point. Yeah, I agree those that can charge it at home or a at a depot (for a fleet) this could make sense.

You aren't answering the parents question.

You're talking about value to the consumer, the parent is talking about expense to manufacture.

I'm still not sure what the gp is referring to. They could be making a moral argument as far as I can work out.

Consumers don’t care if it’s batteries that are expensive or the motor or the paint. The product is too expensive for them overall. Unless it is a monopoly and they have to have a truck and the only option is the electric f-150, they are going to buy something else.

Sure, if Ford still wanted to sell them they could find a way to make cheaper batteries or sell at a loss for a while.

>Sure, if Ford still wanted to sell them they could find a way to make cheaper batteries

You've already accepted that ford doesn't have a monopoly, so assuming we're agreed on the same basic tenets of free market capitalism they do want to sell them, and are already trying to find ways to make batteries cheaper.

You can't just hand wave away all that complexity.

Just because EVs aren't as cheap as you personally think they should be, doesn't mean ford isn't trying.

Any company that could make an electric car that wasn't treated like a trim would run out of lithium or rare earth metals to make batteries because it'd be too popular. They've all massively underinvested in lithium 5-10 years ago and are just catching up now.

That explains why they seem on overcharging for an electric car. Because right now, demand is above supply.

You know what would be awesome, an electric minivan.

The id.buzz looks great, but has low range and lacks a lot of nice amenities. The Canoo looks really great, but low range and I can’t tell if the company is actually ever going to produce their van.

It seems like rivian has a platform that could make a great minivan, 400 mile range, maybe an adventure style one. Where’s the Chrysler all electric Pacifica? This is the class of vehicle that we need in my family.

There probably isn’t one for the same reason minivans in general are unpopular.

You could say the Model X is pretty close to being a minivan. Granted it’s nearly six figures in price.

One of the things going on in the market is CAFE rules in the US encouraging trucks and suvs as it allows them to make a larger profit than standard pedestrian vehicles. The car companies market these vehicles very aggressively.

I thought that was about gas engines, but because there are so many on the road now people want bigger vehicles to be “safer” from everyone else on the street, which is a vicious cycle. The minivan was very popular until car companies started pushing the suv as a way around CAFE. The thing we need to do is remove the CAFE exemptions for trucks, and this problem might start correcting itself.

Pretty sure we did remove CAFE exemptions for trucks and it made things worse. Unified CAFE standards by footprint mean small trucks are unsellable, a 4 cylinder, single cab, 6 foot bed truck is all the truck a lot of people need, but they don't get enough mpg for CAFE, so make it wider, longer, and give it a bigger engine, and make it taller while you're at it.

Hm, I know that the Obama admin set more stringent standards, and then the Trump admin reduced them, did the truck exemption get removed?

Here’s the Biden admins rules, which really seems like putting lipstick on a pig at this point, “ The rule’s impact would vary among different types of vehicles. Mileage requirements for passenger cars would rise 2 percent a year from 2027 to 2032, and 4 percent a year for light trucks and SUVs over the same time period. The requirement for heavy-duty pickup trucks and vans would rise 10 percent a year starting in 2030.”

Ok, I looked again, and I was fairly widely off.

Small footprint trucks (s-10) do have a very high mpg target for a truck, but it's still less than a car of the same footprint. Not far enough lower to encourage their production, of course.

Large 'small trucks' like the current Ranger have a target that's lower than a car of similar footprint (which is the largest footprint listed for cars); and larger trucks have even lower targets.

I disagree that that is the primary reason for the minivan’s demise. They were plain and simply viewed as supremely uncool, even during the height of their popularity. Most people bought them because they had to, not because they were beloved.

Now, the typical modern CUV isn’t exactly considered cool either, but they are the byproduct evolved from SUVs that were often seen as being cooler than minivans. Ironically real SUVs have become a small niche product too nowadays.

100% yes please. They have so much room and height, good visibilty, and aren’t built like tanks to mow down pedestrians, cyclists and other vehicals.

Americans vehicle choice is like 70% about the aesthetics, which makes minivans unpopular (and SUVs took over instead).

As an owner of both, I'd say this video sums up my views on minivans.

https://youtu.be/NvDSTGx9E_s

TLDW: once you have 3 kids, they are amazing.

An SUV is a minivan that men aren't ashamed to drive. That's why they took over.

Except they have much less space inside

And less practical. And drive worse.

Seriously, slide doors are amazing! Wish that Mazda 5 found bigger success.

(on aside, and this may be dangerous territory to discuss, but in my extended group of friends, it is men/husbands that are championing minivans on their practicality, and women/wives resisting the perception of "soccer mom image",even though I think that's a 20 year old stereotype - soccer moms have been driving wildly impractical SUVs for decades! My group is largely functionality-oriented nerds of one sort or another, so other groups of men may well have significantly different prerogatives and are more "yargh big strong SUV yargh!" :)

The cramped nature of small to midsize SUVs seriously dampens their appeal to me. It's ridiculous that such bulky vehicles have a hard time besting a tiny Honda Fit or Toyota Matrix when it comes to interior space.

I don't claim to understand the SUV buying public, but as a man I'd be more ashamed of driving an SUV than a mini van.

There are ~4 minivans on the market because there isn't lots of demand or profit there. Don't expect an EV in that segment any time soon.

We own a plug-in hybrid Pacifica and it’s fantastic. Refill the gas tank every 3 months or so.

> Where’s the Chrysler all electric Pacifica? This is the class of vehicle that we need in my family.

There's nowhere to stuff the batteries you'd need. (Modern) minivans have a low ride height, and not a lot of room under the floor. The hybrid Pacifica puts its batteries in the underfloor storage area where middle seats would fold in on a gas only van. The volume used for the engine and transaxle isn't going to get you very much additional range.

Ford has an e-transit commercial offering, but range is only 126 miles, fine for around town and a lot of contractor work, but we do a lot of weekend trips in our van where that small of range would be problematic.

Wikipedia talks about an e-Transit Custom with estimated range of 263 miles to start production in second half of 2023. If that turns up, it might work for you.

Information about the coming Volvo EM90 minivan seems to have come out today:

https://electrek.co/2023/10/16/volvo-em90-images-leaked-reve...

I'm not a truck guy, but the Ford Lightning looks pretty cool. I wish it wasn't so expensive.

> I wish it wasn't so expensive

And yet they're making a huge loss on each unit sold.

Loss? Are you thinking of Rivian?

https://www.thestreet.com/technology/ford-loses-nearly-60000...

Ford as well

I'd read that link, but the ads on that site are cancerous.

I didn't know Ford was also operating at a loss on their EV trucks as well.

It's incoherent anyway - in the annoying way these analyst reports often are. Just confusing startup and presales costs with steady-state operations to claim they're losing massive amounts of money when it's obviously just the launch expense + engineering + prototyping amortized over the first few thousand cars they'd sold. By that silly measure, they've already cut "losses" to only $30k/sale.

All of those reports strike me as deceptive. The reports are just for the current state which include startup and R&D costs that will be recouped over the lifetime of that model.

A lot of the covid supply chain high prices were(and are being) captured by car dealerships who then used a portion to buy off politicians to stop car companies from selling cars directly, on top of existing laws.

E.g. https://reason.com/2023/06/15/florida-doubles-down-on-anti-c....

So car companies couldn't build a rainy day cash fund or increase wages or pay bonuses(or pay dividends to shareholders). Dealer markups on some high demand vehicles are still insane, easily 10k to 20k+. I wish more car companies could sell directly like Tesla does(which is banned from selling in several states including Texas where they have a big new factory).

> Dealer markups on some high demand vehicles are still insane, easily 10k to 20k+.

So there's obviously a demand for them at that price.

Sure, maybe Ford should be able to sell cars themselves if they want to. But they'd be selling them at the same price and pocketing that extra $10-$20k themselves, rather than letting the consumer keep it.

Manufacturers tend not to raise prices when there is a shortage due to supply constraints. This hurts their revenue but maintains brand loyalty. Many pickup truck buyers are intensely loyal to a particular brand and the manufacturers are smart enough not to burn that goodwill. They would ban dealer mark-ups if they could.

Disclosure: I work for GM. Anything here is solely my own opinion or understanding.

For the highest priced and shortest supply vehicles, yes, dealerships added huge "dealership fees"; automakers did quite well themselves. The bonuses (for salaried employees) and profit sharing (for hourly union workers) were good in the past few years.

I'd be really interested in a much smaller / cheaper version, like an all-electric maverick.

Yeah. The practical uses for an F150 (towing, hauling) seem ridiculous for an EV. The Ranger/Maverick would have been better candidates.

It's the F-150, but with an electric motor. What's "cool" about it?

There's nothing fresh. Same boring design. Throw in a cool marketing name "F-150 LiGhTnInG" and a battery pack and people think this is "innovation"?

What a joke.

> What's "cool" about it?

People like electronic trucks, and people like the Ford F-150.

> There's nothing fresh. Same boring design.

It’s literally the top selling vehicle in America. Clearly people are OK with the design. But now it’s an electric truck.

> Throw in a cool marketing name "F-150 LiGhTnInG" and a battery pack and people think this is "innovation"?

I don’t think many people think it’s anything beyond an electric F-150. That’s enough for a whole lot of people.

A big enough battery that its designed to plug into your home not just to charge but also as a powerwall for your house. Just like the Maverick used to. /S

Except that it is different because it has a frunk. So many other companies are putting out electric cars but can't figure out how to have a frunk, let alone one as big as the f150's.

What makes you think there’s a point to anything about it other than that it’s electric? The boring design is a good thing. It’s not trying to be “cool” or even innovative really. It’s simply trying to be electric.

the namesake Lightning was an F150 gussied up with some suspension work and a supercharger, it sort of fits.

The 90's version was just a sticker kit and some options made standard equipment. It came with was the 351 instead of a 302, but you could have ordered that yourself without the fancy stereo and ugly wheels and monochrome paint.

I think what you're failing to understand is that Ford had a great legacy with the SVT F150 Lightning back in the 90s. For any car buff the "Lightning" moniker is a kind of rekindling of pushing the envelope back in the SVT days of Ford.

Now I'm not saying the electric Lightning has anything SVT-like about it in its current form. In fact I had to take a vehicle of mine to a Ford service center (which I avoid at all cost) a few times over the last few weeks to work out a random transmission bug with them and I was surprised at the number of Mach-E and Lightning there for service. But the Lightning was a great pedigree from days gone by and it's unfortunate the vehicle of today isn't really what he originally stood for [0].

I'm not sold on Ford's current entrants into the EV space. I think there are much better options for the money. Ford also let dealerships full on rip people off when they were hard to get. That, in itself, is inexcusable and they should be held accountable.

[0] https://horsepowermemories.com/2014/08/09/1993-1995-and-1999...

There are far more buyers for a boring EV F-150 at a competitive price point with competitive range than something quirky, "cool", and impractical (for real work duty) like the Cybertruck.

For every one comment like yours - “same boring design” - there are a hundred comments from auto enthusiasts who really don’t want EVs to have different design language.

I wanted it when it was 45k, it’s too expensive now.

The morning after the Lightning announcement, I put money down on one. I've never bought a brand new vehicle, never owned a truck, never owned a Ford. That's how impressive the vehicle was - its features AND price.

Then the wait came, and with it, the price hike. I was expecting around $40k or so, all in. By the time I was able to place an order, I could only get a premium trim, and I would have had to pay beyond $75k, iirc. So I won't be buying a Ford anytime soon. Too bad.

If you need an electric truck - it shouldn't be as big as an F-150 - it should be more the size of a hilux.

There needs to be two kinds of electric vehicles - 250 mile rangers and 150 mile rangers - and the 150 mile rangers need to use Sodium Ion batteries.

Make them cheap - make sodium ion electric vehicles the cheapest vehicle on the road. Put 2013 tech in it outside of the drive train.

Electric vehicles tend to wind up big because you need big batteries for infrequent but regular long trips like vacations or holidays. The median day can be covered by the tiny battery in a plug in hybrid but there's a reliable number of outlier days people don't want to mess with charging every 2 hours while juggling all the other stress on those longer travel days.

EVs are a cost center. So when the squeeze shows up, EVs are first on the chopping block.

Everything is a cost center. Producing anything takes money. If they don't want to pay anything, the company might as well pack up.

> Everything is a cost center

Their gas/diesel trucks are definitely a profit center.

sounds like an Innovator's Dilemma...

Not for long

Not fundamentally, they aren’t. Tesla and a few Chinese companies are making very good money on EVs.

Tesla nor the Chinese have been doing business with the UAW for 50+ years; nor do they sit in the same regard with stock analysts as the detroit companies.

Those points are neither here nor there.

Tesla has pretty much the best margin in car industry, even when comparing their pure EV production to traditional ICE cars.

Pretty much all other companies, including Ford, loose money on EVs. Some loose more than others.

The difference between Ford pay and Tesla pay is not even close to explain the profitability gap.

It's more about Tesla making way more cars and therefore paying less for components and batteries and raw materials.

It's about Tesla working on batteries for many years and jumping quickly on newer, cheaper batteries from CATL and BYD.

It's about their cars being more efficient and therefore needing smaller (and cheaper) batteries.

It's about vertical integration.

It's about manufacturing advances like giga casting.

> so-called “sub pay,” which is paid by the companies. Together unemployment benefits and sub pay covers 74% of their normal pay while laid off. But the F-150 Lightning workers who are laid off will be eligible for both unemployment and sub pay

I had no idea ford had to pay 74% in wages after laying off! For how long?

Sounds more like a furlough than a layoff.

Probably something negotiated by the union.

Disclosure: I work for GM. Anything here is solely my own opinion or understanding.

Layoff means something different to automakers. It's a layoff so that they can draw unemployment. Traditionally there was a two week layoff in July for model changeover. It was basically a two week vacation for a lot of workers, while they were technically unemployed.

So yes, it's more or less a furlough.

Apparently as long as they are eligible for unemployment - https://www.natlawreview.com/article/advantages-and-challeng...

Ford pays sub pay, and that combined with unemployment benefits is 74%, Ford doesn't pay the entire 74%.

It is not unusual in factories like that to have weeks long temporary layoffs, do to reduced demand or shutting down to retool, so it makes sense for automakers to offer these types of benefits, rather than severence, which is more of a permanent seperation type of thing.

The "jobs bank" concept, which all detroit automakers have a form of, has been going on for decades. You come to the factory, and play cards or watch TV, potentially for years, draw a paycheck and benefits...until you take your retirement.

It was originally conceived as a way to make it less likely to offshore production: "look, you have thousands of workers you're already paying, just twiddling their thumbs! Give them some cars to build!"

This has not quite panned out.

Disclosure: I work for GM. Anything here is solely my own opinion or understanding.

The jobs bank went away in the 2009 bankruptcies/reorganization.

I was astounded the first time I read about it in the '90s; and even more so when it was still going on in 2006. The fixed cost of labor as a whole, and not just salary + benefits for a worker, but n workers at that rate, is daunting.

Especially when it would be possible to build the same # of units with .25n workers.

Disclosure: I work for GM. Anything here is solely my own opinion or understanding. (Repeating because this is more opinionated)

The bankruptcies weren't caused by one thing, but cost of labor was a large factor. Perhaps a bigger factor was the pressure to keep producing non-competitive, money losing products so as to maintain employment numbers. Unions do a lot for their members, and they should, but they cannot save a bad product.

In my opinion, over-financialization was the other top factor. You can read "Bean Counters vs Car Guys" by Bob Lutz for an explanation of this.

Who knew that $70k+ pickup trucks were also a 0% interest rate phenomenon.

Even IC trucks are pretty close to 70k these days

Many IC trucks are expensive, but the best selling truck, the Toyota Tacoma has a base price of only 28k. Realistically, they end up being mid-30s once outfitted by the dealer, but still a big value compared to the lightning.

Technically the F-150 has a base price of $33k -- but in the real world, the ASP for one is north of $60k now. Similar to how the $28k starting-price Tacoma actually sells for north of $40k on average.

The price is going up in '24 as well, by about 4k per model. However they are putting their Co-Pilot package (blind spot info system, collision detection, lane keep), extended range fuel tank and 12" screen standard across the board. This is bound to annoy fleet purchases but overall at 37K it's a nice truck at the basic trim level.

The Co-Pilot stuff is good to have standard as it increases the safety of the big, unwieldy trucks.

Some of those higher priced models are priced so business owners and the truck manufacturer can optimize for the Business Use Depreciation Deduction [0] [1] (and also convos with family friends)

[0] - https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/small-business-taxes/bu...

[1] - https://www.crestcapital.com/section-179-deduction-vehicle-l...

Does § 179 look at price? I thought it's only based on weight.

It's based on weight, but the $70k+ models tend to weigh around 10,000-14,000 LB

Not even close.

A new GMC Sierra Denali and mega cab RAM 3500 goes for around that much - though to be fair, it's often bought be people who either have more money than sense or (more commonly) by someone running a small business that requires lugging stuff (eg. Construction)

Neither of those trucks weigh anywhere near the quoted weights. The average full size pickup is around 6000 pounds.

A Megacab 3500 for both GMC and RAM is 16,000 LB, is covered by Section 179, and $70k+. They're also amazing workhogs.

Ah, I see you're quoting the "every seat occupied, full load, with a trailer attached" weight. To be clear, the trucks you referenced weigh only ~7000 pounds.

Yep! The Towing Capacity/Gross Vehicle Weight is the measurement used in Section 179, as this is primarily meant to help smaller construction companies and taxi companies, and they don't want people abusing it to buy a Ferrari or a Lamborghini and still deduct it as business expenses.

I'll never understand the attraction of these "light duty" vehicles. Very impractical. Unnecessarily large vehicles. You are sitting so high up and a large amount of your view is obstructed by the hood (additional view obstructed by the pillars). The bed of these pickups will barely fit your lumber for a DIY project. Have to put the tailgate down and secure it properly. Let's not forget the poor efficiency due to extra weight and will drive like shit on the road.

I would say 99% of the people that own these "light duty" trucks are really just compensating for their insecurities.

They are dangerous to pretty much anyone and anything not inside of them. Only 15% are actually used for work.

I have to wonder if part of the attraction of very large vehicles is getting enough elevation so that headlights aren't quite so annoying/dangerous. Driving around a sedan, I'm regularly blinded by oncoming traffic when driving at night.

Something needs to be done. Some of these headlights that people are driving with are not safe for others on the road.

It's an arms race. To feel safe, you need a larger car. When you get a larger car, now other people feel unsafe. And so the bloat goes, until the best selling cars in the US are glorified tanks and Ford doesn't even manufacture sedans anymore.

Same old tired “if you have a big truck you have a small peepee” nonsense. Trucks are useful, I’m a full on convert now after years of shitting on them. Plus big vehicles look good and feel good, small peepee or not. Couple those things with an electric vehicle that charges for free off my solar panels and it’s a win-win-win.

Upvoting because the sentiment is accurate; most truck detractors do not have adequate understanding of why they are popular (and thus also don't understand how hypocritical an electric truck is, as EV tech stands today) and what purposes they serve their drivers.

That depends. If you’re hauling massive loads like an RV behind you it may not be feasible outside of 100-150 miles on a charge. However for most other things like hauling things in the bed of your truck, or a small camper, you can get very close to the advertised range which makes it very useful and far from hypocritical. Add on benefits like a massive moving source of electricity and it more than makes up for its transitory (batteries are improving fast) deficiencies.

I'm still dismayed that I can fit an 8' long piece of lumber into a Ford Fiesta hatchback but not into a pickup truck. What is up with that?

> The UAW’s targeted strike at a total of five assembly factories at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis have prompted all three companies to lay off workers.

In other words, this layoff seems to really be about pressuring the autoworkers union to end its strike.

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