A week with a Ford F-150 Lightning
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
The Lightning is no bigger than a typical F-150.
And the F-150 is the #1 best selling vehicle (on a # of units basis) than any other vehicle in the US (car or truck).
States like Texas, residents in rural areas throughout the US, and Trade's people - love trucks and they love in particular Ford.
For Trade roles, this Lightning truck is super exciting. The Fuel savings is huge for this buyer, and the ability to plug in all of your power tools directly into the truck to be used at the worksite is huge benefit.
Note: I don't even own a truck, but this is a very frustrating article to read due to the author being so uninformed.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g43553191/bestselling-cars...
Of course, not a massive sample size, but spending time both in a large American metro as well as in the rural, farming hinterlands of my state, I rarely meet people with pickups who could honestly say they need it. One cattle farmer I'm friends with has a Ford F-250 but it's like 20 years old.
63% of American truck buyers never hook anything up to the trailer hitch. It is a costume, or most charitably, a somewhat reasonable consequence of our whacked out emissions laws, our terrible safety regulations and traffic engineering standards (which are imo criminal), and a simple calculus of "what do I buy if I want the most car for the least amount of money". The last point is of no consequence if it that choice doesn't affect anyone else, but that simply isn't the case. The most optimal personal choice is rarely the most optimal societal choice, but the consequences of the bad societal choice are not felt as acutely even if they're far worse. More barely utilized pickups is bad for everyone.
And this is what the owners themselves told the survey:
* https://www.axios.com/2023/01/23/pickup-trucks-f150-size-wei...
* https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...
(1) https://files.catbox.moe/ijw037.png (2) https://files.catbox.moe/12vmal.jpeg
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_PT_Cruiser
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy
People in trades generally seem to use beat up vans or beat up whatever truck is cheap and runs and you don’t mind it getting dinged
That said, I live in Houston where pickups reign, and the F-150 is probably the most common. When you have a truck at your disposal all the time, you make different choices about what you buy, when you buy it, etc. Traffic jam on the freeway? You regularly see trucks cross the curb, into the grass, and onto the feeder road.
Also it influences your lifestyle. Impromptu camping etc is not a concern. Our company is a software company in the shipping space, but my boss drives a 4x4 because he owns land that he goes to every weekend.
My friends and I go improptu camping on a Volvo V60 in Sweden all the time. You don't need a truck to go camping.
I'm assuming that because "impromptu camping" is an option we're not talking about someone who has kids in the first place, but even if they did I can't imagine needing a whole truck for that, especially when smaller-but-still-giant vehicles like SUVs exist.
I recently bought a Hyundai Ioniq 5, but I would kill for a 1:1 replica of the Honda Fit but electric. I'm pretty sure it's the ideal car.
I don't think I'd trust a F-150 to go places where the V60 XC 4x4 can't access. A G-class yes.
If they are signaling, they are literally asking to be judged. I see absolutely nothing wrong with giving them what they wish for
I grew up in a rural farming area. The people who seemed most reasonable had big trucks and other heavy equipment (and/or work animals) for utility on the farm, and small efficient cars for trips to town.
Insisting on idling one's massive farm machine in front of a preschool smells like posturing and costly romanticism, in resources and health.
Yeah, this would be like a reviewer of a MOBA game sub-headlining the review "It's not for FPS players."
Outrage gets clicks, and there's a contingent that loves to hate on trucks, roads, conservatives (the assumed drivers of trucks), etc.
IMHO, a more honest headline would be "A week with a Ford F-150 Lightning: This truck cannot fit into a compact-car parking space," since that gets at the absurdity:
> At the same time, I realize I'm not the Lightning's intended audience. I have no need for a pickup truck in my life, as evinced by the fact that I never once used the Lightning's bed.
I can't even see it being very popular in the trades here, since trades people often have to utilize street parking at work sites.
The main drawback of owning it, honestly, is that there's always the worry that someone in a behemoth pickup will collide with me, and I'd come off the worse from that.
I'm sure there are people out there who actually need the capacity of a pickup truck... but I don't think that most of the people who own one actually do. Certainly not the people you see driving them in town with an empty bed.
I wouldn't mind the flexibility of having a pickup truck shaped object because I never use the rear seats and always have them folded down for moving around other stuff, but nobody makes tiny pickups like they did in the 80s/90s. I also can't be alone in thinking this because I've seen an explosion in 80s Japanese micro trucks around town recently after some people documented the import process online.
The Japanese do!
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_truck
:)
100% true. Sadly our Fit was destroyed by a Big Azz Truck that didn't see it.
I never understood this, don't the presumably mature adult engineers and product managers who design lighting systems at places like Ford and Chevy not have children of their own, some of which being infants have to sit in rear-facing seats and get their retinas seared by these aggressively attention-seeking manhood cosplay accessories?
It's only an issue if you make it sound like an issue. Certainly worth it for only needing it once every 2-3 years, as most truck owners actually do.
It would be really nice to own a cleaner, more spacious home rather than a bunch of tools, most days.
And yea, I can still just wait for another piece of wood to be delivered - or I could just ask someone who has a truck to help me.
*Also Home Depot / Lowes lumber is garbage tier. I don't trust them to just send me whatever 2x6s I select online. If you don't go to the store and actually inspect the wood, you're just gonna get curved pieces.
Up until very recently it was basically impossible to make a pickup truck style vehicle meet CAFE standards so they stopped making any pickups that were regulated under that standard. Instead they switched to making "trucks", unencumbered by regulations, which had to be over a certain weight (read: huge). Before CAFE, there were tons of tiny pickup trucks like the early gen rangers/tacomas. Once CAFE hit, those same trucks suddenly became huge road tanks.
I dont do those things.
It's actually extremely convenient because I run my own business. Being able to do things you need for your business without renting a truck is very useful. I do a lot of hardware building, equipment moving, etc.
Walk outside in any city and you will see tradespeoples trucks, vans. That's me.
To be clear, my point isn't to try to make you feel bad about your choice, but to demonstrate why it's bad on a societal level to have this profusion of large vehicles. Societal problems need societal solutions.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tall-trucks-suvs-are-45-dea...
[2] https://www.epa.gov/dera/learn-about-impacts-diesel-exhaust-...
Yes, and you should go out of your way to minimize this as much as possible, as a high priority of life in a shared space with other people. Rather than make it worse, on purpose, because "f150ck you, I got mine" (which is at least honest), or failing that, whatever excuse serves to mask the juvenile selfishness of this attitude.
I’m so exhausted of the constant online morality policing over such inane, trivial things like this. Hell, it’s even electric rather than a gas-guzzler like the normal F-150, and people are still screeching because “iT’S tOo BiG!”. Yeah bro, because trucks aren’t made to be DoorDash vehicles in NYC, they’re made to haul RVs to the lake and lumber to the build site.
And I disagree that it's inane or trivial. Motor vehicle crashes kill ~45k Americans per year, the leading preventable cause of death for everyone 4-21 years old and the second-leading cause for 22-67 year olds [1], and the numbers are climbing. As my comment pointed out, light trucks are ~50% deadlier in collisions with pedestrians (don't have the data on-hand for other vehicle inhabitants). Anecdotally, I have friends and family members who have been hit by cars and lucky enough to survive, but (knowing the details of the cases) likely would not have were they hit by a 5'-bonnet-height truck.
I agree trucks aren't made for tooling around cities, but for heavier duty activites. What's upsetting is that more and more vehicles like this _are_ being used for city and suburban daily driving where all of their externalities are at their worst and none of their utility is needed.
[1] https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/deaths-by-demograph...
I live right where the interstate dumps into the city, we have soot on our windows. The problem is real, but the diesel trucks, big trucks, are 95% of the problem, not the 5k miles I drive a year in my truck.
While true, that's a pretty low bar. I wouldn't bring that up as an argument in defense of it, because it comes off kind of like "at least it's not burning bunker oil!"
The rest of your situation makes perfect sense, though. You need something with that power and size regularly enough to justify owning one, and rather than have 2 vehicles, you just use the one you already have for other things. That's completely reasonable.
This is astoundingly obvious when you park an unmodified 80's-90's vehicle next to something new.
The question to me is what overall reduces mortality rates, improved roll-over and side impact protection or driver visibility?
Personally I think blind spots everywhere suck and would much prefer better visibility.
Just because they made a window bigger or a member longer doesn't mean it's weaker. They could have changed the material to something twice as strong, added hidden structures, etc.
The difference is mandated crash testing, and now simulated crash testing. They are required by law to build cars that are safe, and test to make sure they truly are.
My car is the smallest available 4 seat car in the US.
I actually don't use either often to commute, I bike.
As I said, we use the truck for RV travel mostly.
1) Safety - you're more likely to survive a major accident in a truck, since you won't be out-sized by every other truck on the road. My take: An annoying argument since it's trucks that created this problem in the first place, but a plethora of trucks are already on the road.
2) Mileage isn't much worse than cars - especially with electric and hybrid options. A hybrid truck can get up to 45 MPG, which is only a bit behind a Prius. The lightning is a bit better than half as efficient as a Model 3, but has a larger battery. My take: This surprised me, especially the hybrid capabilities. But the last truck I drove had a sub-10 MPG, though it was from the 70's.
3) Comfort. There's something to be said for having a larger body vehicle when it comes to providing for basic creature comforts. My take: Can confirm. Especially as I age, getting into a (non-lifted) truck is a lot simpler and less painful than my Prius.
4) Price is on par with cars. The base trim lightning is on par with the base trim of the Hyundai Ionic 6, and less than $10k more than the model 3. My take: Whoa.
5) Raw horsepower. When you need to hit the gas to avoid a problem, you'll get the response. Doubly so with an electric truck. My take: Perhaps a reason the average driver shouldn't get a truck.
Am I going to buy a pickup? Probably not. But... I have a better understanding of why some people will.
Nowhere near as good as my wife's CRV - she gets between 32 and 40 depending on the route and the temperature.
Because it's impossible to find parallel street parking (and take up 2-3 spaces when you do) and makes it much easier to hit unseen pedestrians in crowded areas and older layouts with tight corners? Because you need it for work? Not at all silly.
The longest F-150 is 157", which is about 3 feet longer.
An F-150 isn't taking three parking spaces unless they're for Mini Coopers or something.
Yeah I guess my point being, if they hadn't misallocated far too many resources to the Lightning (based on how many are sitting on dealer lots now), and instead had hedged their bets between Lightning and a Maverick EV (both in lower volumes), they'd be in a far better place right now. But Bill Ford was all in on the Lightning as a flagship branding push alongside Mach-E during the peak of initial EV hype, so here we are. No doubt the only reason they offered hybrid for Maverick instead of pure EV was to not cannibalize F-150/Mustang battery supply.
Everyone and their uncle wants to buy a $30/40k EV pickup truck right now, and Ford could easily sell one profitably. Hopefully it catches on. Of all the legacy manufacturers, they're in the best possible position to undercut Rivian/Tesla on one of the largest market segments in the US.
You back into parking spaces, but you choose one if possible, with a grass verge, so you can back three feet past the end of the pavement. He was up against a fence (still had a foot or two further he could have gotten it backed in).
Or in a big box store, park on one end (with the other pickup trucks) pulling fully into a space and sticking three feet into the next one across. So your tail doesn't get clipped by cars cruising the lot.
The lowest I paid for gas was $1.99 (with a $1 off promotion from Chevron, but all the apps have some sort of discount... and you don't even have to pay cash!).
Gas is absurdly cheap and people there seem to drive with a lead foot. Until that changes, I don't think people will stop buying giant vehicles.
Obviously Ford doesn't make a truck that expensive and market it that heavily just to target the rural market, that would be suicide.
I would rank Virginia's absolutely absurd speed limit enforcement policies as a far greater threat to ones sanity then trying to pickup-friendly street parking in say Fallc Church or College Park.
Now within the stones of DC... I would definitely do whatever it takes to avoid driving anything larger than a Sentra on a regular basis.