Hacker News Reader

Comment by wing-_-nuts | Hacker News Reader

I was sad to see it discontinued. I hope the slate truck is gonna be good when it's released, cause I dig their emphasis on customization and repairability.

View on HN

Me too, it's such a fantastic truck. Built like a tank, huge battery and insanely fast charging for a 400V architecture. The only thing that sucks about it is it's a bit bouncy, and the software can be stupid. But I love it.

We bought it mostly because we wanted an EV for power backup for the house. We get ice storms in the winter and it can knock out power for days, and we need to be able to keep almost 1,000 gallons of aquariums running during them. The F150 extended range has that in spades and was cheaper than the equivalent power wall system.

It's basically a whole house backup generator that we can happen to drive around.

The frunk on the F150-Lightning has not been praised enough. It's a really great truck, but having that giant storage space that locks makes it so much better than anything else out there if that's what you need.

You'd think they'd emphasize the singe cab at least a little since the frunk does the job most people use the second row for.

Lightning was crew cab only.

I know. I think that's dumb. At least offer extended if not single.

The fascinating thing for me was that they actually had trouble selling it ( and thus the production stop and fairly aggressive incentives to sell the remaining ones off ). I really do enjoy mine and I swear I was not a truck person.

it’s pretty much useless for anything you would actually use a truck for

like cybertruck? :)

yes, those aren’t selling either

Yeah I didn’t get one to do “truck stuff”. I pay people to do truck stuff for me, and use my “not a truck” truck for shuttling my family around. Never saw any R1T or F150 lightning or god forbid, Hummer EV truck owners do truck stuff either.

You know how I know you're not an F150 lightning owner?

It's as capable, if not more so, than your standard F150 at truck duties in everything except towing. And it's a bit of a mixed bag there, it can tow way more than a standard f150, but it cuts the range to 1/3 so you have to charge pretty often. Still, 100 miles towing 10,000 pounds is nothing to sneeze at.

I mean, there is a part of me that is kinda ok lightning being one of those 'if you know, you know' kinda cars. It is still kinda weird reading this, because it does not seem to be an isolated opinion. My extended family member voiced something similar.

I owned one, and I'd say it's as capable in truck duties as a crew-cab short-bed F-150, which is to say, not very much. Can't fit a full sheet of drywall in the bed, etc. The short-bed crew-cab F-150 is by day a carpool vehicle with room for everyone's toolboxes and by night a family minivan that can hold everyone's sports bags. That was perfect for me, I knew what I was getting, but even the gasser short-beds are pretty useless as trucks.

i can’t imagine any situation where 100 miles of towing would be useful

f150 power boost is superior, has all the features you mention but you can use gasoline to keep your generator going

Why would I want to lug around an engine everywhere I go? I'd only need it like once or twice a year.

As for the generator aspect, with its 135 kWh battery pack, I can power the aquariums for weeks and weeks.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com