Hot take: this, as some like Ars Technica have observed, stands a decent chance of being a real game changer.
Everything about this vehicle launch appears masterful, from its technology to its branding to the obvious care taken to ensure that in almost every respect it is so superior, and offers so many no-brainers, as to make anyone who can (both individuals and especially, fleet managers), buy these as fast they can.
This thing has more than one killer app.
The biggest by far IMO is its ability to power high voltage high draw tools at the jobsite.
If you have never worked on a jobsite, this is a BFD.
This is itself a game changer, it offers the ability to "disrupt" in a material way a whole class of project. Logistics just got 20% simpler and projects 30% cheaper.
Sure, it can go super fast; yes, you can lock your stuff in the truck...
But the other killer feature for fleet owners is that these are remotely manageable.
Your fleet now has detailed telemetry and its only going to get better.
And this is on launch.
We just got a RAV4 Prime and if I didn't live in SF proper, I might be seriously regretting not waiting for this thing. (I don't, and don't think this makes sense in the city.)
If we move to e.g. Sonoma and work remote? This would be that no brainer.
To be fair, some of these features are available on the recently released hybrid, as well.
What I would like to figure out is if it can actually backfeed the home with 240V split phase power. That would be a seriously big deal if it could, it's not a common generator feature as it is. I'm skeptical, but they did claim it could transition from charging to supplying the house and back to charging when the power returned. Probably some fine print there where they say "only with the 120V charger". Otherwise, that would just be killer. An automatic whole-house UPS that can easily support all your needs for hours or even a couple days in a pinch.
Backfeeding houses with generators is indeed a killer feature... but not in the way you mean. It can be done safety, but when done incorrectly (if the house isn't removed from the grid first) it can kill linemen. It's a good thing most generators a homeowner might causally buy at the hardware store don't have this feature. Unfortunately I've seen male-to-male extension cords sold online for this purpose. I think these are actually illegal, at least in some places.
Yes you definitely have to get it installed by a licensed electrician (and possibly approved then by the local utility) if you are going to backfeed your own house.
It is good that people are aware of the risk, but in reality the risk is quite low. It is standard procedure for a lineman to ground a line he's about to work on, to mitigate the risk of any power source feeding it. But I'd never advocate a DIY setup. But damn near everyone I know with a portable generator has a suicide cord and just flips the mains. Ah well.
Are GP mentioned, the safety procedure to protect you from a line you're working on becoming inadvertently energized is temporary protective grounding. A grounding jumper is connected to each phase of the power line near the work location so that the worker touching the line works in a zone of equipotential. Because everything the worker is touching bonded together, if the line becomes energized the worker's hands and feet are elevated to the same voltage simultaneously, so there is no potential difference across the body and no current flows through the worker.
But since lives are at stake here, we prefer to have layers of protection rather than just one thing. Grounding jumpers can fail if not properly connected (a large mechanical force will be applied to the jumper when the phase-to-ground fault current flows through it).
Bottom line, respect the electrical code and connect generators through a transfer switch. These rules are in place for a reason.
Transformers only block DC. Unless your house is wired for that (pretty rare in almost every country) You'll backfeed AC which will go through transformers.
In fact it's likely the transformer on the street between your house and the network that's responsible for the death of the linemen. IIRC that's a step down transformer (so step up when run backwards like this.)
All of the grid tied solar systems are able to conform to the IEEE 1547 standard. Amongst the particulars are a 300 second reconnection time if there's an interrupted grid to protect utility workers. Most (all?) USA utilities mandate this standard.
Some battery systems, like the Tesla Powerwall include a contactor that allow their microgrid battery systems to conform to the standard without a loss of power to the site they power.
People with generators and suicide cables know to shut off the main breaker. Per my buddy who is a lineman in a rural area, DIY solar systems in cabins and such are much more of an issue.
Those are generally fine because they are generally installed and configured by licensed electricians. Generators with suicide-cables installed by homeowner Joe Blow are the problem.
The language on the site talks about requiring a whole house manual or automatic transfer switch. Plus the thing has a 240v outlet. (presumably split phase, 240v single phase is not common in US residential settings).
I wonder if the wiring is basically plug the 240v split phase into a special outlet in the house that feeds the transfer switch. The 80amp charger is then just a charger.
Could be completely wrong though. We'll know more at launch.
Right. The backup function will require the house be set up with a transfer switch and the appropriate inlet setup, just like a whole house generator. The interesting bit is just the fact that the truck has a 240v split phase inverter built-in and ready to go.
Äh I have to disagree. This is far, far, far less of a game changer compared to the Cybertruck.
It basically worse and more expensive at everything and its very unlikely Ford can build close to as many as the Cybertruck. Simply because of batteries alone and other production capacity as well (a lot is shared with the other F150s).
Its really slow charging considering the time it will come out. If you want to use this to transport anything its range is worse compared to the Cybertruck and its gone charge much slower.
This will likely sell well and they will likely sell as many as they can make. But that doesn't make it a game changer.
> Remember 5 years ago when Telsa fans claimed BEV range and acceleration wasn't possible for legacy automakers?
No, I don't. Its the opposite, most people were saying that legacy makers could do it eventually but they need to make massive investments in EV production, and guess what, they did.
Tesla fan were actually right, it took way longer then people said for real mass market EV to come out.
But of course Tesla got the lead and they are not just outselling everybody else and are still among the leaders in performance and efficiency.
> Ford sell more F series vehicles per year than all tesla models combined - why are you assuming they need to pivot asap to EV only?
They don't but in a few years EV version will outperform the alternative ICE version along pretty much every dimension and there will be huge demand for EV trucks.
The question is if you at that point have the capacity to produce them in accordance with demand.
The features and specs feel mediocre compared to CyberTruck. The only thing that looked perhaps better was the frunk size and access but everything else CyberTruck is clearly better even price and most definitely on the most important spec of all, range.
The Cybertruck is coming from a leader with a history of hasty, half baked communication. If you think the Cybertruck will be out this year or exactly as pictured and specified... well I think that is extremely unlikely.
The Cybertruck is going to end up being a sales disaster after the initial sensationalism rapidly wears off. Sales will fade, it'll end up as a gimmick. Large numbers of consumers don't want to drive/use/own something that looks like that, they want something that looks like a normal truck.
Cybertruck is Musk's equivalent of the Mac G4 Cube ego mistake, except far worse. He understood that electric vehicles should look like existing conceptions of vehicles, things people can easily identify with as being vehicles they'd want to drive, but electric and maybe sexy + better in various boring functional ways. He abandoned that with the Cybertruck, and it'll bomb accordingly over time. Meanwhile Ford will sell a bazillion electric trucks, and humiliate Tesla's efforts in the space (in his inability to be humble, Musk will fall back on claiming Cybertruck is superior, even as it doesn't sell very well).
Tesla should have acquired Ford in a stock swap, left it an independent operating entity, and electrified their trucks; or acquired a huge minority position (in a stock swap) if the Ford family wouldn't go for a full acquisition. They should have done that years ago. They were too self-absorbed to see the obvious opportunity. The electrified trucks would be enormous profit centers. Now, instead, Tesla will almost entirely miss out on the zillion dollar electric truck market, which they could have had a big slice of. Tesla's only shot is to abandon Cybertruck and build a normal looking truck, which they won't do for several years until the pain from the embarrassment overwhelms Musk's ego problems (otherwise they'll just leave Cybertruck as a low volume trinket in their lineup, or abandon the space entirely).
I believe Tesla will sell the initial batch of trucks, with crazy futuristic styling, while improving their production scale at a high premium to the early adopters. Once they have the factories/scale setup, they will just re-skin them with a non-futuristic/conventional body and be able to mass produce (at Tesla levels) the trucks to the wider audience that F-150 owners would buy. And at a more reasonable price as well since they early adopters would have already paid the ramp-up cost. This is similar to the first launch of the high performance Tesla series and makes sense overall.
I personally would love to have an electric F-150 for the reliability that they could have with the years of experience Ford has had in the market. Job site users would be all over this.
Cybertruck preorders have passed 650,000 units. While a lot are definitely just doing it for "fun" since it's refundable, it's still an insanely impressive number.
It's not impressive specifically because it won't follow through. There will be an initial sales surge (which will be very loudly touted), and it'll rapidly implode because it's a ridiculous vehicle that the masses of consumers will not want. The curiosity and gimmick of its look / design will implode very quickly, as is always the case and without exception when companies do things like that. It'll melt down to being a low volume sales space for Tesla, until or unless they do a normal or quasi-normal looking truck (and by that time they'll be running from behind).
I don't know but... I want a goddamn car that looks like it's from the future. Car companies always build the coolest looking prototypes then dress them down and make them ugly.
I have a pre-order Cybertruck and may or may not be in a position to buy one when they land in Australia (if they land at all) but man it's cool.
Think of the Lamborghini Countach [0], it was designed decades ago and it still looks like it's from outer space!
EDIT: Saying that, if this new F150 came to Australia (or say an all electric Raptor) I'd probably go for the Ford. I currently drive a 2019 Hilux and it's a very handy do everything car, but the F150 is quite a lot larger and not really suited to the (very few) Australian cities.
This same old story gets warmed up ever fucking time. With the Model S, with the Model 3. Its so fucking tiered.
Even at 20% conversion of preorders (and that is way lower Tesla usually gets) they have plent for the first 1-2 years of production and that is assuming that they don't get more orders (again as they did with ever other car).
This is just your personal taste and you have formed your opinion on that 100%. Not a single actual state about the Cybertruck or its release indicates anthing like what you suggest.
> humiliate Tesla's efforts in the space
Ford wins in a space Tesla doesn't have a product in. Wow. Amazing.
> Tesla should have acquired Ford in a stock swap
That you believe that shows how you have absolutely no understanding of the car market. That the worst possible idea.
> Tesla's only shot is to abandon Cybertruck and build a normal looking truck
Or you know if your outrage claims are actually true, they could build a 'normal' turck and the Cyberturck. Crazy that a company could produce two different trucks.
The battery availability is the fundamental constraint.
Ironically, the frunk on electric trucks is a game-changer. Complementing the bed with an enclosed, waterproof, secure place to carry things (and no mucking around with insecure bed covers) is a killer feature. No more springing for a crew cab just to carry groceries in the rear seats. In terms of practical carrying capacity this dominates an SUV.
Trucks are more dangerous to pedestrians because of the higher and flatter front--means people end up underneath rather than above if they are struck. I understand why they kept the look the same and why they used that space but in the future would prefer that they made changes to make it safer for everyone and not just the occupants. The high hoods make for poor visibility around the front.
Thank you. As a cyclist and pedestrian (who does own a normally-sized car), I was getting pretty frustrated by the lack of safety discussed in the comments.
I agree this is less safe for pedestrians, which matters in cities, but it is maybe safer in rural areas? I'd much rather hit a deer or moose going 80 in a tall truck then a short truck. Also, in my experience, people drive much slower in smaller towns, and are therefore less likely to hit a pedestrian or cyclist.
Plus the added visibility is nice and certainly would increase safety, I would think.
People walk in rural areas, too; and those roads are often not designed for it and these accidents tend to happen at night. There's a significant percentage of pedestrian deaths that happen out of the city under these circumstances.
Sounds like a common sense reasoning about this. Are there stats to back it up? Do trucks pose a significantly greater risk to cyclists and pedestrians? I'm actually a truck owning cyclist myself.
The commonly cited study (that of course nobody reads) from the Governors Highway Safety Association showed that if you get hit by a truck or SUV you have a higher chance of dying. They also found that if you adjust for how many of each are on the road, you are 15% more likely to be hit by the driver of a car.
Trucks and SUVs are on average newer than cars and at a higher price point, which means more newer safety features like object detection and driver warnings. I also suspect the feeling of mass in driving a larger vehicle makes you take driving more seriously.
Is it that, or is it just that people drive smaller vehicles on average in cities than in rural areas, and that's also where most of the pedestrians are?
Yes, there are lots of studies on this. If you want info a good place to start is London's upcoming ban on large vehicles with low visibility (I would provide more info, but I'm limited on time right now).
You'd need a study that actually looked at more than just "what happens if you hit a pedestrian at 25 mph" - because it's quite possible that a truck does more damage when it hits, but hits less often because it's higher up and has better visibility.
Every single near-miss I've had while walking in Minneapolis has been due to the driver not paying attention. There wasn't a single time it was due to lack of visibility from inside the vehicle.
My yelling at one driver who was staring at her phone while driving out of a parking ramp and across the sidewalk where she nearly hit me, probably woke her up enough to avoid driving into traffic and being hit by a bus!
No, it's not the vehicles, it's the people driving them.
The gp was simply stating that being struck by a truck is more lethal than a car due to their flat, tall fronts. They weren't, by my reading, insinuating that trucks are more likely to hit people. That is indeed, in my opinion, a function of operator error all things equal.
Yup, this is also why the Cybertruck (probably) won't be road legal in Europe. Too many sharp edges that would seriously hurt a pedestrian on collision.
You don't necessarily need mirrors when you have reliable (probably ASIL-B, maybe ASIL-D) cameras systems that recreate that view inside the vehicle, although I'm not that well versed with European laws.
They could also just add mirrors as has long been standard between concept and production motorcycles. (Example [0][1])
This article states that forward blind spots account for 30-60 pedestrian fatalities each year. Rear blind spots are 5-10x deadlier. I would prioritize backup cameras.
>No, it's not the vehicles, it's the people driving them.
people being distracted isn't a new feature; people being given distractions in the cabin is.
I'm not sure exactly what your argument is, to be quite frank.
Are you insinuating that less visibility isn't hindering the ability to drive safely?
There are additional devices commonplace in vehicles to make up for the lack of visibility -- pedestrian detection/auto-braking/switching cameras for example -- but surely a car would be safer to both pedestrians and the passengers if it had those types of features along with increased visibility..
>No, it's not the vehicles, it's the people driving them.
As a former auto mechanic, maybe i'm over-exposed.. but :
1) car interior design changes yearly, and it's usually to sate consumer desires rather than for safety/usability/efficiency.
2) mechanical failures aren't rare. mechanical failures that may end in injury or loss-of-life aren't rare, either.
The DoD has done tons of usability studies with regards to UI/UX. If auto manufacturers wanted a safe/repeatable/efficient environment then the interiors would probably share a lot of features with fighter jets; tactile buttons, audio cues, correct information density, etc.
They don't look anything like this -- this is a clue to the consumer that there are different priorities in mind at the manufactures' HQ, namely lately ICE (in-car entertainment, not internal combustion engine; sorry for possible confusion) and technological glitz like RGB lighting.
Second this. Even in the most bike- or pedestrian-friendly neighborhood of Minneapolis, all of the near miss experiences I’ve had have been because of driver inattentiveness. Is there some tautology here—with truck drivers and pedestrians frequenting disjoint geographies? Certainly.
Pedestrians make up only a small minority of people killed in car crashes. (Like 6k of 40k per year.) So sure, it's good to make easy adjustments if they lead to big reductions in deaths, but it's not reasonable to care a ton about seriousness restricting the form factor yet think cars are fine in general. Best would be indexing car/truck sales tax to the size of the negative safety externalities, which would be a quite small fraction of the total car price, and letting people buy what they want to buy. It's clear consumers in the US value the large truck format and are willing to pay for it.
Cars&trucks cause a large majority of the pedestrians killed in walking-around-the-city accidents, though. Lumping those deaths in with highway deaths makes the statistic meaningless.
No. That would only be potentially true if people were proposing a law to limit the form factor of trucks that are driven in cities (and even if so, it would not be obvious; you'd have to look at the numbers). Since that isn't feasible, and all the proposed laws are about limiting the form factor of all consumer trucks, the average statics are the relevant ones.
You can always find a subpopulation where some effect is large; that can't be good reason to make rules that constrain the entire population.
Sure, I don't actually know what your argument is to rebut? I know many people who would like to buy a ford ranger sized truck, but manufacturers discontinued them a decade ago because fuel efficiency regulations disincentivized them.
From other threads, one might conclude that animal accidents in rural areas inspire some apprehension about wedge-profiled designs. In USA, 1m out of the 6m auto accidents each year involve one car and one animal, with a human death rate of 200 per year.
>So sure, it's good to make easy adjustments if they lead to big reductions in deaths, but it's not reasonable to care a ton about seriousness restricting the form factor yet think cars are fine in general.
unless the form factor has some very significant upside that I'm not seeing, preventing deaths should be prioritized over people's aesthetic preferences.
>It's clear consumers in the US value the large truck format and are willing to pay for it.
no, it's clear that consumers in the US don't value the lives of pedestrians, and therefore we cannot trust the free market to determine what types of things get made.
> unless the form factor has some very significant upside that I'm not seeing, preventing deaths should be prioritized over people's aesthetic preferences.
Nope. "Deaths should always be prioritized over aesthetics" is a clearly bad rule because it is innumerate. You must always trade off how many deaths for the preferences of how many people. Otherwise all design of everything is dictated solely by safety.
> no, it's clear that consumers in the US don't value the lives of pedestrians, and therefore we cannot trust the free market to determine what types of things get made.
No, you need to read about externalities and Pigovian taxes. The entire point of the proposed tax is that it does not require the car buyer to care about pedestrians whatsoever.
Vehicle drivers decide what vehicles they buy, but pedestrians do not. The Regulations (or lack thereof) incentivize vehicles that kill more pedestrians
Pedestrians should get the benefit first though, because they are not the ones choosing to drive cars. I’m much more OK with drivers making choices that hurt themselves than I am with them making choices that hurt other people who never had the option of choosing.
Wow, 6k or 15% of deaths is not worth doing anything about... This is peak car-brain thinking.
Pedestrians are the ones who should be the first to reach zero deaths IMO, since they weren't the ones who decided to drive around in a deadly machine in the first place and are usually completely innocent in their own danger.
What are your thoughts on pedestrian vs. train deaths? Obviously it is always the conductors fault and peak train-brain thinking?
Commuting on a scooter I've seen more than my fair share of pedestrians on phones walking out into traffic and idiots on bikes blowing through red lights. Sometimes everyone involved can be at fault.
It's not even really their fault in those situations though, they're not walking faster than 3-4MPH. You're the guy driving a two thousand pound hunk of steel, not paying attention.
This is a true point, but it applies to SUV's as well as trucks. This is more an argument for moving to a sedan-dominated fleet than an argument against trucks... but good luck: in the USA, SUVs and trucks are two very hot market segments.
Cities should start taxing the size of vehicles too if they're going to let people park on the street. Smart cars are a fantastic utility vehicle for example, but are not incentivised enough.
That's what I was most excited about, and agree it is a game changer. Hopefully we can get small e-pickups at some point - I have a 2004 Toyota Tacoma that I love, and it would be amazing with a frunk, but you can't really get small pickups that size anymore.
> I have a 2004 Toyota Tacoma that I love, and it would be amazing with a frunk, but you can't really get small pickups that size anymore
You're not kidding! I was in the market for a small pickup and checked out the Tacoma and Frontier, which I previously understood to be "small" trucks. They're massive these days, just like the F-150! I guess it's perceived that there's no market for that size any more.
A small electric pickup would be a super handy thing to have around, potentially appealing to urbanites too since they can toss their groceries in the frunk. There's really no reason the frunk needs to be so big on the F-150 Lightning - that part of the design is really a head scratcher.
Trucks, vans, suvs are the size they are, at least in part a due to CAFE regulations that give fuel efficiency concessions to vehicles with a larger wheelbase.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Ford did a lot of internal research, and focus groups, on the marketability of differently designed electric trucks to their primary customers and came to the conclusion that their consumers like the way the trucks look and are more likely to adopt electric trucks if they look the same and offer tangible benefits. Consider the massive frunk, that can hold 400 pounds of gear, or the 2k hauling capacity, or the on board outlets, including a 240v plug, or all the fancy new towing features (that are hopefully not useless vapor ware). If I was in charge of a large truck work truck fleet that averages less than 200 miles/day I'd be replacing at least a few of my oldest trucks with these and give them to the senior guys to break in and see how they do. This truck could be a serious game changer. Ford's not my favorite vehicle manufacturer but they've got my respect for building a serious electric truck at a reasonable price.
I wonder if there are hidden systematic considerations that make it so that trucks the size of Japanese mini trucks simply appear to not exist in the united states. Here's the first DDG link about these trucks: https://jpnautoimport.com/mini-truck%EF%BC%86jdm
That's what I love about HN. Make anything up, and someone's done it and posted pics. It's like being able to wish things into existence just by posting a forum comment.
Indeed. I think the defining feature of a small pickup is the ability of an averaged height person to be able to reach over the sides and grab something from the bed of the truck. All of the current trucks on the market you can barely even see in to the bed. It makes it super hard to load the bed without actually being in it. Trucks today have become so much more vanity symbols than anything else.
Agreed on looks - I actually declined buying one because of that.
That said, I really wish they would have started there. I want an electric truck. I don't want one anywhere near as large as an F150. I understand F150s sell better so know why they went that route, but an electric Ranger/Colorado could really dominate the fleet market.
I don't know much about trucks, but I looked up both on the Ford website. The Ranger's front area is slightly curved while it is flat on the F-150. Aside from that, the trucks look identical to my novice eyes. I can't say I find either particularly appealing.
They look quite a bit different in person. The Ford Ranger has a very muted look where as most trucks these days have an agressive look. It looks like it was designed not to be noticed.
>you can't really get small pickups that size anymore
Write your representative and tell them to thank the EPA and NHTSA for doing their jobs. The death of the small pickup is squarely the fault of the confluence of fuel economy and crash safety regulations.
> Write your representative and tell them to thank the EPA and NHTSA for doing their jobs.
It seems like those regulations aren't working they way they ought to if the result is to encourage people to drive bigger cars than they need and to have more cars on the road that minimize the safety risk to the occupants while maximizing risk to everyone else...
> The death of the small pickup is squarely the fault of the confluence of fuel economy and crash safety regulations.
Fuel economy regulations are based on vehicle footprint and weight. Small trucks are small and (were, still would be if we still had them) fairly heavy for their size making them bad for compliance. A small vehicle is also going to have harder lines (less physical space for clean curves) so will have worse aerodynamics.
That's exactly it. IIRC they even said so at the time. They were already producing the "new ranger" elsewhere at the time so they could have just imported it but looking at the MSRP difference between it and a based f150 vs the size of the market they decided it wasn't worth it.
Ahhh. So that's why it happened, makes sense now. These are the types of regulations I want to see disappear (or, rather, modified to align better with desired incentives).
The 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz [1] looks like it'll be much smaller than the current crop of trucks (though still larger than the compact trucks of 20 years ago).
I drove a 1997 Ford Ranger XLT Supercab for about 12 years. I recently came across a 2021 Ford Ranger while I was running some errands and have not been able to get it out of my head. It looked like it's practically twice the size of the 97 model. It's a full 12" longer, 8" wider, 6" taller... But the bed length has remained the same or gotten shorter. I don't pay any attention to this stuff but it is strange to me, I don't understand why mid-size and light-duty trucks are / feel so gargantuan today.
The first thing that we need to change about the perception of these vehicles is we have to stop calling them e-pickups. Because e usually means economy. And economy means cheap and flimsy and no legroom. People who are buying Ford pickups don't want cheap and flimsy and no legroom.
Oh yeah, I'm totally into that. It's perfect for a grocery run and you don't need to do anything to keep it from rolling around the bed of the truck or get rained on.
I own a cow. Because I own a cow, I often need to get bales of hay from the local co-op. I need a bed (or a trailer) to bring those back to the farm. A pickup can do this.
I grow vegetables. Because I grow vegetables, I occasionally need to pick up a yard of compost. I need a bed to bring that back to the farm. A pickup can do this, too.
I own a tractor. Because I own a tractor, I need to be able to tow said tractor to the nearest dealer or machine shop to get it serviced and repaired. I need a vehicle that can tow a trailer carrying multi-thousand-pound many-foot-long tractor + loader + three-point implement setup. A pickup can do this, too.
I cook using ingredients I don't grow myself. Because I cook, I need to be able to buy groceries. I need a vehicle to bring as many groceries as I buy at once back to my house. Would you really suggest that if I already have a pickup for the above three needs, I should keep a second non-pickup vehicle around just to run to the supermarket, the doctor, or local watering hole?
That's a lot of expense when I could just have a general-purpose vehicle that does it all. HN seems to be all about general-purpose computers that can do more than you might need day-to-day. The same can apply to vehicles.
Of course. So could a semi, a backhoe, and a dump truck do all these things. Point being, use the right tool for the job.
If you're using the pickup to haul to and from the jobsite 99% of the time, sure it doesn't make sense to buy something else to do errands around town on the weekends.
You'd be in the minority though.
Most household pickup owners in North America use them as a car. Here in Alberta there are more pickups sold every year than any other vehicle category. They are simply using the wrong tool for the job, and defend their 'fashion' choice by the once a year they throw in a bag of compost from home depot.
Furthermore, most North American households have 2+ vehicles, they do in fact have a choice as to which tool to use for groceries.
Not sure 'we can drive whatever we want to the store' is a rally cry to be particularly proud of, neighbour.
We seem to think because we have the freedom to drive a V8 half ton dually less than a block to the mailbox with the aircon blasting, that it somehow makes it any less of a stupid thing to do.
Most North Americans translate whatever freedoms we've been granted into one: the freedom to thoughtlessly consume and squander without restraint. I guess it remains to be seen whether your freedom is a good thing or not, but the way things been going I suspect it aint gonna go your way forever.
Even a 5-year-old knows: if you keep using your transformer as a projectile aimed at your brother, it's gonna be taken away.
Bed is usually empty, but yea that’s a concern when you’re hauling on a long trip. The trunk also contains the spare tire, so it’s hard to access the spare tire when hauling stuff.
It’s a short bed with large cab. Meant for occasional light hauling, not for everyday usage. The Ridgeline is more car/SUV than truck. Refined for city driving and light duty.
> Adding a camper shell to a pickup truck does not necessarily constitute a change from commercial to auto registration. The addition must meet the definitions for human habitation or camping purposes. Otherwise, the vehicle may be subject to citation from law enforcement for not meeting the definition of an auto. Human habitation is defined as living space which includes, but is not limited to: closets, cabinets, kitchen units or fixtures, and bath or toilet rooms.
You'd be surprised how expensive an old pickup's registration can be in CA.
The main problem isn't the cheating by low-end tradesmen but that the average schlub's truck is considered a 'commercial' vehicle including registration cost by gross vehicle weight.
(at least that's how I understand all of this).
They never make it easy here to do anything, but people will put up with a lot of rules and taxes if it mostly happens to others.
Most of the gas F-150 sales are crew cab models, so it makes sense not to target that relatively small niche.
The long-bed was popular back when people owned a truck as an extra vehicle/work vehicle only, now many use their truck as their main vehicle and have need of carrying others.
If you look at the creature comforts of older bench seat trucks (bare-bones) and the trucks sold today, a truck today will have everything an SUV will have in terms of comfort and maybe more.
"The long-bed was popular back when people owned a truck as an extra vehicle/work vehicle only, now many use their truck as their main vehicle and have need of carrying others."
My favorite configuration is:
- 8 foot bed
- extended (not full) cab
- rear doors are "suicide" doors
Our ranch truck is a Silverado 1500 in that configuration and it is nice to have optional seats but not lose the 8 foot bed. Suicide doors allow you to open the entire vehicle up with no pillar in the way and I love that.
Chevy no longer offers this but I think Ford does, currently ...
I've got the same but the 6.5 bed. That just means I can park it at Home Depot somewhere near the entrance to the store. The 8 foot bed does have its allure.
My selection of vehicles agrees with you but friends who are new parents were shocked to see that child seats don’t fit in the back of Tacoma or I presume f150 supercab
Serviceable, sure. But the crew cab has a cavernous rear seat area. I used to drive a BMW 5 series and now drive an F-450 w/Crew Cab (my wife and live full-time in a Fifth Wheel RV, otherwise I'd never own such a large vehicle). I was astounded when I saw just how much more rear leg room the truck has compared to the 5 series.
I have a supercab and I am happy that I have the 6.5' bed to go with it, I can lay 4'x8' sheets flat with the tailgate down. Combined with a backrack/hitch extender I can get 16' long lumber.
The backseat is passable with my dog and kids, but barely. If they were able to take some room from the front where there is no engine and give me both a reasonable bed and a crew cab I would be happy.
A lockable frunk is pretty attractive though so that you don't have to worry about leaving tools in the bed.
The vast majority of pickups these days are sold either for work or family, and both benefit from additional people capacity. It makes sense to go after this huge market first.
Yeah, this is a bummer for me. I don't really like crew cab (either how it looks, or how it compromises bed length vs. overall truck length), and this really doesn't need it.
Indeed; I was trying carefully to not imply that this was some unique advantage of the F-150, but rather an interesting property of the electric truck category in general.
I hope this displaces a lot of the adventure Sprinter vans out there. Obviously, the built-out vans for long-term living won't get replaced by a truck, but I live in Tahoe and could use an adventure ready vehicle for winter skiing and summer trail running and MTB excursions with the family.
The frunk makes a big difference for those kinds of things.
I gotta say, I am very impressed by what I've seen with the F-150. It's clear that a LOT of thought has gone into this product and Ford clearly understands their target audience extremely well. There are so many nice features that are so well tailored to folks who buy trucks. All the features to power job sites, etc is really sweet and I can totally see that being super handy. Heck, it would make it super easy to work on projects in my driveway without any worries.
Storage with the massive frunk is awesome. Lots of features around hitches and making it easier to use them and tow with them. Pretty good price point, good acceleration to appeal to the macho truck crowd who will hold their nose while making the plunge to electric so they can feel good about themselves when they floor the accelerator at stoplights and onramps.
There is something for everyone here. Yes, it plays it safe on the aesthetics side of things, but I don't see anything wrong with it. The "safer" aesthetics also make it more useful than the Cybertruck, what with the massive Frunk. Really glad to see some good competition in this space. The next 2 years are going to be really exciting in the EV space!
I could legitimately see every job site having at least one as a rolling power station.
That could be a very useful and popular niche, construction sites without power at early phases of construction aren't rare and power tool batteries are expensive.
I would be really interested in understanding the breakdown in F150's as sold by model number.
For a lot of truck owners, there's going to be some resistance because they love having a v8 engine etc. I don't see those people moving over quickly (although they might be swayed by the acceleration/speed). But if you're using one as a tradesperson, this seems like an absolute no-brainer. You're not driving enormous distances regularly and if you're able to run your entire job site for free, as well as have lower servicing costs... why wouldn't you?
Many new trucks have used turbo V6s instead of V8s for awhile now. There’s definitely some buyers who just want the sound of a V8 or don’t quite trust the reliability of a twin turbo BUT I think more people would be open to electric than you would think, even in people primarily just using them for transportation
I know a few people who tow big trailers, and they buy the V8 because once you hook up a real load the turbo kicks in and you are burning just as much gas. They figure that larger engine without a turbo is probably going to last a lot longer. Those who use the truck for a mix, sometimes with the trailer, sometimes with small loads opt for the turbo v6 and like it just fine, but they all agree if towing is the real goal get the v8. (or better yet get a diesel, and a bigger truck)
I don't know a single person who enjoys going to a gas station. Paying $40 a week just to hear some loud noise is an incredibly lame proposition, and only makes sense if you drive your truck for fun instead of utility. Most people buy a car for work, so avoiding the pump is a huge bonus.
I'm sure gas guzzler enthusiasts will continue to exist, but the financials don't make sense; it would be far cheaper for them to daily drive an EV and keep the old guzzler for fun days. They'd save on gas and maintenance by not driving an ICE all the time, and they still get to use it whenever they have free time.
In conclusion, my argument is that Ford/whoever will still eventually capture these enthusiasts, because they can still keep their old trucks but will always eventually need a new one.
I bought my truck used and somehow missed that it had the extended range tank, which is 36 gallons. I was so confused when I filled it up for the first time and it just kept going and going...
I don’t mind it. I drive a v8 Mercedes and love the sound etc... but at the same time, I’ve moved to NYC so the odds that I even keep a car aren’t particularly high.
I keep my vehicles a long time. I wouldn’t buy a turbo. When they fail, and they will, it’s super expensive. V8s have been around for a century, and they are very reliable.
I had the same thought but I ultimately had to choose between an F150 Lariat w/ EcoBoost or a near base model Tundra in the same condition for $8k more. So I decided to take a gamble on the turbos.
You'd be surprised at how far tradesmen need to drive sometimes. Jobsites are all over the place, and not everyone lives in the same place. So the jobsite might only be 45 minutes from the builder, but it's 75 minutes away from the trimmer. That's the situation for me, and it's not uncommon to travel that far to a job.
Perhaps.. but we'll have to see how the battery holds up under extremely hot or cold conditions to really know if it will be used that way; and few people will want to be stuck at the job site after the end of the day.
Unfortunately I don't think such a vehicle exists yet, while hybrids and even plug-in hybrids are common, they aren't designed to be used as power stations/offer multiple 110v outlets.
This new F-150 is rare in that the manufacturer actually supports its usage like this. If you use a Tesla as a glorified battery they will actually void your warranty.
New f-150 hybrid has (up to) a 7.2kW generator with 120/240 outlets in the bed. This would probably be a better option for most commercial applications than the electric.
My self-built sprinter has seen it's solar-charged electrical system been used many times to power PA systems at parties and running events. Only 120VAC (no 240VAC), and only about 2.5kW/hrs of power available, but I've never needed close to that for anything it's been used for. I've used it a few times to run power tools, but that's when I most regret only having 1kW inverter instead of a 1.5kW one: a router or circular saw startup can trip the inverter breaker.
The only gotcha with this, is that F150s are huge. I have an oversized garage and an F150 will barely fit. Many of my full-size truck driving neighbors opt to park in the driveway because they turn a modern two car garage into a 1.5 car garage unless designed specifically for giant vehicles.
I haven't seen consumer chargers that are designed to be installed outside. Most people have wall chargers in their garages, but I don't thing this is going to work for the majority of F150 home owners.
That being said, this is an otherwise incredible vehicle. The F150 is pretty much the ultimate vehicle for someone with enough space for one, and this improves upon it in nearly every way.
Here in the UK lots of people have garages but I'd actually guess its more common to use them for storage than to keep a car in. Everyone I know who has an electric car keeps it on the drive with an outside charging point.
Underground (or partially underground) parking garages are fairly common for newer and especially fancier apartment buildings where I live. I'm not sure how common electric car chargers are in these garages, however.
The Siemens US2 VersiCharge is a pretty popular consumer charger that's designed to be weatherproof. I have one in my garage, but I've seen them installed in parking lots for commercial use, too.
Ford has said they reused much of the same parts for the ICE F150 so it makes sense they look very similar. This will also help the model be profitable as well.
> good acceleration to appeal to the macho truck crowd who will hold their nose while making the plunge to electric so they can feel good about themselves when they floor the accelerator at stoplights and onramps.
I have a Mustang Mach e and can't emphasize this enough. It makes tooling around my suburban enclave a pleasure as I go from 0 to 30 mph in a blink.
I entered an on-ramp with a BMW behind me. Honestly, I wasn't trying to make a point, but the BMW swung around me as we entered the highway and it was on. Then it was done. Giggle.
I get to eat my hat somewhat. I hope it's tasty. Just a few days ago I made the comment that the Cybertruck's killer feature is it's $40K price tag, if and only if that price tag actually happens. I said that Ford could not make a decent EV F-150 at that price point unless they throw their dealerships under the bus. And here we are with a $40K EV F-150.
I'm glad I added the caveats though -- the $40K F150 is for commercial fleets, so will be missing crucial features for the passenger market and might bypass dealerships. Even so, $52K is still a competitive price for a SuperCrew with a few options.
I expect that a real advantage to an EV F150 over any Tesla truck (or car) will be repair costs, most particularly collision repairs.
Of course, they'll always cost more than the estimates, plus you get to throw in sales tax and the annual registration tithe to the state.
I'm always surprised that people are willing to spend so much on new vehicles but I guess it keeps the money moving through the economy. The spice must flow.
That's generally my attitude too. Once someone complained that the car I wanted had low resale value. I reminded him that I was buying used so that wasn't a bad thing.
The cybertruck is unibody, there may not be a panel to swap. Body on frame is easier to fix major accidents as well. But getting a car that retains value andnis cheap to repair means after even major wrecks they won't total it and you get a car back that was bent back to mostly true.
Steel bodywork on modern cars is typically galvanized very thoroughly and/or given other protective coatings prior to painting, so dents generally aren't at risk of rusting. That said, people tend to not like having even cosmetic damage to their cars. It's reasonably easy to hammer out, fill, prep, and paint dents in traditional bodywork, but bare metal doesn't really have that option (especially if, as Elon Musk claims, it's significantly work-hardened--I am somewhat skeptical about that, since it could significantly reduce crashworthiness without a ton of engineering).
Fair, but at the same time we're talking about work trucks a lot in this thread, and I don't think I've ever seen a real "work truck" that was totally unblemished. If it's unblemished you're not working it very hard, in my experience.
Ford also hasn't sold that many EVs (yet), so it's still eligible for the US $7500 federal tax rebate (unlike Tesla).
(BTW: It seems like such an arbitrary and ultimately bad decision to cap rebates by manufacturer. Rebate caps for expensive luxury cars? Sure. But penalize a manufacturer for making _too many_ of the thing you're incentivizing doesn't seem right).
You're not penalizing anybody, you're adding a temporary incentive to get the manufacturer up to speed. Once they're selling enough, they don't need to incentivize people to buy them.
Since the rebate is per manufacturer you are penalizing the first movers. Meaning, Tesla and GM's electric vehicles are $7500 costlier than Ford because they exhausted their rebates early on.
The cap should have been for the entire country so that companies like Ford can't sit back years before rolling out with an EV and gain a second movers advantage now that the tech is mature.
Ford has already sold over 100,000 EV's, and if they can't sell 100,000 Mach-E's in the next 12 months then they're doing something wrong. So by the time the F-150 becomes available their credit should be in the wind-down phase.
Another likely scenario is that Biden gets his infrastructure bill through and the credit becomes available to all US-manufactured EV's.
As far as I know, Ford is capacity constrained to the point that they will only be able to ship ~50k Mach-E's this year.
Not only that, but the phaseout process for rebates is VERY slow. Its likely they will still have at least some rebates until some time in 2023, even without a change in the law.
> if they can't sell 100,000 Mach-E's in the next 12 months then they're doing something wrong.
Specifically, the thing they are doing wrong is not having enough capacity to make 100K Mach-Es this year. It's not that demand isn't there, but rather the supply can't meet demand. Same problem Tesla has, just in smaller numbers on the Ford side for the time being.
I think the $40k price tag is deceptive if you look a bit closer. The extended range 300 mile battery is only available on the Platinum edition which starts at $60k IIRC, otherwise you're stuck with 230 miles which IMO going to make the truck feel hamstringed.
Yeah, the $40K version of the F150 Lightning is the "commercial use" one, which will presumably be utilitarian. I think they plan to reveal more about the commercial version on Monday.
If the $40K commercial use version is the right truck for a given consumer, great. But most consumers will want to step up from that for a personal vehicle. I think for most people, we will find $53K is the real starting price.
It feels as if the $40K commercial-use version was added in order to capture some headlines that group "$40K" alongside features of the more expensive trims such as "4.4 second 0 to 60," and I believe they have been successful in that.
Seriously? The president drove it for a commercial and that is the prove to convinced you that it is real product? And Tesla didn't do a commercial with a president and therefore its a fake product?
They are both large car companies who have invested billions into the development and production of these products and they will both come out next year. Anything else is just nutjob conspiracy theory nonsense.
The Lightning isn't supposed to be going until 2022 either, and Ford is having supply chain issues with chips, which this truck probably needs more than any car they've ever made, so we'll see which ships first.
Yeah, and the Mach-E was delayed by several months as well. It wouldn't be shocking if this ends up being more like late 2022, at least for any significant volume.
Not that its an issue. People focus a little too much on initial ship date, IMO.
I like Ford and have driven mustangs for 30 years with a short gap where I had a truck.
Just a preface to say I’m not hating on Ford in particular here, but the msrp is bogus. I can nearly guarantee that the actual base on a vehicle you can actually by will be $10k higher once a dealer is involved.
Edit: side comment, wow 800 plus comments on an F150 hacker news submission. Did not see that coming ;)
I'm really happy Ford and others are starting to actually deliver on EV's. I do however think there will be a long list of issues as they scale the roll out, given the newness and complexity of this product. Here are some concerns I think people should be aware of:
1. No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still. Using existing non-supercharging networks is not feasible for any long distance. You cannot do a roadtrip only charging 30~ mph. Thats 2 hours charging for every 1 hour driving.
2. Battery range for certain use cases. The base model is rated for 230 miles. If you've ever driven a Tesla on a highway you know you'll not get the full 230 at highspeeds. And so what happens when a truck is pulling a heavy load? You may end up literally getting half that range. This will be quite a shock for some users.
3. Software rollouts. Ford has been working on this but it is still not Solved. They've already bricked Mach-E's (1), and I expect there to be many more technical issues popping up.
4. No Autopilot. This is a big sell for many EV users. As far as I know Ford is no where close to having a viable competitor.
Anyways, I'm sure these things will smooth out over the coming years and I wish them all the best with this amazing migration to electric vehicles.
I want an electric truck, but there’s no way in hell I’m trusting my life to Bay Area tech. I want to save money on gas and be more eco friendly. My truck driving for me is not a want until the tech is perfected.
You shouldn't trust driver assistance features, Bay Area tech or not. They're there to assist you and decrease the burden of constant throttle / steering wheel management; you should still be constantly monitoring and ensuring the driver assistance tech is doing what it should.
That leaves Korea and FCA? Japan has fallen behind in infotainment/software. Hyundai has a Santa Fe and the Ioniq coming out, so probably a combo of those two shortly after.
>4. No Autopilot. This is a big sell for many EV users
Is it really? I'm looking at an EV for my next car, and not once have I considered Autopilots availability as a musthave feature. Then again, most people who get excited about Autopilot seem to think that driving is a chore that should be removed, while I love driving.
> No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still.
I agree- this is really going to be a big deal, especially with how large the F-150 EV battery is (150kWh). For comparison, the Chevrolet Bolt hatchback has a 66KWh battery with a similar range as the F-150, which makes sense, because the Bolt is much lighter and aerodynamic.
The vast majority of public charging stations in the US ("Level 2") max out at under 10kW; these are great for smaller cars used for commuting to-and-from the office or local shops or whatever. This isn't so bad for the Bolt, but the F-150 will recharge (from a range perspective) much more slowly.
There are very few Level 3 "fast" chargers around. These typically charge at 50kW until the battery is at 80% capacity, then slow down to 10kW or so. Public chargers often charge per minute ($.30 or so), so you get the best bang for the buck to get off the charger once you hit 80%. So, let's say your F-150 is down to 20% capacity, and you need to charge up to 80%. 60% of that 150kWh is battery is 90kWh- that will take nearly two hours ($36) on that fast charger.
This info seems a little out of date at this point. This is a map of 120 kW+ Electrify America charging stations from PlugShare: https://i.imgur.com/1dcM6UX.png. I agree we need more, but I don't know if it feels right to say there are "very few", when they line most of the major interstates.
> These typically charge at 50kW until the battery is at 80% capacity, then slow down to 10kW or so.
I'm not sure where you're getting this number, but according to this data [1] about the Mach-E, it charges at 150 kW until about 10%, then 100 kW until 35%, then 70 kW until 80%. This is much faster than what you are saying. They have a chart showing that depending on your starting SoC, you can get an average of up to 90 kW. If you start at a reasonable 10-15% state of charge, your average charge rate up to 80% will be 80 kW, not 50kW.
> So, let's say your F-150 is down to 20% capacity, and you need to charge up to 80%. 60% of that 150kWh is battery is 90kWh- that will take nearly two hours ($36) on that fast charger.
The F-150 has a larger battery than the Mach-E, but assuming the rates stay the same, it would take a bit over an hour to charge this much, not two hours.
The pricing varies on Electrify America, but looking at a few stations here [2], as long as you have a membership, it looks like this would cost somewhere from $10-30. Some stations charge by the minute, and others by the kWh.
And as a note for everyone else, Electrify America is just one brand of chargers. Other brands currently exist and as more CCS compatible cars hit the road I imagine even more chargers will spring up.
> The vast majority of public charging stations in the US ("Level 2") max out at under 10kW; these are great for smaller cars used for commuting to-and-from the office or local shops or whatever. This isn't so bad for the Bolt, but the F-150 will recharge (from a range perspective) much more slowly.
This only matters for road trips. In general, L2 availability is the sticking point. Cars generally spend most of their time parked somewhere. All you need to do is to get back the miles you have spent getting to where you are currently charging. This is how I could survive my 25 mile commute every day with 110v power outlets. I didn't need to charge to full every time, just recover what was spent.
One thing that's impressing me is that Ford FINALLY took the "Tesla" route and made the car communicate with stations in the Electrify America network. No more fussing around with card readers that don't always work, or having to call a number with a bad cellphone connection. Just plug in, it works. That's easier than a conventional gas station.
Honestly, Electrify America has caught up to where Tesla was about 2-3 years ago. That really isn't a bad place to be for much of the country. The biggest issue will be that many of their sites are smaller. They are going to get crowded fast!
I agree with your issues 1 and 2. Batteries do not yet match the energy density of petrol. There are plenty of cases where the shorter range isn't a problem, but buyers need to know have a clear understanding up front.
I don't think issues 3 and 4 really need to have much to do with electric vehicles. Autopilot and electric are orthogonal properties. The only connection is that they're both pioneered by Tesla. Otherwise there's no particular reason you should expect one with the other. The same goes for over the air software updates.
Agree in theory but no one has built in a similar sensor suite to Tesla or added a powerful enough computer chip in their cars. This roots back to Tesla treating the whole car like a unified piece of software and having much better programmatic control over it. I only mentioned autopilot because the leading EV does have it as an included feature and so when weighing options people might question why it's not there on other models.
Several pieces of the Autopilot software suite are included at no charge. The "FSD Capability" (pre-payment for a future delivery of full self-driving) is the $10K option you are thinking of.
Buyers of the FSD Capability package get some additional beta features such as "Navigate on Autopilot" which will do lane changes on freeways, but is otherwise significantly less than actual full self-driving as it would be understood by a layperson.
You’re not wrong about ‘full self driving’, but “Autopilot” - which is just lane steering and adaptive cruise - is standard on every car you can get from Tesla’s site (you might still be able to get a model 3 without it by calling sales, but I haven’t heard of that working as of recent).
Agreed. I've been driving a Leaf since 2015 (two different generations by now) and the main reason that makes road trips unpalatable is NOT range. Not at all. Charging more often? Sure, whatever. Unless it's a business trip or a trip across the country it's fine. I've discovered some stuff I'd probably would never have otherwise, by routing via chargers in small towns.
No, the problem is how sparse some quickchargers are, and the fact that many don't even work - and the best you can do is check comments to see if people have complained about them recently. Some of them (specially Nissan owned!) are located in places that _close at night_. That's not acceptable, we can find 24/7 gas stations almost everywhere.
However, that only accounts for 0.1% of my trips. I've optimized for the most common use-case (city driving) and don't regret that one bit.
> If you've ever driven a Tesla on a highway you know you'll not get the full 230 at highspeeds.
Yeap. Same way you won't get good mileage on any car if you do that. Thankfully liquid fuels have a ridiculous amount of energy, so we can afford to waste 70% as heat plus drag and the only real consequence is the wallet (and filling up more often).
US highway speeds are crazy and it is indeed shocking when you see it the first time. It would also be quite shocking on ICE cars too, but they don't have accurate fuel gages, let alone accurate range estimates. At least most don't.
> I wish them all the best with this amazing migration to electric vehicles.
The legal limit might be 70mph, but when traffic is not heavy it typically flows much faster than that in my experience. I used to make a regular commute along I95 through Delaware, and even though the speed limit was 55 (later upped to 65), it wasn't uncommon to be going 75-80 alongside other cars. Not everyone went that fast, but most people seemed to. Note that the speed of traffic hardly changed when the limit was increased.
I'm not sure they were drawing a specific comparison between the US and some other country, and there's quite a bit more diversity among European countries. There are at least many in which speed limits are stringently enforced using speed cameras or other more "ruthless" methods, accompanied with even heftier penalties than in most of the US. Meanwhile, I don't know if there are any states in which minor speeding is systematically enforced.
> Same way you won't get good mileage on any car if you do that
Er, no, traditional gas cars fuel economy is optimal in freeway driving, despite the fact that more delivered energy is required than at slower speeds. Hybrids and electric cars, which can be closer to peak delivery efficiency over a broader range of speeds, have peak economy at lower speeds.
> Er, no, traditional gas cars fuel economy is optimal in freeway driving, despite the fact that more delivered energy is required than at slower speeds.
Depends on how you define "freeway driving": If you mean constant speed, then yes; if you mean high speed, then no.
> Hybrids and electric cars, which can be closer to peak delivery efficiency over a broader range of speeds, have peak economy at lower speeds.
So do ICE cars. Energy (=fuel) consumption rises with the square of speed, because aerodynamic resistance does. That's just a law of nature, irrespective of engine technology.
The advisory speed limit on the Autobahn in Germany is 130 km/h = 80 mph. If you drive 55 mph (90 km/h) on an unrestricted or 130 km/h section during your driving test, you will fail.
Agreed with most of your points, just curious about:
> Same way you won't get good mileage on any car if you do that
What do you mean by that? Aren't ICE cars often more efficient at highway speeds? My car usually averages 45ish MPG on the highway and more like 30 in the city.. the sweet spot seems to be around 60-70 mph. Some US highways get up to 80 or 90, but that still (at least for the cars I've owned) ends up more efficient MPG-wise than city driving.
The sweet spot for your car is actually more like 45-50 mph, but you are not really going to find long stretches of road with those speeds.
Try driving US highway 1 from Key Largo to Key West. It’s about 100 miles with a 45mph speed limit, at sea level. Set your cruise control at 45 on an evening with light traffic. It will be the best fuel economy you’ve ever seen in your car, by a wide margin.
> Aren't ICE cars often more efficient at highway speeds?
No. They're more efficient at constant speeds, because the ICE can only be really optimised for a very narrow RPM band, but that need not necessarily translate into higher speeds.
Just choose a lower gear, and watch your fuel consumption drop significantly below what it would be at higher speed in a higher gear.
The main reason for this is that air resistance, which costs energy (=fuel) to overcome, rises not linearly with rising speed, but in proportion to the square thereof.
>> No Autopilot. This is a big sell for many EV users.
Ford is targeting Truck Buyers, not "EV Users", and I can assure you Ford knows Truck Buyers, and i can also Assure you we do not care or even want Autopilot. We love to drive our trucks.
>>No comprehensive supercharger network.
I fully expect Ford to have this solved by the time the first Truck rolls off the line, I could be wrong but Ford has a ton of partnerships and pull. Hell even if the only chargers where at every dealership that would likely rival Telsa's network out of the box. However I fully expect deals to be made likely in concert with other Manufactures over the next 12 mos so I think this will end up being a non-issue
>>Software rollouts. Ford has been working on this but it is still not Solved.
I still not sure how I feel about this "feature", one of the reason I dislike Tesla is their belief they should be allowed to modify the car I supposedly bought from them anytime they want over the air. Treating the car like it was an Apple iPhone (which I also do not own)
Ford has a careful balancing act here. Ford owners want to OWN their truck, not rent it from Ford
> No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still.
I agree that this is important, but it is 99% psychological. In the entire time I owned my Tesla, I used the supercharger a half dozen times. Most people with an EV that has 200+ miles of range will rarely use DC fast chargers.
And I've used (checks file) 56 different superchargers in the last 4 years, some of them many times. It comes down to how many long road trips you make. Fast chargers are totally unnecessary for local-only driving if you have a slow charger at home, but critical for convenient road trips beyond your vehicle's range.
Indeed. Also, GP comment might want to remember we're in a thread about the F-150, a truck that many consumers will want to use to get to job sites. Arguably, such a use case needs even more charging infrastructure than average electric vehicle use cases.
I think GP is pointing out that most people who own an ICE vehicle aren't used to having any limits on refueling their vehicle. If they need to take a long trip they just go. In the vast majority of the country there's a gas station at basically every interstate exit and refilling the tank takes 5 minutes.
All of a sudden with an EV you most likely need to plan your route around charging stations and allow for charging time. This isn't to say that EV's are bad or that they should be avoided - simply that most people don't think about these things in advance and may be surprised the first time they take a long trip with an EV.
I very, very rarely drive my car further than a hundred miles in a day; for my day-to-day work, a 200 mile range would be more than comfortable, and I'd be able to recharge to full overnight.
But every once in a while we drive about 200 miles to visit the in-laws, and I would be super nervous about attempting that in an EV. At best we'd be close to empty by the time we arrived, I don't know the state of the charger system on the highways we use, and we'd be stuck using a low-amp charger at their house, which would take forever.
I was 50/50 on buying an EV last year, but decided against it for this reason; I felt like we were still a couple of years away from EVs being practical for all of my use cases. I'm sure we'll get there soon, but right now they aren't a drop-in replacement for everyone's ICE.
With Teslas, you plug in your destination and it provides directions with charging stops. For example: I drove over 600 miles from Portland to Berkeley starting at 25% battery. It routed me to three charging stops[1] and included times for both arrival and how long charging would take.
If you have the navigate on autopilot feature, it automatically drives you from freeway onramp to exit. It's far less mentally taxing than driving manually.
Whether you ever take a roadtrip is not 99% psychological. Sure you more commonly stay within range but for instance I drive several hours to see my family regularly. No supercharging stations would prohibit that or 2-3x the time taken.
I'm surprised you find it tolerable. My Model 3 can get from Portland to Spokane (350 miles) with one charging stop in Kennewick, taking about 6 hours total.
If I use ABRP to simulate the same trip in a 2020 Bolt, it requires 3 stops and over 90 minutes of charging, bringing the trip time to 7 hours and 23 minutes.[1] It's not clear if the trip is actually possible, as the the first stop is at a used car dealership in The Dalles which claims to only allow Nissans to charge there.[2] The latest checkin says it's inoperable.
With the supercharger network, you know in advance if the station is having any issues (including simply being full). Other charging companies are getting better, but the current patchwork is too uncertain for me to deal with. If I had a Bolt, I'd probably rent a car for long distance trips. (Please don't take this as insulting the Bolt. It's far less expensive than a Model 3 Performance. With the money saved, you could probably fly for every long distance trip for the lifetime of the car.)
> With the supercharger network, you know in advance if the station is having any issues (including simply being full).
We've had a couple of cases recently where this wasn't the case. Supercharger was recording availability as if it was working, but in reality people were plugging in and getting failures. Rare, of course, but it can happen.
Also, that trip plan seems to just be ABRP bugs. Better to stop at the EA in Hood River, OR than the one they have by default.
> software rollout
Nope, don’t want automatic over the air software update. I want it in the field when others have tried it, found issues and then I get it.
> autopilot
Again, don’t want a half baked marketing-speak technology. Driver assist with sensor driven safety features are all I want.
Don’t want extremely intrusive analytics and camera monitoring sure where after any accident the car company CEO would be testing how it was my fault.
Supercharger network is the only thing that will ever make me want to get a Tesla, hopefully other networks will soon be sufficient.
Yes, Ford dealerships and in fact all dealerships can be shady, but for other cars I generally don’t have to deal with them once the warranty is over. With Tesla I’ll have to deal with the company for the life of my car.
For the first one, are you considering the Electrify America network? I follow a guy on YouTube who takes road trips using the EA network. The issues he has are not so much that the stations don't exist, but that the charging is slower than optimal and buggy due to bad software. He's still able to roadtrip though, just with more hassle.
> No Autopilot. This is a big sell for many EV users. As far as I know Ford is no where close to having a viable competitor.
Autopilot (as in ADAS Level 3) is and always will be vaporware on existing Teslas. Meanwhile my 2016 Civic has the same type of ADAS Level 2 driver assist. It's not quite as fancy as Tesla's version but it's 90% of what I need. I think for 90% of buyers, anything that does ADAS level 2 is fine.
>1. No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still.
Yes. I considered CarPlay a must-have feature, but no EVs out there matched the Supercharger network, which led to a Tesla purchase.
>4. No Autopilot.
Tesla is definitely overselling this. The only real time I've used Autopilot for an extended period of time was driving I-5 from SF to/from LA, and other ICE cars accomplish this too.
I don't think many people will be driving an EV Ford F-150 cross country.
Minivan...yes. SUV yes. Work truck, not likely.
If people have the occasional need to drive cross country, just rent a gas vehicle till the infrastructure is there. Till then it's just fear mongering causes a slower adoption of EV, which means a slower rollout of a national network.
One of the things I need a truck for is to tow a trailer with cows inside to (and back from) a facility that can extract eggs, implant embryos, etc. Unfortunately, that route doesn't follow any interstate highways and is about 180 miles each way. I'd absolutely LOVE to tow them with an electric truck and eliminate emissions from the picture. I've been eagerly awaiting something like the Cybertruck/Lightning, but until they get MUCH more mileage or hot-swap batteries I just can't make the switch. There is one fast-charge station in the middle, but none near the destination--and even if there was, I can't add charging stops with a trailered cow.
I agree that overselling the importance of uncommon use cases is a hindrance to EV adoption in general, but this is a pickup truck. The purpose of a pickup truck is to handle the uncommon use cases. It's fair to criticize this specific EV for not being good at the things that you must have a pickup truck to do.
Then...don't get an EV truck? You're not the target audience. Might be a 360 round trip capability. Someone else will need to take their cows 400 miles round trip...then 420? At what point is good enough is good enough.
Your criticism will likely prevent someone else where it fits their use case from buying it just because of a "what if" scenario and prevents the overall cause of eliminating emissions.
I reread my comment and I sound like an ass and I'm sorry. I'm just frustrated that I think we'll have a long road ahead in reaching mass adoption if people keep hearing these one off scenarios and think of the vehicles on a negative light when families can purchase 1 EV and retain 1 ICE for now and use the ICE for long trips - or, rent for long trips but my friends keep holding out for the "perfect" EV.
Nissan did this and it sucks. Because dealers have to sell their vehicles too, so guess which vehicles get plugged in those stations? They are almost always busy.
Plus dealerships have business hours. I had a bad time once with an earlier Leaf generation trying to charge at night, in the cold. TWO quick chargers just a few miles away, both inaccessible.
Sure but it's not just about quantity. They need to be along the highways to be useful for roadtrips. And no one else even has the tech for supercharging at the moment, it's 72kwh supercharges vs 50kwh (rare) ( as far as I know ).
At least for my use cases, I think Ford actually has an edge over Autopilot. Any car with adaptive cruise control and autosteering is gonna behave identically to a Tesla with autopilot for 99% of the time behind the wheel. Ford doesn't do lane changes or summoning, but from what I've seen both of those features have some jank with Tesla and I wouldn't use them.
The big pro of Ford's system is that on some highways/freeways the cruise control is actually hands free. IIRC Teslas have torque sensors in the steering wheel to make sure that your hands don't wander.
"Any car with adaptive cruise control and autosteering is gonna behave identically to a Tesla with autopilot for 99% of the time behind the wheel."
This isn't even close to true. Most LKAS and ADAS systems will only last a few seconds before they require human intervention. It is not at all the same experience.
I'm not sure about most systems, but whatever Subaru puts in their cars works pretty well in my experience. It has a little trouble on windy mountain roads when the shoulder isn't well marked (it doesn't drive off a cliff or anything, but the autosteer disengages), but on the freeway I can usually go 10+ minutes without any manual interaction.
Autosteering / lane-centering (which is increasingly standard in driver assistance technology, including bluecruise which will be available on this truck) is not the same as lane-keep assist.
We owned a Ford plug-in hybrid. Amazing power, every creature comfort imaginable, great price-- what could go wrong? Sort answer: everything. It was an absolute nightmare. First and last Ford I'll ever buy.
I could rant for ages, but already got downvoted so I'll keep it short. It was the only car I've ever owned to leave me stranded. It did so at least half a dozen times. The 12V battery (which we replaced) would be drained flat by the janky electronics of the car. It would be 100% fine when you park, and the dead when you're done shopping. Eventually I bought a battery charger to top it off every weekend.
We had recall after recall to deal with. I still get notices in the mail and we sold that car two years ago. None of the recalls dealt with any of our problems which were common when googling.
Selling that car for 25% of it's purchase price after 3 years was the final insult, but nobody wanted it and I can't blame them.
For anyone curious, it was a 2013 Ford C-Max Energi.
While it's unfortunate you had so many issues, I think some of them can be chalked up to the risk of being such an early adopter. EVs in 2013 vs 2021 would seem to be quite different machines.
By way of counterpoint: leased a C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid from Ford for 3 years; never needed any work doing to it. Was a disappointment when Ford announced they were walking away from the car market for trucks and coupes only.
Why are companies not putting out electric gas hybrids that use a tuned generator as a backup source of energy like the Chevy Volt did? (I suspect then the vehicle wouldn't qualify for subsidies)
It's crazy to me, as it adds maybe 300 lbs to the vehicle and provides all the benefits of electric, but with the potential range of gas.
I find electric vehicles as a technology highly appealing, but current offerings atrocious. I want a privacy (crazy I even have to say this) respecting electric vehicle with a backup gas charging generator.
This truck would be ideal to _me_ if it met those two criterion, but as is it's a no go. I may just have to build my own someday. :sigh:
The Volt was "hybrid done right". It was 90% an EV, it just had backup generation, which didn't even have to provide that much power. It can run at a constant (optimal) speed, with the variability absorbed by batteries. It doesn't take that much power to maintain speed in cruise, as opposed to accelerating.
No complicated drive train either. The Prius drivetrain is an engineering marvel, but looks complicated to me. It seems to be reliable, which is incredible.
Sure you need to carry the extra weight, but maintenance is (supposedly) much simpler.
The I3 is an even better example. It's marketed with the 'range extender' as an option. Only issue is that it had a teeny tiny fuel tank that only added a pitiful range(I suspect some incentives were in play), but it demonstrates the concept. Maybe this could even be optional.
Completely agree about the Volt. PHEVs are ideal, and best for the environment. Who cares if you have to use gas a couple times a month for longer ranges if you don't need to mine so much lithium and cobalt for the battery?
Cutting gas usage by 80% should be considered essentially equivalent to 100%. And the lower electric range of PHEVs is likely offset by lack of range anxiety and potentially greater adoption.
The BMW i3 has a gas range extender option[1] (though it's not exactly a pickup truck...) I personally went with a Toyota Prius Prime[2], which has been a solid vehicle.
Ford also has a hands free driving mode called Blue Cruise. It relies on highly accurate mapped roads as well as on-board sensors so it probably mostly works on just major highways. Still though, major highways are about the only time I'd really trust technology like this at the moment.
This is what this transition should be all about. It's not just a more environmentally responsible truck, it's better truck in nearly every way. Contractors are going to love the secure storage and built-in power for use on the job site or a farm. It has more torque and will be better at towing. They could have charged a lot more for these but instead it will be cheaper than the existing fossil fuel versions if you consider the tax rebates.
Ford knows their market and are going to absolutely destroy the competition with this.
I hope the ability to use your EV battery to backup your house power becomes an expected capability in the future. Glad Ford included it. Too bad Tesla backed away from it, i’m guessing due to their powerwall business.
I'm interested to see if this leads to people living in places without power and using their truck as the sole source of electricity.
If you have a small cabin with no a/c, wood heat, and a propane stove - your house is going to use hardly any power compared to your truck. It would barely make a difference.
The power draw is probably fine, but the contention for the battery would be a problem. Think, "hey honey, can we put off the Costco trip until next week so we can leave the internet up, and lights on?"
Implementing a transfer switch and dummy load just to dump solar generation when your truck is being a truck would feel like a weird exercise.
At a charging station? A lot of people do a lot of their charging not at home already - at least in cities. Presumably this could / will be true in rural areas, too.
I want to know if it is 240V split phase. A lot of houses use multiwire branch circuits so getting split phase power would be a Big Deal. If Ford puts a big gnarly inverter capable of this in the F150, then I'm going to be stoked.
But I need an HD truck, and it has to have enough range to tow, which means I'm not in the market for a Lightning. Dammit.
Depends on the size of the house's load and the size of the battery and the efficiency of the inverter.
Ford's promo site says 'up to 10 days with rationing power' asuming 30kWh use per day with extended-range battery. But it's not clear to me if 30kWH is normal use, and rationing would be less, or if that's the rationed use. A 300 kWH battery seems rather large to me, and i haven't seen an actual spec for the Ford.
Edit: reread their site after reading sibling posts, in a different blurb they say 3 days or 10 days with rationing with the same assumption about 30 kWH per day; so their rationing assumption must be getting down closer to 9 kWH per day. Either way, a nice feature to have that would eliminate a portable generator for me.
The average household electricity consumption per day is 28.9 kWh. For comparison, the Tesla Model X long range has a battery capacity of 100 kWh.
So in theory, a fully charged Model X could power the average home for 3 days. Really puts into perspective how much energy is needed to move a car at highway speeds.
After going through their marketing, and considering the needs of family in the construction industry, I think they've touched on the right use cases here that a tech worker Tesla fan wouldn't be interested in but that tradesmen/contractors do need. My relatives do in fact:
Use the truck bed always and fill it with tools and supplies.
Drive around all day going from job site to job site transferring tools and supplies or meeting with current and prospective clients.
Use electric generators and in fact carry one in their truck bed.
If the onboard generator has enough juice to bring a crew to work and back, while also powering their tools all day I can definitely see contractors getting excited for this truck.
The move by Ford offers strong evidence that electric vehicles at this point have become a sustaining, not disruptive innovation. Incumbents like Ford can now compete using existing business models and possibly manufacturing practices/equipment.
EV companies like Tesla are now positioned very poorly. They've burned capital chasing the top end of the market during the disruptive phase. Rather than servicing unserved low-end markets that companies like Ford couldn't touch for business reasons, Tesla went after the very top end of the market. Piles of evidence say that this approach will fail, not necessarily for technical reasons but for business reasons.
Successful marketplace disruptors attack the market from the bottom by offering objectively inferior technologies with steeply improving performance. That tech trajectory eventually allows the disruptor to gobble the market from the bottom up, with incumbents only too happy to leave low-end, low-margin customers behind. Think microcomputers vs. minicomputers.
Rather than running this playbook, Tesla chose the alternative: attack the very top end of the market. It never went through the phase where its products were mistaken for toys.
Now that EV production costs and technologies allow easier transitions, Tesla's business model is upside-down. If Tesla couldn't consistently turn profits during the phase it held the advantage, it is going to become almost impossible now that the playing field has leveled and the incumbents can just run the playbook.
At this point I think Tesla's future in the automotive market depends on just two factors. Their DC fast charging network, and their supply of batteries.
I'm confident they currently hold the upper hand on both fronts right now and for the next couple of years most likely. I am not at all confident that they can hold onto either advantage much longer than that.
This seems like an awful take. Ford starting to catch up to Tesla doesn't doom Tesla. They're massively overvalued, but IIRC they're somewhat financially stable, have a huge fanbase, still have high order demand, and still have an edge against all competitors in their field.
I'm sure this image is heavily photoshopped, but it looks like they're trying to make a center console that's half touch screen, half physical controls. I wonder what that will look like in reality.
This interface is already in production in the electric mustang. The buttons are all touchscreen, with the exception of the physical center wheel which is embedded in a hole in the screen. The photo on this article may be helpful: https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/02/im-obsessed-with-the-ford-...
Then they'd have to add extra hardware to detect whether it's there or not, and change the interface accordingly. And for what? I can't imagine an actual use case to justify it.
It's not half and half, it's touchscreen with a physical volume knob which in my opinion is the right way. Having touch controls for volume is a horrible idea (my car has touch control for everything and I despise trying to get the volume adjusted quickly).
If a touchscreen is bad for volume, it is probably bad for most other up and down adjustments too (e.g. temp). I'd argue touch screens are bad for everything when you are driving, because you can't feel your way around.
Touchscreens aren't as bad as the cheap capacitive switches that seem to be taking over the Appliance product space. Every appliance in my new house's kitchen has those damn capacitive switches and they only work ~10% of the time.
>Having touch controls for volume is a horrible idea
I second that. This also applies to heater controls and lighting and almost everything else that i can't think of. The benefit of the tactility of physical buttons and switches is sadly being coldly ignored by those who design our cars.
Maybe I am asking for too much but I want physical knobs for: Volume Control, HVAC Fan Speed, HVAC Temp.
A tangential question: Does anyone know why there is an AC button on older cars? I can turn the temp all the way down but that just does outside air temp. If i want real AC I need to hit a button to turn it on. In my ideal car turning the knob to the lowest temp would get me cold air no matter what.
Because the button is connected to a relay that turns the AC compressor on or off. The compressor actually draws quite a bit of power.
The hot/cold adjustment is adjusting a baffle/mixer that can either let in "cold" outside air, or air that's been heated by the engine compartment into the car. Think of it like driving around on a sunny day in the fall - sun is heating up the inside of the car, but the outside air is cold enough it would be silly and a waste of gas to turn on the A/C compressor.
If you want to defrost your windows, you want hot, dry air. Air conditioning dries your air. If you combine A/C and heat, you get the best defrost performance.
A/C also consumes some amount of power and fuel efficiency- you may want the coolest air you could possibly have without A/C.
Two reasons:
1) The compressor uses some power from the engine, reducing gas mileage.
2) You can actually use it in conjunction with the heater to get dehumidified hot air.
I had a 1996 (iirc) Buick that had AC/Heat knob that did that. It was red on the right, blue on the left. If you left it at the detente position it was outside air. Turn in left, AC; turn it right, heat. Then there was just a separate knob for fan speed. Now that you mention it, I’ve never seen that again.
For my part i hope that they figure out that not literally everything needs to be crammed on to a flashy screen. The purging of tactile controls must stop.
Someone needs to start a dash company for these auto manufacturers. They are all hideous and have terrible functionality. Why would I ever want to control my heated seats through a touchscreen? Or A/C? Or Radio presets. I want to buy a newer vehicle but they are all so bad.
My Mercedes has this. Except the knob isn't on the screen, it's where the right hand would rest.
In my humble opinion, It's superior to touch screen experiences, at least while driving the vehicle. That said, dedicated knobs (such as a knob for a/c) are still the best for some things.
Range rovers have been doing something like this for a few years. Theirs can go between being radio controls and climate controls pretty seamlessly. I think it's a great compromise between touch controls and tactility
> “Doing our research, when a driver would reach towards a touch-screen interface in any vehicle, they would unintentionally apply torque to the steering wheel, and the vehicle would drift out of its lane position,” said Matthew Valbuena, Mazda North America’s lead engineer for HMI and infotainment.
> “And of course with a touchscreen you have to be looking at the screen while you’re touching...so for that reason we were comfortable removing the touch-screen functionality,” he added.
You mean like in every car made before 2015? Do new cars really have that many more features?
With the touchscreen cars I've rented or driven for work I'd have loved to have a little bluetooth or serial connected control cluster that sat near to hand with basic radio and climate controls. Something I could operate by feel. Seems like there are enough bad touchscreen consoles out there to make an aftermarket kit viable but maybe I underestimate the technical challenges.
Maybe I'll just keep driving my junkers until voice control gets good.
The top level Settings menu in my 2020 Ford Explorer doesn't even fit on one page. It would end up looking like the cockpit of a commercial airliner if everything had to be mapped out to a physical control.
Every action doesn’t need its own physical control. Knobs and buttons can be multipurpose. My mazda3 has touchscreen but it’s disabled because I can navigate and control everything with a single “command” knob.
It isn't to say "All menu items are strictly button based" like the space shuttle or something. It means that the screen will not be touch-based.
This often means a large knob that one can turn, use as a joystick (up down left right) and push in for selection. This knob is used for navigating the majority of the console. There are some unique buttons and knobs for things like volume, climate, etc.
This is what my Mazda does, it's perfect. The big knob does exactly what you describe, where turning the knob scrolls. There's also a small dedicated volume knob that you can push in for mute and left/right to change tracks, and dedicated home and back buttons next to the big knob. All easy to use without looking.
I still think massive touchscreens in cars are a horrible idea, so Ford doing better than Tesla at something I hate and wish would go away is not super convincing. :)
> Available Ford Intelligent Backup Power, enabled by the 80-amp Ford Charge Station Pro, allows you to use your truck as a backup power source to your home during a power outage. * The power transfer can be triggered automatically or manually based on customer preference.
Good, now maybe Tesla will offer that too. Last I checked they didn't because of warranty concerns on the battery. They don't want you using the vehicle to arbitrage electricity prices. Which is probably not worth the wear anyway. But as an emergency backup or place to store surplus solar energy - now that's useful.
I hope ford's got a plan for making millions of battery packs for these things.
I wonder if "backfeed from the EVSE" is going to be a regular / standardized feature of some vehicle chargers in the future?
Combine this with time-of-use awareness and auto-auction mechanisms to backfeed the grid when power's necessary (and turn off back-feeding to not kill linemen repairing wires) it seems like a pretty good extension to car charging.
Elevator pitch:
Public charging installed on streets; charges 3 prices -- "I need power now", "I need this much power before this time" and "I need this much power by this time and you may draw power out of my battery between now and then so long as I have this much charge by this time".
Then you network interconnect these chargers and make a distributed peaker power plant and also make subscription / power deliver fees.
I'm curious, with the advent of electric what's the advantage of a truck vs. a minivan for a lot of situations? IIRC there were literal space constraints before which is why a minivan couldn't tow like a truck, but since the motor and batteries sit underneath the car, couldn't one build a van/minivan with just as much power as this?
If that's the case, other than hauling very tall objects, why get a truck? A minivan with the 2nd and 3rd rows folded is already longer than most truck beds.
Curious to hear thoughts on this. I know culturally a van would never beat a truck, but I'm curious more mechanically/technically.
Another thing I'm curious about with a truck in particular is if a custom fit gasoline tank could be placed in the bed of a truck that has an inverter that could charge the car, so even if your battery was dead you could effectively use the car as a gas one, in a pinch.
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As an aside I'm willing to bet within a decade this will outsell the gasoline version. A F-150 used frequently requires a lot of maintenance. I imagine this will be significantly easier to maintain.
Look, if people made rational decisions all the time, economics would be a real predictive science.
Based on utility, most minivans beat all SUVs in tasks not involving going off-road. Minivans definitely beat pickup trucks for moving people, and often for moving stuff -- but not always.
Purchasing a vehicle in the USA is only partially based on function, for most people. Price and culture figure in a lot more.
Depends on the "SUV" you're referring to. Full size SUVs like the Suburban can tow heavy loads, have lots more storage capacity, have actual 4wd (snow), and generally have a powertrain that's going to outlast a minivan.
The minivan has the space but only if you plan ahead and allocate the space to hauling. I've underplanned trips in my minivan for large/bulky items (e.g. beverage fridge, ikea bookshelf) several times and had to do impromptu adjustments of the seats/positions to get items in. It doesn't help that I have a bunch of kids car seats to deal with when converting to "hauling mode".
The advantage of a truck is you can carry more, or taller things, and they don't get the inside of your vehicle dirty. imagine you just mowed a wet, muddy lawn, do you want the mower in the back of your minivan, or in the bed of truck? Also, many tall things that you might haul in the back of truck can't simply be reposition into a minivan (tall and long or tall and many).
Ah yes, that's a good point. Other than tall or dirty objects, is there any reason to get a truck? Genuinely curious, because at some point I'll have kids and wonder what the trade-off is between minivan (more people) and truck (more hauling) is with an electric vehicle.
There's a certain lifestyle aspect where my high school friend dropped a pulled junkyard engine in the bed of his truck and shoved it into place and strapped it down and he doesn't care about the interior of his truck bed, its "outdoors" for hauling "outdoors" rated objects.
Technically my wife's van could carry that engine very easily but the process would almost certainly destroy the carpet and leather seats and maybe some windows and the bumper cover etc.
My buddy had hoists on each end of the trip to insert and remove the junkyard engine. This is widely understood in industry and construction in general and using a crane with a pickup truck is no big deal. With a van I guess you could use a forklift and pray the inevitable damage to the interior doesn't turn the vehicle into an instant insurance writeoff, but ...
Imagine for example how easy it would be to wipe out the stereo speakers or the wiring for the GPS in the back of a van vs a seemingly indestructible truck bed. The older the truck the tougher they were built and the more likely the owner doesn't care if its beat up, so you can toss bricks into trucks and similar behavior that would not be tolerated with a van.
I will say the best way to haul 1000+ pounds of yard landscape rock is to pay home depot $59.99 to have truck delivery with a forklift drop the pallet within inches of where I asked. I could have bought a $75K pickup truck and loaded and unloaded all that rock myself by hand, but sixty bucks sounds like a better deal LOL. If I had a full time landscaper job the numbers would be different...
Yeah I have a U-Haul nearby and can rent a bench seat pickup with an 8 foot bed for <$100 to do what I need to do around town. I have to keep this in mind when looking at trucks and trying to justify the utility aspect. $50K is a lot to pay for convenience and I don’t regularly tow anything…
Speaking from the perspective of having generally owned older trucks (currently a '97 Dodge Ram 1500, previously an '84 Ford F350) - conventionally built, body-on-frame pickups are easier to repair and maintain. Most minivans are monocoque, whereas full-size pickup trucks have enough space between the internals to make DIY repairs straightforward. On my 84 F350, I could fit my head between the tire and the wheel well to bleed the brakes easily; on my current '97 Ram, you can replace body panels using a socket wrench.
EVs may tilt the equation, but one thing Big Three US automakers have absolutely perfected for their trucks over the last 40 years is maintainability. Go on autotrader.com, search "Ford F-150" or "Dodge Ram 1500" and sort mileage high to low - can a 20 year old minivan travel roughly the same distance as the moon and back?
For a family, a minivan is very practical. Not only for your one, two, or more kids, who will easily be accommodated in a 7-seater or 8-seater (if you add the optional middle seat in row 2), but when taking their friends along to the park etc.
My minivan is a Chrysler with the stow'n'go fold-down seats; in about 5 minutes I can fold all the passenger seats down into the floor and have 8' x 4' cargo space, which is more than most pickup beds.
Pickups have the advantage of height, as pointed out previously; if you need to move a refrigerator or a Harley, probably a pickup is better. Also, pickups can tow trailers & RV's.
But for taking my family on holiday, or when transporting a sound system, musical instruments, and 2 other musicians all in one vehicle, the minivan works best for me :)
One problem here though is the combo of family holiday and moving lots of objects. When you need all the mentioned cargo space, the van becomes a two-seater. A crew cab truck can move 5 adults comfortably as well as a full load in the bed. Huge advantage for camping. I know you can use roof storage on a van, but i'd argue its more of a hassle, with less capacity, and more dangerous as the vehicle is much more top heavy.
I like vans and own a van. However, in addition to the bed being outdoors, lined with a shell and having no roof, truck suspension can also receive heavier loads without risk of damage. They also have a higher clearance, which has some utility off of roads as well as allowing the truck to settle with a heavy load without affecting its safe path or speed as much.
It’s a good thing for consumers that the two vehicle types have so much overlap in utility.
Beyond the practical reasons re irregularly hauling something to the dump or picking something up for a Reno, two reasons we got a truck that don’t seem mentioned here are for (a) visibility on the road (it is just nicer IMO to be up high) and (b) my wife has long legs and often sits between our kids in the backseat on long drives and it has as much legroom as a Bentley.
The initial models have a far smaller packs than the F150, however, given that most of these will be for business use locally, not distance hauling. If Ford were to make a model of the transit with a large pack, you'd have the much larger bed space along with towing. This would likely be a hit with the van-life community.
Length. The size of trailer you can pull behind a tow vehicle is very dependent on the stability of the tow vehicle, and a lot of that comes down to wheelbase. As long as people want to tow 30+ foot long RVs, they will have to have tow vehicles the size of HD pickups.
If you are hauling concrete or mortar mix, you wouldn’t want the dust getting into the cabin. You can of course get vans that partition the passenger space away, but then that would make it impractical as a family car.
The Pacifica is nearly as good as a pickup truck with stow-and-go. I was sad when I realized the hybrid version lacks that feature because of the batteries being in the floor.
This is the big one for my wife and I. We've been using an old Buick Rendezvous (somewhere between a van and SUV) with the back seats removed as our "truck" for a while now and while you can actually load quite a bit of mulch in the back, you have to load it all by hand which is pretty awful.
Ground clearance is another issue in a lot of places. Our Rendezvous is higher than most minivans, but I've still scraped the bottom before, and have had to turn back from a water crossing on a dirt road.
Generally my experience has been that the Rendezvous can do most of the same things my old Ranger did, but not as easily and with a lot more anxiety about breaking things. Ohh and come to think of it, it actually gets worse gas mileage.
The aspect I'm most curious about is towing range. I have a 5000lb travel trailer that I tow about 200km away a few times a year. I'm pretty sure I'd be out of luck with a vehicle like this.
It has the ability to pull the trailer with ease, but most preliminary estimates are that range would be two digits with that sort of load. In my current vehicle I do stop for gas midway, but it would be an entirely different situation hoping for a charger spot (with connected trailer) and then the time to charge.
Still a great truck, though. For a huge range of uses, including more local towing situations (the vast majority of commercial uses), it could be brilliant.
And eventually they can market a super-range battery you can tow. I kid...or do I?
It will be interesting to see what the real-world experience is like, but I don't expect any good news. People towing tiny travel trailers behind Model X's get brutal reductions in range.
The problem is that an EV is so inherently efficient to begin with that towing a big hollow brick behind you makes a tremendous difference in how much fuel it takes to pull it. Contrast that with a pickup that is already getting mid-teens fuel economy, the change in efficiency is much less pronounced. And with the easy filling ability of the ICE pickup, it's going to be the go-to choice for a number of years until batteries get significantly more capacity, denser, and cheaper.
A very typical pickup/travel trailer combo will get 10mpg. Maybe a couple more for a diesel. You can find outliers, but I've been towing RVs for a while and the topic comes up for discussion periodically, 10mpg is by far the most common experience. Trying to cram enough capacity into a battery for this kind of terrible efficiency is going to be tough for a while.
I just bought a little teardrop camping trailer, and it was amazing how much it impacted my gas mileage. I tow with a Subaru outback, and I went from low 20s (23/24 on highway) to mid teens. Almost ran out of gas on our first trip since it went so much faster than I expected!
I can't imagine that the F150 would be good for long haul trailers... just so much energy involved moving weight around.
I've found towing mileage change was very dependent on the vehicle.
For example, I had a Dodge Durango which got pretty much 16mpg no matter what, whether driving empty or towing a car on a flatbed trailer at highway speeds, still 16mpg. Next vehicle was a used manual transmission BMW X5, got 22-24mpg empty on the highway, but just towing an empty flat trailer would drop that to 17mpg, and a car on it would be 16, and the same towing a small U-Hual box trailer, just instantly drop to 16. So, one was highly stable and the other highly variable with different weight/aero loads.
Cut the advertised range in half. That is about the max you can expect for towing range. So the extended range version may let you tow the distance you want to.
I doubt it would be a very viable choice for recreational towing, but then, that market is probably significantly smaller than the standard truck use-cases.
Ford includes several pictures of towing recreational trailers (travel trailer, boat) in seemingly remote locations among their promotional images for this truck: It certainly isn't the bulk of the market, but it is a very important market.
They're appealing to people who tow stuff currently and aspirationally (e.g. people who don't currently tow trailers, but like to imagine that one day they will. "What if" scenarios).
Eventually the charging infrastructure will be there, including for towing vehicles, and it would be a case of scheduling a lunch around a charge.
I don't think ford will be able to build enough to meet demand. And ford dealers are going to price gouge the crap out of buyers. I have a friend of a friend who is a ford dealer and they are charging quite a bit over for regular F150's because of the chip shortage.
The chip shortage will look like nothing, once the EV ramp increases.
Batteries are always the bottleneck. Ford announced a 60GWh plant partnership, but that will only hold them over for several years of growth and is still a ways away from actually producing cells.
300 miles of range unladen seems very low to me. When towing, this range will likely be cut by more than half. The truck is priced competitively, so it will make sense for "Regular daily driver, and occasionally I need to put something in the bed" truck owners, but definitely not "Tow my trailer to the mountains once a month" truck owners.
This is a really well thought out vehicle. 9.6kw of AC power (120 and 240) available for tools etc on work sites, 2 way power (truck can provide backup power to home), and it has a frunk (front trunk)!
As a truck owner, and a California resident, every one of these features calls out to me. I use my power tools all over the place where power isn’t readily available, PG&E shuts off my power when it’s ‘too windy’, and a drunk seems like a good place to lock up my laptop and nice tools when I’m in a restaurant in San Jose or Santana Clara (sheesh, laptop thieves suck).
Well done Ford - I think you’ve got a customer here.
F150 is the best selling vehicle in America. The price is actually comparable to the gas version. This might be the vehicle that really changes the EV game.
If they have the capacity to produce the battery en masse, which is doubtful given what they announced so far. Only Tesla and VW seem to be serious about this.
If Ford falls on it's face in battery capacity due to a lack of planning, it will be the biggest belly flop in years. They have to know they're sitting on a gold mine with this. At this moment, the game is theirs to lose. The Ford I know and love is likely to screw it up, unfortunately, now that Mulally is long gone.
Most people buy pickups currently probably don't really think CO2 emissions are a big deal, but perhaps there's an undiscovered pickup market that Ford's going to tap into; perhaps an urbanite who normally wouldn't consider a pickup but thought the Cybertruck looked interesting.
I’m a Subaru driver who wants my next car to be electric or hybrid electric… this appeals to me. I’ve liked trucks before but I have not been able to justify the cost. Pretty much all EVs are in the same ball park now (40K-50k for dual motor), so it’s going into the comparison against a model 3, model y, and others that will be on the market at that time.
The F150 itself has great features (quiet ride), then pile on the new stuff here (a good bed cover is $1k+ and no longer needed with the frunk, the acceleration).
I'm happy to see this. It's the most popular vehicle, so it will reach a large audience. Also, at least in my imagination, work trucks are a perfect use because they are used locally and parked on the job site. So the range and need for a charging station might not be impediments.
My pet peeve is that vehicles are getting bigger in general, and I don't need a big vehicle. An F150 won't fit in my garage.
An amusing anecdote, my friend got a brand new pickup, and was being really fussy about keeping it clean. I asked him: How do you keep the bed from getting dirty and scratched up? He said: Don't put anything in there. When he drove back to the family ranch, his mom noticed that he was being too prissy with his truck. So she waited until he was sleeping in on a Saturday morning, and borrowed his truck to haul manure. Lesson learned. ;-)
Hah! I recently bought a brand new truck, and while I haven't been quite that bad about it, I did find it painful to put scratches into the pristine paint. A week or so ago I had to hide my pain as my friends helped me load a pair of truck axles and transmissions and transfer cases into it. It's pretty well broken in now, and I'm getting over it. I think I'll let it go a while longer like this, then clean it up real good and get it lined.
You could also just get a spray in bedliner, they are pretty darn tough. Shoveling dirty into/out of them will not have any negative effect and you can then sweep or hose it out.
Pretty cool. I'd buy one if they made a regular cab, short bed, base model version. Not gonna happen. Probably never will since it isn't a matter of simply producing a shorter frame and altering the body shell. Not enough call for it.
In my case (not that anyone cares), lower end trucks are fairly optimal. Low repair costs, don't care about gas mileage (not enough miles/year), good visibility, don't ever need a back seat, ease of repair and accessibility, need space for transporting big and tall stuff often enough. Kind of a no-brainer.
The emergency house power angle is the killer app for me. Plus never going to a gas station, changing oil, etc.
You do have to wonder how much longer any EV subsidy can last. It highly favors wealthier people (due to the tie to income tax in many cases) and won't hold up to widespread adoption of EVs
> Offering an ingenious array of connected, intelligent features with over-the-air Software Updates to help ensure your truck can get even better over time.
Anyone else think it's anti-consumer to not be able to opt out of these 'features'?
I was pretty amazed to see this in the initial blurb. I agree with you, and I think a good chunk of HN would as well, but apparently Ford's marketing department determined that this is something that people want.
Scrolling through the page, it's the second "feature" that they advertise (first being that it's "gass-free"). It gets higher placement than the "Power your home" capability, and much higher placement than the "Frunk" (in fact, if I just scroll, the "frunk" doesn't show up until about 2/3 of the way down the page!)
I'm a potential customer on this. I'm in the market for a vehicle, need a pickup and towing (no really). My hesitance still is charge time on trips. If I'm taking my kids camping or something, I really don't want to add one or more hours to the trip. IMO for this sort of thing to really gain acceptance mainstream, we need 5 minute charge times and battery lifetimes on par with ICE engine lifetimes (300-500k miles).
I feel like the industry is getting really close, and this is a solid effort that puts Tesla on notice, but not _quite_ there in terms of mass acceptance.
If you've got kids, you need bathroom breaks. On our cross-country trip in our Model Y we calculated that we spent a whole 15 minutes waiting for the charger, every other time we charged while we were toileting, eating or sleeping.
That being said, the F-150 will be a lot worse than the Y. It only supports 150kWh charging instead of Tesla's 250kWh, it uses a lot more watts per mile, and it doesn't have access to Tesla's Supercharger network.
That's interesting to hear. I have several friends with Teslas and keep up with some of the reviews, etc. But I haven't heard much perspective from people with kids. I have a few friends with Teslas that also keep an ICE for trips. I think some would vary on location. I've gone so far as to do tesla's route planner for trips we commonly take, and I'm pretty sure between having to drive to charging station, and charge time, it would add a couple hours to our trips. Then again, I tend to not want to stop much.
I really hope Ford accounted for the possibility of a gas-powered range extender. Gas powered generators are extremely common on work trucks. And a moderately sized one could probably produce enough power to maintain this truck at highways speeds, or at least produce enough power to drastically improve range.
Old Ford Ranger is my sidekick. Got it used and has paid for itself many times over.
I’m interested in the off-grid potential of the Lightning.
Who knew Ford with be the first to offer “offloading capacity of 9kW, and based on an average daily power demand of 30kWh, can provide full power to a home for around three days”. In contrast, Tesla has a cigarette-lighter port offering 12V. There’s an additional one in the back in case you want to charge an iPhone while tailgating.
Why would low speed high torque operation be bad for range? Are the electric motors less efficient at lower speeds? Hill climbing and off roading probably has bad gas mileage too?
It is easy to understand. Think about trying to pedal your bike in the mud with 5mph. You will run out of energy way earlier compared to biking on perfect, flat tarmac with 10mph.
To overcome friction, you need additional energy. The electric F150 comes with ~3.7 gal equiv. of gasoline worth of energy. The gas powered comes with ~25 gal tank.
If we assume 90% efficiency for the electric motor and 25% for the gasoline, you get:
electric F150: 3.3 gal equivalent available to move the car
gas F150: 6.25 gal equivalent available to move the car
The gas-powered stores effectively double the amount of energy, if the two cars have equal weight and aerodynamics, the gas powered will have 2ble range.
Sure, but driving in mud will take the same amount of energy for both the gas and electric car. It’s not like the ev has an inherent disadvantage in low speed off roading.
Since rock crawling is all about low end torque with guys installing two transfer cases so they can go 4 lo-lo and redline at 3 km/h I would have thought the low end torque of electric motor would be better than gas.
It does have some very nice features. However, I think the reason people who have no need to tow or go offroad would buy this is the same reason people with light workloads buy i9 laptops with 64GB of RAM - spec-flex that they can easily afford.
There is no picture of the entry level model; it says "coming soon". Since the Ford F-150 usually costs a lot to upgrade to 4 full-size doors and a navigation computer, I'm wondering if that will be the case here too. Near the bottom of the page it looks like you have to upgrade two levels to the "Lariat" configuration to get that 15.5 inch touchscreen.
The claims I saw in all of the regurgitated Press Releases seemed to indicate they are going to do 4 doors as standard on the Lightning, at least for now.
I'm not sure how much of that is streamlining production versus design (i.e. fitting all the batteries in place may more or less necessitate that specific body style)
I notice they make a huge deal about the towing capacity but realistically what is the range of this going to be hooked up to a 10,000lb / 5000kg trailer? Maybe if it's lucky a little over 100 miles? Maybe useful for some utility use cases but practically useless for the recreational vehicle market.
Yeah, it's something I've been keeping an eye on. My father in law doesn't see how electric cars can work, one of his main objections is he tows a caravan. Admittedly UK caravans are pretty light, 1400kg is about the middle of the range. There are now a couple of pure electrics with enough towing capacity (Tesla X, Audi E-tron, Volvo something or other).
Unfortunately, there isn't much getting away from the fact that towing a big box behind a car halves the economy, and while those cars are starting to have very useable ranges, even if you need to occasionally travel longer distance, halving those ranges leaves you a bit short.
I have a mid size GM truck and it sufficiently handles all my needs. It's not overly large and drives fine in the city and tight spots. It has good performance gets easily 25MPG on the highway. Trucks standup more to abuse, and are usually more reliable. I haven't had any real major issues with it. I take mine down some unkept dirt roads, something I would not want to take a unibody low group clearance car down. When I go camping I just throw everything in the bed with some bungee cords and I'm ready to go. I have a bike and when I transport it I just use a bike pad and don't have to mess with taking the bike wheels off and trying to stuff it in a car. Also the biggest selling point is trucks hold their value quite well.
People are overlooking the CT saying its a lifestyle vehicle. Its gonna be lighter (unibody, structural pack, megacastings), more efficient (triangle for aero), and have better range per cost of vehicle. That has to mean something for fleet managers looking at cost.
The design looks avante-guard from a consumer perspective, but its a result of making it more functional and easier to manufacture which is hard to argue with when your using for business even if you think its hideous. I think the f150 will compete for sure but its traditional branding and smaller bed will probably attract more consumer oriented existing pick-up owners. City people will continue to buy model Y because they have to run errands in tight spaces.
One issue I see with the Cybertruck is the angled sides of the bed. There are a lot of things designed to go on the back of a normal pickup truck, from simple shells to campers like this [1].
Cybertruck seems like it would require special versions of these kind of things. One of the reasons people buy pickups is versatility, and you lose some of that with Cybertruck because of its different shape.
Yep, as someone that actually uses a truck on the range, the only misgiving I have about the Cybertruck is the angled sides. Though that being said, given how apparently it's going to have a bed that can be covered and a ramp out the back, maybe that's actually not necessary. Really need to use to understand if the sides are a dealbreaker, methinks.
Maybe CT style will prove attractive in the market, but I think Tesla could have designed something more like the Rivian pickup. i.e. F-150 inspired but modern Tesla styling.
I want a super small pickup truck. My neighbor has a very old truck, it's SMALL (only font seats, no "cab", smaller width, height and everything) So they used to make smaller trucks.
I'm serious. I just need room for myself, occasionally one other person, and random crap (canoes, boats etc on a rack in back, garden, house, etc crap in bed). We have a family car for the whole family. This could be uncomfortable and small (and ideally cheep) but obviously no market for that or it would be out there. What's smallest pickup currently sold in US?
Toyota Tacoma or Ford Ranger, probably. Look into buying a used Ford Ranger from the late 90s to early 2000s (or Mazdas of similar age; they're the same truck).
* Power supply. This thing supports ton of recharging of power tools. Lawn cares services will love this as more and more communities are banning gas-powdered tools.
* Range. 300 is well within most contractors' home to work site.
* Frunk. Lock away their valuable tools without unloading the toolbox.
* Look. It's what they know and trust. It's something new yet familiar.
Next step for Ford, make EV version of Transit. That'll sell like hot cakes!
I think Tesla's strategy is to start with the total battery supply and allocate batteries to vehicles with sufficiently high margin that they can scale as quickly as possible.
They delayed refreshing the X and S for a long time, I believe, in part because these two models are low-volume and therefore don't warrant a high allocation of battery supply and manufacturing floor space. Why refresh them now, then? I think they are using the 2021 refresh of X and S as a spur for the 4680 battery ramp (see conjecture that Plaid+ is going to be 4680).
Adding more models and variations doesn't do them much good when their demand for the mainstream 3 and Y far outstrips their battery supply, both today and into the near future, even with them ramping battery supply as hard as possible.
Brands that are making a wide range of electric vehicles are taking a significantly different approach. But seeing as they too will be constrained by a small supply of batteries, I am not sure the diversity will be as valuable on their bottom line.
That makes total sense! I'm just surprised they didn't focus on commercial market after 3, especially commercial spaces, range is usually not an issue. Work trucks and vans don't need a lot of ranges.
The intelligent backup power is such an obviously good feature that I'm surprised nobody has thought of this before. Out here people will spend $5-$10k installing a generac for their home. That thing is loud and takes awhile to turn on depending on the setting.
Having your EV plugged in and just "work" when there's a power outage is stupid simple and absolutely worth it.
No it’s not. There’s no Nissan device you can buy in the USA that allows leaf to do power to home. It might be different in Europe, and I know you can import non-Nissan devices from Japan.
1. I'm really glad they didn't go with the "futuristic" look of the bmw or Volt, where extra "techie" lines create a muddled design. Just make EVs look like aerodynamic ICE vehicles, this will increase adoption rates.
2. How much power does the generator/house back-up provide? I can see it being enough for a couple tools on a jobsite, but how long will it run a refrigerator, furnace, lights, etc.?
3. In this page, Ford claims to have the largest charging network in the USA. How is that possible, I thought Tesla had a huge lead on supercharging stations and destination chargers?
4. Price: At 40k base, you'll be seeing average costs of 50k+, even after the 7.5k tax incentive. I'd take the larger battery for sure, it would greatly increase the utility of the truck for my cases. 50k is what MANY truck buyers are already spending, I don't see that being an obstacle at all.
5. Gripe: Most people who claim to need a truck don't really need to OWN a truck; they should just rent. I live in a rural area and 95% of the trucks I see have 1 passenger and on average almost no cargo in the bed. We are polluting our planet for the occasional privilege of using our OWN truck...people simply buy vehicles for the outlying use case, not the modal case, and it's incredibly inefficient.
6. Overall: These EVs are a step in the right direction. It's still energy inefficient overall, and renting an ICE truck once a month would still be better than buying a new massive EV truck, but this is a step in the right direction. It'll nudge the "I want my own truck" people in the right direction towards efficiency.
Estimating home energy use per day really depends on how much heating/air conditioning you need, if your heater is gas powered or not. The fridge is like 1kWh per day. So... 100 days of just the fridge.
Mid-sized gas furnace will pull about 600W to run the forced air fan. So... 0.6 kWh per hour of runtime. You'd have to calculate the runtime given a temperature. If it is an electric furnace it'll blow through that battery quite fast.
Lights are now peanuts, because LED bulbs are about 8-10W. .12kWh per bulb per day for 12 hours of use.
Average of 877kWh per month. Of course this is averaged as you use more power depending on local weather and time of year due to heating/cooling needs. With that over-averaged value, 3.75 days to drain the battery. This is probably why Ford says about 3 days and then says "10 with conservation".
So I'd say if a family really conserved on heating/cooling, and attempted to be careful with cooking, that battery could quite easily go 10 days.
Has Ford said how many of these they plan to make? It seems like a good step in the right direction, but can they actually source enough batteries to manufacture these in high volume? (They sell about a million F150s a year.)
I wish them luck, but I hope they're fully committed and this isn't just a "let's make a few thousand at a loss for compliance and PR" move. And I hope they have a battery supplier that's prepared to ramp up production fast if they need it.
I just remember Clarkson talking about the hybrid f150 on TG. He said then that Ford had a survey of features that customers wanted added to the truck. A hybrid powertrain, he claimed, was something like number 24 on the list. In other words there are 23 things customers want more then a hybrid. If that is true, then i'm unclear how much of a profit- maker a fully electric f150 will be.
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
― Henry Ford
The people answering your survey probably weren't aware they could power an entire jobsite with just a truck. Killer features such as this will be how electric vehicles penetrate the holdouts.
The webpage has an odd feature which is unrelated to the car itself. Many of the pictures are taken at a low angle, from waist height or a lower surface. Most are below head height. I think Ford's goal with this technique is to make the truck seem larger.
My first vehicle I bought with my own money was a truck. In retrospect, it was a mistake. It got shitty gas milage, had downright dangerous performance (0-60 in 16 seconds made for some white knuckle backroad passing), and 90% of the time my bed was empty.
If I had been smart, and bought a small hatchback or wagon, I'd probably still be driving it to this day, and it'd have 90% of the hauling capability of my truck.
An electric pickup solves a lot of the issues I had with my old truck, but understand, this is a premium product. Pickup truck owners are a stubborn bunch. EVs will have a hard time penetrating that market. It may take a few decades.
This will not save the planet. We need to consume less, and walk/bike/take transit more. Fine, this may not be for you, but at least don't insist on a the rest of subsidizing you (untaxed climate externality).
So according to this[1] it looks like the motors and batteries are in the bottom of the car like in other EVs. Which makes me wonder:
What's under the enormous hood in front? Is it just empty space?
I understand they did not integrate the motors and batteries into a new frame built specifically to accommodate them like Tesla did but rather added them on top the existing frame. I really like that Tesla is a ground up design and something about this F150 annoys me for carrying on all of the institutional inertia of a 100 year old company.
Also, I read Ford is planning on 40k of these and their Transit van each year and marketing them toward fleets.
Actually if they can build an Expedition SUV on this platform in short order, they could have another model T on their hands. That little e at the end of the bar crossing the capital F would finally take its meaning! (seriously in this price range, it could be a Panel van replacement for amazon, FEDEX, plumbers etc. A suburban ppl mover would be an absolute hit, I'd buy one in advance. (not a 100$ deposit, and cancel my CT reservation that I'm hoping to convert on to a yet to be announced hypothetical tesla SUV based on CT...)
It's a nudge in the right direction. The amount of driving is not going to change in the near future, so making transportation cleaner is the only way to make it sustainable.
Now we need to figure out how to make sure the electrical grid is able to support the new load (hopefully with clean energy solutions), and deploy public electrical charging destinations across the entire US to make it feasible.
Electric seems like a great idea for a truck in general. You need high torque and with electric drive you don't need to have an overpowered and inefficient engine to handle peak load. For long distance use better aerodynamics will be important in the long term and Ford isn't breaking any new ground here.
We've added ~1000lb to the weight of these monstrosities (now 6,500lb), faster acceleration from a stop, and preserved the enormous front, with its twin features of blindspot and zero chance that someone can roll over top of it when you hit them. But now it's there for trunk space...
I'm not sure it makes sense though. Now you have to choose between transportation and powering your home. As well, the power needs to go out when the truck happens to have a full charge. I think it cost them little to add (because they already have on-board power ports, which does make sense), but from a practical standpoint, I don't know how useful it is.
In many scenarios, you can anticipate power going out and so make sure to charge up before that.
I do a similar thing with my ICE car. We don't get a lot of snow here, but every few years we'll get a storm that leaves up to a foot on the ground. Significant snow like that is rare enough that the cities and county don't keep a large fleet of snow removal equipment, so they only clear the bigger streets.
I'm on a long dead end street that won't get plowed for quite a while, if at all. People with the bigger trucks and SUVs can still get through, and there are enough of those further up the street from me that usually in a day they'll have made enough trips that my smaller SUV can get out.
When it looks like we might get one of those storms, I top off my car. If I lose power, and my house cools off enough that even with a sweater and jacket it gets too cold to stay in, I can move to my car. A full tank of gas will run the engine idling just enough to power the heater and radio and phone charger for about 24 hours.
Power would almost certainly be restored by the time I'd be running out of gas.
That's a good point. I've been through a couple hurricane-caused outages for up to two weeks, but in one of those, I required transportation. I've been through probably half-a-dozen outages of a few hours to a couple days that were due to equipment failure by the utility that I couldn't have anticipated. That's over decades though.
Grid power is so damn reliable in most places that any backup solution is going to have limited use. I guess I see this feature of the F-150 as icing on the cake, not something that would sway my purchase decision.
> Now you have to choose between transportation and powering your home.
It is interesting to me that this is phrased as a negative thing. If you are at the point where you are choosing between transportation and powering your home, at least you _have_ the choice and it is not made for you.
Its not a complete solution obviously - but it is pretty good in a pinch - and doesn't require installing a bunch of dedicated batteries.
And for most scenarios it works - having some energy is always better than none. eg. The fridge will stay cold enough while you go shop for more food or whatever.
I'm a city apartment dweller, and I'm not the usual demographic for this truck, but given the price point, and value this provides, ford has my attention, and I would definitely consider buying this if I can get a charger installed in my apartment complex.
If the batteries on the bottom of this thing are punctured, doesn’t it become a raging inferno practically instantly? I’ve seen videos of a phone battery lighting up, and I wouldn’t want that to happen with what’s on the bottom of my car.
Bluecruise - "driver-facing camera and radar-sensing technologies allowing for hands-free driving on prequalified sections of divided highways called hands-free Blue Zones"
Struck me as a far different way of easing into the autonomous driving gig.
The one feature I would love, as someone who doesn’t need a pickup, is the ability to connect an entire battery pack that I can rent and put in the cargo area (cab?) if I need long range for a trip.
Payload capacity is lower then I'd like to see (tops out at 900kg I think?). So still short of the something you could get a bulka-bag dropped on at a distributor and just drive home with.
I tried putting in a reservation in Canada yesteday. I think they got slashdoted. Spinning.... Victim of their success. Maybe they will understand why Tesla does not need paid for marketing?
So, I’m sort of curious to see what this price point does to the home battery market.
The new LG Chem RESU 16h (16 kWh) is available for preorder at $8,400 [1].
The base model truck has a 110 kWh suite of batteries and seemingly will start at $40k (unclear if that’s before or after the $7500 expected federal rebate).
Naively multiplying it out, the base model F-150 Lightning is a free vehicle attached to the equivalent of 6 of the 16 kWh batteries.
There are likely:
- integration issues (you can’t hook it up to 48V or 400V solar)
- battery life? (Though it’s a vehicle. You expect daily usage for years)
- something else?
tl;dr: if this is really 110 kWh of storage that can power your home, shouldn’t there be a secondary market of “just the batteries” for half that?
If I understand correctly, only the $90K model has the ability to power your home. Even so your comment still applies. 155 kWh / $90K is still cheaper than 16 kWh / $8400
> The base model truck has a 110 kWh suite of batteries and seemingly will start at $40k (unclear if that’s before or after the $7500 expected federal rebate).
During the live presentation, I believe it was indicated the sub $40k price tag is before the rebate.
It's great to see the best selling vehicle in the US be zero emissions. It's wonderful.
But this truck will be very heavy, very tall, and very fast. Drivers are already the leading killers of children, and more and more people are being killed while walking and cycling.
I'm very worried about the effect of making this vehicle even faster and heavier. Hopefully reduced deaths from pollution offset this.
Electric vehicles often have much better safety credentials than their ICE powered counterparts for a few reasons:
* All of the weight is in the bottom of the vehicle, giving a lower centre of gravity. I'd bet this will kill the old F150 in a moose (or child!) test.
* The lack of engine means the entire front part of the car is a huge crumple zone. This gives designers more wriggle room for pedestrian protection too. This is an increasingly important requirement in road safety standards.
* The electric motors are able to respond with torque far faster (in ms) than an ICE engine, so traction and stability control are more effective. Again good for things like the moose test.
* Switching our road transport to electric will probably save more children, and the adults they will become, from a lifetime of lung problems and premature death from pollution than better pedestrian safety features ever will.
> The lack of engine means the entire front part of the car is a huge crumple zone.
Crumple zones don't help pedestrians.
The new F-150 will be bigger and heavier than the absurdly huge early-00s Hummers. The hood is so tall and long that they're talking about putting forward-facing cameras inside the cab because you can't see anything in front of you shorter than 6" tall out the windshield.
If Ford was interested in safety, they would reduce the outrageous length and height of the front end which is now no longer even pretending to be necessary housing for an engine. Vehicles made to work prioritize visibility, Ford trucks are made to intimidate and kill.
That’s completely untrue - The design of crumple and impact zones like the hood, bumpers and headlights absolutely do help pedestrians. There is a suite of Road safety tests designed to specifically evaluate exactly that: https://www.euroncap.com/en/vehicle-safety/the-ratings-expla...
The F150 is only really sold in the US/Canada market, at least as a passenger car. You might be able to import one as a commercial vehicle in Europe but I've certainly never seen one.
F-150 isn't sold in the european market, and neither are any other American flat-top high front trucks precisely because they are too deadly to pedestrians.
But the top half of the bulbous front end that basically every modern car has is mostly empty space and flimsy plastic to create what's basically a crumple zone for pedestrians.
> The lack of engine means ... This gives designers more wriggle room for pedestrian protection too.
this is important. It is an option they DID IGNORE! for marketing.
The thing that kills pedestrians (both physically and preventing vision) is the high trunk. They could have lowered it since there is no 9L engine or whatever inside. But they decided to keep it for "frunk" marketing.
> Switching our road transport to electric will probably save more children, and the adults they will become, from a lifetime of lung problems and premature death from pollution
The sizable majority of modern car pollution comes from particulates that come off asphalt, not emissions from engines. It's still important to go EV to reduce carbon, but that doesn't improve local air quality. Modern internal combustion engines have pretty minimal pollutants in their emissions.
Getting older cars off the road is the major way to improve emission pollutants. Beyond that, improving air quality to any significant degree requires either fewer cars on the road, or less heavy cars on the road. Asphalt particulates scales quadratically with the weight of the car.
I agree with the rest, but I'm pretty skeptical of this claim:
> Switching our road transport to electric will probably save more children, and the adults they will become, from a lifetime of lung problems and premature death from pollution than better pedestrian safety features ever will.
Do you (or anyone) have order-of-magnitude estimates for either/both of these figures? I mean, electrification in general is great, but the F150 cannot take credit for all of it. I am interested in reduced pollution deaths/QALYs that can be attributed to F150 electrification specifically -- that's the topic of this article and thread.
On average in the US, the CO2 output required to power an electric vehicle is 1/3 of an ICE vehicle. So theoretically this would translate to less deaths as bb123 suggests, but hard to compare to direct pedestrian deaths. (Yes there are some logical gaps as ICE C02 output is a very low percentage of total fossil fuel output).
They are maybe 40-50% lower. Does this move the needle for climate change? No. And it’s not just lifetime car emissions. It’s the car dependent life that cars require
It's only 50% lower because most electricity grids emit a lot of carbon. Once the grid switches to 100% carbon-free, the number becomes a lot lower. And most of the embodied carbon in the car comes from industrial electricity or transport, so as the grid & transport goes green the embodied carbon goes down, eventually to zero.
Electricity only accounts for about 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, but it also enables industry (20%) and transportation (15%) to decarbonize too, by allowing them to replace their fuel with electricity.
A 50% reduction is already massive, but electrification of both vehicles and the industrial processes creating the vehicle will eventually let that number go to zero which should be our goal.
> * All of the weight is in the bottom of the vehicle, giving a lower centre of gravity. I'd bet this will kill the old F150 in a moose (or child!) test.
The important thing to note about the moose test is that it doesn't specify that the moose has to survive. It's simply a test of whether the occupants will survive hitting a moose. I would wager anything that is designed to pass the moose test will kill anything that it hits that is below the moose's center of gravity. So actually the vehicle is way less safe for pedestrians than a vehicle that would fail the moose test.
But if all that matters is the safety of the occupant I guess this is okay.
> * The lack of engine means the entire front part of the car is a huge crumple zone. This gives designers more wriggle room for pedestrian protection too. This is an increasingly important requirement in road safety standards.
The kind of "crumple zone" that enhances pedestrian and cyclist safety is more like a beer can. Again, the crumple zones in this vehicle are designed to keep the occupants safe but not designed to keep any other road user safe.
> The important thing to note about the moose test is that it doesn't specify that the moose has to survive.
The moose test is about safely dodging around a moose that wanders out onto the road without wrecking the vehicle.
Why did you write this long comment as if you were an expert on the moose test if you don't even know what the moose test is? That's an incredibly disingenuous thing to do.
I assume because they want to see less vehicle traffic on the road. Arguments along these lines are thrown out by people that hate cars on the road to help change the argument from facts to 'what about the children'.
Your second point is also untrue. The shape and structure of traditional car crumple zones and impact areas like the hood and headlights have a significant impact on pedestrian survivability: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257775117_Crumple_z...
> The important thing to note about the moose test is that it doesn't specify that the moose has to survive. It's simply a test of whether the occupants will survive hitting a moose.
Ideally in the moose test the moose and car never make contact. It is a test of the car's ability to safely support extreme evasive manoeuvres, rather than its crash survivability.
Tall SUVs typically fare worse at this because of their higher centre of gravity causing instability:
>Drivers are already the leading killers of children, and more and more people are being killed while walking and cycling.
I think more worrisome is the center console - pedestrian deaths had been going down for 20 years until smartphones became widespread and we've had increases every year since.
With the introduction of smart phones and social media we've seen lots of negative effects increase. For example, teen suicide was decreasing until they were introduced and then started to increase again. Girls especially.
I wish there was more discussion and acknowledgement of the dangers here.
When I’m on a long trip with friends or family we play a game trying to spot people on their phones by how poorly they are driving. Police are extra points. You would be shocked at how many cops you see looking down at their lap while driving.
I would rather drive next to people with .09 blood alcohol than someone on their phone.
Social media and cell phones are very convenient, but come with major drawbacks that must be addressed. Phones, for many young people, are just mental disorders with a touch screen.
You have a point, but I also think we should be thinking beyond smartphones and try to act on what they are used for.
Not in a "guns don't kill people way", but because I think smarphone helped spread society's worse effects on girls, but they were already in a very shitty position, and we can't just get back to the status quo before the smarphones and social networks.
We can of course also work on reducing sns negative impacts, but I think it will also be a bad, long and thorny way before seeing improvements.
I take extra caution around pickup trucks and young men in muscle cars. The former are more likely to not see you, or be on their phones. The muscle cars are likely to rapidly and erratically change directions into me at a high rate of speed.
I try to give a "friendly" honk followed by a "hang up" hand gesture. Results range from them putting the phone down and giving a thumbsup to angrily cutting me off and speeding down the freeway.
Yes, it will be heavier, and yes it will have more acceleration...
But newer vehicles also have AEB with pedestrian detection. If these vehicles displace older existing vehicles without those safety systems we will see fewer fatalities overall. Most kids and pedestrians are hit at low speed, not at 60+ mph due to the driver not paying attention or not being able to see the pedestrian. While AEB can’t save all pedestrians that would otherwise be hit, we know that these systems lead to big reductions in preventable accidents [1].
> “If your F-150 Lightning is plugged in when your outage occurs, Intelligent Backup Power will automatically kick in to power your home,” said Ryan O’Gorman, Ford’s energy services lead, in a video briefing prior to the reveal. “When power is restored, the truck automatically reverts to charging its battery.”
Well, There's speed, and then there's acceleration.
This new Lightning (putting it that way because F150 Lightning once corresponded to a gas-guzzling Supercharged V8 trim) has 775ft/lb of Torque. For reference, the existing models are between 265 and 510 ft/lb.
Additionally, one of the benefits of an electric motor, is that torque is essentially instantly available, compared to an ICE where there's only a slim power bad where that max torque range is hit.
Unless Ford 'governs' acceleration in software, I can see some lead-foots getting themselves into trouble quickly. They probably -will-, but I'd expect them to offer some sort of switch for that, lest the Ford zealots grab their pitchforks. Let us not forget that a lot of 'Car guys' are arguably insane. When Ford considered switching the Mustang to a Front Wheel Drive Mazda design, they had to deal with death threats!
> Let us not forget that a lot of 'Car guys' are arguably insane.
You might want to look in the mirror. Car threads bring out really destructive attitudes, and mostly not from the 'car guys'. The stuff that gets said here is astounding...
I provided a very real world example of car enthusiasts doing something that a sane human being would not do. Can you help me understand what I should be looking for?
This is like pointing to a single self-identified Democrat or Republican and then claiming they speak for everyone else who also identifies as such. This is extremely pervasive and is one of the fundamental breaks in our political dialog these days.
And yeah, a lot of people on HN are also car enthusiasts. How many of us sent death threats in response to the Ford Probe? I was even a Mustang enthusiast at that time. I never sent any death threats, nobody I know did either. You are describing a sociopath, who may also be a car enthusiast, and then claiming that this means all car enthusiasts are sociopaths.
And I've never sent anyone a death threat. I don't hate people for their choice in cars, or non-choice as the case may be. I enjoy interesting cars of all kinds. I'm not especially into trucks from an enthusiast perspective, though as a homeowner and RV owner I do happen to own a Ford F250. And I don't mind people that are into them. You have to be a bit of an enthusiast, IMO, to daily drive a super duty if you don't need it :). I'd own a Taco if I didn't need to tow anything, as it would be far more livable for daily use.
first of all, despite its prominence in marketing materials, engine torque doesn't tell you much about a vehicle's performance characteristics. torque is meaningless without knowing the overall gear reduction. a 911 gt3 is about as fast in a straight line as a tesla, despite having way less torque.
> compared to an ICE where there's only a slim power bad where that max torque range is hit.
second, this is only true of naturally aspirated engines, which are pretty rare these days. engines with turbos or superchargers are usually tuned to make (roughly) peak torque all the way from 2000 rpm to redline.
this is a lot of fretting over the peak acceleration of a truck. I believe the thing does 0-60 in something like 4.5 seconds. that's really quick for a truck, but only above average compared to performance sedans. in any case, most people (even the crazy ones) do not often hit peak acceleration from a red light, especially in an EV.
>this is a lot of fretting over the peak acceleration of a truck. I believe the thing does 0-60 in something like 4.5 seconds. that's really quick for a truck, but only above average compared to performance sedans
Seems like the people in this thread arguing about a fast truck don't know about the original Lightning, nor are they familiar with modern sport trucks like the Ram TRX or Shelby F-150 Super Snake, both of which will give proper high end sports cars a run for the money in a drag race.
This. The crazy acceleration rates make speeding easier (you get to high speeds in no time) and more dangerous (you surprise other people) while offering no tangible benefit except maybe for killing the sports car market.
One of the things I've seen in the Powerboost (their hybrid model) reviews is that even when people disable traction control to launch it, there is something happening that keeps it from spinning out. I think the electric engine might have a mandatory control mechanism in it that cannot be bypassed.
this is my biggest concern. my dad has a tesla, and you put your foot on that thing it feels like a jet on the runway. electric motors are allowing everyday, consumer level cars that can do 0-60 faster than a Ferrari, and silently as well. it leads to doing more aggressive turns and stuff like that which you can only pull off with maximum acceleration, which means scenarios like the left turn where you're whipping out like silent lightning to beat the oncoming cars, and some kid on a bike suddenly entering the road to your left where you're going, and in the opposite way in which you are looking (at the oncoming cars to the right) is toast.
to all the idiot downmodders, I am not advocating against electric cars, I am advocating against their software allowing unfettered acceleration as well as the lack of audible cues to pedestrians (some hybrid cars are now adding artifical sounds for this issue).
Yes, compared to cars even a decade ago modern cars are very bloated. Have you seen an original 500 from the 50's/60's or 70's? They weighed around 1100 lbs. A modern base trim Fiat 500 weighs around 2400 lbs.
We all realize it's due to safety, but a lot of sports cars have gotten progressively less fun as a result. The M3 is no longer a small nimble sedan. It's larger than the 5 series was from only 2 generations ago. That's all he's pointing out.
Well then I have to disagree. A motorcycle helmet is not bloat compared to wearing a sock on your head. Sure an old car might be more fun but safety isn't bloat. AC units are.
I already acknowledged the size increase is due to safety. It's not an opinion that modern cars are physically larger and heavier than they were only a few generations ago. There's nothing to disagree with. The M3 (now called M4) has become an entirely different class of vehicle.
The 3/4 series grew in size so much that they introduced the 1/2 series to fill the void of a small coupe. They didn't have to increase the physical dimensions by over a foot in length and nearly half a foot in width. It completely changed the driving dynamics. So, yes, it was absolutely is not worthwhile considering they decided to make a replacement for it after realizing that they alienated a lot of enthusiasts.
A great case study. The Fiat looks respectably small until you see the original which looks like one of those cozy coupes that they sell for toddlers. The comparison is sobering. Not only that, but in the interior too, the controls and dials are beautifully neat and thin in contrast to the modern version.
And 500% higher risk of death. You might call that bloat but to me that is like saying a good quality motorcycle helmet is just a bloated hoodie or cap.
Fuel efficiency standards killed the small truck. In the turn of the century EV era, Ford had an electric Ranger which was built on the much smaller (at the time) Ranger platform. But you can't make an ICE small truck that meets the 200x updated CAFE standards, so the small trucks either disapeared (S10) or got bigger (toyota small trucks), or got bigger then disappeared and later reappeared still big (Ranger).
An EV truck presumably can be any size, but there's no current small truck platform to build on.
I have a few friends that are engineers in the auto companies. Its kind of amazing how many negative impacts the CAFE standards had--not on purpose (hopefully), but through unintended consequences. Apparently the Nissan Leaf for example was strictly manufactured to generate credits/offset the environmental impact of the Nissan truck and van line that could not be adjusted to meet the CAFE standards.
My dad had a Ranger in 97 that was just about the perfect truck for day-to-day use. It fit 2 adults comfortably, had a tiny 4 cylinder engine, got great gas milage, and could be used to pull a small trailer. He was crushed when Ford got rid of the Ranger. And what they've released now is basically the size of the old F-150 from the 90s
The "negative" impacts of CAFE standards were entirely by design. They were written that way to benefit the domestic auto industry, which is very uncompetitive in the small and midsized vehicle segments. By making smaller vehicles uncompetitive (or simply unavailable), it eliminated some serious competition.
I think a lot of people don't realize how many regulations are designed by incumbent domestic companies explicitly for the purposes of making foreign companies and upstarts noncompetitive.
You're right that CAFE is literally designed to favor trucks. And the definition is so vague that even vehicles like the PT Cruiser are considered Light Trucks for the purposes of CAFE. It is also designed to hurt small cars, because vehicles with footprints (wheelbase * wheel wide) smaller than a Mustang (literally, to the square inch) have to face ever-more-strict CAFE standards.
As a result, cars like the Fit are might face a CAFE penalty while a base F150 does a-okay despite getting like half the fuel economy. And that's not even getting into BS like flex fuel credits (basically, being flex fuel capable is like adding ~5mpg to the vehicle CAFE score).
This is exactly why every small vehicle is a crossover anymore (they are light trucks for CAFE purposes), and why cars like the Civic get are today, the size an Accord was in 2005 (CAFE is less strict the larger the vehicle is).
>Apparently the Nissan Leaf for example was strictly manufactured to generate credits/offset the environmental impact of the Nissan truck and van line that could not be adjusted to meet the CAFE standards.
Which seems pretty crazy if the net effect is that any car manufacturer has to produce a full line if they want to build any inefficient cars.
"The tariff affected any country (such as Japan) seeking to bring light trucks into the U.S. and effectively "squeezed smaller Asian truck companies out of the American pickup market."[16] Over the intervening years, Detroit lobbied to protect the light-truck tariff, thereby reducing pressure on Detroit to introduce vehicles that polluted less and that offered increased fuel economy.[15]"
How effective was this at anything other than making loopholes big enough to drive a truck through, and eventually getting assembly moved to NAFTA countries?
Having a 40 mpg target for a small truck and a 25 mpg target for a big truck makes it pretty hard to build and sell a small truck.
Hmm, that's interesting. If manufacturers have been basically locked out of making small pickup trucks due to unattainable fuel efficiency requirements [1, 2], an implication of that is that as EVs become easier to make at reasonable cost, there's a potentially huge untapped market that could be filled by whoever is the first company to make a small, simple, and cheap electric pickup truck.
A modern version of, say, a Datsun 620 [3] or an 80's Ford Ranger [4] could be pretty popular. One might even be able to circumvent the chicken tax by importing the body/frame of a foreign-made truck and building an electric drive train in the U.S. or NAFTA country.
> there's a potentially huge untapped market that could be filled by whoever is the first company to make a small, simple, and cheap electric pickup truck.
Well, the third really; Ford made 1500 1998-2001 Ford Ranger EVs, and Chevrolet made a few hundred 1997-1998 S10 EVs. But yeah, one with modern batteries and drive trains and (therefore) decent capacity and range could sell a bunch.
I've owned and driven a handful of trucks. Ranger sized trucks feel the least useful. Can't tow much. Can't haul much. Can't get into muck. Can't hold many people. Aerodynamics of a brick. An electric F150 is compelling. We just upgraded to a new one because we need the tow capacity and the F150 beat out the F250s we were looking at. It's a great size and checks all the boxes.
Small trucks may be the least useful, but they often provide(d) the right amount of utility. Lots of truck owners never go off the pavement and never tow, but make good use of the bed. With a 4-cylinder engine, fuel efficiency was not terrible, but it's a lot easier to put a pinball machine in the back of a truck than the back of a Honda Accord.
That's a strong statement. Heavier vehicles do better in snow because they fit in better. Trucks with more ground clearance can get up and over things that smaller trucks can't. If we're just talking about rock crawling, sure. If we're talking about practical use cases and messy conditions, I'll keep torque and weight on my side.
Motorcycles and busses are more dangerous for pedestrians than trucks.
"Compared with cars, buses were 11.85 times and motorcycles were 3.77 times more likely per mile to kill children 0–14 years old. Buses were 16.70 times more likely to kill adults age 85 or older than were cars."
That's probably because buses have more interaction with pedestrians, both due to people getting in and out, but also, operation in urban areas where there's a lot of pedestrian traffic.
A truck in this discussion is a car, not a real truck. A bus is not comparable to a car. Compare a bus to a real truck. A motorcycle will in every single statistics drive faster on average than a car. I'm not saying your point is wrong but it is at a minimum like a click bait title.
"Passenger cars and light trucks (vans, pickups, and sport utility vehicles) accounted for 46.1% and 39.1%, respectively, of the 4875 deaths, with the remainder split among motorcycles, buses, and heavy trucks."
If you count crossovers as cars, trucks make up like 35% of auto sales and account for 39% of pedestrian deaths.
I’m very passionate about pedestrian deaths in cities (SF specifically), but based on all the incidents I can remember I don’t think pickup trucks are causing a disproportionate number. Pedestrian deaths are mostly caused by normal cars going at high speeds through red lights or crosswalks. A truck sold with automatic braking would likely be much safer than a car from the past in terms of pedestrian safety.
SF just has fewer trucks, which is why you probably don't recall too many incidents. Nationwide, increasing number of SUV/trucks is a major problem in ped safety.
EVs are heavier by nature (this vehicle’s battery pack alone is ~1800 lbs). Your average driver is not good at driving. The F150 sells very well. Ergo, more risk of more property damage and human harm.
You can’t get around physics. More mass with more force carries more risk.
Basically light duty trucks take an extra 10-30 feet stopping from 60 MPH. This is dwarfed by distance travelled during reaction time. In the 1960's sedans were in the ~150 ft range for 60-0, about what modern pickups achieve.
Heavier vehicles have more kinetic energy at the same speed but the braking force for all vehicles is proportional to mass and friction with the road surface which depends on tire quality and road material, and since acceleration is proportional to mass from a given force the deceleration from braking is basically the same at any mass with equivalent tires and road surface.
The location of the battery also means lower center of gravity and probably better control over the vehicle, and the curb weight is about the same. These will probably be net safer than ICE F-150s
Is there any actual data that shows there is correlation between the mass of vehicles and number of people killed?
Obviously heavier cars are more deadly when hitting people with all the other variables fixed, but not all these variables are independent. They could also depend on the weight of the cars. For example, maybe the car becomes easier to control/steer when it's heavier (totally made up point), which counters the inherent risk introduced by the weight.
Without real-world data I won't be too quick to say heavier car is more dangerous.
There are millions of F150s. If you get into an accident what is the probability it is with an F150? Or an SUV or something bigger that requires a commercial driving license.
We also know that speed kills and people are driving faster today than ever before.
I'll post the conclusion for the light trucks weight reduction part (fatalities part, there is also non-serious injuries part in the paper) here as TL;DR for other people.
Reducing the mass of light trucks would significantly increase the fatality risk of their occupants in
collisions with objects and big trucks. But downsizing of light trucks would significantly reduce risk
to pedestrians, motorcyclists and, above all, passenger car occupants. There would be little effect
on rollovers because, historically, there has been little correlation between the mass of light trucks
and their rollover stability (width relative to center-of-gravity height). There would also be little
change in collisions between two light trucks, if both trucks are reduced in mass.
Even though the effect of mass reductions is statistically significant in four of the six types of
crashes, the net effect for all types of crashes combined is small, because some of the individual
effects are positive and others are negative. The benefits of truck downsizing for pedestrians and
car occupants could more than offset the fatality increase for light truck occupants. It is estimated
that a 100-pound reduction could result in a modest net savings of 40 lives, (0.26 percent of baseline
fatalities). However, this estimate is not statistically significant, the 2-sigma confidence bounds
range from a savings of 100 to an increase of 20 fatalities; the 3-sigma bounds range from a savings
of 130 to an increase of 50 fatalities. It is concluded that a reduction in the weight of light trucks
would have a negligible overall effect, but if there is an effect, it is most likely a modest reduction
of fatalities
Completely aside from the point you're trying to make: it's a pet peeve of mine when people try to describe collisions in terms of kinetic energy. It's the wrong metric--the important conserved quantity in collisions is momentum, which is simply linear mass*velocity (not quadratic velocity). After that, it becomes a matter of calculating the rate of momentum transfer, or impulse.
That's why crumple zones are important for vehicle-vehicle collisions--not because they turn kinetic energy into a stored form of potential energy in deformation, but because they drastically decrease the rate at which momentum changes.
The curb weight of the Lightning seems to be approximately the same as the ICE F150s. 4600-5000lbs. Batteries are heavy, but so are engines and transmissions.
The battery being low should dramatically improve the safety of the vehicle by improving stability.
It's still a huge vehicle, though. It would be nice if we trended smaller, and left vehicles like this to people who actually need it.
My mistake then. I read a response post to the new vehicle that claimed it would come in at 5000lbs. Can't find anything authoritative, but everyone seems to be speculating more around 6500 as you said.
Yeah, but it's not like the drivetrain of an F150 is light. A fully dressed Coyote V8, 10R80, driveshaft, differentials, subframes, exhaust, gas tank (with fuel), radiator & supports, fuel lines, etc, etc add up. So the batteries weight 1800 lbs, but your also removing like 1400lbs of stuff. It's pretty likely that the Lightning will weight in at barely more than a hybrid F150, and the lower range F150s, when introduced, will probably weight the same as the ICE versions.
A little appreciated fact is that a Model 3 and a Mustang have the exact same weight ranges: the SR RWD Model 3 weights about what a ecoboost Mustang does, and a GT500 Mustang is actually about 200lbs heavier than a Model 3 AWD LR Performance.
Does being hit by a 6500 lb vehicle as a cyclist or pedestrian really differ materially from being hit by a 7500 lb vehicle...?
Constantly telling people that existing on earth as a human is bad for x, y, z is a good strategy if you want people to tune out and stop paying attention to what you're saying.
Automatic breaking systems are getting even better and have been pretty good for awhile. You can expect preventable fatalities of pedestrians and other drivers from cars and trucks to decline as this technology becomes better.
I feel like this same criticism should apply for the Model S Plaid then too since it accelerates faster than almost every car and is heavier than most cars as well.
I’m not sure how much the weight really matters if you’re colliding with a cyclist or pedestrian anyway though.
Valid point about the height, but it’s no different than any other modern truck on the road today (all of which are too high if you ask me).
It makes a big difference where one is hit. Being hit in the head by a head-height truck grille is a lot different from being hit in the shins by a 1964 Datsun. There's also the small matter that nobody driving this truck can see anything at all for ten feet to the front.
You are contending that there is no difference in pedestrian fatalities between vehicles? And also that it isn’t harder to see children in an unnecessarily tall vehicle?
Is a truck an unnecessarily tall vehicle or is replacing sedans with taller hatchbacks we pretend are SUVs an unnecessarily tall vehicle? Because one is tall for a reason and the other is tall purely due to consumer preference.
What reason are pickup trucks tall for, other than assuaging the drivers doubts about their own masculinity? You can get just as much construction work done with a Toyota Tacoma or even a Mercedes utility van.
Gaming EPA fuel efficiency regulations. Making them taller/wider essentially saves the manufacturers money because those regulations aren’t very well designed.
Once you're above 10mph or 15mph the road noise from the tires makes more noise than the quiet gas engines we have these days anyways.
This electric F-150 will not be "almost silent" in any way that matters to a pedestrian. It will certainly be less obnoxious to everyone than those grating diesel engine trucks, and I hope no one complains about the loss of that noise pollution.
Yeah, EVs emit a really annoying sound. You don't really notice as a driver rolling around with the windows up, but when you pull one into a garage with the windows down, you hear that "WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOOWOWOWOWOOWEEEEEEERRRRR" echoing all over.
I don't know if 2020+ EVs are louder, but at least our Fiat 500e does make this tiny whirring sound at parking lot speeds, supposedly so pedestrians can hear it. But it is so quiet that it doesn't accomplish much. Even the quietest ICE car is substantially more audible in parking lots.
> Once you're above 10mph or 15mph the road noise from the tires makes more noise than the quiet gas engines we have these days anyways.
Are you mental? I live on a residential street, not even too busy, and every single day, I hear these idiot gunning their motors to be cool. With electric its a non issue.
Tires are an issue but diesels engine trucks and semis are audible. Also some times regular gas customers have modified exhausts. Tire noise is higher frequency though.
Have you ever lived next to a road in a city? I can tell you that the most noise comes from revving engines.
There is a also a massive difference between noise a normally driven ICE vehicle makes compared to an electric one at city speeds. The electric ones are very silent and barely audible if they don't make that humming sound. Even at 20-30mph.
I can't hear a single engine, but I can hear the hum of tires a long way away. Sure, I can sometimes hear a loud exhaust but those come and go in seconds. Tire noise is a 24x7 sound until winter (snow attenuates sound really well).
Source: typing this in a city with lots of roads and traffic.
Don't know about in the USA, but in the EU electric cars are required to emit some noise when going slowly. Most make an eerie electric hum, but Fiat has chosen to make their new Fiat 500 play a jaunty Italian tune: https://www.motortrend.com/news/new-fiat-500-pedestrian-aler...
I work with a window facing the street, and I can hear electric cars coming well before they pass. Electric cars are near-silent only when they're moving very slowly. The noise from tyres-on-tarmac is still fairly loud when they are moving at typical city-driving speed.
What is this noisemaker? Is it sort of an electronic whine? I thought that was just the motors. Otherwise I've never heard any kind of artificial noise from a slow-moving EV.
Are most pedestrian and cyclist deaths on the highways?
I would have though it would be in the city, if only for the fact that I practically never see pedestrians on country roads where I live. There can be cyclists, though.
In the city, though, most car noise is clearly the engine. Source: traffic outside my window. I clearly hear the engine noise or the exhaust if it's a scooter or motorcycle.
It needn't have been this tall. With the internal combustion engine out, Ford could have designed a lower, more curved, less deadly front end.
Instead, they kept the high nose and used the space as a trunk. After all, injuring fewer pedestrians sells no cars. Indeed, the market prefers an enormous, deliberately threatening-looking chariot that makes you feel big and virile.
Ford are behind this game in that they haven't given their truck an explicitly hostile name like “People Mulcher”.
Their thinking is literally 'I don't understand why anyone needs a truck when the Google employee car park is so well surfaced and my laptop fits on the front seat'.
I live on a sheep farm (though the sheep are gone these days). I recognize how incredibly useful tractors and high-clearance pickup trucks are. I also think helicopters are useful too. Neither are safe in the city.
The problem is not that the truck is off the ground, the problem is that the top of the hood is higher than a pedestrian's head.
Trucks designed for work have low frontends for maximum visibility. I drove a 1999 Silverado for 10 years, went offroading often, it had just as much horsepower as last year's F-150, but with a front-end that was basically indistinguishable from a sedan's, instead of the new ones that are so tall they have to put cameras in the cab so that you can see what's in front of you.
The frontends of modern trucks are for intimidation, not work.
As someone who doesn't own a truck, I always find it funny when people bring up "big and virile" type lines about truck owners. "They're compensating for something..." These people need to get their minds out of the gutter, stop thinking everything is about penis. Trucks are functional vehicles, like a giant tool for transporting bulky stuff, and I remember this every time I think about asking a friend if I can use his truck for anything.
No insult intended here: I assume people who have never had this thought have also never done things like replacing their kitchen cabinets or some other simple home improvement project. That's fine, but it's also quite relatable to many people, and it has nothing to do with penis.
I bought a truck for two reasons. Hauling the occasional thing around (having a home makes this happen more than I had initially thought) and it fits 6 (we just had our last child in January).
I WFH so it's lower fuel economy is a non-issue to us.
It has literally _nothing_ to do with "feeling big" or any compensation thing. I had no idea how much I'd use the utility until I bit the bullet and purchased one.
I'm incredibly excited for the F-150 Lightning because I am a perfect candidate for it.
I picture a gardener turning up to work on a tech person's yard, unpacking his mower and tools and soil and plants, and the tech person shaking their head from their window and saying to themselves 'wow he's clearly just got that truck as a substitute penis...'
> I always find it funny when people bring up "big and virile" type lines about truck owners. "They're compensating for something..." These people need to get their minds out of the gutter, stop thinking everything is about penis.
I used to work at a horse racing track and every single jockey (really small dudes) had the hugest truck you have ever seen. We're talking Ford F-350 with a lift kit and bigger tires. The works. You needed to use a ladder to get in them.
There is definitely a thing that some people want bigger, taller vehicles because it makes them feel bigger and stronger. And there is definitely a thing that truck size becomes a pissing contest for some men where it's not just enough to have a big truck, you need to have the biggest one among your peers.
(And if you think nerds are immune to this phenomenon, perhaps take a more critical look at your gaming PC, boardgame collection, etc. We're a tribal species competing for mates using status symbols. Few of us are totally immune to this effect.)
At the same time, many truck owners are not motivated by that and painting them all with the same brush is uncharitable and unkind. I drive a pick-up. I absolutely love it. I have yet to kill any children, destroy the ozone layer, crush another car in a parking lot, or any of the other many moral crimes this thread seems to accuse most truck owners of.
Paraphrasing Freud, sometimes a truck is just a truck.
Incorrect based on 50% of trucks on the road today being absolutely pristine, and simply looking at commercials and their wording ("commanding the road")
Have you been around people who actually use trucks for work or leisure? They aren't just hitting the side of their trucks with 2x4's or dropping gravel from ten feet in the air like commercials. Lots of people use their trucks for pulling trailers that carry thousands of pounds of their stuff. They use the bed of their truck for carrying things that are long, heavy, grain, sawdust, smaller animals, there is a wide variety of use cases for a truck and a lot of them don't affect the aesthetic of the truck.
Advertising/marketing/PR persuades people to want buy certain things, not by telling them these things exist at a certain price, but by influencing them psychologically in deeper ways. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
This in turn has actual effects on their behavior, including but not limited to making certain purchases more likely. Obsessing about power and speed and commanding the road definitely has an impact on how people drive - especially younger folks.
Commercials for my tax software tells me it makes people using it feel ecstatic. It doesn't really - it's used by people just trying to get their taxes done and they don't feel anything about it.
These couldn't be more different. Tax software choice is a private choice with no effect on the public space. Tax commercials happen for a couple months.
Car choice influence an incredible array of things up to how cities are built. Car commercial are omnipresent and include product placement in movies as well as, apparently, US presidents gunning it in a new truck, which is the topic of this whole thread.
Blame for killing falls on the driver of the vehicle, not on the company designing it or the shape of the front of the vehicle.
Don't hit anyone with your vehicle and you won't kill anyone. I've been hit by a truck bicycling, thankfully not too hard. But I don't really think it would have been better to have been hit by a low slung sleek car. It would have put all the force through my legs.
Vehicle safety regulations aren't about "blame", ever. They're designed to save lives. If you can do that with better driver behavior, great. If you can do it with assistive technology, great. If you can do it with different vehicle designs, great. You do what you can, based on the techniques available and the costs involved.
To wit: if you start your safety analysis with "fuck the pedestrians, that's the driver's fault, not Ford's", then you're doing it wrong.
Ever heard of crosswalks? They're these things that people use to travel in front of cars while they're standing still.
Ford trucks are the #1 killer of children and adults at crosswalks because drivers can't see what they're about to run over, vehicles of that front-end design account for 40% of all pedestrian traffic deaths.
So, you're trying to tell me, it's the truck's fault that a driver doesn't know they're at a crosswalk?
Do you own a truck? I do. I've owned a truck for 15 years. Some of them lifted, and unless you are pretty much parked on top of a crosswalk, there is no problem seeing the crosswalk. Especially 3-4 foot objects in said crosswalk.
Edit: F150 is the most popular vehicle in the US. So, yeah, it stands to reason it will kill more people than any other vehicle, too
I'm telling you it's the truck's fault that the driver can't see the crosswalk.
There is a such thing as good and bad design. If I sell a hammer that shoots a bullet whenever you swing it for no good reason, I'm responsible for people getting shot.
That analogy doesn't hold water. A hammer isn't meant to shoot bullets. So shooting bullets would be something the hammer was never intended to do.
What I'm telling you is that you have an opinion that is different from mine and also probably an ignorant one since you didn't answer my question about whether you have ever owned a truck.
And obscuring driver's visibility to the point where they can't see objects less than 6 feet tall that they are about to hit all for the sake of aggressive and intimidating presentation to other road users isn't something pickup trucks were intended to do.
That's why professional models typically have cabover or sharply-sloped hood designs, not the enormous flattops that are marketed at suburbanites.
I have owned a truck, I drove a 1999 Chevy Silverado for ten years, it could haul just as much stuff as a 2020 F-150 but it also let me see the road.
"objects less than 6 feet tall" That is utter nonsense. You're honestly saying you can't see something five feet off the ground in front of an F-150?
"1999 Chevy Silverado for ten years, it could haul just as much stuff as a 2020 F-150 but it also let me see the road" - this is also utter nonsense. A 1999 Silverado 1500 is a 1/4 ton truck with a TC of about 4,000 pounds. A 2020 F-150 is a 1/2 ton truck with a TC of about 7,000 pounds.
So the more apt comparison would be with a Ford Ranger, which obviously sits lower to the ground than an F-150, but having owned both a 2500 Silverado and several F-250, the front visibility isn't much different.
My lexus has a 360 camera that turns on when the car is moving at low speeds (e.g. when stopped at a crosswalk). I assume new ford trucks at even a few trim levels up will have this feature. You can prevent these kind of fuck-ups with cameras easily.
You shouldn't need to take your eyes off the road to look at a camera screen just to see what's on the road in front of you. It's a car, not an armored fighting vehicle.
You get into your parked vehicle, check your phone for directions, find a route, confirm your arrival time, then put the key in the ignition and immediately run over a kid who stepped in front of your truck to grab their ball.
And so that's the vehicle's responsibility? Like, you're complaining that a truck/suv has a 9-foot blind spot.
What's an acceptable blind spot - where if someone hits a laying down/sitting kid in front of their car, it's the driver's fault and not the vehicle's?
That’s why I wish car manufacturers would affix big metal spikes to the front of cars for the aesthetic value. After all, they’d be blameless for any casualties.
Judging the appearance of some late model vehicles, I'll joke that we might as well skip a few small steps and go straight to mounting Hellfire missiles on the front. :-)
Blame for killing almost never falls on drivers. Look at news headlines--"Car runs over person" and not "Driver runs over person" and you can see how this is viewed. There is a term to describe this--"windshield bias." Auto safety takes multiple approaches and not just saying the drivers are responsible because they are currently not, at least in the US. Does the person that hit you with a truck still have their driving license?
Even HN cannot see past the perverse dangers and flaws of modern auto design responsible for the current vulnerable road user epidemic in America. [1] When it comes to cars - it's "personal responsibility". When it comes to treadmills - it's a "manufacturing flaw" [2]
I'm sure there's some societal tradeoff between global electrification and pedestrian deaths. Until the government adds pedestrian safety to US crash standards, Ford will make what the image conscious truck market wants.
Just because you live in a city, does not mean the city was "made for" you. Cities are a side effect of many people clustering around key resource points. Resources are almost always much more valuable in trade than they are remaining at a stationary point, which requires transport infrastructure and vehicles. The fact that you don't want to live in a city in which people drive vehicles is your problem, not society's.
Cities are no longer resource points as most economic activity in cities is generated by services and knowledge work. Even if you go by your logic of economic supremacy, society would want to protect the most valued economic assets in its cities: the people. The death machines are also noisy as fuck and generate pollution, take up valuable and scarce urban space … there is absolutely no need to have huge roads with unrestricted traffic going right up to dense urban centers.
Almost every major American city is also a shipping port, freight train depot, major freight airport hub, etc., etc., manufacturing is still a thing (in fact domestic manufacturing is on the rise in the last decade). Good luck feeding, clothing, sheltering, etc. the millions of inhabitants in American cities without roads that accommodate large trucks and people who do real work.
Trucks very much have a place in society. Farmers, construction workers, and some other areas definitely need them.
The trend that they need to be an everyday vehicle for anyone is something that should be looked at. What is the psychology and intentional planning that's caused this shift? What subtle population engineering has lead to this without people realizing it?
It’s a vehicle, not a mental disorder. Some people just want to be able to occasionally tow a boat or haul some furniture without needing to rent a truck.
I think the attitude of “you don’t need a truck unless you’re a blue collar worker” is pretty elitist and ignorant, honestly. As if the decision to buy a truck is somehow invalid because white collar workers don’t see the need for one.
It’s honestly a lot more practical than people seem to think. And if electric trucks hold their value anything like ICE trucks, getting one with a tax credit at about $40k for the base model is probably the best deal in a new vehicle you can find.
> want to be able to occasionally tow a boat or haul some furniture without needing to rent a truck.
The mystery to me is how very occasionally that seems to be, at least anecdotally. Perhaps >95% of pickup trucks I see are not hauling anything bigger than groceries. Yet, they’re hauling around their own ridiculously giant metal frame and emitting huge amounts of fossil fuels in the process. Those occasional boat trips are very net expensive in atmospheric carbon! Thankfully electric pickups will partially mitigate that problem although pickups will be hogging space in commuter parking garages for many decades hence I’m sure.
I’m pretty sure this is the kind of attitude that causes rural folks to be so skeptical of climate change. Some (I’m assuming) city-dweller talking down to them about how they don’t need what they feel to be a useful tool in their daily lives.
I mean, it sounds like your real reservation about trucks is not that they emit carbon, but that they are hogging up space and inconveniencing you, which is not a very persuasive argument.
> I’m pretty sure this is the kind of attitude that causes rural folks to be so skeptical of climate change
I didn't mention rural truck drivers and made no comment that could reasonably be interpreted as such. If you have to deal with corrugated dirt roads and hauling materials etc on a daily basis then it's perfectly understandable you won't exactly be driving a hatchback.
> I mean, it sounds like your real reservation about trucks is not that they emit carbon, but that they are hogging up space and inconveniencing you, which is not a very persuasive argument.
Or, numerous city and urban commuting giant truck drivers is an effective image of the ridiculous excess they represent in the vast majority of their uses whereas carbon is a less visible but extremely negative externality from that excess.
/s But yes, those that point out this are the real problem.
> I think the attitude of “you don’t need a truck unless you’re a blue collar worker” is pretty elitist and ignorant, honestly.
A sedan with the rear seats folded down will likely hold as much as you can get in a Costco run.
Or two bikes you throw in there.
I know because mine does both of these things.
I'm pretty sure the vast majority of current truck owners 1) don't own boats 2) rarely, if ever, haul furniture 3) use the space in the rear on a regular basis.
Against this we have the known statistics of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities due to the obstructions to visibility provided by the very high front grille and very high ride height (plus wide A-pillars, etc.)
So it's therefore not only a waste of gas but a public health hazard, and making that claim is not "elitist", it's merely "rational" and "empirical" (and allow me to add, "humane")
"Recent research from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found the share of pedestrian deaths involving trucks, vans, and SUVs has increased from 22 to 44 percent since the mid-1980s. More SUVs and trucks in the fleet = more pedestrian injuries becoming deaths instead."
Most sedans have a max payload < 1000lbs including all passengers.
An F-150 has a payload over 3000lbs and can tow up to 14,000lbs.
Do you need that for your groceries? No, but if you don't live in the heart of the city the F-150 enables you do many many things that a sedan can't do around yard work, home ownership, agriculture, hauling gear, etc..
A sedan is about the worst car design anyway.. you'd have more of a leg to stand on if you had argued for a hatch or a minivan.
I've never owned a truck, but they have their uses.
I'm a big fan of small cars, but I'm also a big fan of having friends that own trucks. just off the top of my head, I've needed to borrow a friend's truck to move a couch (twice), buy a new bedframe, and buy a TV. this is all in the past year. none of those things fit in my hatchback with any combination of seats folded down, and they certainly wouldn't fit in a sedan. if I had to rent one from uhaul or home depot, that would have cost me hundreds of dollars in total. instead, it cost me a couple meals at chipotle.
it's also hard to find anything smaller than a truck with 4WD. if you live outside the city/suburbs, this can be a pretty important feature by itself.
I own an F150 I use primarily for commuting but it also has a comfortable ride, >20 highway mpg, good visibility, utility for when I need to move furniture etc, and it’s relatively affordable and holds its value. Trucks depreciate slower than any other category of vehicle. Literally the only downside is that it’s a pain to park sometimes.
If I drove it a lot yes but I typically only do 4000-6000 miles a year. Even with this vehicle I average less emissions than a typical commuter would. That being said I will probably replace it with an EV as a daily driver when it’s paid off & use it on an as needed basis.
You can't compare yourself to someone that drives more than you do and use it to say anything about how much you pollute. Comparing to a small European sedan (or maybe a VW Golf) driving the same amount of miles would be more telling. Apples to grocery carts.
First off, you can't compare the fuel economy values between countries just by doing a conversion. Europe has different testing procedures that give higher numbers than the American EPA test does (normally around 20-25%), and the only way you'll have an accurate number is if the car is sold in both countries.
The F150 has fuel economy close to that of wagons sold in the US. The F150 is less efficient, but it has way more than half the fuel economy of a wagon. Examples:
A base E-Class Wagon gets 24 mpg (22 city, 28 highway).
A 4WD V6 F150 (which I think is the most popular) gets 21 mpg (19 city, 24 highway). The most efficient F150 available (the 2WD Hybrid) gets 25 mpg (25 city, 26 highway).
It is the base E Class in the American market. Americans don't drive <150 HP manual cars and would never buy them. Those are the only versions of cars that get substantially better gas mileage then the versions of cars that Americans typically drive.
The fact that Mercedes (a luxury car manufacturer) choose not to import their smaller engines to the US doesn't mean you can't get smaller engines. Subaru outback, kia niro, even a volvo v60 or audi a4 come with efficient 2l engines if you absolutely want luxury
Did you not read the link I posted in my first comment in this chain? Two of the cars in the fuel economy comparison are the Subaru Outback and the Volvo V60. The most efficient Outback has 29 mpg (26/33) and the most efficient F150 has 25 mpg (25/26). Almost identical in city, and in the same ballpark for highway. Numbers are similar for the Audi A4 Allroad (though you'll have the same concern as the E-Class as only the higher worldwide trims are available) and for the V60.
Ah sorry I’m on mobile, didn’t see the horizontal scrolling!
It’s crazy that the choice is so limited in the US. I can understand why the Prius was so popular with you guys, despite handling like a whale on wheels.. there are nearly no options in the big hatchback segment .
Most sedans get somewhere in the 30s on the highway unless they are hybrids, so it’s about a 50% difference. Not insignificant, but not as massive of a difference as you would think. From a purely economic point of view you’d have to drive a lot for the cost of gas to cost you more than you save from having less depreciation.
You're going to be really sad when you do the comparison for people who drive sports cars. Porsche 911's run at 19 mpg for the 2020 models and ~14mpg for the 2000 models, and the 2010 Cayenne (SUV) runs at 11 mpg. 11!
I actually had a Fiesta ST before my truck and because it required premium fuel (it would run on standard fuel but burned it quicker and had less power doing it so it was pointless) the actual $ cost per mile was similar to the truck I have now but with shorter range because of the much smaller fuel tank
Speaking personally, I've never owned a truck but began considering it during Covid. Why?
The cost premium of hiring someone for home improvement jobs vs. DIY seems to have gone up. And the difficulty of finding someone qualified, reputable and with available capacity seems to have become exponentially higher.
"So I guess I need a truck" is what I've recently been thinking.
A van is better in almost every dimension for construction. Effectively the only reason to own a pickup truck (vs some other better utility vehicle) is if you have trailer that needs it.
When you say "construction", are you referring to something like drywall/framing/roofing or electrical/trim work? I ask because fitting a stack of OSB sheets in a van can be anywhere from challenging to impossible (depending on the type of van of course). Certain trim levels of the F150 for example, are designed with the specific requirement of being able to accommodate standard sizes of construction materials, like a 4x8 sheet of OSB.
> A van is better in almost every dimension for construction.
Vans are nice and in the used market often cheaper. I used to rent/borrow a friends full size van before having a truck. Still, the roof creates limitations. Can't transport a fridge or water heater upright, for example.
And for towing as mentioned, a van is limited to a bumper pull trailer whereas a pickup can pull a fifth wheel or gooseneck.
In a similar vein covid changed my recreation habits enough to make me consider a truck/suv. With nowhere to go except outdoors I spent a lot more time camping/kayaking in Tahoe and national parks. Bringing an inflatable kayak, paddle board, and camping supplies for the weekend was doable in my hatchback but not exactly comfortable and wouldn’t work with more than two people. Something with more storage and 4WD drive started sounding very appealing. The F-150 is very competitive with a new 4-runner or Tacoma on cost and features. Just wish it wasn’t so gigantic.
There are a certain group of users that need the machines to be strong for towing, tall for required ground clearance, and with bed capacity to haul material, tools, and other everyday cargo.
There is another group that doesn't need any of things but is convinced that they might some day. They are aspirational requirements. Why are those people convinced they need these things? The same reason anyone is convinced they need anything in the modern world. Advertising. Truck ads tell you that the Ford F150 is a tough truck for men who are tough (or want to be) and don't take nothin' from nobody (once they get out of this crappy job) and are masters of nature (or surely would be if they didn't live in the suburbs).
They buy product placement in all the badass movies, their commercials look like b-roll from a transformers movie, and the trucks themselves get more comfortable and less utilitarian every year.
Ford is not in the business of selling (light) trucks - they are in the business of selling an aspirational lifestyle to a population that thinks they might one day become an action hero. The F150 is, and has been for a long time, a consumer toy and not a serious work vehicle.
I’m about as “casual” of a user as possible and it’s still much less that I might theoretically need these things someday and more that I do need them, occasionally. For myself or for friends + family.
This. Before I left the bay, I daily drove a motorcycle or a Jeep. Many of my weekends required truck. If you can only have one, the truck is the better tradeoff.
As a thought experiment: for the vast majority of this sorts of tasks a panel van is a superior choice- more secure, more protected from the elements, better milage, much less cool. I'm fact actual trades people are much more likely to use one than am f150.
Could you ever see yourself buying a panel van? Why or why not?
There’s a lot of times it’s more convenient to just throw something over the side of the bed so I would miss that but as a purely utilitarian vehicle vs a work truck absolutely yes.
However for my truck in particular I got a somewhat luxury trim with 50k miles for only $20k, so it was a good mix of things I would want in a vehicle generally as well as the utility. Panel vans aren’t really offered in that configuration, and I probably wouldn’t get one now because I plan on just keeping this truck as a secondary vehicle long after it’s paid off and I eventually get a smaller daily driver.
All that being said the one thing that could make me change my mind is an electric van with extensive usage of solar panels. That has a rather unique value proposition so if it existed in the future I’d be interested in it at least.
I got a good deal on something very well equipped with low mileage, and trucks tend to hold their value exceptionally well. It’s also just more convenient this way.
There are a good number of legitimate uses and legitimate users for these vehicles (I know a lot of legitimate users), but the vast majority of the giant vehicles on the road have only 1 visible occupant and no visible cargo.
And although I am doubtless projecting, I can't help but envision a fresh hot latte in their cupholder, which the driver is on their way back from procuring.
YMMV--but, in my experience, a single user multiple vehicles in the US can be pretty tough (at least, going from 1 to 2; it seems a lot easier when you go from 2 to 3). I am looking at a new, single vehicle, and this electric F-150 might be it--because I need to be able to carry plywood sheets and my Hyundai subcompact isn't gonna cut it.
I can't speak to the more general, aspirational subculture to which you refer, but the aggravation of multiple vehicles is in some ways the first stop on this tour.
Americans want it because everyone else has one. Down here in TX, the number of pristine trucks that have never seen a speck of dirt, never had anything in the bed, and that are parked on their 1/8 acre lots in the city is staggering.
The problem with trucks like the F-150 is all marketing. My impression after seeing a recent F-150 is that the goal is to feel big and luxurious. Even on the ICE version of the truck, the area under the hood is mostly empty.
The reason an entire car hide in front of the bumper, out of the driver's view is that it makes the truck look cooler. The window sills are also at a silly height, to make the truck feel bigger, but at least that doesn't create the same safety issues (for everyone outside the truck) with no real value.
im just bummed they went with the modern body style and did not revive the early 2000s Lightning body style that had a more street racer vibe. That car was sweet
I have no idea if this’ll be lightning or a lead balloon, because a significant amount of pickup truck buyers do it for the machismo.
Which sounds like some city-slicker talking down to the cheap seats, except, I grew up in a town named Farmington. (Go Farmers.) I know pickups. I know the people who drive pickups. My dad sneers at fancy new pickups because he used to shove a good 700 pounds of mink pelts in a pickup, and he thinks all that leather would get stained by the blood nowadays. And pickup truck buyers love their macho trucks. They like the burble of the engines and the swagger and that it’s not some little penalty box of a green car.
An electric pickup? Sure, sounds rational, especially with that torque. But does it trigger the libs enough?
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Something that might help, though: that price.
“but rather its price because the 2022 F-150 Lightning will start at just $39,974 before any government rebates.”
Given the just eye-watering prices of pickups these days: that’s cheap, relatively.
After reading your comment I went and CTRL-Fd the page for green, environment, carbon and sustainable. These words either don't appear or aren't selling points.
Ford's marketing department knows what they're doing, they're marketing this truck as tough and powerful. I like it.
It isn't fair to characterize everyone this way. I've owned my fair share of small cars (by US standards) but I bought a used F150 (my first truck) a few years ago and I love it. I don't care about how loud the engine is, nor do I think it makes me any more macho (I don't buy things for what others think of me.) It carts my family around comfortably and I can haul lots of things with it without caring if it's dirty/wet/etc. My second favorite vehicle is my wife's minivan - it's too bad they have a bad stigma.
My concern with the Lightning (and EVs in general) is range anxiety. I can fill up my F150 in what 3-4 minutes. How long before I can go 400 miles on a charge? What happens during an extended power outage, can I carry 100 miles worth of range in a portable container that's as easy to handle as 5 gallons of gas?
None of these concerns have anything to do with this vehicle making me feel more manly ;)
It will take some change in behavior, but it’s worked out ok for me. I charge over night (and frequently using solar in the day when at home). That leaves me with 400km of range everyday.
For those infrequent long trips I stop every 3 hours/350km and charge for 30 mins. Watch some Netflix, use laptop, or have a short nap and move on. Works out ok.
> significant amount of pickup truck buyers do it for the machismo
Those are weasel words unless you can back them up with data. Ford sells over a million pickups a year, and they're just a third of that market. There's no way to get an audience this large by going for machismo, pickups sell because they have broad appeal.
It is a bit insulting but I suspect many people have enough experience with this that its a bit of a gut reaction. I know a lot of big ego people, they all drive trucks. I've been flipped off by drivers of all vehicles, but only run off the road by trucks, usually for very trivial things. because you know, getting into someone elses lane is effectively a challenge to their manhood, and they better make a point about it less they lose their social standing. That's not the actual thoughts in their heads, but it is their reaction. Trucks are _also_ comfortable, convenient, and all those other things, which is _also_ crucial. But I just can't imagine any of these big ego people driving a small car (and yes, more than a few have explicitly said as much).
At any rate, what exactly would objective supporting data look like here?
> At any rate, what exactly would objective supporting data look like here?
I don't know, which is why I wouldn't stereotype such a large group of the population. To a reasonable approximation, everyone in America is a truck customer. It's way too broad to have a common defining characteristic.
I agree that there is a subgroup (think of them perhaps as the 'brodozer' crowd, I guess) that seem to be who you're thinking of. They mostly don't drive F150s, they're more likely to go for a diesel HD pickup. And even then they are just a niche of that market. I know lots of superduty owners that want nothing to do with those folks.
To some people machismo means strength, to others machismo means self-reliance. The 11 power outlets and the ability to power your house will really appeal to them.
If the world turns Mad Max, someone with an electric truck and a few solar panels won't have to worry about the gasoline gangs.
If the world turns Mad Max, The Humungus will be driving around in the electric truck he took from some sap who expected to ride out the apocalypse with his solar panels and electric vehicle.
99% of truck-driving Americans will starve to death in the first month of a societal collapse, and there's nothing their truck can do about it. If you need a truck with a 120 kW-h battery pack it's either going to take a week to charge it from the excess capacity of a domestic solar array, or you need to quadruple the size of said solar array. Either way, between the truck and the solar panels you'd probably have been better off spending that money on land and seeds.
This truck will do very, very well in a fleet context. The price point here will mean that commercial and government buyers who pencil out TCO(total cost of ownership) will have a compelling cost savings in maintenance and fuel.
As a contrasting anecdote: I work with IT people, about 20% of the parking lot is pickup trucks.
So while there might be pushback from the "salt of the earth"-type, I suspect a lot of urban truck owners are very far removed from that. The gas/long bed/bench seat base model may continue to sell for the rest of my life to farmers and construction crews, but most people buying a truck likely don't need a truck: It is just a utilitarian general vehicle that may haul gardening supplies, camping gear, and dump runs every so often.
So you likely are correct, it just may not matter for the more common demography for trucks in 2021+.
It's funny, I view buying a truck for the machismo as one of the primary emotions/feelings/identity actually means buying it for whatever the opposite of machismo is.
There's a couple classes of 'Truck guys'. The Truck guys that just want power, yeah they'll probably go for this.
The Truck guys that like throwing turbodiesels in to get HP/Torque numbers like what we see in the lightning, I would say it depends on whether Ford makes it 'Moddable' or not.
There’s a lot of stereotyping of truck owners going on in this thread which is kind of funny given how pro-EV HN normally is. It’s like the aesthetics of a pickup truck is offensive to some people. Kind of bizarre and not something I’m used to seeing but I guess I live in Ohio so that probably has something to do with it.
A lot of people just want to move stuff, they don’t want to like…burn your house down while wearing a MAGA hat or something. There’s no reason to have an irrational hatred of a vehicle that is pretty practical in non-urban settings.
Edit: since this ended up as the top comment I’ll add some thoughts on the truck itself in the spirit of not being overly-negative. I’m interested to see what exactly is included in the base model and when that will become available since they’ve only given us information on higher trims so far. $40K for this vehicle is very affordable, that’s about as cheap as you can get a new Model 3 right now but at least for awhile it could be eligible for electric vehicle tax credits. Especially if the government extended these credits they could get A LOT of people to buy these trucks (and more Teslas which would help with EV adoption since demand for the Bolt and Leaf seem pretty low)
We buy a freezer at Costco. Checking out, we ask for details on delivery. Costco employee says "Oh, we don't deliver". We had been used to Costco in CA which at the time would deliver large items.
I ask "Well, how do people get big things like freezers home".
Costco person says "Easy, just put it in your pickup, we'll help you load".
"Hmm...we don't own a pickup".
Costco employee looks somewhat confused.
Then says "Easy, just get your neighbor's pickup".
Yeah, I moved out to the country(ish) recently after living in SF and swore off ever getting a truck. Within a year of being out here, finally caved and got one and haven't looked back. I still have the smaller honda for longer trips, but the truck has opened up an entire world (getting plywood sheets/siding/lumber, dump runs, towing, etc). So much of the stuff I used to think "I can't do that myself" now just takes a weekend or two. Re-siding? Sure. Retaining wall? Done. The list keeps going, and I couldn't do it without the truck.
Having a truck in a big city if you're a in tech or some other desk job is probably kind of pointless. But if you're not in the city and plan on saving thousands and thousands of dollars doing some of the work on your property yourself, you can't really live without it. Seriously, the thing has paid for itself already (bought it used) and haven't even had it a year.
I drive a 1999 F-150 for all the reasons you describe. The sheer amount of _stuff_ that needs to be moved around the countryside was so surprising to me when I first moved out here. I remember thinking how insanely huge a 2 cubic foot back of potting soil used to feel. Now I routinely buy two yards (54 cubic feet) at a time.
It all still feels a little weird to me. There was a time not long ago where I never thought I'd own a car, much less a big pickup! I'll admit that this lifestyle feels very inefficient.
Though, I wonder if my carbon footprint is actually smaller, since I spend most of my vacation time working on stuff at home (rather than flying places).
Why not use a small trailer instead? I have a small hybrid, have driven 2200km since last time I filled the 40 liter tank, when I want some plywood, lumber or dump run I connect my trailer which I can load 1000 kg on. I do live in a country where petrol isn't almost free so am not only saving the environment but also lots of money from not driving a lorry
My honda can't really haul anything but a few people and some surfboards. If I attached a trailer with 2000lb of base rock in it, it would probably kill the engine but more importantly would be super dangerous to drive since there's no real hitch or brake controller.
So another vehicle was warranted: why not get one with the trailer "built in" (truck bed) so I don't have to have an SUV and a trailer that I have to hook up every time? There's other reasons I needed a tow-capable vehicle, but the utility of a truck just made the most sense.
I agree that there's an entire class if stuff (lumber/plywood) you can strap to your roof or get a little trailer for that doesn't warrant a truck, but having one makes a lot of the stuff I do weekly so much easier.
I have a little trailer and an older small SUV. I also have a house built in 1920. I would _really_ love a pickup. The trailer is a pain when you do as many runs for supplies as I do.
I had the SUV/trailer combo for years, and it was handy but there are lots of things it's just not worth the hassle for. Now I have a pickup and making a daily trip to the town compost pile (to eventually get rid of the large pile of stuff that accrued over the trailer years) is super easy. I still have the trailer but haven't touched it once, I'd rather just make two trips with the truck.
P.S. Trucks are just more fun!
P.P.S. They're also cheaper to lease than SUVS thanks to crazy resale values.
And then there was the time I discovered that you cannot get 10' rebar into a Corvette. 6'? 8'? Sure. 10'? Not without shattering that fancy curved rear window.
Your list of items "(getting plywood sheets/siding/lumber, dump runs, towing, etc)." all seems perfectly doable with a trailer. I never had any trouble hauling trailers with my Subaru WRX sedan.
Weekly? No. But it has happened enough times (20+) in the last eight months to justify a vehicle that can do it, among all the other things the truck can do that my honda cannot. Also, depending on the weight of the loads you're hauling in your trailer (lumber is obviously fine), you could be putting a lot of people on or around the road in danger. The brakes on a WRX are not designed for towing.
I don't understand the weird fascination with people trying to convince others that they don't need a truck. Does it occur to you that I was aware that trailers existed before getting the truck and that their existence factored into the decision?
Pure interest: would you mind listing the things you transported in more detail? Maybe not so much the raw materials but the end purpose.
I don’t live in rural US (neither rural nor US). Here in UK you see more 4x4s in the countryside, part fashion, part poorer roads - but there is definitely plenty of countryside perfectly well served by regular cars, and you do see a lot of them about. Few trucks meanwhile.
So my imagination can’t quite figure out the difference.
Sure. A 3000LB (dry weight) travel trailer, a few larger deliveries where the driver didn't want to come to the house but instead wanted meet on a main artery, I mentioned the base rock (several days, multiple loads) to fill in a retaining wall, a decent number of loads of firewood (1 cord per load, generally) since we are primarily wood-stove heat in the winter, a lot of construction debris from renovations (not sure on the weight, but certainly more than a honda could pull on a tailer) and green debris from clearing the property (fire season, yay) sent to the dumps, etc. When building the retaining wall, I could have tamped the base rock down by renting a tamper and spending an afternoon...OR...drive the 4000lb truck back and forth over it for 15 minutes until it's completely packed in (the honda would have gotten stuck likely).
There have also been a number of mudslides in the neighborhood that block the only exit road in the past, and having a 4x4 vehicle would be the only manner of escape. Similarly, it's in the forest, so a when a tree falls across the road (and they do), freedom is only a truck, some straps, and a chainsaw away.
So how much of this could have been done with an SUV? Maybe 60%. And SUV and a trailer? 90%, and a lot more of a pain in the ass to deal with. So why get an SUV and a trailer when the workload specifically calls for regularly hauling oddly-shaped or bulk items? That's exactly what a truck is designed for. If I already had a vehicle capable of towing a heavy trailer, the truck would have made much less sense. But given the needs, another vehicle was warranted, and mid-size 90s 4x4 truck checked all the boxes.
I think it's easy to underestimate just how large and undeveloped the majority of the USA is.
England has a population density of 275 people per square kilometer, 281 if you consider the entire UK. UK also has an agricultural area of about 23 million acres, at 70% of available land. That means that a huge majority of UK land is developed and actively used, and over an area of 23 million acres.
The US population density is 36 per square kilometer. That is about 1/8th the population density, which is already a huge difference. In addition, the total USA land used in agriculture is about 900 million acres, which is nearly 40x greater an area. So we are currently at 40x the agricultural land, at 1/8th the population density.
The kicker to this is that the US agricultural land use is only 44%. So not only do we have 1/8 population density, 40x the agriculture land mass, we also don't even break 50% of land use for agriculture purposes. This all combines to mean a few things.
1. People that have land in the USA tend to have a lot more land.
2. There tends to be large amounts of unused land all over the place with no development.
3. A lot of land is being developed for the first time, instead of redeveloped.
This doesn't directly answer your question as far as needing a trailer vs a truck, but it should give you an idea that the USA is much less developed and a lot more rugged than the countryside of a much older and more established and smaller land mass like the UK. Trucks make it a lot easier to handle all the unexpected situations that occur from having the land situation we have.
One other point I'll add at the end of this. The USA also has extremely different and varied climates compared to the mild oceanic climate of the UK. This means more of every type of weather and bigger extremes. This takes huge tolls on both the roads and how tame undeveloped land is. For instance, in the midwest, it is not uncommon for large semi trucks and pickup trucks with huge tires to be the only cars capable of driving on the highway as the highway is covered in a foot of snow and they're the only vehicles capable of driving in it.
Around here (semi-rural WI, US) it's not so much the terrain where you're going as what you need to haul. 4'x8' sheets of building materials are one that get me a lot; I recently had to cut a sheet of styrofoam in half in the parking lot of the home improvement store to get it to fit into my car. There's also pieces of equipment that won't fit in the trunk (boot), like lawn aerators, rototillers, sod cutters, and stump grinders. (They might fit in a van or CUV, but then you have to deal with gas fumes and dirtying/damaging the interior.) Dirt and compost could fit but would be a pain even with a tarp.
I see a lot of fashion trucks but most of them also get used for towing or hauling on the weekend, and a lot of that stuff wouldn't fit in a car and would be unsafe on a trailer. A lot of people around here also have motorboats that would be too big to safely pull with a car.
You don't need a truck to tow a larger trailer. My Audi A3 is rated to tow 1600kg. I did tow my 1000kg race car many times using a normal car without any problems and it was both safe and legal when I was racing. Trucks, and SUVs, are bad for the environment and are more unsafe for both the driver and for others.
You don't need a vehicle to do anything. You can just walk or bike. If you need to move a large load, lift some weights or ask your friends to help you. People in egypt built the pyramids without vehicles. Vehicles in general are bad for the environment and are just plain unsafe for the driver and for others.
Snark aside, why would I buy an Audi A3 when I already have a Honda? My truck is much more capable than your A3 and was probably much cheaper. Regarding safety, it's actually really safe because I only drive it when I need its hauling or towing capability.
Most pickup trucks are not going to be cheaper than the A3. A3's are not especially expensive if you factor out maintenance costs, and pickup trucks are inordinately expensive due to high demand in the US, plus dealers refusing to carry very many of the cheapest trim models for sales (unless doing a bulk deal for work fleet sales). Yes, in theory, an F-150 starts at 28K MSRP vs 32k for an A3...but good luck finding a new F-150 for 28k out the door.
That said, as a former A4 owner, towing 1000+kg with an A3 seems like a death wish to me.
I got my truck for <$7000. If towing/hauling are the goal, I'd trust a 90s pickup over any sedan regardless of manufacturer claims. And I do tow more than the A3's limits, so either way it's out the window.
Agree with you on the tow ratings though. It's a really good idea to have some healthy margin between the stated limit and the actual load, unless you're just going down the street.
> healthy margin between the stated limit and the actual load
Not only that, but in some applications the stated limit is irrelevant. Utility trailers aren't usually a big problem, but a lot of people mistakenly think they can tow a 7500lb RV with a half-ton truck just because the manufacturer says the tow rating is some ridiculous number like 11,300 lb.
Interesting, up until now I would have trusted most tow ratings. How can you tell if a manufacturer is fudging the numbers or not? It it mostly a matter of engine/truck size?
It's not that they are lying, per se. The pull rating is idealized. A trailer needs 10-15% total weight on the tongue to pull safely, and a travel trailer in particular is sensitive to being balanced correctly. So if you have only the driver in the truck and no cargo, you might get to the pull rating.
But realistically, payload is what you hit first, especially a family towing a travel trailer. A very typical half-ton pickup will have around 1500 lbs of payload capacity [0]. This includes driver, passengers, cargo, everything but fuel. The authoritative number is particular to the truck and is given on a sticker on the door jamb. So if you have a trailer with a 7500 GVWR, you need to plan on around 1050 lbs on the tongue, which leaves you ~450 for everything else. Two adults could easily put you over. Add kids, dog, coolers, firewood for the campsite, etc, and suddenly a half-ton isn't looking like a good choice for a trailer this size (7500 GVWR is what a typical ~30 ft travel trailer is spec'd at).
There are other factors that also come into play, like wheelbase vs trailer length, but in general I think most people don't have much to worry about if they respect the payload rating on the truck. Many people ignore it (on purpose, or not) however. I've seen more than one F150 towing a 35 foot trailer. On anything other than flat, level highway with no crosswind and little traffic I think that would be dangerous.
[0] Technically Ford will sell you a particular F150 configuration with a 3270 payload, higher than many F250s, but IMO it's still not as comfortable towing as a bog standard F250. But if you don't tow very often the compromise may be worth it since the F150 is significantly more comfortable for daily driving.
Ok, that makes sense. My T100 is rated to tow 5000 (including the load in the truck itself) and I definitely try try to respect that limit (poor little feller). That said, those things are known to be unbreakable. We'll see I guess.
> 7500 GVWR is what a typical ~30 ft travel trailer is spec'd at [...] I've seen more than one F150 towing a 35 foot trailer.
I see what you mean now. I cannot imagine towing a 30+ft trailer with a half ton. I feel iffy pulling our 16ft TT with the T100. It's well within capacity, but I definitely feel the truck working. And yeah, flat ground is smooth sailing, but the first hill you hit and the pedal is down all the way and if I don't hit it just right I've got to tell the auto to shift to 2nd.
Probably could have gone one size up, but I'm honestly really happy with the T100.
Ah, yeah the used market is a completely different beast. Hard to compare across vehicle classes and models. I was thinking in terms of 'new' truck sales, which is currently bonkers for pickups and have been for some time in North America.
In America at least, its rare for a non-SUV or truck to be officially rated for towing. So when you put a trailer on your little sedan and your brakes fail going down a long hill, insurance will have your head.
Towing with a car is normal, you need to let your insurance know if you fit a towbar to a car that didn’t have one. You are limited to a max trailer weight of 750kg without an upgraded driving license. Also many normal sized cars have a max towing capacity which is about 750kgs anyway.
Yes. Don't remember if it is 1500 or 1600kg. If a trailer is heavier than 750kg it does also have brakes, so that isn't a problem. It is an American thing thinking that you need a car 2x the weight of the trailer to tow it
1600kg is not a lot of tow capacity - only 3500 lbs. A base model Mustang for instance comes in at 3600 lbs. Most campers are going to exceed it as well especially when you add in supplies, etc. And that is not using a trailer.
Most people also do not realize - you need to count the weight of the trailer, hitch, cargo and passengers against the rated tow capacity of the vehicle.
As someone that owns a truck, I actually recommend this to a lot of people. It's really quite affordable and easy to rent one as needed too. However, there are definitely situations where a truck is vastly superior.
I own a consulting company and I am a civl / environmental engineer that ends up driving a lot of forest service roads. ...so I have a 4wd truck. There are definitely weirdos out there that make a lot of judgments about me because I drive a truck.
A lot of cars (rather than trucks) sold in the US either aren't rated to tow at all, or are rated to tow much less than the same car sold in other countries. For instance, a 2005 Subaru Forester is rated to tow 2400 lbs (1088 kg) in the US, but 1800 kg in Europe.
The reason for this is different countries have different ideas of trailer safety- the US prioritizes allowing larger total weights to be towed at higher speeds, but Europe prioritizes allowing people to tow larger trailers with smaller cars.
The European approach is to have less weight on the tongue of the trailer, which allows a smaller car to tow more without being overloaded, but results in a less dynamically stable configuration. They compensate for this by having lower speed limits for trailers and additional licensing requirements for drivers towing heavy trailers.
Also worth mentioning that U-haul trailers are very handy for this. There's at least 3 U-haul dealers that I can think of within a 5-minute drive of me. The one I prefer is probably 2 minutes away, I can rent a trailer for a day for like $15, they're never out of stock, and the owner of the U-haul dealership is the most chill person on the planet. I get all the benefits of a pickup truck, but don't have to pay for one. Win-win.
You're of course welcome to own a pickup truck if you want, nothing wrong with that. And I'm sure plenty of people don't live in suburbia with U-haul dealers everywhere. But if you do, it's stupid simple and you can save a ton of money.
I agree with you and the U-Haul idea makes loads of sense, but dear heavens are those unpleasant places. I wish there was a business that was like.... U-Haul, except nice although I'm sure it would cost 3x as much.
I'm sure the experience varies somewhat by location but it usually involves some combination of:
- very long lines, particularly on weekends. understandable, but adds hours and stress
- the vehicle you "reserved" online last week so you could do that job today? yeah, it's not really reserved. it may or may not be available; they "overbook" because they expect a certain number of cancellations. again this is understandable and something you see in a lot of industries, but yuck.
- lots of bogus-ish fees like "cleaning fees".
That all said, I own a home and have never felt the need for a pickup truck. I do fine with a hatchback and a roof rack.
A friend of mine just owns a trailer that he occasionally hooks to his minivan.
The main disadvantage is that you're driving something larger and more unwieldy, like backing up.
But the advantages are numerous. Still lots of seating in the minivan. Much lower deck to roll/drive/ride things on (I can't recall if the trailer tilts).
It's basically a portable pickup truck bed, maybe it's even bigger.
IMO for people who don't want to own a pickup, the Home Depot rentals may be a more convenient option. Especially since you're as likely as not buying whatever it is you need to haul from there.
It's a pretty painless process, but I save that option for the "big" hauls. If I didn't have the minivan and renting the Home Depot trucks was my only option, I'd probably organize my life around hauling less stuff.
I just scuba dive and a truck is a lot better for hundreds of pounds of wet smelly gear than anything else. Plus you can go to the dump, or pick stuff up from Lowe's, etc.
But its only an old Ford Ranger and not a F950 that is raised enough to crawl over boulders on Mars.
Yeah, honestly, I couldn't justify the utility of a truck buying new. The price tags are nuts. I got an old T100. They run forever, cost less than $10K (even in CA where the truck market is crazy), and are very capable for all the stuff I throw at it. I love the thing.
Here in Seattle, I have one close friend with a pickup, everyone else drives Subarus (no exception).
But in all seriousness, he gets asked about 1.5x a week if someone can borrow his truck, it's insane how far this "ask" stretches itself. It drives him a little bonkers, but he's also a pretty nice guy so he says yes more than he should.
Anyways, I'd probably buy a smaller pickup because of how often my partner buys and sells used furniture as a hobby, but I don't want to be the friend with the truck in the city.
Many Tacoma owners in Seattle (fun fact, Tacoma is the native name for Mt. Rainier). I'm one of them. I've owned it for 7 years, 3 in Seattle, and I've never once been asked by someone to borrow it. Guess I must be a loner. You can rent a cargo van from UHaul without much trouble.
Also, I have to laugh at all these anecdotes about owning a pickup as a personality trait. I wasn't inducted into some pickups dudes club when I got mine. People haven't treated me any differently - still a nerdy, introverted guy who does a lot of outdoors sports. I drive to the grocery store or trailhead or city park in my truck, do my thing, and go home.
"You can rent a cargo van from UHaul without much trouble."
Maybe we have different definitions of what "much trouble" is. It takes like an hour to do anything with UHaul where I'm at. It's insane how bad that company is at doing the most basic thing that they've been doing for like 4 decades.
UHaul rentals are painful, but Home Depot has a truck rental program that is relatively painless if you can deal with the no reservations policy. I've done some fairly substantial remodel projects without owning a truck.
I live 5 minutes from a HD and it is still a giant PITA to rent their truck. Usually there is a line and the transactions are relatively slow. Then you have to gas it up. Then you have to make an extra trip, even more if you're not using it to bring home a Home Depot purchase. Then you only have it for 75 minutes.
I have a Harbor Freight trailer I tow with a Honda fit. It's 8 feet long, and I built sides on it about 4 feet tall. It's got a 1500lb capacity, and my hitch on my car is rated to 2000lbs. The trailer was $300, the hitch for my car was $150. Spent a few bucks on wood for the floor and sides of the trailer. Been using this thing for about 20 years. Never needed a truck. Most truck beds anymore are less than 6 feet long, because everybody needs a 4 door. A trailer is $35,000 cheaper than a truck, and when you unhook it from your car, you can still use the car to take a trip and get 35-40mpg. I tow motorcycles, dirt, trash to the dump. I tore off my old roof and hauled it all to the dump in my trailer. I have used it to bring home 16 foot boards, plywood, sheetrock. It's light enough that I can move it around when it's unhooked. It takes about 30 seconds to hook up.
My neighbor did the same thing, and built his entire deck, brought in all his concrete, boards, materials, etc in with his Mazda 3 on a small utility trailer.
These small trailers are so useful and cheap, I don't know why you'd spend any money renting one. And they're actually more useful than these pickups with short stubby beds that are only good for a half ton anyways.
I just check online and see which store has the truck I want. I haven't had any issues with lines and there is no limit on how long I can keep it where I live. I'm in a major metro area though so ymmv.
I rented one last fall, and they have a mostly electronic pick up and return process now. The biggest delay was getting the keys when I went to the gas station to get the van. I waited ~5 minutes in line for the cashier, and then she had to call somebody from the back.
The return was easy.. just take a few pics on my phone as part of their return process, and then drop the keys in a drop box.
Zipcar used to have cargo vans. Not sure if they still do (don't use them anymore).
But I haven't had a terrible experience at UHaul, as long as you go to one of their big locations. (I always go to this location in Chicago: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8543365,-87.6406812,3a,75y,1... , even if it's not the closest, it's easy enough to get to and they don't run out of stuff...)
So bad--it boggles my mind. We joke that their company moto is: "U-Haul: It's Always Somthing".
So many instances of showing up after reserving online, and the staff says, "Uh, we don't have that truck."
Most recently, my friends couldn't get their reserved truck (on their moving day) because their site (and backend) was down nationwide. They had the truck, but _because_ everything's digital now, they had no fallback ability to rent out the reserved truck.
Not only that, but their arbitrary safety rules get really annoying. "No you can't hook that onto the bumper hitch, even though its rated for 4500lbs. The rules say you need a receiver." The receiver is still rated for 4500lbs but that's okay.
But then they are happy to slap a receiver onto any passenger car that is not rated to tow at all and let you load up as much as you want into one of their box trailers.
Fair, it's been a few years since I rented one. It still works better than a truck in most cases since it protects your stuff from rain, car exhaust, mud splashes etc.
I needed to pick up a bunk bed I bought on Facebook Marketplace, so I rented a small U-Haul in my neighborhood last year to make the whole process simpler. I downloaded the U-Haul app to schedule the rental, used the truck for about an hour and was pleased that the return process took about five minutes. There may be lots of horror stories about renting a U-Haul in a big city, but the process of renting a U-Haul in the suburbs — the place where the truck got lots of its stigma over MAGA owners rolling coal down Main Street — has only been incredibly easy for me, so much so that owning a truck seems rather pointless. I've also rented a U-Haul for most of the times I've moved, either across-city or interstate, and each of those processes have been simple and not time-consuming.
I used to own a pickup. I resolved to never own another one because it resulted in requests to help haul stuff or help someone move at least twice per month.
Some people count on that to take advantage of you. One of the easiest strategies is to start asking for small favors, and then move on to bigger ones. Because the person has already granted you a small favor, it’s harder for many to say no to the bigger ones even if they want to.
But if it makes you happy, I guess that’s all that matters!
That sounds like the natural progression of a relationship/friendship to me. I'd ask my better-known friends larger tasks than people I don't know as well, too.
Yes, of course, if it’s a two way relationship. But I’ve seen plenty where the “mark” is unaware or cognitively dissonant that they are being taken advantage of.
Initially, they take pride in being able to help someone, but eventually they’re giving much more than taking, and they cannot bring themselves to say no, whether it be to keep themselves happy because “if I’ve helped them before, why should I not help them now…even though I don’t really want to”, or to avoid confrontation.
Pride is always a liability, so I like to try to keep away from it as much as possible.
It is more of a general principle of keeping one’s emotions at bay to prevent your biases from clouding the data and your judgment.
I am sure there are evolutionary reasons for pride (i.e. ego) such as helping you fight with intensity for scarce resources or for maintaining tribal bonds. But in the modern world, it those circumstances are rarer and someone can use it against you pretty easily.
I agree that pride _can_ be a liability. The idiom “pride comes before the fall” itself doesn’t imply that pride is _always_ bad, but rather that it has the potential to be bad.
I think pride has all kinds of positive and negative features in the modern world. When I take pride in my work, I think about it more carefully and try and deliver a higher quality work. “Pride” and “Craftsmanship” seem very linked to me. That pride helps me deliver high quality work, which keeps clients around and earns referrals, which keeps me paid and food on the table.
When I don’t take pride in the work I do, the standards and quality can slip. I’m much happier if I can deliver work to a client that I can stand behind and be proud of. I think that’s in many ways an asset.
I certainly don’t disagree with you, though, that there are many scenarios where pride , hubris, and ego end up being problematic.
My too. This is literally why I bought a pick-up truck 20 years ago. (Which I still drive today. The Tacoma will outlive me.)
I love it myself. I've moved with it, carried music equipment to gigs with it, brought home countless DIY projects from the hardware store with it, and even camped in the back of it. But I also have done many many favors for friends.
If you want the utility of a pickup truck without the stigma, go for a minivan and a trailer.
Of course a minivan has other associated stigma, but you can haul things around without being asked to haul other things.
I once read an article by a crane operator that mentioned something like 40% of his jobs were for people who saw him craning something and asked if they could hire him to crane something else nearby.
A lot of acquaintances have asked me for help fixing their computers, or advice on buying a computer, or help setting up their smart TV, or email on their smart phone. Some have asked me to build apps or websites for them. All expecting help for free.
Some people have asked to use my truck, or asked for help loading a moving van.
I have asked for free legal advice, tax advice, help installing flooring, help loading a moving van. I have borrowed a neighbor's truck.
I have asked for tons of help debugging code or learning some new concept.
Sometimes I have turned people down who asked for help. I am grateful to the hundreds of people who have helped me in ways big and small. I understand when people can't. For the most part, I am happy to lend out my truck on occasion. While it is getting used, I'm probably using a browser for free on an operating system for free.
A while back I was using a park "for free" when I noticed a family I know working together to pick up all the trash. I know they weren't being paid. They're just super cool like that.
Sometimes it just feels great to be super cool in some small way. Some people go out of their way to feel like that at least twice per month.
Just need to learn how to politely say no. If they're friends, they won't take advantage of you, and if they're not friends, it's really easy to say no.
Hasn't been a problem for me, but I recognize that this is probably because all my friends have some kind of pickup of their own.
Yeah, and it’s a pain in the ass because you realize the renting overhead equates to about 4 hours of wasted time to and fro. Then you’re rushing your project because you hear the clock tick and then need it again on Sunday. Will never do a truck rental again.
In the 90s we lived in SF SOMA and I had a 4WD pickup. It was excellent for hauling antique furniture and oddball arty type things (store couldn't possibly deliver). And it was perfect for exploring the Lost Coast, Trinity Alps, Owens & Saline Valley etc. Manual steering, so || parking was a nice upper body workout. The apartment garage space was $100/month, well worth it.
But... the idea that you would have to plug it in on a multiday trip... yeah, I'm laughing. I just drove central AZ->Sacramento->Ft. Bragg->SF->San Jose->Sacramento->AZ in a Prius. Nope, I'm not digging the charging idea.
I don't recall having that many problems with the borrowers. I helped some people move, maybe once a year. The way it works is they reciprocate with something else, or else, you discover they are not your friend. That's useful to know.
I still can't believe a diesel-electric, "train-locomotive-on-tires" hybrid concept has never been attempted stateside.
Electrical motor torque (from rest) screams to be marketed to American truck buyers. It's the one EV market that probably didn't ever need environmentalism as a boost to be successful.
A 2016 Prius gets ~40++ mpg on a 10 gal tank all day at 90mph. That is, >> 400 mile range per fueling stop. I heard this on the internets, of course, I wouldn't know, personally ;-). Fueling stops imply human fuel as well.
I gazed with amazement at all the fanboyz in the threads above about what a gamechanger this E-truck is. Oh. 230 mile range OPTIMAL. Some hope of a range extending $$$ option.
wrt to your comment, of course that would be a game changer, if a hybrid E-truck could get 40+ mpg with a 400+ mile range. (No comment on the aerodynamics and efficiency at speed) And the imagination goes... yeah, you could now financialize on-site construction generators... emergency power generators... whoa baby let me in where do I invest. Because you could market this to sportsball enthusiasts and then scale. In the US, maybe?
Well, I in fact own a 2001 Tundra V8 4WD which I recently refurbed $3K into because it just works. But I sure wish it got 40 mpg instead of an optimistic 13 mpg. Extra gas tanks are a well known technology for extended off road excursions, for a century now.
I had an employee once who told me his pickup provided him job security. Every company he worked for wanted him to use the truck for errands. He was able to get $2-3/hr more than everyone else.
There were a few times I wanted to let him go but we needed his truck.
Lots of reasons that I didn't at that time. I didn't want to deal with the hassle of purchasing and maintaining a truck and didn't have a place to park it. I wasn't going to park it at my house and didn't want to use one of my two parking spots at my warehouse.
We weren't doing things the buttoned up proper way at the time but most small businesses cut corners to make things work. You can go broke being excessively compliant.
If the company owns the truck, they then have to get insurance for it, and to get reasonably priced insurance, they will likely need to run background checks on everyone allowed to drive it.
It is much less hassle and money to throw a few bucks an hour at the guy who is willing to use his own to run the errands if thr company doesn't need the truck for anything else.
I mean, the employee presumably isn't adding zero value. Maybe he's not as great as someone else, but his truck tips the scales just over the line in his favor?
I moved to Idaho a several years ago and went through the same experience. I showed up in my Toyota Corolla and everyone kept saying it was a "cute car". This was just a normal car in Seattle. But here everyone was like, "oh how cute... a little Corolla". I also got comments from co-workers that were like "oh does your wife drive your truck?"
Here every family basically owns a pickup. Idaho has a lot of BLM land, (second in size only to Alaska). So sports like boating, RVing, and ATVing are very popular here. As we got more ingrained into the culture here, that is very outdoor activity oriented, we decided that with a truck we could own an RV. We have always been huge mountain bike riders and the convenience that a truck offers for mountain biking is incredible. We also drove in friend's trucks and realized that with the Platinum trim from F-150 for example, you get a very luxurious experience inside. Trucks offer HUGE cabs (larger than a lot of SUVs), with the convenience of a huge bed for throwing toys or moving things, a hitch to tow incredible amounts 10,000lbs+ and 4wheel drive that can take you anywhere. There is a lot to love about modern trucks. Even the gas mileage isn't much different than SUVs (mid-20s mpg).
Yeah, we ended up buying a truck within 6 months of moving out here. Our family was shocked because "they never saw me as a pickup truck driver". Every time I told someone back home that I bought a truck it was always pure shock as they reconciled the stereotype of a pickup owner with what they knew about me.
When my parents visited they were absolutely fascinated by the endless sea of pickups. When you parked at a restaurant for dinner, the parking lots are almost entirely pickups, with only a handful of cars scattered throughout.
When my mom first drove in my pickup, she was shocked at how nice it was. It offered great views of the road. It has heated, cooled, and massaging seats. Panoramic sunroof. A huge interior. A huge mulimedia touchscreen. And they drive like any modern SUV in comfort. She eventually said "Yeah I see the appeal to pickup trucks now".
Eventually I convinced them to move out here during COVID. They have been really happy with life out here. But now my dad is getting the itch and now he too is shopping for a new pickup. He never considered owning a truck before in his life.
I don't fit that stereotype for a pickup driver. And whenever I meet people through work or whatever that find out I drive a pickup, they are always taken back. Everyone has a certain type of person in mind for a pickup, especially people in the city. But pickup trucks are the best selling vehicles in America. Much of middle America lives and dies by their truck and they are standard purchases for a lot of families.
Edit: Ok so I'm seeing from a lot of the comments now that everyone is quick to say "You don't NEED a pickup", "You can rent one when you need one", or "I go mountain biking all the time with my Prius/Tesla". So just to be clear. I am not saying that you can't go mountain biking unless you have a truck. I mountain biked for 10 years in a VW Passatt and Toyota Corolla. But the truck offers a lot of convenience and is nice to have. I love having it and thats why I bought it. I'm sure I could jigsaw stuff I am hauling into the back seat. I did exactly that for several decades. But I love tossing stuff in the truck bed and not worrying about it scratching the leather, making a mess, or making it fit. Just toss it in the bed and drive off. Wash the bed out with a hose when you are done. Go anywhere in the truck. Tow anything. It's Comfortable and safe. Try fitting a kayak and/or paddleboard in your car. Yes, again you can buy racks to put it on the roof, and I used to own those. They are a royal pain. Now rent a pickup and throw it in the bed and drive off. You'll be at the lake before the Prius has finished safely attaching their kayak to their roof. I enjoy it and that's why I bought it.
> Trucks offer HUGE cabs (larger than a lot of SUVs), with the convenience of a huge bed for throwing toys or moving things
Generally, the huger the cab, the smaller the bed. It actually annoys me how popular 6 ft (or less!) beds have gotten in recent years. Especially when so much lumber comes in 8 ft length.
>It actually annoys me how popular 6 ft (or less!) beds have gotten in recent years. Especially when so much lumber comes in 8 ft length.
Most people buying pickups don't use the beds for anything other than groceries. Buying a pickup is just a form of social signalling that you belong to a certain in-group. Those people buying trucks with 6-foot beds don't care that lumber doesn't fit in them because they use their trucks exactly like I use my Volkswagen. On the rare occasion they need to put lumber in the bed they'll let it hang out the back, just like I put it on my roof bars.
I don't think people realize how expensive pickup trucks are. The 2021 F-150 Platinum Trim you mentioned starts at $59,110 - these are luxury vehicles.
That's just cap cost. Pickups do very well on depreciation, much better than a similarly prized luxury car. The TCO is pretty respectable by comparison.
But I'm a bit of a cheapskate and I only ever get the XLT, not the Platinum. Only luxury I really care to pay for is CarPlay. But to each their own!
It's okay to advocate for things you , especially when people are confused about why you would like it! I like my Tacoma as well, no, I do not work for Toyota.
Robert starts his new remote office job and buys a new truck for its utility as a non-commuter vehicle. Hank desperately tries to hide the fact that his son would buy a foreign-made truck. The Gribble boys unravel it all.
For those in a similar situation, note that most home-improvement stores rent a pickup for something like $20 for 75 minutes, usually enough to get a load home.
And one step up from that, full truckload delivery is often $75-150, and sometimes even comes with a forklift. Often you can get it thrown in free if the order is large enough.
The rental is fine for one offs, but if you're constantly doing home improvement projects or have a hobby that requires this sort of trip, then you're doubling the trips you make to the supply store.
Also, HD is not the only place I buy supplies. Sometimes I drive an hour one way to get supplies at a rate _far_ better than HD.
Depends. If you're using it a handful of times a year, sure, rent it. If you're using it every weekend or two, coordinating picking up and returning a rental adds a lot of work to an already (generally) busy day.
Also, don't get a fancy-boy pickup. You can get a capable truck under $10K if you look around for a bit, and it will pay for itself in no time if you do a lot of your own work around the house.
Oh, the hill is starting to give way. Cool, build a retaining wall (including getting the base rock to fill it). Oh, we ran out of firewood this winter. Cool, build a bigger wood shed (BTW, firewood is a lot cheaper if you pick it up yourself). Oh, the siding on the house is rotting. Cool, grab some plywood, tar paper, and siding and fix it myself. Oh, the weeds on the property have overgrown again? Rip them all out and haul them to the dumps.
I've saved probably tens of thousands of dollars including the price of my truck by doing these things in-house instead of hiring. All thanks to my truck.
When you don't have one, you don't do these things (because hiring people is expensive). But once you get one, it opens a completely different world of "wow I can do this myself." I found rentals don't cover that gap. I resisted getting a truck for so long, but once I got one I kicked myself for not doing it sooner.
I do. I'm a software engineer, living in a city, but slowly renovating a house on the weekends. I routinely need a few sheets of plywood and dozen 2x4s, or drywall, or bags of concrete, or something to that effect.
Why do you need a truck for that? What's wrong with trailers? Even my 2-door coupe can tow a 1800 kg trailer with brakes (750 kg for trailers without brakes).
I used that, once, during the early stages of the pandemic to avoid going into the store.
They showed up outside of the expected delivery window, left a stack of drywall in my front yard in the rain, and didn't ring the bell or notify me in any way. I found it several hours later.
While I understand they were likely overworked due to Covid in this instance, this kind of thing happens often enough I can only use it when I have space to securely store materials delivered several days before I need them.
To their credit, Home Depot did refund me; but I still had no dry wall when I needed it.
Also, you can't get immediate delivery when you're in the middle of a project and mess up a cut on your last sheet of plywood. There's no ctrl+z with a saw.
This is a thing, but there are a million edge cases that you can’t rely on this for. Sometimes you underestimate the amount of material you need, sometimes you need to make sure that the sheets of drywall you’re getting aren’t damaged, sometimes you need to pick individual pieces of lumber from the pile because there is a ton of variation in the grain etc etc
If you’re doing a project you very much need to be able to run to Home Depot that same day and pick up additional bulky items.
Not the same. Deliveries are often late, incorrect, or don't show up at all. It can wreck an entire day of work. Read that page...you have to pay extra to get even a 4-hour delivery window. This is great if you want to sit around with your thumb up your ass instead of building. "Just deliver the day before." Oh yeah, I'll take every Friday off of work to wait around to receive a delivery that I could have picked up in an hour with a capable vehicle.
I don't drive that much. Why would I buy a sedan and give myself the hurdle of arranging to rent a pickup any time I need one? If I must own a vehicle, why not make it one that provides utility?
Millions of people own RV's. Most people that tow them with their SUV are way, way over the limits for the vehicles they use. (the salesperson will ALWAYS say your vehicle can pull it)
I know a guy who for several years towed a 30' travel trailer (7500 GVWR) with a Jeep Grand Cherokee. That's one of those "well, technically, it could work in a narrow set of circumstances" situations. He swore it only had a tongue weight of 500# because that's what he got told by the salesman.
Not someone you want to share the road with. He was a big guy, married with two teenage boys and a dog. He was so far over the payload limit on that Jeep...
Or anything like suburbia. I live in Gainesville, Florida, very near the center of town. It's a 130K city limits burg, and our property still has a yard, and good use for trucklike patterns. I solve that with a Cheep Jeep at the moment.
Good luck when you get into an accident with your teardrop trailer, rv camper or even motorcycle trailer and you find out your insurance company won't pay it because you were over your tow capacity (if you even had any) with or without e-breaks.
Short of doing something criminal, you will always get covered by your insurance policy in this situation. But they will drop you like a hot potato the moment they cut the check. Insurance covers stupidity at least once.
They will cover your liability to others but there is a good chance they won't cover your losses other than medical unless mandated by the State's Department of Insurance regs. I am only talking about the US based P&C here.
As a desk-bound software engineer, nearly every weekend I'll use my pickup to go get stuff I couldn't (or would be very inconvenient or dirty to) bring in a car. Lumber, concrete, rock, soil, large pots & plants, etc.
I don't drive the pickup during the week though (I mean pre-covid when I drove places), too inconveniently large for that.
If you are into home improvement it is very easy if you are getting materials, hauling garbage, bringing tools from one place to another. You could substitute a trailer for a lot of stuff, but then you need to park that. Parking the truck instead of an SUV/car is easier than parking the SUV/car + a trailer.
I tow my travel trailer once every two weeks on average for about 8 months of the year, and in between those trips I routinely haul stuff for my projects around the house and some hobbies.
2013 XLT Supercab (the suicide mini doors), $26k used in early 2015. But I wanted the 3.5l Ecoboost. (20-21mpg, i.e. in the same ballpark as the WRX upthread.)
Yep, here in the UK for very rare occasions we need to move something big (like, once every 1-2 years), we just hire a pickup or van for £50-70 depending on size. Even a small lorry with a tail lift is only £100 for 24h.
Seems like madness to buy something as big as a pickup and drag round that weight (with the poor MPG that comes with it) and deal with parking such a behemoth, all for something you do so rarely *
* obviously if you're a farmer or running a business or something, that's different - but that's not what this thread is about.
We've moved 5 times in the past 6 years and I spend a lot of time with outdoors hobbies (mountain biking, surfing -- pickups are hugely popular for both). But not owning a truck has never been an issue.
We use our minivan for a lot of these things, but I’d love to buy bulk mulch / topsoil instead of the bags. But loose mulch doesn’t play well with the van.
I’ve always considered myself a GM//Chevy guy, but I’m strongly considering this truck.
And I love that it doubles as a Powerwall...
Eliminates the need for a generator (I work from home so if the power is out I can just take the ICE for errands and have the truck power the house — you don’t have to be a truck person to find that pretty nifty!)
That is a really cool feature. I think for extended outages (which we do have) a propane generator fed by a big tank is great. But most outages are a day or less, so having that all ready to go in your truck is really cool.
Should be fine with a roof rack (or without if you don't care about the paint)
When I buy sheet steel I use a station wagon because it's easier to plop it down on a roof rack and get it off later then it is to stick it in a truck or van.
It's actually devilishly hard to strap plywood to a roof rack in a way that it won't take off in the wind (you're essentially turning your car into a giant kite) but also won't warp. It can be done.. but it's hard.
Once I needed a good amount of plywood for some cabinets. At 8 sheets and other assorted lumber I started feeling really uncomfortable mounting that much weight on my roofrack - I know the rack has a limited capacity like 100-200lbs. Would have had no issues with a proper pickup truck.
Same, I pack two bikes inside our regular Prius all of the time. I moved across country with it packed full, and regularly do furniture moves, skis, climbing gear with 4x people, etc.
Firewood in the boot will do this I’m sure. There are a lot of big trees near me that like to fall over. Putting large sections in the boot to process at home can easily overload the car so much that the wheels at the front start to lift. You turn and nothing happens.
I own multiple station wagons fully agree with you. But what you're missing is that it's not about the ability to do things, it's about the image projected when doing them.
Over-specing vehicles is one of the ways the well to do advertise their well-to-do-ness. It's like a marble countertop but for the roads.
Sure you can put three kids in the back row of a Sentra, it has three seatbelts there after all. Sure you can haul plywood on anything with a roof-rack, that's what it's there for. Sure you can shove a washer in a Prius. All those things work great. Bust for most of HN to do them regularly would be "behavior below one's pay-grade" so to speak.
>We buy a freezer at Costco. Checking out, we ask for details on delivery. Costco employee says "Oh, we don't deliver". We had been used to Costco in CA which at the time would deliver large items.
I every one owns a pickup, why don't you simply rent one (à la Airbnb, e.g with GetAround) for just a day?
I've never owned a vehicle (other than a bicycle, but I live in Paris) but can easily rent any kind of car/truck/van anywhere in Europe. It saves me a lot.
Generally it's the hassle of getting it because in car-centric American cities, the rent-for-a-day renting process isn't streamlined. Rental companies aren't convenient (or possible) to walk/bus to so you need to get there somehow. Which means you need a main car already, or you have to bug a neighbour/friend and do it on their schedule and not yours. The ability to be like "oh, I've got a spare hour here, I'm gonna go grab that lumber I need next weekend" isn't possible anymore.
So at the end of the day, you need a car, period. I live in a midsize American city after living in a major Canadian downtown and wish we didn't need the car (we both bike a lot), but I really do. And personally, an electric pick-up is gonna be mighty appealing for my next car in however-many years because it removes the main reason I've never gotten one before: gas. I can only imagine how big a win the lack of gas is gonna be outside of America where gas is hilariously cheap.
This works when you're the outlier. If we are ever successful in making cars the exception rather than the rule, it will be far more difficult to just go rent one on demand.
When we bought our couch at the Salvation Army, they also didn't deliver. We rented a pickup truck at Home Depot for an hour, which cost about forty bucks. Overall, I think that worked great and I'd do it again.
When I lived in Texas I didn't need a truck all the time. But when I did, it was critical.
I found that since I didn't need it most of the time the Home Depot Truck Rental for a couple of hours shifting freezers, flooring and other bulky items worked out well for me.
Saved on gas all the rest of the time.
But it really requires a Home Depot within 30 mins so not for everyone and if this had been an option, I probably would have just gone for the truck.
Rural home ownership. When you own 10 acres and want to make use of it, there's always a project to do. I've owned my current 10 acres for almost 3 years, and lived up here full time since last October. Prior to moving, I spent every other weekend up here (other family lives here full time).
There has hardly been a weekend since I bought the place in that time where I don't have some project that involved some amount of construction material. Even just a weekly shopping trip can fill up a full sized truck when you live 30 miles from town and do all of your shopping at once. Also, I have 4 horses on the property (not at all uncommon here), so that alone justifies the truck since I have to go get a few thousand pounds of hay every so often.
That's about right. So if you rent 3+ times a month, thats 150 euros ($180) a month. That's easily a car payment on a used truck. Not to mention the amount of time you spend dealing with the rental place, and doing the extra return journey. Considering the hourly rate of the average HN user, that's firmly in range of a truck payment.
Also consider that you get to eventually sell / trade in the truck. Vehicles depreciate, but you get some value out. Rental payments all disappear.
>It’s like the aesthetics of a pickup truck is offensive to some people.
I got a rental car recently and they gave me a bright red pickup because it was the fastest option. I was surprised by the good vibes I got from all the other pickup drivers, lol. It's like I got inducted into a secret club for a day with a lot of waves and thumbs up. A woman went up to my group in a parking lot and said something like "Hell yeah, you guys look like you're having fun."
And I thought, yeah -- I fucking love this. Kinda subverted my perspective on the aesthetics of these trucks and the people who drive them. Led to some self-awareness about how silly the city stereotypes are of such people.
It's just the age-old bias of disliking what you don't know because you haven't spent time around it. It's not categorically any different from something like racism.
What if someone dislikes pickups (and other vehicles with those size/height characteristics, purchased for vanity) that objectively make life more dangerous for kids playing in the street, pedestrians, bicyclists, and others in smaller vehicles?
If it's done without any attempt to comprehend why someone would make the choice, to interrogate your assumption that "vanity" is the only possible reason for it, then yes. It's a prejudicial evaluation rooted in your caricature of someone's nature.
Of course, it's an elective choice, and in that way very different from prejudice founded on appearance. But the incomplete analysis, and the contemptuous reduction of the target's motivations, are in common with racist tropes.
Car accidents (including a car hitting a pedestrian) is certainly a problem but I just don’t see how someone could genuinely dislike pickup drivers for a reason like that. Seems like a conclusion in search of a reason.
The trend towards BIG is a major part of that. Compare, for example, the classic Toyota Hilux to a Ford F-150. The latter is substantially taller off the ground and, given how much of the driver's view is blocked, much less safe in a residential area than the former.
Story time: Back in 2001 I lived in San Francisco and my little Mazda was going to be in the shop for a while and I needed to rent a vehicle. Long story short the only vehicle I could get my hands on was in the east bay and was a (I shit you not) Dodge Ram 2500 Diesel. Absolutely obnoxious. Being from Texas I was used to driving pickups but a this thing is just shy of a two ton payload capacity. I have no idea what this was doing on the lot at Enterprise or whoever I rented it from.
Well, the dirty looks I got every time I belched black smoke on the streets of SF were a given. What I did not expect (or notice previously) was the other truck drivers (however few) there were in San Francisco. It seems I too was inducted into a little club. Whenever I saw another truck there was always a thumbs up, or a "nice truck". Kinda funny when all I got was dirty looks from everyone else.
"I got a rental car recently and they gave me a bright red pickup because it was the fastest option. I was surprised by the good vibes I got from all the other pickup drivers, lol. It's like I got inducted into a secret club for a day with a lot of waves and thumbs up."
That's interesting ...
Our ranch truck is a "work truck"[1] - basically a fleet vehicle, colored white, with an 8 foot bed.
I'm bought a Tundra mainly because I needed something tow my boat (my old 4-runner was just too small). But, once I got used to sitting up high, having all the space, and having a full sized truck bed for hauling whatever, it's pretty nice.
It works OK that way, they accept new members of their club when you conform. However, I've had my Prius damaged by rural folk (in lots mostly full of pickups) on multiple occasions. (Joys of having family who decide because of politics that they're rural farmers now).
I'm sure rural pickup drivers are lovely folk when you conform to their cultural, racial, and/or lifestyle choices -- that's the point!
But I've never met a Prius driver who felt the need to key or slash a pickup trucks tires, both of things which have sadly happened to my Prius in rural parking lots.
Pickups are convenient any many (probably most) owners have them for good reasons, but living in a Midwestern city I run into so many "bad" pickup drivers it's hard not to get frustrated with them generally.
A lot of people around here have big, tall pickups with tiny beds that they drive very aggressively. They rarely use them for anything I couldn't put in my Fit (I've known several people who would never haul dirt or the like because they don't want the truck to get dirty). Many modern pickups have a high front grill that is dangerous for pedestrians and designed to be intimidating. It sucks to constantly run into trucks like that being driving fast and aggressively when I'm just trying to walk to the store.
I know that's a minority of trucks, but the worst cars by me are invariably pickups and it's hard not to generalize it.
> Many modern pickups have a high front grill that is dangerous for pedestrians and designed to be intimidating
I get what you are trying to say, but had to mention that all front grills of vehicles are dangerous to pedestrians.
It's just a bit of a strawman argument to say "Well when I hit people with my car it will be worse if I own a truck, so I'm going to own a Prius so that the pedestrians roll right off".
Trucks have been getting taller, with higher hoods, steeper windshields and worse forward visibility for the same capability. Not to mention more common in the US in general.
As a cyclist and pedestrian in the city it's a nightmare - you can never tell if the driver can actually see you vs sedans and hatchbacks at your eye level.
Unsurprisingly pedestrian deaths from drivers have spiked in the past few years.
I went for a walk out in my suburb one night. If you can show me a single Honda Civic or Mazda sedan where the hood starts at 5' off the ground, I will bow down and say you have a point. Note that I mean the grill ended, and hood started, at the top of my shoulders. I'm six feet tall; how the hell has this happened, and why is it considered acceptable?
Until then, I (and presumably many others) will view trucks as objectively more dangerous, and contributing to a less walkable city. I recognize going under a vehicle is a bad time regardless of how tall it is, but my girlfriend can't hide right in front of a Toyota RAV-4 or Audi Q5.
It's arguably not a strawman argument in the slightest.
There have been changes made to these trucks that do a great job of looking aesthetically "tough and mean" and selling trucks, while also making them more dangerous to other road users: not just to pedestrians, but to other cars via the bumper overlap issue.
How is that a strawman? You will roll off a 2 foot prius grille and you will get your skull caved in and your body ejected twenty feet backwards onto asphalt with a 4-5 foot high pick up grille if you get hit.
I think the argument is less that the grill on a truck is especially bad in the case of a pedestrian collision, and more that the limited forward visibility provided by a high front grill results in a greater likelihood of not seeing pedestrians directly in your vehicle's path.
You are right that the front grill of any car is going to be bad news for a pedestrian. The issue I have with the higher front grills is the front blind spot they create.
> It’s like the aesthetics of a pickup truck is offensive to some people.
When a vehicle is driving in front of my house with a grill that's a foot higher than my oldest child... yeah, I don't much like those aesthetics. And it has nothing to do with "moving stuff". The UPS delivery vans that are actually built to, ya know, move stuff, have lower grills and way safer sight lines.
As someone who used to work at a nursery that sold a lot of mulch, sod, etc, there are a lot of things that a typical single family homeowner would want that you absolutely wouldn’t want to transport in an SUV or minivan (which is all that is really worth talking about because pretty much no individual owns the type of delivery vehicle you’re talking about, which are meant for transporting packages anyways).
People would have me load this stuff for them into SUVs of course, and we would do our best to line them with plastic first, but it still made an awful mess everywhere.
And that’s not even getting into towing, there are common things having a truck bed is just better for.
As for the tallness, you can partly blame EPA regulations for that as it’s more cost effective for manufacturers to make trucks taller and wider than more fuel efficient. That’s the #1 reason why the small truck market declined and why smaller trucks got bigger
> As someone who used to work at a nursery that sold a lot of mulch, sod, etc, there are a lot of things that a typical single family homeowner would want that you absolutely wouldn’t want to transport in an SUV or minivan
People should do what is generally done here in Northern Europe. Get a Stationwagon/Estate with a tow hitch and a trailer. With that you get a smaller, more practical, car in terms of day-to-day driving. And when you really need to move something bigger/something you don't want inside your car you still have options.
Renting a trailer locally is incredibly cheap too, costing just $26 at a nationwide gas station. IKEA, and similar local stores, will lend you a trailer for free.
Here's how two friends and I transport our gokarts. One in the trailer, another secured on top. The car on the day of the picture is a Mercedes CLA Coupé. Other times it's the other friend's Ford Fiesta. And yet other times it's one of our dads driving an Audi Q5 or a Peugeot 3008.
A hitch gives you the price and size advantages of e.g. a Ford Fiesta while still having the option of hauling several hundred kilos worth of stuff. The Q5 can haul a ton and a half. I'd wager that very few people regularly (weekly) need to haul several tons worth of stuff, and the few that do have a legitimate reason for owning a pickup.
In principle, the small trailer with a small car plan is great. It doesn't really work in the U.S. though. There is some combination of towing practices and regulations that make this not work here.
In the past few decades, we've seen many cars here go from having some decent tow rating to a very low tow rating or saying in the manual not to tow.
Just for example, the Mazda 3 in Australia has a tow rating of 1200kg. In the UK it's 1500kg. In the U.S., towing is not allowed at all per the owner's manual.
I'm not sure what all the reasons for this discrepancy is. I know when I lived in Germany where towing fairly big things with fairly small cars was more common, I noticed some differences in towing practices:
1. They use a different style of hitch that flips down under the bumper instead of the receiver style hitch in the U.S. The German style hitch kept the ball closer to the bumper, which improves stability.
2. The trailer is loaded with a fairly balanced weight distribution so that there is not much weight on the tongue of the trailer. This keeps the rear suspension of the car from being compressed and keeps weight on the front wheels of the car. It has the downside of making the trailer less stable at higher speeds.
3. Presumably because of this lower stability, many trailer/car/driver combinations are limited to 80kph. Car/trailer combinations tend to have a critical speed where they become unstable if the weight from the trailer is not loaded in the front, and 80kph is a typical speed where this can start to happen.
4. Germany requires extra licensing to tow a trailer. Someone who actually gets some training and has to pass a test is going to be a lot safer towing than someone who got 5 minutes of instruction at U-Haul.
"HN-class" Americans refuse to tow stuff with cars because social media tropes have convinced them that it's massively dangerous, easy to screw up and that they will be a danger to society.
I had a trailer for my Dodge Avenger. I have a truck now. Believe it or not, as a person who had periodic need for a trailer, it's easier to be a person with periodic need of a truck bed.
Having lived next to a boat launching area, I can tell you an average inexperienced driver is pretty likely to make an expensive mistake with a trailer.
I have seen a lot of trailers reversed into expensive cars, flooded cars, trailers falling off and hitting things at speed, cars driving into the sea because the driver got out to check the trailer, etc.
A lot could be fixed with better software and sensors. For example a car should be able to measure the angle of the trailer and apply the brakes when someone tries to reverse-jackknife. It should measure oscillation frequencies and damping factors at highway speeds and set a safe max speed. It should refuse to start the engine at all if a trailer isn't correctly hooked up including electricals and brake lines, etc. Finally, trailer brakes need an overheat/wearout sensor so the driver is aware if their trailer brakes have failed before they find out when going down a hill at 70 mph.
> Having lived next to a boat launching area, I can tell you an average inexperienced driver is pretty likely to make an expensive mistake with a trailer.
As a kid we would sit down at our neighborhood landing in the summer and watch boat launches for entertainment. I saw at least 2 cars get submerged, people run into each other, many many fist fights. Prior to allowing me to pull our trailer, my dad made me back up (with trailer attached) in circles and figure 8s in a parking lot and then in and out of the driveway many times. Showing up to busy landing on summer holiday is NOT the time to learn how to back down a trailer.
Well, yes. But in case of a Hilux or an L200 you often don't need to.
What I wanted to say is that a 'station wagon' is useless for half a year in some climates. And it doesn't make any sense to keep two cars, one for 'summer' and one for the 'rest of the seasons'.
I owned a 1970s vintage Camaro in Ithaca NY of all places. (For those who don't know, think hills and snow.) No snow tires--poorish student. I used to say it tended to skid with a forecast of snow.
I'm not at all saying that trucks aren't useful, or that they aren't the best vehicle for a lot of people and/or tasks. I'm saying that the trend right now is for trucks that are way taller than they need to be purely because the buyer prefers that look. I had zero issues with pickup trucks 10 years ago, before they turned into a political/biological/emotional statement piece, instead of a tool.
The trend for growing truck is mostly due to EPA fleet fuel efficiency regulations. If you make a small truck, it gets classified as a car, so it counts for car fleet efficiency. That’s also why you see decline in sedans and rise in relatively small crossovers SUVs: these also count as light trucks, not cars, for fuel efficiency purposes.
It's also the "footprint" model of fuel economy for CAFE. The required MPG for a truck is based on the area of the rectangle made by the wheels. This means that for 2021, a larger F-150 is expected to get 25mpg, but something like the old Chevy S-10 would be expected to get 41.8mpg. [1]
The automakers have determined that this is not practically achievable, and so you can't buy a truck like the old S-10 or a pre-Tacoma Toyota pickup anymore.
It's more that people prioritize incentives for objective "A" and are totally surprised when it comes at some cost to "lesser" objective "B." In this case, being "environmentally friendly" vs being "safe."
I think a lot of "environmentally conscious" people don't realize that more and more of these types of environmental regulations will come at some direct cost in terms human-safety.
And also that a surprising number of politicians/activists/people are so committed to the dogma that they don't have any problem with that.
Higher, larger pickup trucks did not come about as a result of safety requirements, they came about from fuel efficiency requirements (or needing to get around them).
So net result of indirect regulations to decrease fuel consumption is increased fuel consumption, and more dangerous vehicles for everyone to contend with who is not inside as large of a vehicle.
Simply making people pay more for fuel would have incentivized them to prioritize what kind of vehicle to buy, and make it possible for smaller pickups to still exist and/or a rental market for pickups to flourish.
Believe me, the market would prefer the older, smaller, steel framed trucks than the newer aluminum ones. But they're no longer an option, new.
EPA regulation and govt overreach/ unintended consequences are what led to these design changes, not market demand.
The blue-book price for my 12 year old steel-framed truck has gone up every year since I bought it used.
>before they turned into a political/biological/emotional statement piece
The anti-truck crowd, which supported all the regulations that led to the current state of vehicle design, are the ones that made this a political/emotional issue, whether they realize it or not.
I don’t think this is really the primary reason for this at all. There’s an element of that of course, but there’s other factors as well. This is a decent short article about it. But the tl;dr is popularity of crew cabs + a gap in recent regulations that encouraged trucks to become larger https://www.insidehook.com/article/vehicles/why-pickup-truck...
>In other words, the regulations put in place to get better mileage out of vehicles also led to an increase in truck size. “There was kind of an incentive to maybe stretch the wheelbase a couple of inches and set the tires maybe an inch [farther] apart, because you get a bigger platform and slightly smaller target,” said Edmunds. “Now, the bigger vehicle would be heavier and might use more fuel, so it’s not as easy as just doing that. But certainly there was a feeling that if they did need to make it bigger to accommodate more passengers, the fuel economy target wouldn’t be onerous. They could do it.”
That statement is not very convincing that the regulations lead to bigger trucks.
It's also super easy in these situations at a nursery, etc.. that the car or SUV owner has to make multiple trips and waste tons of gas because the vehicle can't hold much.
People who don't own homes too easily forget it's really really common to have jobs around your house/yard where you're dealing with thousands of pounds of supplies.
You can overload an SUV/Wagon/whatever incredibly quickly with sand, mulch, rock, etc.. and it will be nowhere near full.
I find it ironic that you bring up fuel spent for what is a one-time inconvenience when pickup trucks are some of the most inefficient vehicles out there. A regular pickup will do about 14 l / 100 km. A modest ford focus will easily do 5 l / 100 km on the highway.
Of course many home improvement stores will just rent you a truck for the afternoon. That’s the principle reason I see against owning a truck for a homeowner. Just rent the right tool for the odd job(s). It’s poor optimization otherwise.
To elaborate, since I've even had to explain this to some "eco-conscious" engineers:
This is also partially why trucks have gone from steel to aluminum, which is lighter (to gain a marginal increase in mpg), but also requires larger shapes (moment-arms) to achieve the same amount of strength and resilience (crumple zone rigidity & required crumple zone size, etc).
Of course the other side effect is that using aluminum frames/engines won't last as long, since they deform easier, so all that saved energy from increased mpg doesn't make up for the wasted embedded energy from decreased useful lifespan.
My mom was an avid gardener and regularly moved mulch and manure in her station wagon. We cleaned it out afterwards and it smelled musty for about a week afterwards. It was usually in the spring though, so we just drove with the windows down if it wasn't raining.
As much as I think a body-on-frame truck is way more practical, some of what you're describing is really a matter of attitude. As far as I'm concerned, dirt, scrape marks, etc. in my SUV is just a sign that I'm making good use of it.
It's pretty easy to cleanly haul stuff with a suv. You throw a nice, thick blue tarp in the back, load your stuff, boom. Job done. Bonus, it makes unloading easier too.
They're also optimized for having a driver hand-deliver packages from the back of it hundreds of times over an 8hr shift. That's moving entirely different things than you'd move in a truck. A pickup truck would make a shitty parcel delivery truck, and a UPS truck would be a shitty way to move construction materials.
Amusingly enough a "step van" - the technical name for the type of thing a UPS truck - is often a much better truck for the average construction worker (the type who brings a truckload of tools to a job site) - as you can get into the truck and find things without having to unload the entire pickup.
A friend started construction and bought a Tacoma new because he saw everyone else using one - and it had to go in for a repair and during that time the dealer lent him a van, and at that point he had serious regrets about buying the truck.
But then again visit most construction sites and you'll see one or two company trucks full of tools, a delivery semi or two, and acres of pickup trucks with nothing in the bed.
I'm in a neighborhood with a ton of construction and remodeling. Here step vans, sprinters, and the like are very clearly much more popular with construction workers. Much easier to keep tools organized and securely locked and even more capacity than a truck bed.
What I have see is construction workers where the step van is the "work vehicle" and a crew cab pickup is the "family car" - though as often it's an SUV or a minivan.
Oh totally, that's why sprinter vans or step vans work well for tools and small goods. But if you're moving sheet goods, pallets/slats of heavy goods, long materials, or things like dirt or gravel, then a truck bed is better.
It's all about using the most suitable vehicle for the job.
Maybe you have different UPS trucks where you live. But the UPS trucks where I live are far bigger than pickup trucks. The drivers sit much higher, and the grill comes up just as high, or higher.
There is also a huge variability in pickup sizes because many of them have been customized. But truthfully the standard stock pickup truck doesn't have a grill much different than many SUVs. In fact most SUVs are built on truck frames.
So I know there are trucks out there that have been lifted with 24" tires. But the standard truck that you buy from your dealership isn't much different than an SUV in size. They might be longer because of the bed... but your concern seems to be height, and they are often identical to SUVs.
Edit: Crossovers are a bit different. Those are designed to be more like cars (hence the name). But a standard SUV is usually built on a truck frame. So the body is different, but the main vehicle is similar in size.
Driving off road is a more common use case for pickups than for delivery vans. Some pickups get driven around on construction sites, and some are used as farm vehicles.
Obviously some people take this way further than practically necessary, but the basic form of a pickup does have a legit reason to be different than a delivery van.
Every city has a auto dealer who handles trucks like that. UPS has their own custom trucks so you can't get that model, but there are a lot of options.
You won't find them in the typical dealer though. They are a niche, and most customers are buying several at once for their business and so the way the whole process works is different. Though there are just enough small buisness buying exactly one that you won't confuse them by buying one - but they may have trouble figuring out what tax applies.
The level of "you don't need that!" judgement is weird. I guess it's just a matter of degree though. Here in the southeast US if somebody drives a pickup instead of a sedan or minivan or whatever, it doesn't register as unusual or excessive. I don't think twice about it, it's just another kind of vehicle.
But then again, I do notice (and sometimes make fun) if they've got a lift kit on it, tow mirrors when I've never seen them tow anything, big roof mounted light bar, etc. So maybe it's just a matter of degree as to where you draw the line and make stop-liking-what-I-don't-like judgements.
I think this is the key point in the whole thread. I have no idea how many people who live on my street have pickups -- I've never noticed.
The only pickups I notice are the ones which are "coal rolling", have multiple flagpoles flying political slogans in the bed, or are lifted so far I have clear sightlines beneath them.
I have never seen a "coal rolling" Honda Accord, in contrast.
Right the stereotyping here is ridiculous and full of out of control virtue signaling.
If you live in an apartment complex it's ridiculous to have a truck.
But Even if you own just a reasonable suburban house with a small amount of land you need to do a lot of dirty truck type jobs every year.
I only have half an acre of land, but due to tons of trees I have yard work every year that causes me to have to do many many trips to the compost center with my car (Outback) that could probably be accomplished in one trip if I had a truck.
And almost without fail every year I have times where I have to make multiple trips so that I don't overload the cargo capacity of the car. Even a gas F-150 would use less gas to make these trips and save CO2.
I couldn't see driving an F-150 to work solo commuting with gas as something I could ever stomach, I hate that my Subaru barely gets 20mpg doing that.
But with electric I could see it. The ultimate joke would be someone driving a CUV that burns gas or even a hybrid and trying to virtue signal over someone with an electric pickup truck.
Do I want to spend $50k on a Tesla Model Y and put yard waste inside it's luxury interior on a semi-regular basis? I'm not sure. Versus destroying a luxury EV an F-150 looks pretty cool.
Bottom line you live in an apartment you don't need one of these, because you're paying someone else with a truck to take care of you. When you have to maintain property yourself you either start paying a contractor with a truck to do things for you or you start doing it yourself. When you do it yourself you start going down the slippery slope to wanting a truck.
> If you live in an apartment complex it's ridiculous to have a truck.
Many tradesmen that don't get company vehicles like to own pickups because they can haul stuff for work and their jobsite. Some of those people might even live in apartments. Imagine that!
The amount of arrogance on this site is ridiculous. Just because you might know how to hook up a NAND gate or write some javascript code doesn't mean you are qualified to decide what vehicle someone should own. Please just stop the judgemental posts.
I live in a rural area. I personally know plenty of people that own truck that shouldn’t, and plenty that actually use them.
Both sides are right. There’s a significant portion of the population that think trucks are “men’s vehicles,” even if they never actually use the bed. All of the dealerships around here (usually) have their front highway facing row all pickups and maybe one sports car.
Point being people who live an apartment are far more likely to be buying a truck because they want it, and far less need for it for actual jobs & chores.
Also, plenty of people use pickups for work (plumbers, carpenters, electricians, etc) and there's no reason they might not live in an apartment.
There's even a whole class of pickups for the people that find the occasional use but don't need the big ones, and want to fit easier in places designed for cars. The small pickup.
Toyota has pivoted marketing for the Tacoma as an adventure vehicle rather than a work vehicle. It is awesome for that. Small enough to get around in a city, but big enough to fit four sets of skiing/climbing/backpacking gear. You don't have all that crap in the cab getting snagged on stuff or falling into the foot wells. No skis knocking my elbows while driving. I've had mine packed up to the ceiling of the camper shell. I used to live out of it. Now I usually spend 10-15 nights per year in it rather than getting a motel for $100/night.
I drive an older "full size" SUV ('04 Ford Expedition), mainly because my parents' gave the thing to me when I graduated college. It's fairly easy to work on, so I kind of just keep the thing running. The fuel economy is very bad (like 17 mph highway, 11 in the city), but it's one of those situations where even if I bought a new car with double the fuel economy, it'd take me over a hundred thousand miles of driving to make up the cost difference in fuel savings alone.
It's also really nice to be in a situation where literally everything I own can be moved with it. Strapped my box spring / bed frame to the top of it once.
There's something worse than "ridiculous" for insisting on a toy that has so many drawbacks for the people around you while you're using it for your own enjoyment. It's selfish.
That would include most motor vehicles, due to brake dust, tire wear, and exhaust, since the alternative of using a bicycle is always available. If you need to travel long distances once in a while, you can always rent a car.
I hope you draw and quarter your friends who spend $50k+ on sedans/coupes/sports cars that have no reason for being other than to go faster than is legal and to burn extra gas.
It's a slippery slope to go down to say you know better than others what they should be allowed to own.
You're 5x more likely to kill a pedestrian in an urban area than a rural one, and 2x as likely to do so after 6:00pm.
The relative risk of being killed by a light truck compared to a car is only 1.45 (i.e. 45% greater) and is 0.96 for a heavy truck (in other words less likely than being killed by a car). Buses have a relative risk of 7.97.
So living in a city and driving at night is custom-designed to kill pedestrians and selfish to do so. Encouraging public transit is even worse.
Or you could just, you know, not turn this into a giant moral argument.
You're 5x more likely to kill someone in an urban area because more people live there (in fact, well above 5x more, so...)
> being killed by a light truck compared to a car is only 1.45 (i.e. 45% greater)
"Only"? "You're 50% more likely to die if a light truck hits you than a car, that's "only" a bit more!"
> and is 0.96 for a heavy truck ... buses have a relative risk of 7.97
People tend to bounce off of heavy trucks, for better or worse. Buses are 1) significantly different in design than most heavy trucks, and 2) for obvious reasons, operate in very heavy pedestrian environments.
Just to clarify, he asked for a downside of trucks, I said they're far more likely to kill pedestrians and bikers than normal-sized cars in the event the driver hits someone (which is true). And the next logical step is "we should all live in the farmland and not leave the house at night"?
I think there's a difference between "One drawback is higher pedestrian fatality rates" and "They're basically custom-designed to kill pedestrians and bikers".
Depending on how you drive and what options you get (engine is the big one), the F150 may well get the same fuel mileage if you are barely getting 20mpg.
Though the real answer is a truck for times when you need a truck, and bus/bike for everything else. Too bad transit in the US is in general horrible.
I think if you are going to take an environmental stance all the city dwelling commuters (the ones who drive an hour+ each day) are the real offenders, Trucks or not.
I'm considering buying a Truck, but I work from home and drive only a few thousand miles each year or less.
I have rented trucks and cars plenty.. it would be quite a bit of a hassle for a lot of these jobs though. The traveling back and forth to pick up the rental and then take it back would add significant time and require someone else to take me back and forth. $20/day would rent a truck like an F-150 plus extra costs for mileage. (not a big deal at all.)
It's not necessarily worth it with my Outback, which is itself a large car that city folks would sneer at.
But until this F-150 EV was introduced I was pretty much fully convinced I was buying a Tesla when my Outback needed to be replaced.
Spending $40-50k on a Model Y vs one of these F-150s is a whole different scenario, that's all.
Gas F-150 I'd feel like a jerk on my commute, EV F-150 I would not, I'd feel better than doing the same in my Subaru, and in many ways it would fit my use case better.
My Outback was < $30k and it's 8 years old. Putting dirty stuff in the back of it is not the same as putting dirty stuff in a brand new Tesla.
Agree. Bigger vehicles going EV quells a huge portion of my resistance from owning one. The safety tests of these for pedestrians being better would further the point for me. It’ll be interesting to see those tests.
One thing I've noticed from doing WFH all this time during the pandemic is that I started noticing the inefficiencies of burning gasoline to move a one ton piece of metal to some store and do some minor thing like mail a package or buy some small items.
You can help that by shopping for an entire week at a time. I think some places will pick a package up from you too.
In general the first step to cutting emissions is electrifying everything that can be electrified. Whether moving lots of metal around in a vehicle is efficient regardless of energy source wreaks of the perfect becoming the enemy of the good - or in this case the perfect being the enemy of the critically needed change.
I think the first step to cutting emissions is cutting unnecessary energy use, regardless of the source of energy.
Try crunching the numbers: you'll see that it's not going to be feasible to replace all of the vehicles on the road with electric cars and trucks, while also electrifying everything else. We need to take a triage approach to energy use, strictly rationing the remaining fossil fuels.
The concept of “yard waste” that has to be exported in a vehicle should make you see a flaw in the system. Can you change your system to use trimmings on site or nearby?
There is not flaw in the system. Trees and large shrubs come down. Municipal compost sites have the space and equipment compost large amount of material that home owners can't deal with. The arrogance in this thread is unbelievable.
Its because environmentalism is quite literally a religion for a subset of users on this forum and they cannot believe that other people don't want to optimize their entire life around reducing their carbon footprint.
The attitude in this thread is even more ridiculous considering that this is the exact sort of product which could bring EVs main steam (so you would think environmentalists would love it), but of course this vehicle is unacceptable because you aren't forced to make a whole series of quality of life compromises to use it like you are with a bike, public transportation, or an impractically small car.
People in the global south, who have a tiny fraction of the carbon footprint of those in the north, are the first to be devastated by the climate and ecological crises, which they're least responsible for.
If you're considering shopping for your next $40k monstrosity of a vehicle, try to take a broader perspective than your own short-term desires.
Instead of harassing the ancestor for not perfectly optimizing their use of resources (which has zero impact on the climate one way or the other) or harassing me for suggesting that an 80/20 solution to a problem is better than no solution, perhaps you should try to take a broader perspective and realize that most people are selfish: they aren't going to massively sacrifice their quality of life in order to help people in the global south that they don't have relationships with. Aligning incentives to help them do the right thing (e.g. by creating a vehicle with a form factor they can readily accept while still being an EV) is the smart way to go at the problem. Brow beating people for not being totally altruistic and demanding they make massive cultural changes is the dumb, ineffective way to tackle the problem, although it does allow the participants to feel morally superior as they fail to convert anyone else to their cause.
Religion requires penance, and there's no penance in a non-believer buying a quality product that they like based solely on its merit per value.
If someone's not buying their EV out of a sense of guilt (for the original sin that is exhaling CO2), then how are they supposed to exploit that guilt into other forms of behavioral modification?
You can heat and cook with wood. If so much tree material is falling on your property every year, and you're carting it elsewhere, you're just throwing away a useful resource.
this is a weak argument on several levels. if you need to move things five times a year, rent a pickup truck. Unless you're moving things on the regular, there's no point owning a very inefficient and heavy vehicle.
You can't do that. You can rent a truck no problem, but a truck that you can actually use as a truck cannot be rented. They carefully check to ensure you didn't scratch any paint, and that means no hauling.
There are work a rounds, but they are limited (home depot will rent a truck but the fine print is only to go from home depot to your house, no other trips). If you have a CDL you can rent a commercial truck that lets you work it. However for general purpose I need a truck to be a truck the average person can't rent.
I don’t know about your state, but here in WA you can rent a “commercial” big box truck from UHaul, Penske and others with no CDL. I rented a 26 feet box truck for my move and drove it around town just fine. They do care about damage, but they don’t consider scratches to be damage.
This is just wrong. Besides Home Depot, who aren't going to literally sic the gestapo on you if you use it to run a 2nd errand, there are plenty of companies that rent beater trucks for hauling anything you like.
Home Depot et al also rent pickup trucks by the hour (something like $20) and they're quite capable and nobody checks the paint.
As long as you bring it back and it's not on fire they're unlikely to care.
You can even optimize by buying your own trailer so you can load and unload at your convenience, and only rent the truck to move the trailer - and trailers (even enclosed ones or dump ones) are significantly cheaper than trucks, and really only need tires as maintenance.
$10k and getting a brand new truck every tax year has to be one of the greatest and most successful "carrot" tax incentives ever conceived of by a government office.
It's kind of ridiculous, really. You know who buys F150s? Everyone. If there were a stereotypical "truck owner" then Ford wouldn't sell better than a million of these every year. They have broad appeal to diverse demographics.
(I didn't realize this was a thing till my civil engineering company last century bought a GMC to replace the fords).
To this day I remember a Huge Ram diesel dually with a big dog in the bed towing in a single roll of landfill liner (23 ft long and About 2000 lbs of plastic) and thinking.. wow.
The recent resurgence in Ram is a bit mind-boggling to me, not because they are good or bad, but because the lack of historical brand power has always seemed so arbitrary to me, and it's resurgence even more-so.
Whereas Toyota approaching Tier-1 makes a bit more sense. If nothing else, based on the fact that they're now more ”American" built than the three "domestic" truck companies.
Toyota isn’t even attempting to compete. They are playing it safe in a “if people only buy Toyota’s we have a truck for them” space.
Ram has always been a popular truck. It held they have UConnect and one of the better infotainment ecosystems. A lot of people
Still don’t think of trucks as luxury vehicles because the higher end brands don’t badge one, but the top fit and finish Trucks are trying to be something else.
Buying a Chevy truck makes sense if you are upgrading from a 90s Chevy truck because they lasted a long time and were easy to maintain and cheap to repair. Mine is still going strong at 322K miles. Of course it isn't until after someone upgrades and puts a few years on a new truck do they realize they aren't as cheap and easy to maintain as the 90s version.
It’s signaling; in my mind it’s the same for many Tesla drivers. But I mean, same for me, I drive a Subaru Outback because while I do use it for outdoor exploring and want to signal that, its off road use is honestly limited to a dirt parking lot. It’s often about image.
(Edit) consumption waste of traditional F150s, and yes, even that of my beloved Subaru is not great, but the absolute worst are coal rollers and those with loud modified exhausts. That Newsom didn’t veto legislation that undid AB1824 was very disappointing to me.
Come to southwest Montana -- you'd be signaling "I like to blend in to the crowd" :)
While nationally Subraru marketing emphasizes being different by owning a Subaru, around here its far and away the most common car. You exit Costco, look at the parking lot and ask "which of these 10 gray Outbacks is mine?".
I think we’re saying the same thing - just because it’s common, doesn’t mean it’s not signaling. You can signal that you want to be seen as part of the majority.
I think it's also practical -- if there are tons of Subarus around then it probably means they cope with the road conditions here and are reasonably cost effective and reliable.
If you live in San Francisco and drive a truck than you might be signaling. But if you own a Tesla you are just blending in.
By contrast, here in Idaho owning a truck is just blending in. Owning a Tesla out here would be signaling.
It is interesting how perspective changes so much based on where you are.
In Oregon I swear 80% of the population owns a Subaru Outback. The other 20% owns a Prius. So owning a Subaru in Oregon is just blending in. It doesn't mean anything. But if you drove that Subaru to San Francisco, now everyone thinks you are "outdoorsy".
But blending in can also be a form of signaling. I mean, pretty much everything is I guess. From Zuckerberg’s t-shirt and jeans demeanor to my favorite form of signaling which are those that wear their faang badges to malls and restaurants on weekends. It earns an instant eye roll. I’ve made my point on signaling poorly and disjointly in the thread but my original point was that buying a brand new vehicle, whatever it be, has a lot to do with image and what you want to signal to others. You can signal that you want blend in or that you are different. It’s mostly harmless, but when you do so with a vehicle, you consider actual perf second.
The irony in this is that the imaging for subaru outbacks is "the car of choice for gays and lesbians." It's not just pickups that have associations with them.
Keep in mind this is only in America. F-150s sell terribly anywhere else because they have to actually compete with trucks made in other countries, unlike here where foreign trucks are heavily tariffed.
I see a lot of "rent one for a day" type of comments. I paid $4k for a 93 F150 a couple of years ago. I live on a 1/4 acre lot in the suburbs and just the amount of stuff I've hauled to my small property over the last two years would've far surpassed the $4k in rental charges. Mulch, compost, rocks, lumber, etc. Lots of back and forth with not knowing whether I'll need more or not... so many unknowns in-between. Take into consideration the time it takes to rent a truck, sign all the forms, repeatedly argue with the rental rep about why you don't want their shitty insurance, and the anxiety of renting a truck to haul items that could potentially damage the rental. I've probably put on about a 1000 new scratches, dings, and dents in the short two years I've owned this thing.
On top of the landscaping and project work I use it for, it's perfect for going dispersed camping in rough areas that need high clearance. I would never be comfortable risking a rental for such activities.
And the comments completely ignore that means a return trip for the rental too. When you do as many trips as someone in rural/burbs with fixer houses, that's completely impractical.
Not all. I live in the countryside (rural Scotland), in a house with a decent sized garden, and only need something as big as a pickup or van 1-2 times a year at most.
Same deal with almost everyone I know nearby - the ones with a pickup I know are farmers, or one guy that's honest and just likes the aesthetics and the way it drives (and it counts as a "commercial vehicle", so it was some kind of tax dodge too).
I get it's indispensable for a farmer or business owner, but for for the vast majority (not all, obviously) of regular folks, even outside of cities, it's really not needed.
For sure these responses, which are predictable and common on pretty much any thread related to American trucks here or on sites like Jalopnik, don't reflect actual, real general sentiments about trucks or SUVs. It happens all the time and I've learned just to ignore them.
As someone who comes from a rural area but drives an EV, my whole issue with trucks is that 90% of the people I know that have trucks do not need them for work, it sort of a status symbol in rural America. A lot of these trucks are huge, not your standard truck, but more like a tank.
Trucks get shitty gas mileage and potentially cause more wear and tear on the public roads, and are definitely not good for the environment.
IMO - Trucks should be taxed accordingly - if you are a farmer or work in construction you get a tax break, if you just want a truck to have one, it's gonna cost you.
Most people use their truck for something where they need a truck about once a month. However the cost of two vehicles (insurance and parking space) means that they are better off with one truck than a truck and some other sensible vehicle.
An SUV is just a truck without the convenience of a truck bed. Never understood why anyone would get an SUV over a truck unless they need seating for 6+ people.
Where (and how) do you draw the line with gas mileage, materials used, and weight of the vehicle? If trucks are so bad, what are your opinions of popular SUVs like the Subaru Outback?
To further point out the stereotyping in this thread, take a look at the announcement thread of the tesla cybertruck and compare the sentiment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21602437).
Not to mention that the cybertruck has nearly the same dimensions as the f150 (https://youtu.be/sLvopc9oI4A?t=199) and has a shape that is more likely to cut you in half if it were to hit you. It also has a payload that's more comparable with a ford super duty and will likely weight more than the lightning to support that.
It's not, I think, so much that the idea/aesthetics of a pickup truck is offensive to people.
There are obviously many cases where a truck of some kind is exactly what you need to do some task or other.
I think it's more like there are a bunch of people who have never owned a pickup truck, and have rented trucks when they needed to "move stuff", and are suspicious of the explanation given by others about why they bought them because those explanations don't match their own life experience.
If the answer to "why did you buy a pickup truck?" was "I like to see past the other traffic, I'm worried about the safety implications of a smaller vehicle when there are so many pickup trucks on the road where I live, the infrastructure here is set up for them with wide roads and ample parking so it's not really a thing, plus I very occasionally avoid needing to rent a truck when moving lumber" then things would be less contentious.
Of course, one can then proceed to the question of if there's a double-standard on why the question doesn't get asked to owners of sports cars with speed and handling limits that are of no relevance to public roads.
Some people seem to enjoy passing moral judgements onto others.
What doesn't make sense to me is when someone who drives any gas car judges someone who drives a truck. Do they feel validated in their choices because someone made worse choices? Or do they decide that 30mpg is such a morally superior position than 20mpg that they have the right to judge others?
Is this not the average state of humanity? Anyone who does something less than me is an uneducated idiot, and anyone who does something more than me is a wasteful idiot?
Yes, I recall a comedian saying that about driving on the highway, people who drive slower than him are idiots, and people who drive faster than him are nuts.
The moral judgement isn't mileage, it's that pedestrian deaths are rising, partly because of cars that have zero forward visibility for no good reason (no, the engine doesn't need it) and weigh tons.
This is what is referred to as a moral hazard, because the people driving these trucks are not taking any risk, even reducing their own risk, but at the cost of increasing the risk of everyone else, and most importantly people who didn't drive to begin with and opted out of the risky activity. Particularly when deaths are involved this is obviously behavior worthy of (1) popular condemnation (2) fucking regulatory action.
> it's that pedestrian deaths are rising, partly because of cars that have zero forward visibility
Relative risk for light trucks is only 45% higher than cars and is lower than cars for heavy trucks. Buses are the real dangers on the road.
I suspect most of the increase in pedestrian fatalities is from pedestrians and drivers staring at their phone instead of where they are going. I have definitely had close calls where I watched someone looking at the phone start wandering through an intersection without seeing if it's clear.
> I suspect most of the increase in pedestrian fatalities is from pedestrians and drivers staring at their phone instead of where they are going
Seatbelt and airbag regulations were fought on the grounds that bad drivers killed people, not good drivers. It was the drivers responsibility to be safe. Since airbags and sest belts have become important safety features, hundreds of thousands lives have been saved in the United States alone.
My same questions still apply in the case of pedestrian deaths.
Have we decided we're okay with the number of pedestrian deaths caused by compact cars and SUVs? Some SUVs are heavier, have less visibility, and would presumably lead to more pedestrian deaths than cars, so why isn't there a similar condemnation against those vehicles? Or maybe there is?
I don't think you would find a pedestrian or cyclist in the US that would prefer being around an SUV vs sedan or hatchback.
But the trend of stock pick-up trucks getting lifted, having high hoods, small windshields vs their equivalent models 10 or 20 years ago is so much worse than the default cross-over SUV in the US. Sales of trucks have gone up, so have pedestrian deaths.
I think mountainethos's point is that would pedestrians and cyclists prefer sedans and SUVs to other pedestrians and cyclists, or even motorcyclists. The likelihood of serious injury or death is such a step function from one to the other that the difference between sedans and trucks is hairsplitting.
> The likelihood of serious injury or death is such a step function from one to the other that the difference between sedans and trucks is hairsplitting.
Given the choice of hitting an inclined windshield and rolling over the top of a vehicle vs. taking the full force of a giant body-length grille, I'd rather take my chances with the windshield.
Hmm, perhaps I was not clear. Given the choice between going over the top of handlebars versus the top of a vehicle or grill, I believe the difference between the handlebars and vehicle/grill is much larger than the difference between vehicle and grill.
I moved to Idaho 4 years ago, primarily interested in human powered mountaineering activities. But then joined the local SAR team and was fascinated by how snowmobiles and dirtbikes were such good tools for going further in less time and how going further in less time is actually important. From there a pickup becomes essential to get your moto vehicles to the trailhead. So now I drive an F250 - itself a fascinating tech platform - and I can't imagine life without one.
But the whole point of this is that I had a similarly dim view of pickup owners and moto sport culture based on the pop cultural narratives. And I can feel the stares from the haters as I roll my dirtbike down the ramp. Hopefully they'll be thankful when they get help before spending a cold night out.
I’ve lived in rural communities for 95% of my life. There are times when I really think that electoral college is obsolete and should go away, but all it takes is a thread like this where I just see comments from adults that seem wholly uninformed and underexposed to basic aspects of living outside of metropolitan environments. Yes, by itself, doesn’t really bother me as I am certainly a group of the inverse in many ways, but the derision that comes along with it is the part that really makes me think we’re probably not quite ready for a proportional representation at the level of each citizen citizen.
So are you in essence stating that because metropolitan people do not understand the needs of rural life that they deserve for their votes to continue to be worth less? Even despite rural people not understanding metropolitan life to the same degree?
There’s a fairly well established pattern that direct democracies are not friendly to minority intersts. US being a republic creates a buffer there, but it would just slow the inevitable in a popular vote.
I grew up in a place where I can't even think of a family that didn't have at least one truck. I'm honestly confused by the dislike of them. I really don't understand how you can own a house with a decent sized yard and not own a truck or at least a trailer. How do you get any yard or house work done without one?
Much of the hate is for modern trucks. Trucks from 40 years ago were much more practical than the modern truck -- 8 foot beds, sides you could reach over, et cetera. The massive height of current trucks just makes them more dangerous, less fuel efficient, less practical.
Massive height, less durable materials in the work areas (aluminum bed, I'm looking at you), more seats, and much smaller bed areas. All of those things contribute to the fall of practicality.
I tried to find a regular cab, regular bed F-150 about four months ago. To do that, I would've had to buy a fleet vehicle intended for a manufacturer or to be converted into like a plumbing truck. Everything else has 4 doors and a 5' bed. I don't want an SUV, I want a truck with a full sized bed.
The sales people were genuinely confused as to why I wouldn't want a quad-cab, and why I needed an 8' bed. They legitimately never had that conversation with anyone unless they were looking for a fleet truck.
Yeah I don't think that Ford even makes a 2-seater anymore in anything other than their XL/fleet model. You can buy the "extended cab" in the XLT (the base trim sold to consumers), which is the 2 seater with a small bench in the back, but even those are really hard to find, you don't see them often.
But after you get above the base model, the only thing available is "crew cabs" which is the full 4-seat SUV size interior.
Really trucks have become 4 seat vehicles now. The super-crew (4 seat) cabs are essentially standard at dealerships. The only way to get a 2 seater truck is by buying one through a fleet program. And right now that would be essentially impossible. Trucks are hard to get right now and most dealerships won't sell a fleet vehicle to a consumer because the demand for fleet trucks is too high right now.
To get a 1500 with an 8ft bed, you have to get the "1500 Classic" -- they're halfway through a refresh, splitting it across multiple model years and starting with the crew cab + small bed.
I see the practicality of a crew cab every day when I see one truck after another of landscaping crews. The crew cab is full, the bed has stuff in it, and many are towing trailers.
>today's Corolla looks like it's twice as big as the 90s' Camry.
With almost the same interior dimensions. Those tree-trunk pillars, thick doors and smooth sculpted aerodynamic shape all take up space formerly reserved for drive-train and passengers.
Yeah, people around there also seemed to prefer taller vehicles. Easier to see, generally had 4 wheel drive (better for rough roads and winter conditions), safer (for the people in the car anyway, especially for things like hitting a deer).
It is also a stark reminder of one’s socioeconomic class. I can afford to consume this much fuel and sit this high and be safer than you, who can only afford the smaller vehicle and be subject to more risks, including being constantly blinded by the LED lights of all the higher pickup and SUV in your rear view mirror.
When I was in college a friend of mine who did construction work drove a Ford Ranger from the mid 1980s. It had a larger bed than the typical truck I see on the road today, while also being far smaller.
I live in a wealthy town, and you can tell someone's political affiliation like this:
Now that’s a clearly doubtful Venn diagram. Tesla owners I know in wealthy towns are Republicans. God forbid if you have a Nissan Leaf and an immaculate crew cab truck, what would they call you then?
I'm not going to defend stereotyping. There are lots of legitimate uses for a pickup truck, whether it be hauling things around or off-road capabilities.
In the suburban environment where I live, the majority of pickup trucks are effectively commuter cars. They haul their owners' asses to a cubicle farm and back home again. These are people who fully buy into the stereotype and have bought a truck so they can purchase their masculinity on a monthly payment plan.
I dislike pickups in cities because they are too big. Many times I've been stuck behind pickup truck driver trying to squeeze into a parking lot, waiting... I've got nothing against pickup trucks in rural areas where I grew up
As far as the trim is concerned: I also wonder what the cost for the 4-door model will be. All of the marketing photos are 4-door "Super-Crew" models. Currently a Super Crew truck with the base trim and 4x4 starts at $42k. The electric version sound like a bargain if they are actually talking about that version of the truck.
On my drives, I usually count how many pickup trucks are carrying something/anything. I have one this is Austin, Kansas City, Seattle, Los Angeles. My assumption when I started was that this data would differ by location and about 40% trucks would be carrying something.
In reality the average is 2 out of 100 trucks carried anything in my counting. The highest I have seen in Los Angeles with 6 trucks carrying something.
That makes me believe that when you own a pickup truck, there is a small change of needing its large bed and powerful engine.
It maybe like gaming ready computer, swimming pools or fireplaces - usage is very low for most people, but you just might need it urgently someday. Or you think you might change your habits if you buy it
It may depend on when you are driving as well. I saw several trucks carrying things just yesterday on the way to get my 2nd COVID shot. Anecdotally 2% seems very low to me (around central Ohio). It does seem that in the middle of day or on weekend afternoons I notice it more though.
Practical?! Have you ever tried loading heavy objects into a truck bed that's 4.5 feet off the ground? There's literally no utilitarian use for them at this point even in agricultural settings, much less the urban and suburban landscapes where they typically plague. What ever happened to the small truck? Much easier to load, much less of a road hazard/nuisance.
For me it's the increasingly large size of all trucks which have made them hugely inconvenient, and frankly dangerous, to circumnavigate. You know how you feel when you get boxed in by a couple tractor trailers on the freeway? That's how everyone else in reasonably sized vehicles feels driving around your truck. There are way more blind spots involving the modern truck compared to other cars which present a danger to everyone else on the road, I don't care what kind of whizz-bang "safety" cameras you have. And you also create blind spots for everyone else who can't see around your absurdly bloated truck in places like parking lots and passing lanes.
It's a safety and practicality issue which goes beyond the "you don't need that" mentality, there's legitimate reasons for people to NOT like them.
> There's literally no utilitarian use for them at this point even in agricultural settings
That... What?!
At the local MFA, when buying feed or fertilizer, you back your vehicle up to the warehouse-style loading dock, where the raised floor of the storage facility is about the height of the average truck bed off the road height. When I buy things in my sedan and load them into the trunk, I either have to drop them off from a great height, or take them down a small set of stairs. When people buy in a truck, the employees use a forklift to put the pallet directly into the truck bed.
At the farm, it's not uncommon to have a tractor with a front end loader either with a bucket to dump things into the pickup bed, or a set of pallet forks for loading/unloading solid or bagged objects.
How can you _possibly_ say that there's "literally no utilitarian use" for truck beds in agricultural settings?
When you have to have specialized machinery to load/unload a vehicle, that makes it wholly impractical for personal use. This is what purpose-built moving equipment is for, not personal mobility vehicles.
Yes but I’m 6’3” so it’s not particularly difficult for me. And mine is from 2012 & I don’t think it’s quite that high off the ground. I see trucks that are lifted significantly far less often than I see midsize trucks (& obviously full size that are similar to the height of my own)
That being said they are generally unnecessarily large now & at this point midsize trucks are more than capable enough for most people. I think they mainly buy full size trucks for roomier cabs and more luxury features at this point
I don't know your age, but the fact that they're putting grab bars and foldable stair steps to get into a truck bed should tell you all you need to know about their practicality and incurrence of unnecessary back strain.
I held out 15 years after moving to the US before I picked up a Toyota Taco. It's one of those rare life changing purchases that you wonder how you got on without.
I live in rural America. I have a bit of generalized fear toward truck drivers exactly because they tend to be the most aggressive and dangerous on the road. They also belch diesel pollution and that can get into my cabin. So I own a big vehicle to be somewhat closer in footing, which is itself ridiculous.
There are two types of truck owners: those who do truck things and those who show off. The latter are mostly what I call 'house' truck owners, most they might do is pick up a desk or chair.
The first thing I did when moving to a rural area was to get a F-150. I plow my own driveway. I pick up dirt by the yard for lawn/garden use. Tow. Get big things. I look back now three years later and am thankful I did not waste any coin on a bed cover as I'd be very tired of putting it on and taking it off. Living nearly two miles in on a dirt road I only bother washing the truck twice a year as 'clean' is very fleeting.
The issue with this e-F150 is the low payload and tow capacity of the standard models. Think I'm rated 2350 payload and 13K tow on an out the door $44k XLT supercab.
> It’s like the aesthetics of a pickup truck is offensive to some people. Kind of bizarre and not something I’m used to seeing but I guess I live in Ohio so that probably has something to do with it.
The vehicles are gigantic and are capable of carrying thousands of pounds but are operated by people who may not be able to handle something considerably smaller without getting into an accident. Suburban neighborhoods are plagued with tailgating road warriors in consumer tanks that endanger people for the sake of having an adventure on the road. The aesthetics of a truck are as much a problem as the drivers operating them.
In my experience suburbanites in large SUVs are much more reckless than pickup drivers I encounter. Obviously an anecdote but they tend to be far more oblivious to their surroundings.
Very good point and a sign that I’m prejudiced against trucks. There are bad drivers in every category and it’s unfair for me to target only one group.
Lots of the negative comments are about how tall this truck is (and how tall trucks in general are getting).
Truck owners don't just use them to carry rocks and trees, they also drive them to the city, where the high grille, large footprint, crazy rate of acceleration make them threatening, dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists, and frankly just detrimental to improving the quality of life in cities.
It's absolutely rational that a vehicle optimized for rural workload isn't going to be ideal in cities.
What's irrational is pretending they have to be taller and wider every year.
Honestly do not understand it either. It’s nice to have a giant bucket attached to your car! It lets you do all kinds of useful things plus you can still get to all the places that smaller cars can.
Totally unrelated: has anyone noticed that the bar on the F in the FORD logo ends with an e? It has been like that for a while. I remember reading somewhere that Henry Ford had forecasted that transportation was going to be all electric in the future; maybe related? Anyway, I think the demand for this will take them by suprise, and incidently, CT and Rivian need to get those factories churning quick.
I live in more or less the country too. I just find an SUV handier day to day and week to week. Some things I have to put on the roof or take a short drive home with the rear hatch partially ajar. I could rent a trailer or have something delivered. Or I could borrow a pickup. I just find the interior space is more generally useful than having an open bed every now and then.
I suspect most people with big trucks rarely use them for moving stuff. Not to say they never do, but from my observations owning a big truck has a lot more to do with signaling a certain status to others who value big trucks.
Not to say, of course, that owning an EV, a hybrid, or a Geo Metro (or a converted hearse with a Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine in the back) has nothing to do with signaling status....
Owning a Geo Metro signals that you don't give a damn about status or what anyone thinks and you don't care much about how long it takes to get to your destination. The Geo Metro owner in 2021 is truly the most independent thinker.
I will likely never drive anything but a truck. They are the ultimate useful vehicle. I have an F150 as my daily driver and an F250 for my farm truck (I have 10 acres).
No, I am not a Trump flag flyer. I just happen to really like useful vehicles.
Since when stating facts deserves downvote? Did the media not say the protests were "most peaceful"? Was it not CNN reporter who said the exact words in front of a burning building? Did Nicole Hanna-Jones not say "Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence"? Was it not justice warriors (I use it as a neutral word, as it does not makes sense to use left vs right) who protested last year? What did I miss?
At $20/hour for a new F-250 rental, Home Depot has better options available. If people wanted to haul lumber, they probably wouldn't show up with a trailer attached, they would buy a truck with a 8 foot box.
I _think_ you mean they wouldn't attach a trailer to their Camray? I was confused initially by your post because a trailer behind a pickup I find is a great combination. You can load stuff much more easily on the trailer but the pickup bed is there for any overflow. But I think you mean 10' box, no?
It's the smoothest car rental experience I've ever had. I checked the nearby Home Depots and one had a truck. I was in and out with the keys in 10 minutes. Drove to pick up a couch, delivered it, and brought the truck back. Parked it in the parking lot and walked in with the keys. It was about $30 and painless.
1) There are three Home Depots near me. None of them offer diesels for rent
2) The $20 is for the first 75 minutes. I guess I'm wrong, but I couldn't imagine a use-case where you're only going to need the truck for 75 minutes.
3) Use restrictions. Home Depot greatly restricts what you can use the truck for, including no towing.
4) Availability. At the three HD's near me, good luck getting any rental truck let a lone a diesel (mentioned above). They're always checked out, sometimes weeks in advance.
> The $20 is for the first 75 minutes. I guess I'm wrong, but I couldn't imagine a use-case where you're only going to need the truck for 75 minutes.
The idea is that you drive the truck home, unload it, then drive the truck back to the store and return it. If you live less than 30 minutes away from the Home Depot then it is completely reasonable amount of time.
Example: 30 mins driving home + 15 mins unloading + 30 mins driving back = 75 minute rental.
It seems very practical to me. Most people live less than 30 mins from a Home Depot. In fact Home Depot has an internal goal that they want 95% of Americans to live 15 mins or less from a Home Depot store. So if you fall into 95% of Americans, then you can rent a truck for 75 mins, spend 15 mins each way driving and have 45 minutes to unload or mess around before returning the car.
Home Depot really rents the trucks with the idea that you drive to the store in your car, buy something at the store, use the truck to take it home, drive back to return the truck, and then drive your car home.
Have you had a bad experience doing so? I rent probably three or four times a month and I have never had a problem. Obviously YMMV but personally I can get work done for less than an oil change, let alone paying for the truck itself.
A truck costs tens of thousands of dollars. Even assuming half the cost would otherwise be put towards an alternative vehicle, you'd still need to move stuff uniquely suited to a truck literally hundreds of times to make it worthwhile.
You can get a truck, in CA, for less then $10K (including initial repairs). Why does everything need to be new?
The truck I got about 9 months ago has already paid for itself by saving me from having to hire people to do things that I could have done myself if only I had a truck.
Renting is fine once in a while, but if you're hauling base rock or lumber every few weekends, I cannot imaging having to deal with rentals every time. It doesn't make sense, and would be such an enormous waste of time.
> if you're hauling base rock or lumber every few weekends
Yes, exactly. If you've actually got a use for it, great! The comment I was replying to was suggesting that realizing you need to get one more bulky item would happen frequently enough to make up the difference for someone who would otherwise rent, which is ridiculous.
Even used, the marginal cost of a truck in maintenance and higher gas bills really adds up. Comparing a used F-150 to a used Prius, mile-per-mile, the truck is going to be more than twice as expensive.
Yes, it does all depend. I guess where I'm coming from is people have skewed ideas of the thresholds that define "need" here, and often say "why do you even need a truck??" in an almost shaming way, and ignore your reasons when you list them off (you're not doing that here, but in general I'm sensing an ideological stigma against trucks).
> Even used, the marginal cost of a truck in maintenance and higher gas bills really adds up. Comparing a used F-150 to a used Prius, mile-per-mile, the truck is going to be more than twice as expensive.
Again, depends! For me, the cost of a truck in maintenance and gas is much cheaper than a Prius, because the Prius can't do most of the things I'd want a truck for to begin with. Gas included: I don't take the truck on long road trips. But I'm lucky and have a honda and a truck. If you only have budget for once vehicle, then yes, weigh the pros and cons much more carefully. If you have a used car and a used truck though, you can pay about as much as you'd pay new for either of them (less, even), and have much more utility.
Lastly, I'd wager that an F150 from the 90s is going to be a lot cheaper to maintain than a Prius in the long run due to the Prius' overall complexity. I wouldn't make that same bet on any truck built after 2005, though.
Only if you insist on buying new, you'll pay a lot. My pickup is about as big as it gets (4 door, 8ft bed, diesel dually) and it didn't cost tens of thousands since I bought an older one.
Diesels don't depreciate that much, so I'll probably get most of it back whenever I sell.
I'm not sure why you'd assume if I can afford and am willing to buy a $50k truck that I wouldn't buy a $50k car or SUV. So now renting is in addition to that, and it's not as convenient.
I think people are taking my comment to read "don't get a truck" when it was really just responding to the suggestion that "return your rental and come back home and realize you need to buy more of some heavy large item" would be such a common occurrence that ownership makes more sense than renting even without some other use.
Large items are pretty easy to predict. You aren't going to buy a bathroom vanity, then rent a truck to take it home and then realize you needed two vanities.
If you are buying wood you can measure the size of the wall. Estimate the studs you need based on 16" gaps. Buy that much plus a few extras.
The constant trips back and forth to home depot is generally smaller items that you forget. You need a special socket size, you need a different type of nail, etc.
I've happily carried plenty of lumber and even full sheets of plywood/drywall with my Civic. It fits 10' lengths inside, and sheets on the roof. What it lacks is capacity, and convenience for sheet stock. Recently I've gotten into towing trailers (on a light SUV), which seems like a great capability for the times that I need to transport more at once. If you're transporting large things frequently, I get the utility of a truck. But most truck owners aren't hauling anywhere near that much.
FWIW after reading the other thread specifically about home backup power, I was thinking this new F-150 sounds interesting. But then reading this whole product page and coming to "automatic software updates" I remembered why new vehicles are non-starters for me. I'd rather keep dealing with gasoline than resigning myself to surveillance culture.
Don't know why you're getting downvoted. I feel the exact same way. OTA updates for my vehicle gives me the shivers. Why not build the fucking thing right the first time? Why does every machine need to be a supercomputer? At what point does it spend more energy thinking then it does getting me from A to B when I push down on a pedal?
I do really think the idea of an electric truck seems cool, and the F150 looks capable, but I'd rather not have yet another connected device. Give me dumb toasters, dumb refrigerators, dumb laundry machines, dumb vehicles. I'm tired of this "smart" bullshit. It doesn't need to be smart because I can tell it exactly what I want.
IMO sheet goods are easier to haul on car roofs than they are in a truck bed that's too short. A truck bed they can fit flat in is easiest but not the default these days.
Really? I find it hard to imagine that anyone who owns a freestanding home hasn't wanted to carry some sort of large item home from Home Depot. It's not some unusual "salt of the earth" kind of situation. I only have a tiny Chevy Sonic, and have often thought how handy it would be to have a truck for carrying home soil, mulch, random wood things, a new lawnmower, heck even a large TV, etc, and have had to rent or borrow one occasionally.
As someone upthread pointed out, Home Depot will rent you an F-250 (or another model with a slightly larger bed) for $20/hr. I buy a fair amount of "too big to fit in my car" stuff from Home Depot (mostly lumber), but I'd have to be doing it multiple times a week for it to be cheaper to actually own the truck.
It's actually really nice, because if you buy your goods before you rent the truck, the person that shows you to the truck will usually help you load your stuff into it. That can be a godsend if you're trying to manipulate big sheets of plywood or something heavy. I also like that they clearly treat them as work vehicles; when they inspected it before I took off, they were only interested in fairly significant damage to the body. The truck I got already had scrapes on the body, and they really only noted the large and/or deep ones.
It is weird, like if you own a house, having a truck is perfect. I bought a tacoma 1 year ago and have used it countless times. Getting mulch, buying lumber for shelving projects, moving couches, chairs etc. Literally the perfect vehicle for me. Also it is very versatile. You can get hard tops, soft tops etc. Great for camping etc. Having a separate trailer (and storing it somewhere) or always having to rent a truck or whatever just sounds like a hassle.
I think what people miss is that once you have a truck, all sorts of things happen that you wouldn't have bothered if you didn't have the truck, because the hassle is removed.
I certainly didn’t expect it to be, or I would’ve added something about the truck lol
I’m interested to see what exactly is included in the base model and when that will become available since they’ve only given us information on higher trims so far. $40K for this vehicle is very affordable, that’s about as cheap as you can get a new Model 3 right now but at least for awhile it could be eligible for electric vehicle credits. If the government extended these credits they could get A LOT of people to buy these trucks.
In my view it appears more to me that some Americans are reluctant to give up their world view on why they need to drive bigger, larger automobiles than using environmentally better smaller cars.
The problem is, this is all marketing, and pricing it lower than Tesla is just a head-turner for the press, not the average citizens that actually buy these things. The base model F150 the low-end of the Lighting line compares to is only $28,940. That's $10,000 less than the electric model. Most consumers are not going to be buying a base model and dealers rarely carry them on their lots. So, the realistic starting point for these is most likely going to be around $50k. Slap on top of that the $10k to $20k dealers are currently getting above MSRP and this will be out of reach for most people.
It depends on how ordering them works and if the base model is actually available and if it’s still a crew cab; finding a new affordable near base model F150 is actually pretty difficult. If closer to minimum spec Lightnings are more common the effective price difference is smaller.
Well said. Lots of people like to assert that light trucks are pedestrian killers compared to cars but according to at least 1 source[0] they are responsible for fewer deaths than passenger cars. I have worked in downtown Houston, where a lot of walking was the norm. There were multiple times that I would walk down the street and see vehicle, after vehicle occupied by a distracted driver. At one point in time I counted 7 vehicles in a row where the driver was moving and looking at their phone and not the road ahead. IMHO this is the real problem. Another problem is there seems to be a migration towards the hot take tabloid for car magazines/websites. More clicks are generated with hot takes about cars than something I would prefer which was objective testing and data.
Now for the tongue in cheek ironic part of the post
Finally had to just stop visiting sites like Jalopnik(a car site written by people who hate cars), TTAC(used to just be the right leaning car website, but now is having Jalopnik envy), and The Drive(A new car site by the guy who started Jalopnik and decided only one toxic car site attributed to him was not enough).
Tesla's checkout process has spoiled me. It's landing page -> select a model -> select options and appearance -> enter payment info for a 100$ deposit. No signups, no friction, just car creation and transparent info and pricing.
Step one on Ford's site is to select a dealer. Already I'm thinking about how much I hate my local dealer and the whole dealership system in general. Step two is a login screen with create an account burred at the bottom. Now I'm thinking about all the ford spam I'll get if I give them my email. Step three is me checking on the cyber truck status.
Sure, "transparent" pricing that can change on a whim, even after you've purchased the product. "Take-it-or-leave-it" delivery if you find flaws with your car.
>Step three is me checking on the cyber truck status.
Let me know when you take delivery of a Cybertruck for <40k, similar pricing to the Model 3, like the "transparent info" claims.
Tesla does not really have "Model Years". The vehicle is constantly changing week to week, and priced so. You just need to buy when you want and be happy with the product. Just like an Iphone!
Also, other car manufactures actually change their prices all the time based on cost of materials, shipping, etc. The Dealer will change the price based on inventory space, cost to hold, etc. You just don't see it as much because it is hidden behind Dealership "Deals" and "Promotions" that come and go.
Traditionally, it has always been the best to buy a vehicle at the end of the year, when the dealers are trying to make room for the next "model year".
>Traditionally, it has always been the best to buy a vehicle at the end of the year
This is still fairly true with the Tesla. They change more often but they still do larger changes that seem to sync up with the calendar year. At least the Model 3 interior refresh did.
Although the best time to buy a Tesla is when Elon needs to hit an earnings goal.
I've read several articles about when is the best time of month/year to buy from a dealer. Some say end of the month is best, because people are trying to meet their quotas. I've read an article written by a hostage negotiator about how to get the best price from a dealership.
I can list off the top of my head a good 20 or so considerations that would go into buying the right truck for my needs. All of them are more important to me than the famously shitty minutia of the actual sale process. Buying a vehicle is a whole can of worms, and Ford's site forces me to open than can before I can even start imagining life with my fancy new truck.
Getting the best price from a car dealer isn't that hard, you just have to be prepared.
1. Decide on the vehicle you want.
2. Research the options and shop around for pricing.
3. Find the bank with the best auto rates and get pre-approved.
4. Visit a dealer and make them an offer.
5. If the dealer balks then just leave.
6. Visit another dealer and make them the offer.
7. Leave this dealer too.
8. Tell each dealer that the other offered you a better price.
9. Repeat, using other dealers if needed, until you get the price you want or the best you can find.
10. Take the best deal, use your own financing, don't take any dealer options or add-ons.
Yes, buying a car at a dealer sucks. But you can play their kind of games too.
While Tesla's are neat, they seem kind of junky to me. Honestly, I don't want a web site experience when I'm buying a car - buying a car is not like buying say a flashlight. Cars require a 'trust but verify' approach - especially a Tesla.
When I purchased my Model 3 I ordered it online and Tesla said my price would be $42,500 in March 2019. Signed my loans docs through docusign. I picked it up 12 days later in Tempe. Delivery took 15 minutes. My car had 3 flaws. Paint chip on trunk, hood panel gap, and scratch on aero hubcap. Made appointment and brought it back a week later. Got a loaner Model S for two days and then got my car back in perfect condition.
Yeah I feel like a lot of the FUD about the buying and delivery process come from people who have never gone through the process themselves.
Yes: it is absolutely unacceptable that Tesla's quality standards are lacking to the point where you are encouraged to give your car a look over before picking it up. Genuinely, the car should have already been looked over on the lot -- but I guess that's the price to pay for the make-to-order process Tesla has embraced.
But you are absolutely _not_ in a position where you "take it or leave it." You look your car over, note what needs to be fixed post-delivery, and make a (free) appointment to have those issues corrected. The best part? Depending on the severity of the issues, Tesla will send some to your home instead of you having to bring the car to them.
My story is the same as yours: I test drove the car on the 15th, I put my deposit down, and on the 30th I drove off the lot in my new car. There was no negotiation, no up-selling, just me paying for my car and getting what I expected.
> Yes: it is absolutely unacceptable that Tesla's quality standards are lacking to the point where you are encouraged to give your car a look over before picking it up.
Why? Everybody else pays for the privilege of the dealership rep to do it for them. It's called the pre-delivery inspection.
If Tesla has no PDI then I suppose it's just them pawning it off on the end user. Sounds very 2020 of them to do that.
That's my point. Why isn't there a PDI for Tesla? As I said in my original comment, I'm guessing that's just the price we pay as consumers for Tesla's decision to not hold inventory and make cars to order.
imo, though, the "quality issue" with Teslas are greatly exaggerated. At worst, my 3 has inconsistencies between panels, but you don't notice unless you're looking for them.
I'm not sure how you consider it lying to have an asterisk that clearly explains their calculation along with a slider that says Potential savings with said asterisk. That same asterisk is on every mention of the price on the page.
Asterisk = read the fine print... That to me is super deceptive. Tell me the acutal price of the car that I'm going to pay. Hell, include a rebate if I'm gonna get it in the next year. But gas savings over life of the vehicle is an absurd way to psychologically trick people.
You don't see the prius product page saying "well actually it's cheaper because it's a hybrid, you save 2300 over the life of the vehicle on gas!" No, they just tell you what the damn car costs.
Tsla is doing many things right, but that's just a perfect example of some of their deception, which I don't love.
I don't necessarily agree that it's clear cut lying but I do think it's deceptive. Claims with asterisks are an awful invention by advertisers with lawyers. Price tags as widely understood do not encode savings beyond the time of sale.
Similarly, the public has a definition for what "unlimited" means and mobile carriers using asterisks to redefine the word is exploitative.
> ... how much I hate my local dealer and the whole dealership system in general
I can't recommend enough just how refreshing it is to go to a no-haggle dealership after having experienced a regular dealership.
The wife and I walked into the dealership, test drove a vehicle, and walked out with the signed proof-of-sale in just over an hour.
Obviously, you're not getting THE BEST price, but the no-haggles in our area handily beat the prices of every single neighbouring dealership by a heck of a lot more than I think I'd be able to beat them down to.
Last time I bought a car it took probably close to 6-8 hours of back-and-forth, telephone game with the manager, and I still felt like I got ripped off. Never again.
That's quite funny as just today the newest magazine from the local version of Consumer Reports came out and Tesla was rated pretty bad and this in total score (dealer rating is way worse). Tesla is rated on par with brands like Kia and Suzuki:
That's not everyone's experience. My friend bought a Tesla last July, finally got to pick it up in September. During inspection he found a ton of major issues (obvious discolorations, and what looked liked sand under the paint, amongst other things) refused delivery and swore off the car because he didn't understand how they could even present the car to him in that condition.
I sold cars for a brief portion of my life. The independent dealership model is more predatory and rent seeking than people understand. I'm saying it looks worse from the inside than it does from the outside. It's an entrenched financial interest as well. It will be destroyed eventually but not before taking it's toll on ordinary people who just need to buy a car.
At one time it was a useful financial tool to keep production high and reduce the shock (to manufacturers) of fluctuations in demand. Today with a streamlined and JIT supply chain, easy financing for buyers, and the internet, the independent dealerships really have to fight for every penny and the only way they can do that is by screwing you.
The price they show you include "fuel savings" and tax rebates you may not be eligible to. The situation is better now but you had to go out of your way to get the real price.
You don't really know what the "full self driving" package is about. Hint: it is not fully driving itself. It is an improved "autopilot" that may get to full self driving in the future, no guarantee.
And I've just saw an "engineering explained" video about how they put deceiving numbers for acceleration.
They use all the marketing tricks in the book and then some more.
But they really nailed down the "tech" part. It is almost like something from Google or Apple. They are smart enough not to put any obstacle if you are ready to spend your money.
Put it on your own terms. Every time I've purchased a car for the last 15ish years, I decided on the model, specs, and price I want to pay. I then searched inventory at every dealer within 2 hours of driving and emailed their internet sales manager an offer. I take the lowest two, try to negotiate a few more times via email, sending the lowest quote to the next lowest, etc... once I'm happy with the price, I ask for an out the door itemized price, agree on it, and agree on a meeting time. I show up, sign some papers, drive away.
I’m glad I have a local Honda dealer. It’s the cheapest oil change in the area. They have a full service kitchen that makes killer breakfasts while you wait. Their sales team is no pressure. I’m extremely happy with them.
I guess my point is that one size doesn’t fit all. That said, I do hate going to the typical car dealer.
You are right, dealerships aren't by definition terrible places. It all comes down to how they are run. If they are run by people just looking to make the fastest dollar, then yes you are going to have a bad time. But some are run by people that know a repeat customer is a good customer and therefore go out of their way to make you happy.
instantly - a couple hours of hostile manipulation designed to screw you over
It took me 2.5 hours to buy my truck where the price had been determined before I walked in and I had a check in hand. That's after the research to get a price upon walk-in ($6000 less than on the sticker). The process of walking in and looking at prices that everyone knows aren't real and negotiating with someone who is lying to you is beyond tiresome.
I think internet sales have changed that, though. We got our last car - I did the looking and pricing out online beforehand. We spend about 30 minutes in the dealership when we went to buy it.
They were very straight forward online - all in print in e-mail. You want x car, in y trim level, it costs $z. Are you financing or not?
The only thing they tried to sell us was a maintenance package that, if we lived closer than 3 hours away, actually was a good deal for the cost.
It's perplexing to me to see these one-off messages explaining a basic UI control month after month. Why not simply include a numbered page widget (i.e. "More comments: 1, 2, 3..5") at the top and bottom of the page and be done with it? If performance improvements later obviate the need for it, it can then simply be removed.
> "We're working on performance improvements that will hopefully allow us to go back to HN's original style of one big page per thread (not infinite scroll, don't worry). In the meantime please look for those 'More' links when the total number of comments is over 250 or so."
Right, that particular example was posted 10 months ago. Instead of providing manual documentation every time there is a multi-page discussion, why not let a simple UI affordance do that for you? Seems easier than repeatedly promising performance improvements for the better part of a year.
I don't want to make a numbered widget or put it at the top of the page. That doesn't feel right somehow. Yes, I know it's taking a long time; we're just that slow over here.
I was all for this truck until I saw the range. As someone who has to run the heat in their car 3/4 of the year, I don't consider an EV with a sub 400-mile rated range anything but a toy.
To me electric cars are still far overpriced if you account for the astronomical number of routes and places you could never even think about going. Also have they solved the electric gas can problem? Maybe they can equip them with a small removable battery so you can go get a “5 gallon” charge and then go fetch your vehicle if the battery dies, otherwise a simple hike to a gas station becomes a tow job!
The solution may not be as far off as you think. These guys are targetting a different market, but a possible solution exists: https://chargefairy.com/
For those wondering why some people move to trucks as a commuter vehicle, I moved to a 4 door Tacoma because I don't fit in cars. I'm 6'1' with a highly athletic, broad shoulder based build. I tried all kinds of cars in 2015 looking for one that was easy to get in an out of, had comfortable seating where my head didn't hit the roof, and I wasn't squashed in there like airplane seating. Good luck.
It's great. Lose the oversize "frunk" and poor visibility, most of the cockpit distractions, all the electronic surveillance crap, 80% of these features, and cut the price in half, and I might consider it!
Because of the rental vehicle shortage I was free-upgraded to an F-150 recently. You can haul stuff in it just fine, but in the front it's too tall, ridiculously tall. It's a bloated and stupid vehicle. The feature bloat you read about here, well obviously that's just more bloat of a different kind.
The problem isn't that it's electric; that part is great. The problem is that it's an F-150.
Folks I know that have owned Ford vehicles in the past few years have done nothing but complain about issues with electrical subsystem and accessory breakdown. I'd be very wary of buying a Ford period, much less one that relies entirely on electricity to move.
Not FUD, as I have no dog in the fight and personally don't care if anyone else buys one, but its a make of automobile I avoid.
I know you are heavily downvoted, and my experience is anecdotal, but I proudly bought a Ford Fusion sedan in 2010 (my first "new" car) and I have had nothing but trouble with its electrical systems. It burns out lights every year or other year. It even managed to melt the receptacle for one of the front headlights at one point in time. It eats through car batteries (I'm on battery number 5 in 11 years of ownership) and has had a ton more maintenance costs compared to my 2008 Toyota Sienna that I bought used and has literally had no unplanned maintenance issues.
I'm really happy to see Ford step up in the EV field. The Mach-E looks fantastic, as does the F-150. I have no ill-will towards them and I want them to succeed. But there just isn't anyway I can get over the sour taste in my mouth from owning my Ford Fusion and it is hard to take a leap of faith with them when they are new at the EV game.
Mate, this is textbook FUD. :) It’s anecdotal and there is no connection between the reliability of a vehicle’s electric motor system and the electrical systems that may have troubled your acquaintances.
Take it as what you perceive, that's fine. That said, saying that there is no connection is speculation. The design, implementation, and supply chain of both aspects of the vehicle deal with electronic components. I don't know if they will make the same mistakes with the drivetrain electronics that they do with other aspects of the vehicle's construction.
American vehicles had a history of poor quality control and reliability but it's improved in the last 20 years. F150 is the #1 selling truck in USA in Canada.
Our 2011 F150 has been very reliable, mechanically, but the audio wiring is broken in interesting ways. My buddy's older F150 has exactly the same issue. Otherwise it's been trouble free.
A friend had to have “the wiring harness” on his 2019 f350 replaced, it was 10k took 5 weeks and would have been at his cost if he didn’t have the extended warranty
I've noticed that in that era of Ford vehicles, including my own. I have a 2006 Mustang that mechanically has been a tank, but electrically has had multiple issues (it's on its 4th alternator). The audio deck has been similarly flakey. They may very well be better nowadays.
I guess the fact that's it's electric is a good step. But it seems insane to me that we don't do more to discourage massive consumption of what should be utility vehicles. I'm willing to be 80% of people buying an f150 or similar never have been and never will be building contractors or lumberjacks.
1. Take a bunch of trash/old furniture/whatever to the dump
2. Move furniture
3. Pick up materials for a home renovation like 16 foot long baseboards, drywall, a few dozen boxes of laminate flooring, etc. (no need to be a professional construction contractor here)
4. Tow a camping trailer
5. Much, much more
I'm literally using my truck tonight to pick up ~500 square feet of flooring material, which is saving me ~$300 in shipping costs. The truck itself only cost me $3,700 to begin with, and between this and several other home improvement projects it has saved me ~$2,000 in shipping/moving/other costs so far in just the two years I've owned it. And I'll be saving a bundle in shipping costs on new kitchen cabinets in a few months as well. That's before you get into the convenience factor of not having to rent/borrow a truck anytime you need to move something big.
> saving a bundle in shipping costs on new kitchen cabinets
Both Lowes and Home Depot offer free delivery for orders over $45. I've also done several home improvement projects, and never needed to pay a dime in shipping. Are you buying directly from the manufacturer or something I'm missing here?
of course I have for (1-3), as have nearly all home owners across the world.. and honestly for this type of stuff a dedicated light dump truck is way more useful (especially for emptying massive quantities of building or garden debris at the tip). and that's what? 100 dollars a day? how many days a year are you really going to need to do that? 3-4 ?
Unfortunately compact pickups aren’t really a thing any more.
As a homeowner and a parent this would be a great vehicle for me — having the utility of a truck bed.
Not everyone that owns a home does work on it themselves but trucks are very useful. Today my only options are rent a truck or put a trailer hitch on my van and pull a trailer when I need to haul stuff. That’s so much more hassle.
Honestly, I'm not handy at all and I've only owned my home for a couple of years, but the desire for something with a truck bed grows more every summer, it's just so damn useful to be able to do something as simple as pick up a lawn mower or a ladder or not worry about the size of the flat pack we're getting from Ikea.
I do quite a bit of DIY and I have a skoda octavia combi (which would be considered small in the US). honestly the only thing i have difficulty with is drywall panels, i have to tie them to the roof bars.
obviously a truck would be much easier, but if I'm redoing a house I'll need to rent a light dump truck anyway for at least 1-2 days just to get all the old junk out, so I do the big material buy at the same time
I've never been one of those things, but they're still useful. I had an F150 for a while that I only used to transport things like mulch or helping friends move or moving myself.
I still have an old Ranger that I use for those purposes today.
It seems insane to assume you can be the judge of what's "useful" or "utility".
A truck is great to have for all kinds of reasons. I think the issue is that a combination of automaker marketing and various regulatory and tax incentves/loopholes drive people to purchase more trucks than they otherwise would.
Specifically, the Section 179 deductions available on vehicles that weight in excess of 6000lbs. A business doesn't need to prove need to make use of the tax advantage. This encourages real estate agents, sales people, etc to buy new large SUVs instead of leasing or buying second hand sedans that would otherwise be suitable (Mercedes E-Class, etc). And contractors that could use smaller vehicles (Transit Connect, Ranger) to buy F-150s or large vans.
It's basically a massive kick-back to Ford and Chevy.
In the US, discouraging individual ownership of vehicles is probably not going to succeed. I don't want to give up my car and I suspect that electric vehicles and self driving vehicles (when they get here) are going to drive the cost of trips way, way down which will increase the number of trips by a similar amount. The number of vehicles on the road is going to increase.
Because of the increased demand on raods, reducing road space probably won't happen. When cars can get to and from parking spaces by themselves, parking space can move into central towers or edge lots, but the number of spaces is probably going to increase, not decrease.
We all want better forms of transportation, but there's a lot of disagreement about what's better.
My wife at the time bought an SUV, a Toyota Highlander. She never went off road, we didn't have any children, she never hauled anything. 90% of her driving was to and from work on paved roads, a job that could have been accomplished with a Honda Civic.
Now let's play another fun game: how many truck and SUV owners do you think are like you, and how many do you think are like my ex-wife?
F150s are amazing vehicles. It seats six with an extended cab, haul tons & tons of crap in the bed, gets roughly the same fuel economy as a minivan, it can tow pretty much anything and It will also hold its value insanely well.
Compared with, say, a Honda Odyssey, the F150 is a better family vehicle in many cases. The only reason I can think of to go with the Odyssey (which is another vehicle I love) is vehicle footprint and long-term reliability.
There's a reason the F150 sells so many units in the USA: it's the ultimate vehicle, and it comes with almost no drawbacks.
> 80% of people buying an f150 or similar never have been and never will be building contractors or lumberjacks
Yeah, I feel this. I used to have a big work truck, but it was for work. Everyone has a truck in my hometown (seemingly). Last week I saw a big F-250 super duty pull up and the dude that got out was in scrubs (a nurse).
Friends of mine have considered the super duty’s for towing, but now they’re interested in the lightning for the same reasons.
The same could be said of sports cars - most people don't race them or push them anywhere near their potential.
But selling cars has always been the business of selling a story as much as it has been about selling a transportation technology. This goes back to the earliest days when cars were hulking machines owned by the uber-wealthy.
> or lumberjacks.
Hah, I bet a puny pickup truck isn't very useful for lumberjacks' actual work. I think they use giant tree felling machines and specialized trucks instead. Pickups seem more like small support vehicles for them.
The proportion of pickup trucks (especially the light duty ones) that are purchased as "lifestyle" products rather than for utility use is probably significantly higher than 80%, if that were measured honestly.
Yeah, +1 this. I mean, if you're genuinely in the country pulling logs, or even just in the US, then fine. People drive around my tiny country town in England in these tanks. I just find it obnoxious. It's wasteful and it's intimidating for others on the road. And it starts an arms race, because now being in a small car you can't see past other drivers and you feel more vulnerable.
Saddest emblem of modern Eurocapitalism that I know: the BMW "Mini". It's a vast, charmless travesty of the original.
It's changed, and recently. In the last 10-20 years the utility of pickups has changed substantially, as well as the fortunes of the people who used them in their jobs. Construction, lumber, and similar are familiar as part of the market of an industry that I'm working with. Until 10-20 years ago, you could hop into a new pickup's bed, or reach the bed floor over the rails. New pickup beds come with folding ladders built in, because they're so high off of the ground it's a requirement for many owners.
New pickups do still get used for construction - but only by the owners and some management can afford a new pickup. New pickups on construction sites pull trailers to put cargo at a human accessible height.
Pickups in lumber jobs are also a luxury. Any vehicle driven to lumber sites will effectively be destroyed, they get bent, bashed, and permanently embedded with filth. The rank and file drive what they can afford and don't mind destroying due to the nature of the job, or they ride in with the rest of a crew, or more and more often they don't drive to a site because they're forced labor rented from prisons.
People who need pickups for everyday, practical uses are using vans, trailers, or buying older pickups. 20 year old pickups are so much more practical than new that certain models in excellent shape will sell for more now than they did when new. New pickups and their predecessors are entirely different vehicles.
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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=2
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=3
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=4
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There are also some previous related threads:
The Electric Ford F-150 Can Power Your House for Three Days on a Single Charge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27232576 - May 2021 (14 comments)
Ford unveils the F-150 Lightning, its all-electric pickup truck - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27218029 - May 2021 (88 comments)
How Ford Built an Electric F-150 That Can Do Real Work for $40K - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27217386 - May 2021 (7 comments)