I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift around its launch.
That said, even though it's not to my taste, I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new.
>I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics
That and also it's just a bad product.
>That said, even though it's not to my taste, I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it.
A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
edit: agree there's a market for the raptor off-road tremor package thing, but it wasn't ford's first and they've been selling commerical trucks for 75 years. A true tesla f150 competitor would have sold like crazy, I think
> A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility. It's a $60,000 four-door lifted luxobarge with leather interior and a short bed. It signals (perceived) wealth while preserving working-class alignment. It can also be justified by way of having to pick up used furniture for TikTok refinish and flip projects or bimonthly runs to Home Depot to buy caulk and lightbulbs. Independent tradesman can write them off as work vehicles or, allegedly, use COVID-era PPP loans to buy them.
It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner. Investment bankers generally don't go scuba diving and if they did a dive computer would be vastly preferable.
I say all of that to say that making a pickup truck for that market segment isn't a bad idea from a numbers perspective. You just can't market it as a luxury vehicle because the whole point is that it is but it isn't.
Sprinter vans, utility vans, or even minivans are far, far more useful for trades than modern pickups. Heck, my minivan was the goat for home renovations—it’d easily fit a dozen full 4x8 sheets of drywall/osb/ply/mdf/etc and I could still close the rear gate. I always got chuckles from guys awkwardly wrangling/securing sheets onto a pickup’s bed at the supply yard when I’d easily slide the sheets off the cart directly into the van by myself.
A heavy duty pickup makes sense when you have regular towing, or large bulky transport, needs. While on this topic, I’ll take a moment to lament the demise of the light duty pickup that provided a bit of extra utility while still fitting in a normal parking space.
> I’ll take a moment to lament the demise of the light duty pickup that provided a bit of extra utility while still fitting in a normal parking space.
I miss the hell out of my '82 Chevrolet S10 with extended cab and two-tone paint job. The extended cab isn't going to be used for hauling the soccer team, but I could put it was plenty of space for "inside only" cargo. Damn thing threw a rod and cracked the case, and I never could convince my parents to keep it and put a new engine in it. I'd like to think I'd still own it today if they had.
You could run a single issue presidential campaign on bringing the S10 back (all it would really take is patching some weired emissions regulations mistakes). A better truck from a better time.
My pitch to the people near me who have no connection to the auto industry is that an electric Ranger (90's style) would have been a huge hit. I get the feeling that the Lightning came about because Ford managers don't really know how to make vehicles that regular people want.
F-150 Lightning was supposed to start at $39,974 and ended up at $54,780. I'll be surprised to see Slate actually happening under $30k. Having lost the $7,500 rebate, more like $35k.
Educate me: How is the Canyon, Ranger, or Frontier not a modern equivalent to the S10? All small(ish) trucks available in a two door or extended cab configuration with basic options.
Small pickups could be pretty fuel efficient. The problem is not CAFE standards but the fact that zero Americans buy small trucks, because the entire market for new vehicles in the US is people who are financially illiterate and easily marketed to and making them buy $80k brodozers is more profitable than a $30k S10
Half these people still choose to buy the vehicle they do for insane and superficial reasons like "It's got a Hemi", like my uncle, even though Hemispherical combustion chambers haven't been state of the art or even good ICE technology in decades.
They're substantially larger in all around size. Like comparable to a Dodge Dakota. A Maverick or Santa Cruz is comparable to a historical Ranger or S10, with the caveat that they're only available in one cab and bed configuration.
I have 3 vehicles, an old project jeep, an old truck, and a sedan.
Sedan handles 99% of my driving, but can't really tow anything. Truck handles all of my towing stuff, but gets ~14mpg which hurts so I don't drive it.
Jeep is a jeep, it's always being worked on, but when I use it I'm using it to go ride around on dirt paths or for camping. It gets 17-20mpg when I'm driving it but I don't want to drive it often.
If the jeep was a 2000's series jeep I would totally just get a small trailer for the occasional towing things that I do with the pickup and downsize to 2 vehicles. I know I could rent a uhaul from time to time for about what I pay for insuring and titling the truck, but the $100 annual difference is worth it for the convenience of not having to deal with uhaul 4 times a year.
But I said all of that to say, that a hitch isn't a perfect solution for everyone. I would feel very uncomfortable towing an empty 4x6 trailer behind my sedan, not to even mention the occasional couch or dresser or bunch of boxes from helping a friend move.
> I would feel very uncomfortable towing an empty 4x6 trailer behind my sedan, not to even mention the occasional couch or dresser or bunch of boxes from helping a friend move.
Why? 1500 lbs rated tow hook on an average sedan should be no problem at all. And that's more than enough for a 4x6 with a couch and a couple of boxes. Might even get a slightly larger trailer so you don't have to take the couch apart.
I've towed 14' sailboats including all gear behind a Corolla, didn't even feel the trailer was there.
I bought a used "regular" F-150 with an 8-foot bed about the last year that made sense, and when the frame finally rusted out and it could no longer pass inspection, the prices of used trucks was insane, and most of what was available was a lot of luxuries I didn't want to pay for.[0]
So I replaced it with a 5x8 trailer, which anymore gets pulled behind a Chevy Volt. I'd hesitate to load it to the max and take it on the thruway, but for most of my tasks it's actually more convenient than the truck. Loading up a riding lawn mower or a few hundred pounds of scrap metal is way easier with it being closer to the ground, and I'm mostly driving 10-15 miles over back roads so if I'm worried the load is too heavy for the compact car I don't mind taking it a little slow.
Also, it's convenient to load it while it's unhooked, piling in garbage and debris over a week or a weekend and then hooking it up to run to the dump; likewise, just unhooking the trailer full of construction materials and (weather permitting) just unloading it as you build.
I occasionally miss being able to drive it into the woods, but to be honest not being able to parallel park the trailer is a bigger inconvenience than not being able to off-road it.
[0] Since having kids I've come around on the second-row-of-seats/short bed trade-off; not being able to pick up dimensional lumber with kids in tow is way more limiting in my current phase of life than not being able to fit it in the bed with the tailgate up.
I don't know the specifics but the US has some sort of strict requirement on Towing, such that vehicles like hatchbacks and sedans that have ubiquitous 1500lb towing ratings in Europe are not rated to tow at all in the US.
People mostly still do it though, because it's cheap and easy to do.
It's at least as much about being able to stop it as it is being able to pull it. An loaded utility trailer with no trailer brakes on a wet road is going to jacknife in any kind of emergency stop, and the brakes on a Corolla are going to be challenged to do it even on a dry road.
I towed heavily loaded trailers - stuffed with books, tools, furniture, the trailer was loaded to the roof and I couldn't get up steep San Franscisco hills - to and from Alaska, and across the entire United States.
With an Impreza.
That included highways in the Yukon that were more river rock than gravel, backwoods of Montana and Wyoming, you name it.
It was totally fine. Especially in a Subaru, with AWD and a low well centered center of gravity. I'd do it again.
Just because. It's a Malibu, its tow rating is don't. I'm sure I could, but its not worth jeopardizing a $25,000 cars' drive train to potentially save about $600/year in insurance and tags and fuel for the truck.
2001 Wrangler owner, I do some towing (particularly like the flexibility of UBox for borrowing a box on a trailer for a few days to store items at my house or leisurely pack up for storage).
The 2 door model unfortunately has a pretty weak tow rating of 1 ton, and I'm fairly certain I have gone well over that a few times. IIRC the four door models a few years later took that up to 5000 lbs because of the extra length.
We bought our first minivan in 1998, a Ford Windstar. It was purchased to run our teenagers to activities, but I quickly fell in love with all the other things it could do, including what you've mentioned above. We put a ton of miles on it before trading it in. Next was a 2007 Town and Country with two sliding doors! By this time we were running grandkids and it was perfect.
After deciding to replace it, we struggled to decide what kind of vehicle to upgrade to. For our lifestyle and the side projects I like to do, another minivan was the obvious choice. Now it's a 2018 Pacifica and we're retired. The quality is outstanding, with 112K miles on it, I expect to put on another 100K before seeing what's available for the next upgrade. None of these vans ever gave us any engine or transmission trouble, despite the high number of miles I was able to put on them.
I have a 2018 Forester and it holds a surprising amount of furniture or 8' lumber. My only regret is that it won't fit 4x8 sheet materials well - if only they had designed the interior plastic cladding a little better it would be a great workhorse.
I remember my 1982 Toyota Corolla wagon had an obvious cut-out in the plastic interior, that was just a hair wider than a 4x8 sheet. I still miss that car.
Manufacturers are selling what their market wants. It sucks.
Ironically, the Honda Ridgeline - long lambasted as “not a real truck” - can fit a 4x8 sheet of plywood, at least width-wise. You’ll have to either prop it up on the tailgate, or drop it and strap it down (which honestly you should do either way), but it will fit between the wheels.
I love my Ridgelines; had a Gen1 RTL, and now a Gen2 BE. A neighbor I used to have traded his F-150 for an F-350. The most I ever saw him haul was a very small trailer with some furniture. I’ve had a cubic yard of mulch dumped into mine repeatedly (a Gen1 Ridgeline will hold and haul this, but it’s heaped, and depending on moisture content it’s slightly over max rating, so maybe don’t bring a passenger).
Try buying a compact Toyota pickup without the extra row of seats. The last one was made in 2015. They sell for more than the price of new for mileage < 100k.
I think there's basically one 4x4 van on the market in the US right now. So you're making a pretty bad generalization here. In the Bay Area, it's probably true that a van would work well, although I lived in a mixed-income neighborhood and all the construction guys had beater pickups. But if you live in a place with snow and unpaved residential roads, 4x4 is pretty much a must (and pickups can be also be used for plowing, etc).
Since when? I sincerely do not understand that point about snow.
I've lived in Canada (not southern Ontario) for most of my life and everyone had (and still mostly has) FWD. 4x4 was only for people actually going off road...
I don't get how this is now a "must".
it's a perceived must. when running "all season" tires year round the AWD inspires more confidence, and most people don't even know winter tires are a thing. Plus 4x4 only helps you start moving, but once you are, every car still only has 2 wheels to turn and 4 to stop, which are quite possibly more crucial in snow....
4x4/AWD makes slides in snow/slush more controllable as you spin around the center of the vehicle and have two extra drive wheels to regain traction with.
Couple years ago I was driving through Arizona during a massive blizzard. Everyone's doing 15, and I'm doing 50 - taking things slow and careful because of the traffic.
I had people in vests standing out in the road waving at me trying to get me to slow down! And I'm going "What in the hell are you doing out in the road!? Don't you know this is a blizzard!"
I would rather drive my rear wheel drive Camaro with its snow tires in a snowstorm than my the pickups I've borrowed over the years with their all season tires. It's quite the thing to remember that you need to drive like an old lady suddenly, even though you're in a big bad 4x4 pickup.
Surely that has nothing to do with the weight distribution and handling characteristics that result in the pickup and sports car having different ability to create traction out of whatever friction coeficient is available. /s
Snow tires don't really stand on their own merit unless you're constantly encountering the conditions the snow tire people use in the commercials to magnify the difference. The biggest reason to get snow tires is simply that then you can run a "pure" summer tire rather than an all season the rest of the year. The second biggest reason is dry road performance.
> AWD inspires more confidence
Stop and work backwards and ask yourself why that is rather than doing the Principal Skinner "no everyone else is wrong" routine. In practice, all seasons on an AWD car result in less slipping around than snow tires on a FWD car. Heck, if the difference where anywhere near close everyone rich enough to have a new car would probably have snow tires because the dealership or tire shop would be able to make that sale. The reason they can't is because in people's experience they're just not necessary.
Stupid internet circle jerks about stopping distance are not the pain point or performance bottleneck for the average user. The degree to which you can enter/exit a side street that has snow plowed in front of it, navigate a steep and poorly plowed driveway, park in an unplowed space, cross the slush between lanes on a main roads or highway, those are what "real users" care about and they're where AWD shines.
>but once you are, every car still only has 2 wheels to turn and 4 to stop, which are quite possibly more crucial in snow..
These trope needs to be taken out back and shot. Regardless of your tire type the amount of traction available in snow conditions is such that "not being stupid enough to come into a situation too hot" is the dominant factor in overall outcome in braking/turning situations. Snow tires are an incremental improvement, not a categorical one. And the difference between a wet road and a snowy one is very much a categorical one.
AWD is the right choice for the statistical average person or "casual user" who's snow experience is dominated by somewhat plowed, somewhat churned snow/slush roads and is already driving incredibly conservatively. If you're driving on a frozen lake all the time like in the tire commercials or live somewhere rural and drive on a ton of fresh snow, by all means get the snow tires. But most people aren't, in that category they're better served by some random crossover and not thinking about it. And if you are one of those people, then spend a little more and get something with studs for all the ice you're inevitably also encountering.
> Stupid internet circle jerks about stopping distance are not the pain point or performance bottleneck for the average user.
Uh, it should be? The ability to confidently stop is far more important than to go. If you can’t get going, you’re not in a wreck. If you can’t stop, well…
You also missed another key reason to get snow tires: many (most?) vehicles do not come with AWD even as an option. Telling someone to trade their Civic in for a CR-V just so they can get AWD isn’t sensible, when they could mount snow tires and get a significant traction boost.
>Uh, it should be? The ability to confidently stop is far more important than to go
First off, this is the principal skinner "everyone else is wrong" take.
Second, it's just not how things work in practice. In practice what happens if you have a FWD car that can't "just go" you wind up driving way harder to make up for it. Stuff like hitting hills at speed and trying to take on-ramps at the limit of traction because you are having to work around the limitation of being unable to actually put power to the ground when you need to. Say nothing of all the sketchy situations that happen at the margin of that (backing down a hill you couldn't go up, getting stuck less than graceful merges, etc).
>You also missed another key reason to get snow tires: many (most?) vehicles do not come with AWD even as an option
I don't think that's anywhere near true for the US market.
There was an anecdote that went something like "a 4x4 will just get you stuck worse then a 2wd" =)
And, like you said, people think that an AWD car will stop faster. No, it'll just start moving faster, more traction doesn't make the brakes better or the road any less slippery.
I owned a single 4WD car and it was super fun in the winter, but... when it's icy, you're most likely moving faster than you would be with a 2wd, which again results in some heart palpitations when you're trying to stay on the road =)
I remembering driving in a near-blizzard in Connecticut one night (got caught out in it; this wasn’t on purpose), and feeling like this explanation was the only one that made sense. I had a Pontiac G6 at the time, which was a fairly boring FWD sedan. Having learned to drive in Nebraska, I was decent at driving in snow, so I tootled along at about 25 MPH. I was being passed by SUVs and trucks, and then felt vindicated from seeing many of them off the road a few miles later.
I would’ve stopped to help, but I was concerned that if I lost momentum, I wouldn’t get going again.
Yeah..h as someone in Upstate New York, one of the snowiest places in the country. Snow tires are really what you want. AWD is really nice. BUT end of the day, if you can only go 30 you can only go 30. What really saves you with AWD is when you are dealing with tracks through the snow, AWD makes that a lot easier without spinning out.
> who exist only in the minds of people seeking to validate a purchasing decision.
Don't forget the people who just want to sneer at other people in ill-considered condescension! Plenty of that from the "the world outside the Bay Area and NYC isn't real and none of those people exist" folks.
If you mean true 4x4, there are none. Sprinter went AWD a few years ago.
But I believe most vans on the market have an AWD option. Ford Transit and Volkswagen IDBuzz both offer AWD. Toyota’s Sienna is (only?) AWD with a silly lifted trim for the off-roading soccer mom market. Chrysler’s van is AWD.
That leaves the ProMaster as the only two wheeler I’m certain about. Mazda and Kia also have vans, unsure about their drivetrain options. Did I leave anyone out?
I think your generalization is the bad one. Most trade jobs get better value out of vans compared to trucks. Vans offer awd, I am not sure a 4x4 offers much value.
Most companies prefer vans over trucks. Much better economics.
Fullsize vans don't offer AWD at a reasonable price point.
Either AWD/4wd is necessary when you're going to other people's property because you can't guarantee any given property isn't an icy shithole and when you're a professional being paid by them to be there for a specific purpose the last thing you wanna do is slip out trying to do a 25-point turn on their stupid sloped driveway and put a tire in the landscaping.
Maybe we are talking about different things. AWD is a $4k upgrade on a transit. 4wd buys you nothing and at that point it’s more about the tires.
Even in cold parts of the US your hvac or plumber is going to be using something like a transit. Very few trade jobs opt for a truck. They don’t make economic sense and impossible to secure anything in the bed.
Sure landscaping crews can utilize trucks but even then, your mowing operation can get more value from a transit style van if they are only using pus mowers.
Maybe it’s just in my neck of the woods but if you cannot get up or down a hill because a homeowner does not clear their driveway then it’s a no go. Very acceptable boundary.
What region of the US are you in. I have lived in the south east, Midwest, NY, CA, TX and vans are the norm for most trade jobs outside of landscaping or jobs that can actually benefit from an open bed. HVAC, plumbing, electricians and the like all have equipment that is a lot easier to organize and safely store inside of a van. Now sometimes depending on the type of work that person does they may opt for a high roof and I have seen some opt for the chassis cab and go with a third party body that gives even more room but still enclosed and may even choose the van chassis.
I am quite surprised to hear you have never seen an electrician use a van. That said there are certainly specialities where it’s more common.
90% of trade work is all on pavement and trucks suck for tools. If you are a logger yeah sure you may be using a truck to get to your equipment, similarly for lineman but for the vast majority of trade jobs companies opt for commercial vans. You are describing trade work like it’s the tv show landman.
They absolutely are for consumers but not so much in business. Vans are superior for most trade jobs within the US and pretty big sellers. Yes there are some gaps like if you in parts of Alaska or other very rural parts of America but largely trade jobs are spending all of their time on pavement.
AWD is a luxury outside of the most extreme of extreme locations.
I grew up in Minnesota driving rear wheel drive cars to start. They worked fine even in the olden days where plows would take a couple days to clear the country backroads and even rock salt was applied sparingly due to the expense.
Not a single one of my vehicles had winter tires - all seasons were perfectly serviceable. You’d get stuck once in a great while but that’s what the bag of sand and shovel in the trunk were for.
Front wheel drive came along and made it easy mode.
All wheel drive is certainly something I love these days, but it’s an extreme luxury that makes winter driving laughably easy.
A basic utilitarian work vehicle does not need to be 4WD in 90% or likely even 99% of use cases anywhere in the country.
>AWD is a luxury outside of the most extreme of extreme locations.
Only in the most strictly technical "I'm not touching you" sense.
Either AWD/4wd is necessary-ish when you're going to other people's property because you can't guarantee any given property isn't an icy shithole and when you're a professional being paid by them to be there for a specific purpose the last thing you wanna do is slip out trying to do a 25-point turn on their stupid sloped driveway and put a tire in the landscaping.
Even if it's some megacorp's facility that "should" be plowed and salted, it might not be when you show up at 6am on the dot to service something.
>I grew up in Minnesota driving rear wheel drive cars to start. They worked fine even in the olden days where plows would take a couple days to clear the country backroads and even rock salt was applied sparingly due to the expense.
>Not a single one of my vehicles had winter tires - all seasons were perfectly serviceable. You’d get stuck once in a great while but that’s what the bag of sand and shovel in the trunk were for.
I completely agree but the past isn't coming back. Those standards of performance are unfortunately no longer acceptable, especially in business settings.
There are exceptions, like to everything in life. They just aren't really that interesting to discuss when talking about trends and averages.
The average contractor servicing suburban and exurban properties in a work van is going to be able to trivially navigate 95% of all snowfalls with FWD with a modicum of winter driving skills. It's just not that hard, and very few places get the type of snow that requires a fully off road capable vehicle.
If I lived in the mountains of Colorado and servicing ranches or something of course I'd be buying for those conditions. But a standard city in the northern US or Canada? Meh. Total waste of money for a fleet vehicle. These sorts of locations are where something like 99% of all vehicle miles are put on.
For personal use now that I can afford it? AWD is on all my vehicles. It's a magical technology since it allows turning your brain off, and making some situations comically easy to navigate. But I'm not optimizing for cost efficiency or practicality there - I'm optimizing for luxury and convenience.
>If I lived in the mountains of Colorado and servicing ranches or something of course I'd be buying for those conditions. But a standard city in the northern US or Canada? Meh. Total waste of money for a fleet vehicle. These sorts of locations are where something like 99% of all vehicle miles are put on.
I'm not talking about places that can be written off because "the boonies are a rounding error".
I'm talking about some guy who owns a plumbing business in Boston and wants to reduce the number of days per year that conditions make things sketchy. $3k per truck or $4k per van is absolutely chump change compared to the PITA of having to add more buffer to winter scheduling to account for delays and inconvenience.
>for personal use now that I can afford it? AWD is on all my vehicles. It's a magical technology since it allows turning your brain off, and making some situations comically easy to navigate. But I'm not optimizing for cost efficiency or practicality there - I'm optimizing for luxury and convenience.
Baffling that someone who readily admits that "you can turn your brain off" doesn't see why people who either have to drive their own work vehicle every day, or put a vehicle in the hands of an employee wouldn't value that even higher.
No vans are currently sold in the US with 4WD. The Sprinter and Transit are available in AWD, that's it. There are companies that will convert a van to 4WD but it's typically around $20,000 which is beyond the budget of most people.
There was some noise about an "Outland Edition" coming out in 2026 but all I can find now is AI slop, so maybe that's not real or maybe that's not done yet.
It could also be just a further deal with Quigley. You can already order from a dealer with the 4x4 option, and your vehicle will go factory->Quigley->dealer and be sold to you as "new", with good warranties.
Nobody drives sheet goods around in a pickup or a work van with any sort of regularity.
There are only two trades that use sheet goods: drywall and carpentry. Most of the time they’re getting dozens or hundreds of sheets delivered to a job site.
What are you going to do with (12) 32 sq ft pieces of sheet goods anyways, put up drywall in a half of a bedroom or reroof a quarter of a garage?
If you really want to do this, you’ll get a roof rack for hauling sheet goods.
How do you fit a 40ft ladder inside a van? How about a mound of mulch or compost? How about hauling away customer's old plumbing or any number of filthy things you don't want in a car interior? Not to mention that when it contains heavy items like a large beam of wood, you often can't physically lift it out with those awkward van angles, but could in a truck bed.
First of all I'm not convinced that the utility of the trucks is mostly unused. This seems like a trope from anticar people. But second of all and more concretely, I've done a lot of trade work that would have simply not worked in a van, so seeing your common sentiment is always bemusing.
> How about hauling away customer's old plumbing or any number of filthy things you don't want in a car interior?
Funny story, the guys who demolished an old bathroom for us hauled the crap & dust away in a very dirty beater van (either a small cargo van or a minivan with rear seating removed, can't remember). It was their designated demolition vehicle.
Light-duty pickups still exist, eg the Nissan Frontier with the 6’ bed is probably the most reliable, sturdy and cost-effective pickup out there. Europeans may know this truck as the Navarro.
Yeah but the same exact geniuses in here screeching about "you don't need a truck" will judge you so hard when they see you in the home depot parking lot stacking the thing floor to ceiling with building materials.
The sprinter is massively over-hyped by people who've never owned one.
Yeah, everything about it is generally "solid" and well done but at it's roots it's a very german car. The longblock will theoretically go a million miles but realistically you're gonna replace every part around it several times over to get it there. I'm sure they're fine when new but as they age it's basically the same "replacing way too much BS because while nice it's over engineered" as the rest of german car ownership. Like c'mon man, an asian or american car would "just" require simpler less invasive things and generally be less of a headahce in old age.
The only reason i have a pickup is because i put dirtbikes in it. They also fit in a van, but good luck finding a reasonably priced one with AWD (very high demand, especially due to camper conversions).
Vans are way better in almost every regard.
Actually, I'm buying a house with a garage and I may get a bike trailer, and a tow hitch for my BMW. That would be an even simpler solution
As someone who's just been trying to buy a crappy used truck to haul some crap to the dump a couple times a year, you're absolutely spot on. I even live in the southwest US where trucks make up a considerable portion of vehicles on the road.
Crappy used trucks simply aren't up for sale. And even the rare listing I do come across, the asking price is ridiculously inflated.
I was looking for the same thing and a friend gave me some advice.
Get an SUV with a trailer hitch.
worked out great. Maybe better than a pickup.
For example - taking mountain bikes somewhere to ride - you can put them in the back, go ride, and leave them there while you go eat without someone stealing them. You can even load them the night before.
dirty stuff can use a trailer (I've never needed one)
and suv carries lots of people - which has worked out many many times more than I predicted.
(it is a gas guzzler, but was cheaper because of that, and didn't compete with higher-priced pickup market)
Never understood why the yanks don't like vans? Pickups are much less popular here in the UK, many more people use vans. A crew cab van with removable seats is infinitely more flexible than a pickup, other than long stuff which you chuck on a roof rack.
Indeed. It's because of the fashion preferences of American SUV and pickup buyers.
I can attest to the fact that minivans are much more comfortable. I picked up my Pacifica hybrid minivan in early 2021 before the price hike and it was a steal compared to SUVs and pickups. When I was doing paperwork for the vehicle at the Chrysler dealership, I was chatting with some sales guys and discovered the shocking fact they had recently sold a luxuriously loaded-down pickup for over $100K. I was fortunate to easily haggle with them over my minivan because they don't make much money on minivans so they focus on pickups, Jeeps, etc.
A couple decades ago, I had started looking to replace an old hand-me-down car from my grandma, and had been mulling over whether I could ever justify spending $30K on an Infiniti at that time. My boss at work got a new pickup, and he was rather proud of it, and I innocently asked if it cost $25K because plenty of my Texan relatives had driven them over the years and I assumed they were a no-frills working man's practical vehicle. After a brief pause, he answered, "It was a little over 40 thousand." That was over 20 years ago.
Vans don't project manliness. Most people don't use pickup trucks for pickup truck things. They'd be fine with a station wagon, but they have self-confidence issues.
This is the main thing. The US is very, very weird in terms of how it genders every possible lifestyle choice, and polices those gender norms. The rise of SUVs in the US was partly driven by things like inconsistent emissions standards, but also by the need to make a more "masculine" alternative to the minivan or station wagon.
Vans usually have a very difficult time off-road or in mountainous terrain.
Vans are commonly used in urban areas, especially by businesses, but suburbs, rural, and construction benefit from higher clearences of SUVs and trucks.
SUVs are also usually much better in hazardous driving conditions because of a more optimal weight distribution.
Having grown up in the mountains, and currently living in a hilly snowy area, no thanks I'll keep my SUV. My in laws have a mini van, and it's not great.
I deal and have dealt with enough deep snow that would eat a van.
I still might get a Sienna Hybrid for daily commuter
I can't take this comment seriously unless you are buying snow tires. If you have snow tires, and you still can't get where you want in the winter, sure get 4wd.
I had a RWD pickup with snow tires and went anywhere I wanted to through two utah winters and many vermont ones too.
Yanks never got cool vans. Vans also became synonymous with Chester the Molester. Yanks also had Chevy Astro as an option. I grew up with the family owning a full sized custom van with 2 rows of captain chairs and the third row bench folding out into a bed.
From all of the bitching in the driveway, vans were not pleasant to work on the engine. Some of them had to remove a cover from inside the van to gain access, and that cover tended to not be well insulated and was the source of a lot of heat. Not much of a firewall as a car with the engine fully separated from the passenger compartment.
There were a lot of things people did not like about vans available in the land of Yanks. The Limey vans are not the same, so do not equate your experience as being the same.
Vans had tones of popularity. They are an iconic part of 60s culture(minibus) and 80s as well(A Team van)
There are two current reasons
- Millennials grew up in minivans and its viewed as a mom mobile and they don't want that look (despite the fact that most family SUVs are basically mini vans with out the sliders
I love a van, but they're a pain to work on compared to a full size truck. Like a popular minivan that has a 5 hour book time to do a simple tuneup. Reaching the plugs between the firewall is most of that time. Same with compact PCs, it's a puzzle to get everything in your 7L case.
Anecdotally, a lot more people in the US tow. And pickup trucks are the indisputable king of towing.
There's also the fact that it's a lot harder to take the top off a van than it is to add a top to the bed of a pickup. If I sometimes moved manure and had a van... I'd probably rent a trailer.
Some "yanks" align their identity with their vehicle. There are songs about trucks but yes a van or mini-van are more flexible.
There are many that buy trucks for off road capabilities but probably 70% or more of truck owners don't go off road more than once a year. Many pick up truck models, like stock versions with crew cabs, are too long and not equipped for serious off-road use. Shallow sand/snow they can handle but so can SUVs.
The powertrain packaging for vans is much tighter than for trucks. Who amongst us remembers removing the interior to change sparkplugs 6 and 8 in a GMC Vandura?
Even if you're not going to do the knuckle-skinning work yourself, the packaging negatively influences book rates when you take it to a shop
I wouldn't want to haul 3 yards of dirt/mulch in a van, or yard refuse. I wouldn't want to try and move a full-sized fridge in a van, or a queen bed box spring, neither will fit.
I can't fit an ATV in a van, and I really don't want to put a dead deer in the back of a van after I hunt one.
I wouldn't trust a van to haul 75 8x8x16 concrete bricks (over 2000 lbs/1100kg) because the suspension wasn't designed to do that, nor was the transmission, and the van will quickly deteriorate.
How about moving a couch? Fits in the truck, not in a van.
I did all of those things in the past 12 months.
All that being said, vans are great, especially with kids. They absolutely do not replace trucks... if you use the truck and don't mind getting it dirty. Shiny trucks with 5.5ft beds are fucking stupid. My kids all laugh at "trucks with a baby bed" these days.
Or, downthread, people just assume everyone with a truck is insecure, projecting wealth, and generally ignorant. Which ironically, is a very ignorant take.
The larger vans used by tradespeople in the UK, like a full size Ford Transit, would be fine with those loads (though I agree I wouldn't stick a dead deer in one as they're harder to hose out than a pickup bed). 10ft long loadspace, 1400kg payload, plenty of room for couches, beds and things. They're quite different beasts than the smaller kind like a minivan with removable seats. Plus it rains so much here that having a roof on is generally an advantage.
There are some pickups here, having said that: more rural utilities people, or landscapers who move lots of dirt, or farmers, might have one. They tend to be smaller than an F-150, but then everything's smaller in Britain including the roads...
Most of what you said is not true, at least for a full sized van. Sure you may not want to get it dirty inside, that makes sense. But they have more space than an 8' pickup bed. You can absolutely carry 2000lbs in a 1 ton van. An ATV or a couch will fit in one better than a pickup.
Yeah yeah, and 30-50 feral hogs could burst into your yard any moment.
For moving yards of mulch, topsoil or concrete blocks, almost anyone in my country, including people in construction would just have that delivered to the site, next day, by the seller.
No clue what van you're imagining, but weather alone makes many things much worse in an open bed. Moving a couch is a very common use of vans, people rent them specifically to move furniture all the time.
It’s 10 bucks for me to haul mulch and topsoil from a place down the road.
It’s hundreds of dollars to have the same literal dirt, delivered and dumped on my property. So now, instead of driving the truck full of dirt around my property and using it as desired, I now need to do it one wheelbarrow full at a time.
Fuck that.
As for weather, they make removable flat and domed “roofs” for truck beds, the weather argument is a nonstarter.
I own a station wagon, a van and a pickup (none of which are nice or new) vehicle and three trailers (to be fair one is special purpose) and I'll put up to ~1000lb on the roof of the car before I drag a trailer around.
Trailer is kind of obnoxious pain in the ass and has a bunch more shit to go wrong with it's use compared to a vehicle that "just does what you need".
It might not be the literal cheapest but a truck with the desired cab to bed ratio is the right call for the casual user who just wants to do homeowner things and doesn't wanna think about it.
I just plain don't have room to store a trailer, but I do have room for a second car - hence I own a ute (pickup or whatever in American parlance).
Which is really the thing: it's very useful to have a second car, but a trailer can't be a second car.
What's really desperately missing is useful payload capacity: a standard ute can't carry 1 ton in the tray confidently (and it's downright impossible to find accurate info on what you should do to get that outside of "add a tag axle").
I appreciate the suggestion! It's crossed my mind, but unfortunately a trailer doesn't really work for my living situation. It'd require off-site storage which just sounds like more of a headache (and expense) than I care to take on.
Do you not have services in the US to do this for you?
The problem: I have a pile of construction waste, household junk, garden waste etc. is solved by many businesses who'll come pick it up for a small fee.
If your local government doesn't offer this, there are many commercial operators that do this in the UK. Seems bizarre to buy a whole giant, inefficient, vehicle just for 'hauling' occasionally.
Scheduling a "bulk trash" pick up at my current home is only accomplished by calling my landlord, who then calls the trash company, who then calls back with some arbitrary date and time a month or more in the future. When I have crap I want to get rid of it, I don't want to deal with any of that. I'll take the "inefficiency" of storing and maintaining a second vehicle -- which my family would easily make use of other than hauling duties -- over dealing with the bureaucratic nuisance.
There are private options, of course, but the fees are nowhere near "small" for this service.
Not even. When I lived in the boonies trash service was ~$75 a quarter, the local hardware store would deliver pallets of mulch for free, and furniture stores offered free delivery above certain purchase amounts. My buddy's dad would haul your boat between the marina and your house for a flat fee. Hell, I was able to cram a full PA with floor monitors and a few guitars into my Corolla for weekend band gigs.
I started looking into getting a trailer or hitch hauler but it didn't seem to make much sense. I could usually pay somebody on-demand to move stuff around and it always worked out to be cheaper than owning and maintaining a truck. I presently work from home and don't even own a car anymore; the math is quite similar with rideshare and motorcycle maintenance coming in significantly cheaper.
Consider a trailer if you have even a mildly acceptable tow vehicle that can take a 2 inch receiver. Use what UHaul will rent you as a rough limit for what your vehicle can handle, and then if you want to save some weight get your own because it will be lighter than UHaul's brick shithouses.
Having said that, I'm still in the market for a larger vehicle with a better tow weight rating as I use the trailer more than a handful of times per year, and my current tow vehicle is getting a bit long in the tooth.
These are quite expensive for what you get and are slooooooow. It's fine if you want an expensive, quirky neighborhood runabout, but you'll be made very aware that this is a product not at all designed for the US market (there's a good reason most examples do ~1000 miles a year). The ACTYs I found online were in the $7-20k range, for a ~30 year old model - more for a nice van.
The best used work truck is actually a van. They lack the coolness factor of trucks, but are far more versatile. You can pick up a <10 year old Transit with under 100k miles for like 10-15k. That price point will get you a >10 year old F150 in the 100-150k mile range.
Plus, there are good options if you want something smaller can car-based, like NV2000s and Transit connects. Which don't really exist for trucks outside of newer (maverick) or niche (Ridgeline) options.
Bonus points, a nice Transit is a great daily driver too.
Harsh did a tipper conversion for the Daihatsu Hijet, which had an 850cc triple with a lot more poke than the Acty's 660cc twin, and had a "true 4WD" variant.
In the UK, Truck and Driver Magazine featured one so equipped in a head-to-head AWD tipper test (AWD in the sense of all wheels driven regardless of number of axles, not Subaru AWD/Audi Quattro type AWD), alongside a variety of extremely large trucks. Proper trucks, not F150s, we're talking 18-tonne Scanias and stuff here.
Everyone wanted one of the little Hijets to take home.
Renting a vehicle invites bureaucratic nonsense. For my personal situation, I need it ready to go at virtually a moments notice or I'll simply just avoid the chore.
For me personally, it's too much hassle. Between the paperwork, rental fees, getting a ride to and from, etc. I just start to lose motivation, and end up deciding to do the chore the "next weekend" which never comes. I need as few barriers between me and accomplishing a chore if I ever want to have any hope of completing it.
That's opinion/stereotype, and unsupported. From Rob Cockerham's experiment (2002):
"I guessed that 98% of all truck beds are empty"
"In 25 minutes I had counted 150 trucks, and 99 of them had been empty. This 66% empty ratio was much lower than I had expected. I hadn't realized that so many trucks were being so successfully utilized."
"The results were similar: 39% of the trucks were hauling goods, and 61 of them were empty"
"Along with this adjustment of my perception, I also realized that an empty truck is no more wasteful than an empty back seat. Most cars AND trucks in the US drive around with 75% of the cargo space unutilized...what difference does it make if it is interior or exterior space?"
A vehicle thousands of pounds heavier, with much worse mpg, and almost by definition terrible aerodynamics, is no less efficient than a car with empty rear seats? Sure.
I'd imagine that % changes heavily on hour in the day and road observed.
People using truck for work (tradesman etc) do it all thorough the day. People who just use it as status symbol get to work and back from work at given hour. Also probably more usage in weekend when people doing weekend project go shop and people not doing that don't even get out on the longer trips.
Sitting on one road for an hour (and looking at photos, far from peak traffic) is near meaningless
The "peak traffic" that all the 9-5 office workers on HN see is also not when trucks that carry things move. Blue collar work usually starts at 6/7/8am.
It is utility, just not the utility you're thinking of. Try spending all day, every day in a basic, rough riding pickup truck, then compare it to spending all day in a "luxobarge" that can still tow a 7,000lb trailer.
To the people I know who drive trucks like that, they're basically mobile offices.
Yep. The internet loves to bash truck owners as all being the same one guy who buys a truck to drive 1.3 miles to the office every day, but the audience of truck buyers is huge and diverse. Acting like nobody who buys a truck actually uses it or thinking that contractors couldn’t possibly appreciate (or deserve?) a nice interior for what is basically their mobile office is pretty out of touch.
> thinking that contractors couldn’t possibly appreciate (or deserve?) a nice interior for what is basically their mobile office is pretty out of touch
I'm not familiar with the USA. What do contractors over there do in terms of clean/dirty clothes? Do they change into clean boots and trousers before getting into the truck? Or are they all in roles where they don't get their hands dirty?
In my country, vehicles marketed to tradesmen and agricultural workers usually aim for a hard-wearing, easy-to-clean interior that's fairly spartan.
The trades are wide and varied. A lot of tradespeople will show up to the job in an old 250,000 mile Honda if they’re just doing dirty work and going home.
The farm and woodworking people I know have nicer trucks, but they’re not afraid to get them dirty. Put some rubber floor mats down and the floor is easy to clean. Leather seats are actually easier to clean than cloth seats. The steering wheel wipes clean.
Every square inch of my truck’s interior is covered in a layer of fine dust every time we go off roading because the windows have to be down. I can clean it all relatively quickly because everything is accessible and the interior is smaller and boxier than my car.
LOL. I know you're serious, but that's just funny.
Using my wife's fairly recent (2024 model year) pickup truck as an example, every horizontal surface is covered in papers, clipboards, horse tack and medications (she trains horses and operates a horse rescue). The floors and kick panels are probably muddy at this time of year, but I'm so used to it that I don't notice. The surfaces that aren't covered by papers or something else have a nice thick layer of dust (the truck spends a lot of time on gravel roads).
It might actually be vacuumed out a few times a year, but that's far from a priority. Generally, the cleanup only happens if one of us has to wear "nice" clothes to go somewhere.
But bear in mind that the areas that your body touches tend to clean themselves simply because you're moving around. So, the floors, dashboard, etc., might be muddy or dusty but the seats will generally be clean.
The basic "spartan" trucks tend to be for uses where you don't have to travel very far. If you're driving a hundred miles or so on an average day, you'll want to be as comfortable as possible or it gets old really fast.
>he internet loves to bash truck owners as all being the same one guy who buys a truck to drive 1.3 miles to the office every day
Because the only truck owners the people who bash trucks see are their neighbor across the street who is that guy.
The demographically comparable guy who commutes in 80mi one way from his "country estate" in his Audi isn't on the internet bashing truck owners because the guy he lives across from uses his truck.
Also, acting like the whole of the working class are basic burger shop cashiers who struggle to buy anything while simultaneously being idiots who buy 80k trucks just to "virtue signal"... This thread is totally incoherent. Most of the jobs people have are better than that, and most of the trucks people drive are cheaper than that, but the two extremes are mixed to create the most outlandish narrative.
You're out of touch with the working class. Some people practically live in these trucks. A little comfort goes a long way toward making their day bearable. Leather is easy to clean, power adjustment makes the seat more comfortable. Auto wipers, climate, etc., help them focus on the calls they're taking. And so on. Fleets of these are bought for commercial purposes as well. Companies wouldn't spend that kind of money without a reason.
There's a reason these "luxobarges" are the best selling vehicle in the U.S., and the answer is not virtue signaling.
Brother, people are scraping by right now. Auto loan defaults are nearing all-time highs. Car loan lengths are longer than ever. The average age of a vehicle on the road is something like 14 years old now.
I promise you with all my heart, those luxobarges are not being purchased because they’re practical in any way, shape, or form. It’s 110% virtue signaling.
I don’t get the recent internet trend of trying to excuse any bad behavior by saying it’s all actually very logical and simply a tragedy of reality. Nobody is buying a gigantic vehicle because it has seats that are easy to clean. Nobody is buying an expensive ride because they just NEED those auto rain wipers.
People are bad with money, and keeping up with the Joneses has always been a high priority in American culture. I see people making $20-25/hr driving brand new Cadillac SUVs. I talk to my car selling friends, and they have the loan rates for 6-10 years memorized, not 3-5 years. Nobody does those anymore.
Of course there is an enormous amount of virtue signaling around cars. It’s one of the strongest social signals people purchase.
> they have the loan rates for 6-10 years memorized, not 3-5 years
Playing Devil's Advocate, if you're going to be fucked either way, why not be fucked and have a nice truck than not?
It seems like, at least from an uninformed EU perspective, that if the "system" gives you the ability to get a big truck for no worse off that if you weren't going to get it, why wouldn't you?
It seems like auto manufacturers overly inflated their prices, and the loan issuers are mopping up said inflation back - so in the end the borrower (at least if poor and they're going to default either way) is better off getting more truck for their buck than less.
Because most people who are fucked, are fucked due to terrible money spending habits. Tons and tons of people who make six figures are living paycheck to paycheck. Not because they must but because they won't stop spending poorly.
Again, I don't understand the desperate internet trend of defending terrible choices by focusing on the, like, 0.001% of people who do everything right and still fail. We've got the highest living standards on the planet. It's absolutely a choice.
I was hoping for some genuine counterpoints but this just feels like a rant? It feels like the stereotypical response that millennials could afford property if only they didn’t spend their money on avocado toast at Starbucks.
Let’s say a normal car costs you $200/month and a big truck costs 400.
200 is not going to make a difference in your situation - you are either good either way or close to breaking point and therefore fucked either way (if not this month, then the next one when you have an unexpected large expense).
If you’re fucked, why not take advantage as much as possible and get the most truck for your buck? Well “your buck” in quotes but you get my point.
If my budget was at breaking point and for only 200 bucks extra (one time payment since I’m gonna default next month) you can bet I’m gonna take advantage and get another ~20k worth of truck that I’ll get to keep until the bankruptcy proceedings complete (at which point the extra would’ve depreciated off anyway). Or is there something I’m missing?
The thing you’re missing is that it isn’t a $200 difference. Auto loans above $1k/mo are becoming common now vs the $400 for something “affordable”. Since people don’t have large down payments, the monthly rate scales beyond linearly to offset default risk with the loan upside down.
You’re also presenting a false scenario of “screwed either way”. One decision is getting a car that doesn’t leave you with $10k+ negative equity in a year because you did $1000 down on a $85k truck financed over 10 years with an 8% rate. That’s a decade long financial albatross that will cost you $150k by the time it’s done.
The alternative is you put $1k down on a $30k vehicle over 4 years with the same monthly payment and never end up with negative equity.
The gulfs here are enormous and the “screwed either way” altitude is pure defeatist financial ignorance.
I don't think most people are buying trucks and then defaulting the next month either that's a bizarre argument to make. And 200 a month is a lot of money!
200 * 12 = 2400 * 4 years( let's be real it would be longer ) = 9600. That IS a lot of money, it's not going to solve every problem immediately but applying the mindset of whatever Im screwed so I might as well set my money on fire is exactly how people keep sinking into the hole. You take the 200 extra on the car, on the apartment, the 150 pants. Its death by a thousand paper cuts and it will make a bad situation much worse.
If you think people are spending just $200-400/mo on a car, I can see why you don't understand how bad this situation is. Most people are spending more like $700-1000/mo.
It has nothing to do with avocado toast, though that wasn't nearly the zinger you thought it was. As it turns out, eating out is insanely expensive. Cook most of your food and you can save a TON of money. The fact that this simple idea is so hard for people to pull out of the avocado toast comment continues to astound me.
And you're right - you can certainly scam the system for 6 months of "more truck". That's exactly the kind of monetary responsibility that got us into this situation in the first place. Thank you for showing everyone a perfect example, I suppose.
Yes some are, but not everyone with a big truck. I'm in truck country and most people can afford their big trucks no problem at all. It's not virtue signaling, they are do-everything cars. Nothing else beats them.
You can go to a off-road work site during the day, and take it downtown for dinner after. Lots of people are making good money and can easily afford them.
> I promise you with all my heart, those luxobarges are not being purchased because they’re practical in any way, shape, or form. It’s 110% virtue signaling.
not sure virtue signalling is best description here. I think "conspicuous consumption" is far better description of the process
You have such a deep misanthropic view that it's prevented you from seeing anything outside of it. You're preaching a faith not practicing an understanding of the world.
> Nobody is buying a gigantic vehicle
There are tons of contractors, laborers, small business and property owners who need the space or the utility of the vehicle. The reason these vehicles sell well is because they come in _tons_ of configurations.
> because it has seats that are easy to clean
No, that's why the manufacturer puts them in there, it helps them sell more vehicles by expanding their options.
> People are bad with money
Just.. like.. universally? Then how do you explain the number of billionaires and millionaires in this country? Let me guess.. from your heart it's 110% graft and corruption and 0% skill and sense and building wealth?
> I talk to my car selling friends,
Who has "car selling friends?" Your access to anecdotal information may not be helping you.
> It’s one of the strongest social signals people purchase.
> According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.
> So what do people actually like about trucks? According to Edwards, the answer is counterintuitive. Truck drivers use their trucks very much like other car owners: for commuting to and from work, presumably alone. The thing that most distinguishes truck owners from those of other vehicles is their sheer love of driving. “The highest indexed use among truck owners is pleasure driving,” says Edwards. Truck drivers use their vehicles this way fully twice as often as the industry average. “This is the freedom that trucks offer,” says Edwards.
The F-series is the best selling car family in the US. Some of them are using it for its intended purpose sure, the majority are just using it as parent said, a luxobarge.
>The F-series is the best selling car family in the US. Some of them are using it for its intended purpose sure, the majority are just using it as parent said, a luxobarge.
A F550 box truck and a crew cab shortbed F150 are both F-series as well as everything in between.
If not the best selling it had better be damn close with all the different vehicles that exist under that one nameplate.
The F-150 alone has been Americas best selling vehicle for 47 years straight until getting dethroned by the RAV4 in 2024 (unless you add any of the other F-series trucks). It appears to be back on top in 2025.
one time a year or less was the suffix for each of these, many more people fall into the once a month or so category. The economical thing to do is buy a civic and rent a truck the one time a year you use it for truck things.
If your argument is that most Americans should be on public transit and save the average $500,000 they spend during their lives on private vehicles then I completely agree.
If you're saying "a less bad thing is still bad!" then your comment reads more like the "We should improve society somewhat. / Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very intelligent." meme.
The argument seems to ve that trucks are bad because people don't use them to 100% capacity all the time.
People generally buy vehicles for to fit all of their needs not 95% of them. My back seat and trunk are almost always empty and my passenger seat is mostly empty.
For being certain about something based on industry data?
>There are tons of contractors, laborers, small business and property owners who need the space or the utility of the vehicle.
And if that was the majority of these purchasers, this would be a reasonable response, but the extreme majority of truck owners use their truck for its intended purpose ONCE A YEAR. Bro just rent it from frickin' Home Depot and drive a Camry.
>No, that's why the manufacturer puts them in there
Ah, and of course the cheaper cars are purposely given seats which aren't cleanable? Or is it still correct that in the context of our conversation, it's nothing special and completely unrelated to how most people use their car? It's not within a million miles of a decision point.
>Just.. like.. universally?
Yes. You got it. I literally meant that every single person on the planet, rich, poor, and everything in between, is bad with money. I certainly wasn't making a hyperbolic point to bring an idea to the forefront - incredible detective work.
>Who has "car selling friends?"
I buy a lot of cars, and eventually made friends with the people I keep buying them from. We hang out sometimes. Do you just... not make friends with anyone?
>We know this.. how?
Who knows? My friends actually sit around talking about the specs on their refrigerators and the color options. They tinker in the garage on the cooling coils for hours a day. You should see how smooth the drawers in mine are.
On the out of touch point, I will just note that every time we drive to West Virginia or Pennsylvania you can see when you leave the rich exurbs because it goes from $80k vanity trucks to fuel and maintenance efficient sedans, old Toyotas and vans, and the heavy trucks guys like welders use. There is zero question that they’re using those trucks from the wear patterns, whereas the luxury trucks in the areas where the average house is a million plus are spotless.
It’s not “virtue signaling”, it’s lifestyle messaging like wearing cowboy boots or walking around with DJ headphones as if you’re going to drop a set after the morning standup.
Here (southeast US), lawn services use pickups, often also with a trailer. Most other services (plumbing, electrical, HVAC) use vans. Less sure about contractors, I interact with them less.
Most commercial services near me use trucks with or without a trailer. Painters tend to use vans, and some electricians. Everyone else has a truck with a logo on it. You can't tow well with a van, so it has to be a company that never tows.
Granted probably most people on here are CA or SV adjacent, which has a fairly idiosyncratic relationship with its service industries and stricter emissions regs.
> The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility. It's a $60,000 four-door lifted luxobarge with leather interior and a short bed. It signals (perceived) wealth while preserving working-class alignment.
Reading the HN version of truck drivers is such a stark contrast to interfacing with actually contractors on a day to day basis.
A vehicle being comfortable and luxurious isn’t something only the bourgeoisie can appreciate. People who work spend a lot of time in their vehicles too.
No, but a sprinter van is going to provide better actual utility for most trades and a 80k f150 platinum is a long way away from a white 2 door long bed which can make the spend not make sense business wise.
As you say though I do see trades workers with the fancy pickup trucks (often with a trailer, cant scratch that bed paint aha) which I attribute to low interest on auto loans and poor business sense.
> There seems to be no limit these days to how lavishly equipped, not to mention expensive, full-size standard-duty pickup trucks have become at the upper reaches of their respective model lines. [...] They’re brash and uniquely American alternatives to fine-tuned European luxury SUVs. For those keeping score, Kelley Blue Book says the average full-size pickup sold for $66,386 last month, due in large part to the growing popularity of such upscale models.
> The average new vehicle price in the US is 50k, people are not buying the base model.
$50K is much closer to the $40K base model than the $80K platinum model.
Everyone loves to cite the platinum model as if all the contractors or CEOs or whoever were bashing today are driving it, but most people are not buying the most expensive models.
Way than half. Average is dragged up by 100k F-550s with $100k service bodies installed on them and $200k+ exotic cars. There are no negative and zero dollar sales to drag down the average.
This is a textbook example of a case where median would be better.
The Euro vans (sprinter and transit) are very well suited to businesses who'll own new stuff, depreciate and trade in before it's out of warranty. There's a reason those things get exported to the low labor cost 3rd world from there rather than winding up on used car lots like domestic van based single rear wheel box trucks and utility body stuff.
If you look at the cybertruck's architecture it basically is the "top end" of that line.
It's a big car platform with a bed. It's the "top of the line" for "car based" pickups like the old Subarus, the Maverick/SantaCruz and Ridgeline.
While it nominally competes with the F150 it doesn't really. Same as how the Ridgeline nominally competes with the Ranger, but doesn't really.
I think it's a real shame the cyber truck never took off. While gimmicky I think the longevity of it's absolutely stupid thick(er than typical) gauge stainless body would have put pressure on other OEMs to stop building shitty truck beds that dent and rust if you look at them funy.
The venn diagram between people who say what you just said (which to be clear, I'm not disagreeing with) and people who screech about safety if they see a pickup being anywhere near full utilized is way too close to a circle for me to take either seriously.
The modern US pickup truck still has the utility image and they make sure they sell a bunch to people who want utility to ensure that the image is not lost. That is why the lightening came in a cheap pro trim clearly targeted at the things pros are likely to want. (I don't know how well it worked, but they seriously tried to sell to that market)
Of course the real money is in the high trim levels that sell for twice as much but don't really cost much more.
I believe you're accurate for some purchases, but also woefully inaccurate outside of your experience space.
There are millions of workers carrying tools, parts, supplies, and refuse in pickup trucks. Where I live (rural), almost everyone has a truck, and it is for work, not show.
And in cities, as I walk around neighbourhoods, I see endless roofers, plumbers, builders, gardeners, and more using them for work.
Pickup trucks also portray toughness - the other all-important American virtue in addition to wealth. I always get a kick out of American Football ad breaks, where every other commercial is either a truck commercial narrated by some guy with an extremely gravelly voice talking about how tough their trucks are, or an ad for ED pills.
They can be luxury vehicles with reasonable running costs - regular gas and less depreciation than the usual luxury brands. They also have utility in case you need it. Pickup trucks aren't my cup of tea but it can be very rational to buy one even if you don't need it as a work truck.
I know plenty of engineers with expensive trucks used to carry their families around during the week and haul their hunting bounty home on weekends. In that scenario, the Cybertruck is a total failure. Where's the exposed bed for a deer? How about hauling the boat to the lake?
What's 100K? My Lightning was just under 51K out the door, and it is not a base model. You must be referring to something else? Maybe pickups in general? It's true that they do tend to be expensive.
I'm looking forward to the Telo-- if they get to market. It's absolutely all about utility. It will be interesting to see if people only want pickups as a fashion statement or if a weird, very practical vehicle can win.
(Same bed-size as Tacoma; midgate that folds down to hold a full sheet of plywood; seats 4 people comfortably; same length as a Mini Cooper SE).
It never stopped being possible to order a bare bones F-150 with a 8ft bed. Might not have the tradeoffs that many people are looking for, but difficult to argue something like that has less utility than a mini truck that can't drive on the highway.
I once rented a "kei van" in Japan once. I think I remember seeing similarly utilitarian trucks, but forget what they were called. I found the kei vans very practical.
I have one. Four wheel drive, turbo, 660cc little motor. There's even a cute "bashguard" built in to the oil filter, which is hilariously the lowest thing to the ground. No frills. Knobs control everything.
I love it. Full-flat back allows for camping in your car (I'm just over 6 feet tall.) Three bicycles and three people can fit. Wood, tools, DIY... And it is tiny, so it is easy to drive and park.
It doesn't like driving faster than about 110km/hr, but that's good enough for me.
The utilitarian trucks you are talking about are k-trucks, or kei-trucks. "Kei" just means "lightweight."
On that note, kei car minivans like the Honda N-box are just about the most practical car you can buy for your teen offspring - 4 seats and a ton of boot space.
> It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner.
The difference is that the Submariner can actually be used as a dive watch. If it turned to fail significantly more often than other dive watches underwater, people would be much less inclined to buy it even though it would literally make no difference for them.
I mean the Cybertruck, and EV trucks in general to a certain extent, are rather lousy trucks, so they aren't seen as aspirational the same way a normal F150 or Submariner are.
a pick up without flat bed rails has significantly reduced the areas where it can be used as a work truck. Pretty clear signal that the CyberTruck was a status symbol not a work truck.
My impression is that the pickup truck as status symbol began with a Back to the Future product placement. You may recall that the character Marty lusts after a 1985 Toyota SR5 Xtra Cab.
I saw the movie in the theater and, at the time, found it strange that anyone would have a work vehicle as a dream car.
“Spreadsheets can contain a part of truth,” Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez told me. “But never all of truth.”
Looking to illustrate this, I bought the recent book “White Rural Rage” and opened it more or less at random to a passage about rural pickup trucks. It cites a rich portfolio of data and even a scholarly expert on the psychology of truck purchasers, to make what might seem like an obvious point — that it’s inefficient and deluded for rural and suburban men to choose trucks as their daily driving vehicles. The passage never does explain, though, how you’re supposed to haul an elk carcass or pull a cargo trailer without one.
It’s all but impossible to go into any rural bar in America today, ask for thoughts on pickup trucks and not hear complaints about the size of trucks these days, about touch-screens and silly gimmicks manufacturers use to justify their ballooning prices. Our economy, awash in cheap capital, has turned quality used trucks into something like a luxury asset class.
It’s often more affordable in the near-term to buy a new truck than a reliable used one. Manufacturers are incentivized by federal regulations, and by the basic imperatives of the thing economy, to produce ever-bigger trucks for ever-higher prices to lock people into a cycle of consumption and debt that often lasts a lifetime.
This looks like progress, in G.D.P. figures, but we are rapidly grinding away the freedom and agency once afforded by the ability to buy a good, reasonable-size truck that you could work on yourself and own fully. You can learn a lot about why people feel so alienated in our economy if you ask around about the pickup truck market.
Instead, the authors of “White Rural Rage” consulted data and an expert to argue that driving a pickup reflects a desire to “stay atop society’s hierarchy,” but they do not actually try to reckon much with the problem that passage raises — that consumer choices, such as buying trucks, have become a way for many Americans to express the deep attachment they have to a life rooted in the physical world. A reader might conclude that people who want a vehicle to pull a boat or haul mulch are misguided, or even dangerous. And a party led by people who believe that is doomed among rural voters, the Midwestern working class and probably American men in general.
> The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility.
Not really true. Something like an F150/250/350 is absolutely built for utility. It's popular for a reason. It's just not used for utility by a large number of buyers. It's a "pavement princess".
The Cybertruck is an objectively bad product for many reasons of which utility is pretty high up there.
For example, it's really heavy because of the steel body yet it has an aluminium frame. The problem with aluminium is that it deforms with stress in a way that steel doesn't. Why does this matter? If you're towing a heavy load over rough terrain the frame is going to face large forces up and down that will end up snapping that frame.
> It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner.
That's a funny example because it shows you know just as much about watches as you do about trucks, which is to say nothing.
Sure, finance bros might buy Submariners but that doesn't change the fact that it's a very robust product designed for diving, originally. Now the need for that has been diminished because we now have dive computers, quartz dive watches and such and you can argue it's not worth ~$10k or that there as good or better options for less (which there are) but it's still an excellent product with many years of design to suit its original purpose.
Even if you use a dive computer as an experienced diver, you'll generally also have a dive watch because computers can fail [1].
> I say all of that to say that making a pickup truck for that market segment isn't a bad idea from a numbers perspective
So we have luxury SUVs where once the SUV was a commercial vehicle (eg Toyota Land Cruiser) and they may sacrifice some of the features such vehicles originally had (eg AWD) but the trades are made for a product that people want.
So yes, you could make an equivalent truck and say it has a market. Maybe it does. But even if it does, the Cybertruck isn't it. Because it's a terrible product for every purpose other than an expensive demonstration of your political leanings.
> That's a funny example because it shows you know just as much about watches as you do about trucks, which is to say nothing.
Nice ad hominem. No diver is buying a Submariner specifically as a backup for their dive computer for the exact reasons that you went on to outline in your post. It's a textbook Veblen good. The Chinese can build a mechanical Sub clone that keeps the same time as a real one for $100. Swatch (via Omega) builds a more technically-impressive dive watch at a fraction of the price. Oris makes one with an analog depth gauge for even less than the SMP. All of them are more inaccurate and less reliable than anything quartz or digital.
Rolexes stopped being tool watches a few years into their post-Quartz crisis recovery. My GC buddy drives a Tundra. Fleets of white collar workers drive Crew Cab F-150s with wheels more expensive than the worthless Regular Cab I had years ago. No need to get twisted up about it.
I had a 2008 Tundra I sold when I moved to the EU not too long ago. Still miss it. It was big, but could easily tow my boat or haul anything I needed. Was a 4 door and had a full sized bed. Had 125k miles when I sold it, and still ran great.
I would have gotten a Tacoma, but I need the extra towing capacity.
I searched this thread for "Tacoma" to see if anyone was mentioning this. (A few other comments had similar sentiments as well.) It's so true. I live half a block from an auto shop that is well patronized by small-time gardeners, contractors, etc. A sizable proportion of the vehicles there at any time are 20- to 30-year-old Tacomas.
A working truck should be max utility. Around the core market of "working trucks," there are various wannabe truck products that do not have to be max utility. For example, a Subaru Brat or a Hyundai Santa Fe. Niche products compared to an F-150, but they had/have their fans.
I personally can't stand the design, but the idea of an impractical "halo vehicle" that appeals to a niche audience but burnishes the brand as "forward-looking" is not a bad one. It's just the execution of this particular halo vehicle that I would have a problem with were I in the market for a lifestyle look-at-me vehicle.
All trucks should be working trucks. There is no reason to drive something that large and heavy that isn't better served by smaller vehicles that don't damage our shared infrastructure while being safer to drive.
Oh sure, but look at the vast popularity of these monstrosities that never even see gravel. I get how you (and I) find that abhorrent, but there's clearly LOTS of folks that find a blinged out useless luxury pretend truck to be very attractive.
I was in the market for a pickup recently. I had wanted to like the Cybertruck, but ... too damn ugly, too version 0.3, too many dweebs driving them, too many teething issues even for a first cut. Plus it's as heavy as an F-250. There's almost no actual reason to grab one besides it being electric. Since I drive so little, I'd never pay back the embedded energy it takes to make the thing - so even that isn't a selling point.
So instead I got a used Tacoma, and disappeared into the ocean of Tacomas that exist here in the PNW. It could be worse :)
Trucks don't have to see gravel to be working trucks.
If you use a truck for work purposes once a year it is likely cheaper to just drive a truck for everything than have a second car. Don't say rent a truck is an option - you probably can't rent a truck for most work purposes - most rentals have fine print against that, even if you can find a place to rent a truck the cost quickly gets to more than just owning your own truck.
Are you in the US? Most Home Depot locations will rent you one of several sizes of work truck for as low as $20 for a quick there-and-back of 75 minutes, or ~$100-200 for a day. I understand Lowe’s to do something similar. U-Haul does trucks.
And if your needs are more ambitious, there’s Sunbelt Rentals through much of the country and Enterprise’s Trucks arm as opposed to their more consumer-familiar operation.
If I’m using it once a year, I’ll splurge for a bigass 1 ton 4x4 which Enterprise Trucks is currently listing for $139 a day including 150 miles… and in 100 years, have spent the $13,900 difference between a dweeby little smarte car and owning my own pickup
Not that there’s the least thing wrong with just preferring to own one, just options that I wish I’d known about earlier in life.
Have you read the contract with Home Depot? You can't use their trucks for anything other than hauling your purchased from Home Depot home.
I haven't see the contract with enterprise trucks, but I suspect it is similarity restricted against the type of damage this is normal from using a truck for work. You can at least tow a trailer with them. Their locations are not convenient for me either.
I have thoroughly audited Home Depot truck contracts many times and don't believe this to be true. Do you have a source? I have never seen "secret" fine print beyond the agreement which is embedded badly in https://www.homedepot.com/c/Tool_Rental_FAQ . People use these trucks for work all the time, and I use their trailers very frequently to haul all sorts of things.
EDIT: I realized I have plenty of these contracts archived and don't need to believe HN conspiracy theorists:
(a) Use Restrictions. The following restrictions apply to the use of the Vehicle:
• The Vehicle will not be operated by anyone who is not an Authorized Driver;
• All occupants in the Vehicle must comply with seat-belt and child-restraint laws;
• The number of passengers in the Vehicle will not exceed the number of seat-belts and child-restraints;
• Renter will only operate the Vehicle on regularly maintained roadways;
• Renter will ensure that keys are not left in the Vehicle and will close and lock all doors and windows upon exiting the Vehicle;
• Renter will not (i) transport people or property for hire; (ii) tow anything (with the exception of an attached trailer if rented pursuant to this
Agreement); (iii) carry or transport hazardous or explosive substances; (iv) engage in a speed contest; or (v) load the Vehicle or transport
weight exceeding the Vehicle’s maximum capacity;
• Renter will not engage in reckless misconduct which causes the Vehicle damages or causes personal injury or property damage; and
• Renter will not use the Vehicle for the commission of a felony or for the transportation of illegal drugs or contraband.
So unless you are trying to reuse the vehicle for hire or tow a non-Home-Depot trailer (which I admit is kind of restrictive, but nothing like what the parent post says), it seems fine.
For a truck you rent in an at least semi-urban area by the hour it’s never mattered for me, it’s always covered all of the “I live in a city but need a pickup truck” cases like picking up landscaping materials, appliances, large furniture, and so on - a lot more than “just being allowed to bring stuff home from home depot.” Since I drive an SUV which can tow now I just do the opposite and rent a trailer when I would have needed a pickup bed, which also works well.
I’m actually far from a pickup truck hater; they certainly have their place (my parents live in a rural area and I can’t really see them not having one), and I occasionally miss owning one, but I’ve never managed to make the economics come even close to balancing out vs. renting for myself.
Yep. Renting a truck where you could actually haul a load of dirt or mulch, or tow anything, you will need to go to with a "commercial" rental which will be 5x the rate for a consumer rental or "Home Depot" truck rental. The Home Depot/consumer trucks don't even have a tow hitch.
LOL, the Home Depot flatbed I rented a week ago (the $19 deal although I went a little long and ended up paying $32 total) had just hauled a load of dirt or mulch. No one read me anything saying I couldn't use it for purposes other than carrying a Home Depot purchased item (although that's what I was doing). The HD page for the F250 flatbed does say they only supply a hitch if you are renting something towable from them but says nothing about using it for other purposes (like hauling dirt).
even if you can find a place to rent a truck the cost quickly gets to more than
just owning your own truck.
What? I regularly rent a Lowe's truck when I need one (tends to be every year or two) to move mulch, furniture, whatever. I don't understand this take.
I have not read the contract with Lowe's - but I know home depot's contract states that you can only use the truck to take things you by at Home Depot home. If there is an accident you could be in big legal trouble with your rental use (so long as there isn't one they might not care)
I hope someone fully capitalizes on what Edison is trying to do up in Canada.
That is a fully electric drive train hybrid. That way you can charge it at home and charge it with a generator under use. Problem is our current laws are making certifications a mess.
A decent SUV can get you by in a pinch. A “normal sized” truck, is exactly what you take off road - yes you might have to do some modding, upgrades, but I don’t understand this take. And I’ve been around many a truck at the top of a gnarly mountain.
I must be misunderstanding what you’re saying here. Even rock crawlers aren’t typically using F250 and larger truck sizes.
> It’s all but impossible to go into any rural bar in America today, ask for thoughts on pickup trucks and not hear complaints about the size of trucks these days, about touch-screens and silly gimmicks manufacturers use to justify their ballooning prices. Our economy, awash in cheap capital, has turned quality used trucks into something like a luxury asset class.
> It’s often more affordable in the near-term to buy a new truck than a reliable used one. Manufacturers are incentivized by federal regulations, and by the basic imperatives of the thing economy, to produce ever-bigger trucks for ever-higher prices to lock people into a cycle of consumption and debt that often lasts a lifetime.
> This looks like progress, in G.D.P. figures, but we are rapidly grinding away the freedom and agency once afforded by the ability to buy a good, reasonable-size truck that you could work on yourself and own fully. You can learn a lot about why people feel so alienated in our economy if you ask around about the pickup truck market.
> Instead, the authors of “White Rural Rage” consulted data and an expert to argue that driving a pickup reflects a desire to “stay atop society’s hierarchy,” but they do not actually try to reckon much with the problem that passage raises — that consumer choices, such as buying trucks, have become a way for many Americans to express the deep attachment they have to a life rooted in the physical world. A reader might conclude that people who want a vehicle to pull a boat or haul mulch are misguided, or even dangerous. And a party led by people who believe that is doomed among rural voters, the Midwestern working class and probably American men in general.
> This approach to politics governed by data and experts is what we mean when we talk about technocracy. It’s a system that no longer really functions today because the broad societal trust that once allowed data and experts to guide political choices has broken down. Democrats, increasingly, live in a world where data and researchers convincingly show that low-wage immigration raises the economy and our gun laws are reckless and misguided.
> A reader might conclude that people who want a vehicle to pull a boat or haul mulch are misguided, or even dangerous.
How about I just conclude that while pulling a boat or hauling mulch are completely OK things to want a vehicle for (*), one does not need a F150 with a front end that reaches my chest and has gas mileage to prove it.
As many have noted, pickups like the 90s Toyotas did these things just fine for almost everyone, but most US based manufacturers have stopped making them.
Me noting that doesn't make me part of the doom of the political party I always vote for.
(*) to the extent that we live in a society where private ownership of vehicles is completely unremarkable, that is. And we do, for the foreseeable future.
> How about I just conclude that while pulling a boat or hauling mulch are completely OK things to want a vehicle for (*), one does not need a F150 with a front end that reaches my chest and has gas mileage to prove it.
Did you miss like the entire first half of the quoted passage? Because it kinda sounds like you're judging the people buying the trucks.
One buys from the options the market gives them, and the market often does not optimize for what consumers want. It optimizes for barely tolerable products that maximize profit.
A Maverick is hardly a working truck. It's got the same towing capacity of an older Kia Sportage. It's got front wheel drive (or awd). It's a car with a bed, not a truck.
I don't get this attitude. Everyone criticizes auto companies for not making a small truck anymore, and then Ford comes out with the Maverick and then you say it doesn't have enough towing capacity. It can tow 4000 lbs. That covers a whole lot of use cases. It also has a payload capacity of 1500 lbs which is quite respectable for a small truck. As for FWD vs. RWD, who cares? How does that affect your ability to move things around?
Really the only thing I think you can ding it for is the small bed. It used to be that trucks this size would have a regular cab or an extended cab with the two tiny side facing seats, and they would have a longer bed. With the tailgate down you can still move sheet goods with a Maverick though.
I get your point, but those tow numbers are notoriously optimistic. Most people I bet would not be comfortable towing 4000 lbs with a Maverick, and it would struggle on grades or in heat. You can even feel that kind of weight with a full-size truck. Above 5000 lbs in most places you need independent trailer brakes.
The real issue that limits the Maverick for a wider audience is the rear is too small to comfortably fit kids, especially in car seats. Adding 4 in of leg room to the rear and making the whole truck 4 in longer would've made in a great homeowner family option without sacrificing much agility.
Most people don't need to tow 4000 lbs period. If I had a Maverick and needed to tow 4000 lbs I would absolutely do it though. I've towed more than that in an older Tacoma that's not that different from the Maverick. Would I do it at 75mph? Probably not. Would I be towing 4000 lbs going 65 up an 8% grade in the heat at high altitude in Arizona? Again probably not, but the idea that a small truck needs to be able to do everything is just against the concept of a small truck. If you must have the ability to do that, get something bigger.
I agree that the Maverick's bed is small and the back seat is small. IMO they would have been better off making a regular cab or an "access cab" thing with two doors and fold-down seats, and used the extra length to add to the bed. Those are great if you're single or don't have kids, and you just need to carry passengers very occasionally. If you're regularly hauling kids around you definitely want the next step up. A lot of tradesmen essentially never even use the passenger seat though, and the back seat is just lost bed space unless you're using it for locked storage.
People want smaller, not weaker, trucks. The 1985 Ford ranger compact truck could tow over 3000 lbs base, and over 5000 with upgrades.
The Maverick only tows 2000 base, the 4000 is an upgrade package and only for trailers with their own brakes.
RWD is pretty functionally important for a vehicle to maintain control while towing significant weight, as all the weight sits on the back of the frame, and that's where you want the engine power to go.
The Maverick is not a working truck, which was my original point. In terms of what matters, it is worse in every way than a 40 year old design.
You need to have AWD for the Maverick to have the 4000 lbs rating. It's going to be sending power to the rear wheels when you're towing.
You can't really compare the tow ratings with a 1985 Ranger. Back then the ratings were not standardized and were generally inflated for marketing purposes. Today tow ratings are standardized by SAE J2807. The Maverick has way more power than the old Ranger and weighs about 600 lbs more, plus it has trailer sway control. You're going to have a much easier time towing 4000 lbs in the Maverick than the Ranger.
Edit: The Maverick also has 300 lbs more payload capacity than the 1984 Ranger. The fact is, not everyone needs a giant heavy truck. I see loads of tradesmen driving Mavericks.
The '22 ranger tows up to 7500, payload 1500. Sure, bed is only 5-6 feet, but is 4x4, and interior feels good, and is about as bougie as the big F gets. Had it down to 12L/100km, a full tank gave me a 700km range at that point. Fits my family of 5 when it needs to. I would buy one again e-z.
Grabbed it in '25 with factory warranty still on it for about the price of a new maverick.
Several times a year at a minimum, and not always with good notice.
Towing weight is also a good proxy for frame strength. I do some light forestry work moving and bucking logs, freeing stuck cars, plowing snow in addition to towing trailers and equipment.
I didn't really trust it for some of the logs I was moving, as the trailer hitch was added on after and the frame isn't really designed for shocks like what I was putting it through. On top of that, hauling messy stuff in the back was a pain with having to lay down tarp and hoping it caught everything and didn't rip.
Plus, you can't really put a winch or snow plow on a Sportage.
If it's able to have a trailer hitch fitted, it's designed to have a trailer hitch fitted. You can't just stick it on with a couple of random holes drilled and a bolt through.
I always find it kind of surprising how large a vehicle people in the US think they need to pull trailers, especially when you compare with the size of trailers people pull in the UK. My own elderly Range Rover (1990s P38A) has a plated towing weight of 3500kg which means you can pull another one on a trailer with it easily. With the back full of tools and spares and a couple of passengers, you've got an all-up weight well over six tonnes!
There are different sized trucks for different purposes. A Maverick or Kei truck is lighter and safer than a lot of cars on the road while being way more useful.
Maverick has a tiny bed (4.5 foot) whereas kei trucks can have up to 7 foot beds. I really wish we did small trucks with bigger beds here in North America. Really all I want is a hilux champ.
The Subaru Brat was not a large and heavy vehicle, and the Santa Cruz is basically an SUV with a bed instead of a third row. Niche vehicles do not have to be Hummers.
Some of the motivations to get vehicles like that, like being up higher than everyone and having more mass in a collision, are solidly tragedy of the commons.
Reply to the sibling comment about little to no negative externalities:
Sports cars sure do have negative externalities. I live next to a custom car mod shop in the boonies. People hoon around here like there's no one else alive. They put my life and the lives of my family at risk on the regular. That is most definitely a negative externality.
Sure, if you’re talking about high-power trucks (F350, Ram 3500). A Ford Maverick hybrid will get far better fuel consumption.
I think more sports cars are burning out, revving loudly (or getting modified to take out their mufflers), and the damage from going a lot faster creates more damage.
It might depend on where you live. Nine times out of then when a vehicle with an obnoxiously loud and high revved gear vehicle drives by it's a truck. Probably more like 95% of the time.
It’s crazy to me. If you hate automobiles, trucks still make the most sense- if you’re just carrying people and a grocery or two you should probably be on a bike or ebike.
That is quite a European take there. Most places in the US do not have safe pedestrian infrastructure mandating "share the road" policies with bicycles which puts you into direct contact with motor vehicle traffic, and suburban spread means you're probably not close enough to walk to your grocer.
In the same line of thinking we wouldn't be able to do anything for fun at all, since our very presence increases the living cost for everyone else. When we stand in the same line for ice cream, you're making it take longer to get mine, especially if you also have kids. Should kids be allowed in line for ice cream? They've made our shared line take longer and our shared source of ice cream more expensive.
This is a modern society in which we must live and let live. That core value of tolerance, which preserves our personal freedoms, deserves to be weighed as much and more than our shared infrastructure, imo.
I can't speak for the Santa Fe, but most Brat owners admit they have no intention of using it as a utility vehicle. The same cannot be said for most F-150 owners I know.
The problem is as soon as you go EV, you use a lot of utility from the get go. With a truck specifically, because its a brick aerodynamically. There is no reason to buy a Cybertruck or Lightning when you can get a gas or hybrid F150 (or a Raptor) for a little bit more, and be able to sit at 80 mph on highways without worrying about range.
The biggest suprise about the lightning is that Ford didn't put in a gas engine in it as a range extender. They have 3 cylinder ecoboost engines that would have been perfect for that.
My brother has one, it is an amazing vehicle with better range performance than Tesla. It's dramatically better in the snow. Towing of large loads is a valid downside, but reality is that most people don't tow, and people who do are probably fine with 80% of the use cases (construction trailers, lawn trailers, etc).
The business problem Tesla solved at Ford cannot is the dealer network. He pre-ordered his, and the dealer he was stuck with tried to rip him off like 4 different ways.
The other issue is that car guys are afraid of electric, as the entire supporting industry is essentially obsolete. It's hard to get excited about something that will take away your ability to pay your mortgage. Every car dealer employee and mechanic knows that.
Electric cars still need maintenance. They don't get regular oil changes, but they wear out tires sooner. They have more recalls in general than ICE (this will likely change, but manufactures are still learning how to make EVs reliable). The parts of a car that are not common with EVs don't break for the first 100k miles, and almost nobody is using the dealer for cars that old. There is plenty of other work that is common that dealers will still need to do.
Your argument hinges on any level of maintenance being enough to maintain our current level of investment. The truth is always more complicated.
Take for example DVD rental. The market completely evaporated, while there is still a small lingering community that could be serviced by rentals. My local library is proof that there is a market. But there are, bar some weird exceptions, no remaining DVD rental stores.
If an EV needs 50% of the maintenance, then it stands to reason that you need 50% of the staff. That's the easy part. But what about all the other staff? Can you afford as many staff in front of house when your main profit centre shrank massively? Can you keep the same amount of cars in the lot if you don't have the cash to pay the manufacturer fees?
I'm sure that some mechanics will need to go. However a lot of them will still remain because there are a lot of cars and a lot that can go wrong that is common. There are also potential new failure modes, though only time will tell.
It displaces well paid mechanic jobs with greasemonkey stuff.
It's not bad for consumers, but a significant amount of the economy is maintaining cars. It's the same thing that happened when emissions standards made cars more reliable. The corner repair shop was displaced by convenience stores, and repair consolidated.
This is dependent on how you drive them. EVs are fun, so you get a disproportionate number of people driving them aggressively. That's hard on tires. If you drive normal, you get normal tire life.
Yes, but typically by a small margin. Close enough that tire wear is dominated by driving style. The problem is that instant torque is simultaneously addictive and also maximally damaging to tire tread.
They weigh slightly more than a similar ICE vehicle. And why would drafting a big rig increase tire wear? The problem I mentioned was that EV drivers frequently drive more aggressively because it's intoxicating to be able to silently dust basically every other car on the road that isn't another EV. Those people do have tire wear issues :). And they're not drafting a big rig...
Here's a different aspect of utility: The F150 Lightning includes 120V and optionally 240V outlets, so it replaces the need to carry a separate gas-powered generator.
That's probably more relevant to fleet vehicles for construction and maintenance firms than to individuals towing boats. But just to offer an example of how the F150 Lightning is a great fit for certain uses.
I'm surprised it didn't sell based on that. 20 years ago when I was in construction the truck drove at most 130 miles per day (we made sure to work 14 hour days when we were going to spend an hour on the road - the crew hated those jobs), but typically more like 30. The the first thing we did was pull the generator out of the truck and started it. If would could just plug into the truck that would have saved a lot of space/weight in the truck, it seems like a no-brainer.
Then again, all the construction sites I see these days have mains power on a post, which we never had back then (I don't live in the same state so I don't know if this is universal or just this area has always been different).
I just read about the hybrid F150. I didn't know about it until recently I guess because of all the press the Lightning received. The hybrid works the best for me. My state also charges a lot less yearly registration for a hybrid compared to an EV.
7.2kW could run most of my house for days, and it wouldn't be very loud I guess.
The only question is range when those rural folks go to the big city (if less than an hour they do this once a week because groceries in the suburbs of a big city are so much cheaper. If farther than that they still go once a month because of things they can't get. Though I don't know anyone who lives so far out that they can't get to a city and back in a long day.
Otherwise rural folks often have something to fix on the other side of their property that needs tools. Cordless tools do a lot but sometimes are not enough.
> Here's a different aspect of utility: The F150 Lightning includes 120V and optionally 240V outlets, so it replaces the need to carry a separate gas-powered generator.
A small generator costs few hundred bucks and fits comfortably in any truck actually used for work. It's a small perk that some pro users would probably pay for, but it's not a selling point for a radically different car design.
it's a few hundred bucks, an extra thing to remember, takes up bed space, requires bringing gas, and is loud and annoying to use. It's not the biggest thing, but it's a pretty nice value add.
I mean, if you bought a Cybertruck, you've already given up on a ton of bed space. I'm not saying that a built-in power source isn't nice, but I doubt it swayed any minds.
The thing is, charging an EV in todays age is something that takes planning. Its not as easy as getting gas. For most people that end up at their house every night. For people that use their vehicles more, it becomes more of a problem. If you are going somewhere overnight, you have to make sure that place has charging.
For fleet vehicles this is the same story. You have no idea what kinda bullshit circumstances you are going to run into, and investing in EVs is just not worth it at this point when a F150 XLT or XL + Honda generator suffices.
Until that trend flips where fast charging takes the same time as gas station stop (or automakers start putting small gas engines in their vehicles) EVs are always going to lag behind gas vehicles.
> "The biggest suprise about the lightning is that Ford didn't put in a gas engine in it as a range extender."
From a manufacturing perspective, adding a range extender does add a lot of cost and complexity. And from an ownership perspective it adds a lot of service, maintenance and reliability considerations that you don't have with a pure EV.
But in any case, this is exactly what they're doing: replacing the Lightning with a range extender ("EREV") plug-in hybrid. But a new all-electric truck based on Ford's upcoming, cheaper "Universal EV platform" is also due in 2027.
You have one reason listed, which is going 80mph (which is illegal in most states). They also can't tow long distances easily, but are superior in nearly every other way.
Most of the places where you would realistically use a truck have highways that are at least 75 mph. And its not the 80 mph thats important, its the fact that the faster you try to get to the destination, the more the range drains, which conversely takes you longer to get to the destination if you consider charging time.
As the owner of a rusty 1985 pickup with manual windows and no radio, I can tell you there is great demand for utility pickup trucks that the manufacturers WILL NOT MAKE.
The first problem is CAFE rules. Congress legislated the light pickup truck out of existence. To get around CAFE rules, manufacturers increased the size of trucks and added a back row so they could be reclassified in a way that skirted CAFE rules.
However, there's a big demand for pickups, so people bought these because they needed trucks, and nothing else was available. Manufacturers took advantage of demand and started adding features normal pickup drivers didn't want or need, to access a high-market class of buyers. "Where else are you gonna go?"
$100k pickups, here we are.
Manufacturers are in no hurry to go back to the low-margin pickup days, even though that is what classic pickup buyers actually want.
> A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
> 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.
I wonder if there are any other countries in the world where the best-selling automobile is something completely impractical? Or are Americans unique in that regard?
Serious question. I can't think of any, but I'm also not familiar with car markets the world over. In Japan, for example, the best-selling car is the Honda N-BOX [1], which is an incredibly practical car.
I think the reason this take gets push-back in discussions (including here) is that it's highly regional.
I've lived in parts of the US where I doubt more than 10% of pickup trucks on the road (and there were a lot of them) were really justifiable purchases as trucks. They were aspirational purchases, and/or were selected for status/class/politics signaling.
I've lived other places in the US where the whole region had far fewer trucks (but a hell of a lot more Volvos... like, easily 10x as many as the other place) where I bet at least 50% of pickup trucks saw enough truck-use to really be justifiable.
This. Where I live the suburban dads wouldn't be caught dead projecting the "fullsize truck owner" image. They buy a Tacoma. Or they did until the Maverick came out.
Usually the imagined uses are very aspirational at best. The imagination doesn't fit reality. I've seen it firsthand, many years ago my dad got the fancy pickup because he "needs the utility." Whenever an opportunity presented itself for him to use his truck as a truck though, he'd pay the extra fee for delivery because he didn't wanna bother.
It did make his reckless driving more dangerous for the innocents, though.
I'll go further, Most Americans who buy stuff like boats don't use them anywhere near enough to justify the purchase. I'm pretty sure well less than 30% of boats are being used at least once a year.
America is so full of hoarding and objects that go years without anyone touching them. It's profoundly sad.
You can have all the weird lifestyle preferences you want that don't involve conspicuous waste of natural resources and accelerating anthropogenic climate change.
It’s very hard to not see how any resource using activity falls in that bucket including: boating, shopping, having kids, going on vacation, having a home, ordering exotic things, eating at restaurants, using AI, etc.
The primary limiter is on how many resources we give people.
Tax carbon and we can ration it out using market prices. But yes, many of those things are also carbon-intensive lifestyle choices, but some are more valuable than others.
> You can have all the weird lifestyle preferences you want that don't involve conspicuous waste of natural resources and accelerating anthropogenic climate change.
you’re right.
but I’m still not changing my habits. fuck the environment
I find most people with critical looks at trucks have not looked at their own habits the most. Some have but I bet there are a lot of meat eaters here talking about how wasteful trucks are.
>A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
How do you even define that? Give it a heavy duty bed and you're wasting weight that could be put toward hauling/towing capacities (and lord knows how people here would feel about ignoring those). A big engine for "reasonable driving" when fully loaded guzzles fuel.
I don't know much about car economics but I'd think Tesla probably should have built a truck to sell as a fleet vehicle first. There are very few car brands that aren't part of a larger entity doing b2b vehicle sales.
I remember the unveiling (loved the "bullet proof" glass demo). That was before I understood who Elon really was and I was pro Tesla. I never would have bought such an ugly vehicle, and I don't normally use looks to evaluate a potential ride.
Heartbreaking but true. The most popular pickups today are not the most useful pickups. There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US.
Pickups are a little bit interesting in this regard. For any given model (eg: Tacoma, Frontier, etc.) the more premium the truck, the worse it is at being a truck. Each feature you add reduces its payload, and in the case of the Frontier, you could drop from a 6' bed with ~1,600 lbs of payload on the base model all the way down to a 5' bed with ~900 lbs of payload for the most premium offroad model.
I would be willing to say that a small Japanese kei truck is more than the average American would ever need for hauling furnishings, appliances and lumber. If you really need something bigger renting a trailer or truck is dirt cheap
>If you really need something bigger renting a trailer or truck is dirt cheap
It’s neither convenient nor cheap to rent a trailer in much of the US. Major cities have options, rural areas less so. Full disclosure I have a mid-sized pickup, but I recently looked into renting a trailer for a landscaping project that was above the weight limit for my truck. First issue I ran into was that there were not any trailers available for rent anywhere near my location. Second issue was that after factoring in driving distance + rental cost + dump fees, it was ~ the same price just to pay a junk company to haul the materials…and it was not cheap. Anecdotally, my pickup was cheaper than most other vehicle options at the time I bought it, my commute is short (so fuel economy is less an issue), and as a homeowner I use the bed to haul something at least once/month (Unfortunately kei trucks weren’t available at the time). So the cost/benefit/convenience factor of owning a truck over renting a trailer works for me. YMMV.
Yeah, I cannot speak for rural US as much, I live in a large metropolitan area, and I would estimate around 1/5th cars here are pickups. You can rent a truck from Home Depot for as low as $100 a day.
I found out a couple of years ago that you cannot rent a vehicle and use it to tow. This is a major barrier to the argument "when you need to tow <X> just rent a vehicle that can do that" (an argument I would like to support).
I found this out recently as well, and it's really interesting since it must mean that a lot of these "just rent a truck when you need to tow" claims must have been unfounded.
I agree with you on the kei truck. They are pretty darn tough, and have so many uses.
However, they are TINY inside. If you are taller 6'1" and/or heavier than 200lbs, it is a tight squeeze, especially for anything longer than 30 minutes. The "average American" can't fit it a kei truck.
Also, the weird manliness of the average American man would make this truck unsuccessful, simply because it is too small. Which is hilarious, because some of the most resourceful, strongest, reliable and adventurous men I have met drive kei trucks.
I guess finally, the big highways with longhaul trucks and fast speeds are not so good in a k-truck.
Except most people also use trucks as daily driver vehicles. You can't exactly fit the wife and kids in a kei. Sure you could also own a car for that but now I need to own/store 2 vehicles instead of one.
Yeah let's not pretend every family with a truck only owns one vehicle. Most families already have a second car anyways. Especially people spending $60k+ on a truck.
That is my argument for EVs as well. One truck with an ICE for take the whole family on long trips, or towing. Then an EV for everyone else - whoever is making the long trip that day gets the truck.
Truck works well for those role because it can do so much. It isn't the best for most of those, but it can do them.
>Heartbreaking but true. The most popular pickups today are not the most useful pickups. There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US.
Any OEM will happily sell you a white vinyl floor half ton with your preferred cab/bed/engine/drivetrain configuration.
The GMC 4cyl 1500s were stupid cheap for awhile, because they shat out a bunch for CAFE and weren't selling so they were going for like 25-30k going into the new model year. I wanna say this was 2024 into 25, maybe 23 into 24, idk.
Ford Maverick seems to fit the bill for compact stuff though I suspect it may make the goalposts zip to "single cab option" and "body on frame"
I decide if you need to have a step on your bumper because the truck is too high to get anything in and out of it. Lowering my truck made it way easier to load and unload.
I used to fairly often carry 2x4x8 and 4x4x8 in a Toyota Matrix (Corolla wagon) with the hatch closed. Couldn't do a full-width sheet of plywood, though.
Yes, with room to spare. I assume the grandparent was referring to a stud, i.e. the nominal "2x4" that is 1.5x3.5inches in cross section and 8 feet long :-) Sadly I cannot fit 4x8 sheet goods though I haven't tried very hard. I can definitely fit them if I ask nicely for a lengthwise cut, so I end up with 2' wide 8' strips. Those I can fit and close the hatch.
Ford had a terrible but well packaging rear suspension design in those cars. It was designed to not have strut towers so he gets the full width which is probably around 4ft.
No way does the length check out though. I haul lumber in a similar size car and 8ft is basically trunk to dash so there's no way he's hauling an 8ft by 4ft sheet without it conflicting with the driver's seat if not torso.
Individual boards should fit in just about anything though.
> There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US.
What makes you say this? The F-150 series has a pretty serviceable option in their XL trim. 8ft bed, 4x4, "dumb" interior (maybe not, looking at their site looks like the most recent is iPad screen, sigh) - but what else would you look for to call it utilitarian?
You're right that each feature is further limiting, but I would argue premium and utilitarian are reaching for opposite goals.
A F-150 from the previous century is much utilitarian than today's F-150's. The bed height and rail height are much more reasonable heights -- you can reach into the bed from the side.
I would argue that the first couple of these could be considered "features." Not sure what you mean about the bench seat - the "regular cab" configuration is a 3 person bench.
I drive a wagon. Of course wagon owners talk about the utility. And yet, you can buy a wagon with a twin-turbo V8 engine. What's the "sportwagon" segment all about? Certainly not going to Home Depot to buy four toilets for the new house, it's about putting your $15,000 Cannondale Black Ink MTB on the roof and swanking up to the trailhead.
I drive a wagon, among other vehicles. I live in a "tech area" of the country.
Last weekend I hauled ~700lb of rebar on the roof (because they come in 20ft sticks so the wagon is the best choice). The number of dirty looks I got was off the charts. The same exact demographics that are in here shitting on pickups were judging me for not using one. Good thing I don't give a shit what anyone else thinks.
I'm a wagon-person. I picked up four new toilets when I moved into my home, take as many as four bikes to the trailhead, and our full-sized Chesapeake Bay Retriever likes having the entire "trunk" area to himself.
I also do not allow my lifted pickup and Model Y neighbours to choose my vehicle for me.
It's about drag racing on the way to your Jiu-Jitsu club with the baby seats in the back. And still being able to fit that new vanity from Home Depot in on your way back home!
You may underestimate how much consumption some people in the US have and why a Camry wouldn't work. Hell, for the amount of hobby project stuff I bring home on a bi-weekly basis a car just doesn't cut it. Then again, I'm not sure where I fit in the average population.
It's not even "stuff I bring home". There's just never ending amount of shit that needs to be schlepped around. Sometimes I wish I lived in a condo, leased a Prius and golfed for a hobby.
I struggle to think what vehicle has more all around utility (by my own definition) than my Lightning. The only things it does not do well is tow 300 miles, and drive in NYC. Neither of which are on my requirements list.
> ... most pickup trucks aren't designed for maximum utility. They're designed to sell a lifestyle.
Yes, but that lifestyle can and sometimes does include actual needs for some of the utility. There is a great observation from Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat from Washington’s 3rd District in an NYT piece a couple of days ago. I included a perhaps too long quote in lieu of apologizing for the paywall.
> “Spreadsheets can contain a part of truth,” Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez told me. “But never all of truth.”
> Looking to illustrate this, I bought the recent book “White Rural Rage” and opened it more or less at random to a passage about rural pickup trucks. It cites a rich portfolio of data and even a scholarly expert on the psychology of truck purchasers, to make what might seem like an obvious point — that it’s inefficient and deluded for rural and suburban men to choose trucks as their daily driving vehicles. The passage never does explain, though, how you’re supposed to haul an elk carcass or pull a cargo trailer without one.
If I mostly trim my hedges, but sometimes, very rarely, need to cut down small trees, am I best served by simply owning a hedge-trimmer and renting a chainsaw or other appropriate tool when necessary, or by buying a katana for both jobs?
Everybody knows why you bought the katana. We know you have a story to tell yourself, it's just not convincing.
> and renting a chainsaw or other appropriate tool when necessary,
I don't think most people realize how expensive and time consuming tool rental is.
This is where things also get kind of messy in the US. In manicured suburbs you probably don't need a chainsaw. But in older growth and places with larger lots you really do need one. If you wait till you need one after a big storm, you may travel 100 miles out of the storm damage to find one to rent or have to wait for weeks as your driveway is blocked and contractors are booked up.
For me the utility function is somewhere in between a car and a truck, hence why I have an SUV. I can carry the large boxes/items I seem to have at a regular basis. When I need something bigger I can rent a trailer to hook to it. Trucks themselves are way too expensive now, and I don't need that much capacity. A car would have me constantly renting or borrowing one from someone else (which I did when I owned a car and it was a pain in the ass).
We recently moved to a more rural location that has needed more tools. It is shocking just how expensive and inconvenient it is to rent tools (and even vehicles to some extent) and just how much worse it is being even just a little bit rural.
The big box store in our town doesn't rent tools or vehicles. You have to drive 45-60 minutes to get to a store that does. This means the 4 hour rental prices (which for something like a wood chipper or chain saw might be sufficient for a lot of jobs) become nearly non-viable or highly stressful rushing through unfamiliar power equipment that really shouldn't be rushed.
A full day tool rental is often 1/3 to 1/2 of the price of a new mass market version of the tool. A week rental is almost always more. The tools are rarely in great shape. You are almost always way better off going to an estate sale or local marketplace and buying a used tool. If there is a job you end up doing 2-3 times or need for more than a week its even cost effective to just buy new ones. You save so much on labor doing things yourself that even with new tools you basically always come out ahead.
The best case is that you have a community run tool library that lets you check stuff out cheaply for a week and can have a relationship with the folks that run it. Similarly, getting to know the neighbors and being able to swap/borrow stuff. For vehicles this is a little more dicey because of liability & insurance issues.
We've definitely struggled with the vehicle for long and sheet goods. We really don't need a pickup truck and it would honestly be a hazard on skinny mountain roads... but we do need to move lumber, sheet goods, appliance sized things just enough that it's a pain without one. We settled on a midsized SUV with passable towing power (as an aside, EV power and control makes towing a breeze as long as your round trip fits in one charge). Renting a trailer is still annoying, but at least can be done close by. For larger orders delivery can sometimes be cost effective (vs renting a vehicle or buying and maintaining a truck) especially because places often subsidize delivery to win business.
>A full day tool rental is often 1/3 to 1/2 of the price of a new mass market version of the tool
For sure. I had to dig some post holes in limestone that was very hard. Rental was going to be $200 for a tool that would do it in a day.
Instead I went to harbor freight and bought a tool closer to $100 even though it took me a bit longer, and I get to keep the tool which is still working to this day.
Heh, and labor costs in the Austin area are off the hook. I did a project for around $5000 that a neighbor had a similar but smaller in scope project quoted for $21,000.
People seriously underestimate how much trouble a pickup truck rental from U-Haul can be.
I’ve wasted so much time trying to track down which location near me has one available on the exact day I want to do major yard work. Often I have to reschedule my work or plan out super far in advance. Or take a day off during the week because everyone else also wants to rent trucks on the weekend. Then I’m running against the clock the whole time.
An extra $100-$200 a month car payment to have a truck instead of a crossover is totally worth it.
That's a challenging claim to justify when their output is the Cybertruck. Honestly, none of Tesla's lineup is currently impressive - it's mostly gimmicky with less than stellar build quality.
I strongly considered a Model S years ago when they first came out, but the price just didn't seem justifiable. Now? The world has moved on, and Tesla... hasn't.
Has the world moved on? While it may be anecdotal my area has only exploded with Teslas, I live in Florida for context. I see Cybertruks nearly everyday (some days I don't have to drive anywhere due to working remote). I always see a Tesla, heck, sometimes I see two or more of them at any given time, all over Central Florida I always see a Tesla somewhere, but in my area in particular it feels like "Tesla Country" at this point, and I don't see it dwindling, they just built another Tesla building near our Airport (MCO) too. Even see some bumper stickers on Teslas with "Elon" crossed out on them. Heck, my wife's own relatives have Teslas and they don't like Elon's politics, nor do they live in my area.
> it's just a bad product.
So you've never driven one?
> A pickup truck should just be max utility
You don't know much about trucks? What does this even mean, max utility? Trucks are designed for different purposes. Should we eliminate all programming languages besides bash or python?
> especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
Seems like you don't know much about business either. Most new products should NOT try to do everything at once the first time.
BINGO: the folks buying these things are doing so to virtue signal their politics. If you need a truck for work or hunting, you're still buying a truck, not some Silicon Valley concept car like the Cybertruck.
That be easier to believe if there weren't so many Model 3 and Y vehicles that are clearly the new ones (changed headlights/taillights) all around. I'm sure Elon's "political" salutes gave their sales some headwinds, but I'm inclined to think it is more like 15% less sales (Q4 2024 vs Q4 2025). The CyberTruck factory is operating at <20% capacity.
The biggest problems are: it costs ~2x what Elon said it would, it has less than half the range he said it'd have, and it has had 10 recalls in its short life.
The recalls have been for things as basic as: light bar falling off, exterior trim falling off, bed trim falling off, the acceleration pedal falling off, inverter failures. It paints a picture of a low-quality product that has a very premium price.
How do so many people justify buying the new redesign? I mean it came out after the CEO went in front of the world and gave two nazi-like salutes, then did DOGE!
Do they buy his 'autistic' defense? Do they just not care about what the CEO does and support him with their money anyways? Do they actively support his ideology?
I suspect it's likely a mix of these depending on the person, and probably more that I can't think of.
I mean they're good cars, no doubt, and it's a damn shame many decent engineers and workers put in so much effort to have it all tainted by such nasty politics.
But I cannot ignore those salutes, nor the myriad other slights starting with calling those Thai cave-diving heroes pedophiles. Tesla is dead to me, a victim of this insane time and its CEO.
> I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination.
I 1000% agree with this, in fact I love the way it looks, like something out of a SEGA Saturn game. But I would never buy one for the same reasons I would never buy any Tesla, or in fact any EV, or any post-2014 car at all. But the looks of it are not one of those reasons :)
I do have to laugh every time I see a Tesla with one of those “Bought this before we knew Elon was crazy!!” stickers, because to me they just read as “Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!”. It's weird to me to think that other people are thinking that way about their automobiles, because I bought mine (Prius C) based on its features and how they fit into my needs and my life. I guess the Prius line was a popular “statement car” of the pre-Tesla era, though, like how Brian drives one on Family Guy, or the “Smug Alert” episode of South Park, but it was never that for me.
> Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!”. I
I read it exactly the opposite. Somebody bought a car not because they were making a statement but just because they thought it was cool, only to find out later Elon was a nazi nutjob, and they don't want people to think they bought it because they share the same views.
If I told you I could save you money on fuel by making your car more efficient, then removed it's engine, you would still call that nonsense no matter how much of a gas guzzler it was before or how little fuel gets put in it now.
You just made a massive non sequitur. The government does have waste, as does any large organization, including in the private sector. Whether or not DOGE saved money needs an independent analysis, not numbers which DOGE itself produces.
Musk and Trump cut a large number of jobs and declared, without any evidence, that it was all fraud and waste. For example, they dismissed everyone who was in a probationary period, claiming these were all low-performing people. In fact, every person hired or promoted was automatically in a probation status. In many cases the fired people turned out to be critical and the government asked them to come back.
Think about this: when Enron exploded, it took a team of forensic accountants months to untangle the bookkeeping. Musk came in with a team of mostly teenage hacker types to siphon all the data from all the agencies he could and in less than 48 hours declared he had found hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and fraud. It beggars belief that Elon Musk just happens to be an accounting expert and could process terabytes of data and make sense of it in a day or two.
Another thing you should know is the founder of Gumroad, a man in his 30s and who joined DOGE in a good-faith effort to help make the government more efficient, found that things were not at all like he expected. Even if you don't believe him, he was closer to the action than Musk, has more technical knowledge than Musk, and if nothing else, offers a counter-narrative from what you apparently have bought:
After expressing his opinions he was quickly sacked by DOGE. Transparency indeed.
Oh, and many (hundreds?) of thousands of people will die each year due to loss of international aid. Meanwhile Musk was dancing around on stage like an idiot with a chainsaw thinking he was the coolest guy.
I witnessed massive fraud first hand in the DoD and the VA (the area this gumroad guy was dealing with) as a Booz Allen contractor.
I worked directly with fraudulent shell 8a firms (literally a big white dude made his Filipino American wife the CEO of like 6 people and then subcontracted to my team with a direct award minority woman owned business contract valued at a $100m).
I witnessed massive waste by VA employees at the joint MHS/VA hospital in North Chicago, IL (they sandbagged an expensive IT modernization that was trying to reduce wait times because it was going to put a bunch of local VA sys admins out of work by shifting to a gov cloud data center).
You don't know what your talking about. You don't have first hand knowledge. Nobody on the ground for years in the Federal sector agrees with you or the gumroad guy. They agree with me.
My twin brother worked at a "Native Owned" defense contractor in Arlington, and literally never saw a Native American in their office a single time. There were employees with Washington Redskins merch everywhere and nobody cared because they KNEW that the single tribe that collected the checks at the top was never going to see the office. They just subbed out work to the big consulting firms anyway.
I have endless examples from working in the beltway for 10 years. Sorry that reality doesn't line up with your political tribal beliefs.
Nonsense in how they approached things. Clinton-era we had govt. cut backs all over the place. It was done according to a plan and according to the law.
This was just a hatchet job, aimed and cutting and gutting any and every agency they thought they could get away with.
Even were I to be more charitable to your original comment, it is nihilism, which I dislike. "Don't criticize any particularly immoral component of our system, because it's all bad and resistance is futile".
You shouldn't confuse disinterest with The Spectacle and its siren song to Support or Oppose every new storyline with belief in nothing at all. I am definitely not a nihilist.
My bad. It's just that when someone criticizes a person for some small, specific action or boycott by saying "don't you know that does nothing and that other places also have their flaws", it usually comes off as nihilism and discouragement to having values.
Surely you recognize how someone could think buying a car from the company owned by a near trillionaore who helped a fascist get power and now tweets about the need for White solidarity is a bad thing.
You won't survive long without using the monetary system, but you could go your whole life without supporting many of the companies who you see as harmful. Now that money is speech and corporations are increasingly running the oligarchy there are very few levers people have left to try to influence their government. I don't think boycotting massive corporations will be any more successful than trying to get our representatives to care more about our wishes than the bribes they get from those same companies, but at least it feels like doing something.
I'm not sure how that adds to the conversation. Let's say North Korea puts out a really cool phone. Are you going to go: "yeah buying it supports a dictator who is brutal to his people but so does participating in a monetary system so nothing matters so it's okay"
I would buy a North Korea phone if it was cool, band-compatible with my domestic carrier, and wasn't embargoed (i.e. if sale was possible), yeah. I already daily a China phone and depending on who you talk to that isn't much better: https://redmagic.tech/pages/redmagic-9s-pro
It's not surprising since people don't really have meaningful representation in government and have to resort to trying to hit companies where it hurts in order effect change whether that means boycotting a car company because of a CEO, or boycotting a beer because of a trans person in an instagram ad.
Unfortunate as it is, what you buy and where you shop is very much a political statement.
He's alluded to thinking that Asians and Indians are "better" on some metrics so supremacy still seems a bit sensationalist. He certainly doesn't think all races are equal.
> You're labeling someone a "Nazi nut job" over nothing.
Nothing except his antisemitic tweets, his posts defending Hitler, his support of Alternative for Germany, his support of prominent white supremacists, his chatbot which praises Hitler, his endorsement of racist conspiracies, and the occasional "Sieg Heil". What exactly would "something" look like to you?
Being morally superior to that is an exceptionally low bar to clear and it's earned easily by everyone who rejects the hate and lies he publishes, supports, and encourages.
The man is officially a dear friend of Israel, he has never defended Hitler, he indeed supports the German far right party, his chatbot had an alignment issue that has been patched within 16 hours.
What you call a "Sieg heil" was an innocent hand gesture made once, and that hoax has been debunked by both the anti defamation league and the Israeli PM personally. You know this, yet you cannot let go of your hate.
To me it looks like Musk is overly concerned about discrimination against whites as well as woke ideology, also out of personal experience with his child.
The rest, where progressives slander Musk and label him a Nazi or, their newest addition, a pedophile, appears to be a litany of lies, like the ones just shared above.
I find it hilarious that people think this because he did some tangentially Roman-salute-esque gesture once. His political platform is nowhere near Nazism. He would actually be a much more interesting person if it were.
Selling the car is complicated by market conditions and tariffs which could make the cost of a replacement and/or the terms of the sale much worse. We can cut people some slack for making a stupid purchase under very different circumstances. They're already being punished by owning the shitty car as it is.
This seems like it is speaking from privilege. I have not even paid the car off, 5.5 years later. I am not going to sell a perfectly working (if not very good IMO) car at a loss. And buy what instead? No, I will stick with my functional but terribly unergonomic car now built by a nazi.
Let me get this straight. You bought a "statement car" but not for its statement, and then you assume that other people driving a different "statement car" bought it because of the statement?
Yes, anybody who puts a sticker on their car apologizing for owning it is somebody who bought it to make a statement. I bought mine because I researched best gas mileage, lowest ongoing maintenance cost, and dimensions that fit the the city, and that's what I came up with.
>Yes, anybody who puts a sticker on their car apologizing for owning it is somebody who bought it to make a statement.
Or the opposite, buying the car wasn't a statement at the time and they don't like that driving it feels like a statement now so they got a bumper sticker to acknowledge that their continued ownership is not a statement of support for Musk and his ideology.
So it all boils down to "No True Scotsman"? How about I offer you an alternative:
We don't try to guess why you bought what you bought, or why you need to so actively rationalize it, and you stop assuming that those stickers are something other than "Please don't key this car" signs. Less dramatically some of them are also "I bought this before the guy started throwing celebratory HiterGruß on stage and carving up important parts of the government for nonexistent savings."
Which... for people outside of your bubble is something important.
How are you defining "real ones"? Because it seems like you're implying that someone can't have political opinions while also occasionally making apolitical decisions.
Until someone who hates Elon (not saying that's wrong per se) throws a brick through the window (which IS wrong per se) and you're on the hook for paying for it.
> then you assume that other people driving a different "statement car" bought it because of the statement?
He assumed that people who drive a statement car emblazoned with a big sticker that says "HERE'S THE STATEMENT I INTENDED TO MAKE" bought it because of the statement. I think that's a reasonable assumption.
Depends on the market. In Australia Tesla is much pricier than all the Chinese options (more the norm). In my area people who would have probably bought a Tesla are looking at BMW's range.
You're right about it looking like something out of a game. I passed one wrapped in fluorescent green at a gas station the other night (owner was checking the tire pressure) and it indeed made think 'low polygon count'. I would not have been entirely surprised if the driver had looked similar.
Thing is, after the initial momentary amusement the novelty quickly evaporates. It doesn't have the compelling presence of, say, a Tumbler. https://brucewaynex.com/pages/tumbler
> “Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!”
The correct interpretation for most people is "I bought my car because it was a good car and now for reasons beyond my control it may appear to be a political statement. Also sorry for giving that guy money, I didn't know he would spend it on Trump."
I understand you don't think it's a good car, which is fine, but most people who bought one did not agree with you.
Your comment is a little confusing because you obviously understand this concept, you bought a Prius because you thought it was a good car, not because of a political statement others may have projected onto your purchase. The same is true of most Tesla owners.
> The correct interpretation for most people is "I bought my car because it was a good car and now for reasons beyond my control it may appear to be a political statement. Also sorry for giving that guy money, I didn't know he would spend it on Trump."
No, he had it right. Those stickers are idiotic. It won't make anyone like them any better. Sell the car if you don't like it that much.
They may not have put it there because they were "self-conscious" about their "statement car." They may have put it there in an honest attempt to avoid having their car vandalized for something they had nothing to do with.
> I guess the Prius line was a popular “statement car” of the pre-Tesla era, though, like how Brian drives one on Family Guy, or the “Smug Alert” episode of South Park, but it was never that for me.
... So you admit to falling for Toyota product placement in cartoons.
Politics or no, the price point ultimately dictated its maximum sales. By that measure it's a reasonable success, and if Elon was forecasting that they would sell multiple tens of thousands of vehicles per year at a $80,000 price point he needs to lay off the drugs. Elon sometimes seems like the living embodiment of "How much could a banana cost, Michael, $10?" parody of out of touch rich people.
I think if people who like trucks didn't see videos of things like the bumper ripping off when towing or minor failures leading to whole vehicle shorts it might have done better. The people who want trucks want resilience and ability to self-service more than the average car buyer.
Cybertruck offroading attempts were also a hoot to watch. The whole vibe is that it is merely a truck-shaped Tesla EV that's terrible at most truck tasks. Sure, there's a market for mall-run trucks with pristine beds and never get any mud on them, but it's not a big one.
It's an amazing vehicle well suited to many normal tasks and more, and is an absolute pleasure to drive off road. I think you were subjected to either misinformation or very biased clips that were intended to warp your opinion.
If you're talking about the JerryRigEverything video, the negative interpretations represent a fundamental misunderstanding of physics. Pinning the front down removes the main real-world load-sharing path (vehicle rotation and suspension compliance) so the rear subframe is forced to absorb an unrealistically large bending moment that would normally be distributed across the whole vehicle. This created conditions which do not occur in real towing, and which give no insight into the actual towing limits of the vehicle.
All the test demonstrated is that you should not exceed the towing capacity of Cybertruck while its front subframe is pinned to the ground by a tractor.
Have we completely forgotten about how Tesla dealerships were shot up, firebombed? Video after video showing cybertrucks vandalized with scratches and spray paint?
It may be a terrible car from a terrible program, but these events at least bear mentioning. If you saw it happening in 2025, would it have a cooling effect on your decision to purchase? Who would want the trouble?
The discussion was about the cybertruck. If vandalism specifically against cybertrucks has cooled sentiment, then a response stating that all the other Tesla models are still selling is a non sequiter.
You can attribute the failure of this vehicle to politics if you like, but it's fairly obvious to anyone watching why it failed - it came out at double the proposed priced with half the proposed range. It's not even the hideous design, there were hundreds of thousands of "pre orders" who knew about the horrible design. It's the price and range.
I was already a Tesla owner and I reserved a Cybertruck right after I saw the original Cybertruck Unveil live stream on November 21, 2019. The infamous one where the window glass shattered.
That was when it was supposed to cost around $35,000.
Four years later when my reservation was ready to order, on December 8, 2023, the CyberTruck cost more than $100k.
Because it cost almost 3x more than what was originally advertised, I cancelled the order. I know many other people who canceled for the same reason. Keeping in mind this was after several delays, so I and many others with reservations were already frustrated with the product before it became available to order.
I'll applaud anything that tries to move us away from the current stale design trend where every car looks like the same boring bar of soap and every truck looks like the same aggressive, drivable, mechanized fist.
It might be safer foe pedestrians than most trucks due to the significantly lower hood, despite the sharp edges. We don’t have statistics on that. But we know trucks are more deadly because instead of launching a struck person up and over the hood, they maim them underneath
I was seriously thinking about looking into finding a surplus FMTV until I realized just how loud and uncomfortable they probably are. Sure, that can be fixed, but I have enough projects.
There is a certain subset of Tesla owners who have this belief that features in certain Tesla vehicles are completely novel to Teslas and other auto manufacturers haven't even considered them. They can often be identified by how they refer to them as "dinosaurs".
Adjustable ride height? Miraculous. Meanwhile my car is mapping the road surface, actively leaning into corners and following road camber, actively avoiding potholes, and adjusting the suspension, including ride height, constantly.
Traffic Sign Recognition, including recognizing school zones, and recognizing active school zones.
Adaptive blind spot - so nice. Speed differential low, or you're going faster? Will not activate, or only activate last moment. But if someone is blowing by you in the HOV lane, it will warn of them when they're still several hundred feet back.
Laser headlights. Matrix headlights. Night vision with thermal imaging.
Predictive active suspension - The car actively scans the road ahead with sensors and it will adjust suspension for poorer road conditions.
The car can not just stop, but will actively swerve, if safe, around obstructions to avoid a collision, or even a parked car opening a door into traffic.
In my opinion it isn't useful at all because if the only thing you can get into a spot is a vehicle with 4-wheel steering, you have already fucked up your site planning. You aren't going to be delivering materials with that thing, bulk materials are too heavy and light materials are too large. Maybe tools, but it isn't that large to be a tool truck and too expensive for small handyman type work.
I'm one of the few people that love the cybertruck design, but even I can't look at one these days and not think "swasticar". It's terribly disappointing, really. Fully self-inflicted.
That is so right on the money. I attended the LA Auto Show a couple of months back and the takeaway was that every manufacturer pretty much makes the same safe car. There might be a feature here and feature there, but it's the same car.
In the years past they at least had lots of concept cars. This year, I maybe saw two and they weren't all that "concept".
> I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it.
Why? Do you want your other tools to be _different_ for no reason at all? Do you want your drill come with sharp corners you can't touch just because it'll look different?
> So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination.
Because utilitarian design and purpose of this vehicles has been established long time ago.
Cybetruck "wanted to be different" but it fails in every aspect of its own "innovation". It's ultimately stupid vehicles with so many flaws that arguing it tried something is pointless. Like, having a man walking to North Pole in runners - he's not trying something new, he's straight stupid and should be treated like that
It's just a darn shame that we're reduced to a simple measure of a single dimension, whether a right or left point on a single axis. You'll find many EV owners are multidimensional, a little bit up and down and all around an x-y plane, or even x-y-z cube. Conservative and liberal progressive alike in Europe are sick of Musk and it shows on the Tesla sales tanking.
The thing with Cybertrucks losing panels certainly didn't help.
A big part of the Cybertruck marketing was the robustness of its unusual design: exoskeleton! space grade materials! They smashed the door with a hammer and it didn't dent (just avoid pétanque balls...), Elon Musk commented that it would destroy the other vehicle in an accident. Morally dubious arguments sometimes, but it appeals to many potential customers.
And then, the vehicle that is supposed to be a tank falls apart by looking at it funny. And the glued on steel plates, is it that the exoskeleton? Not only the design is controversial, but it failed at what it is supposed to represent.
> So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new.
You haven't seen enough trucks and pickups then. The Cybertruck serves no utility purpose.
> I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift around its launch.
IMO the sort of person who wants a vehicle like Elon's dumpster has a strong overlap with Elon's politics. Basically everything about its design and marketing was aimed at the sort of person who is focused on presenting a masculine image, who thinks they're going to be in a war zone on their daily commute, who wishes they could drive through a crowd of protesters, etc.
Basically the only thing "left wing" about it is the fact that it's electric.
> Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new.
The only thing it actually did new was the drive-by-wire steering, which is by all accounts impressive but could have been done on any normal vehicle as well. The "unique" styling is mostly just re-learning lessons that John DeLorean taught the rest of the industry decades ago.
> IMO the sort of person who wants a vehicle like Elon's dumpster has a strong overlap with Elon's politics. Basically everything about its design and marketing was aimed at the sort of person who is focused on presenting a masculine image, who thinks they're going to be in a war zone on their daily commute, who wishes they could drive through a crowd of protesters, etc.
Elon is an ass, but this is still the most crudely and childishly stereotyped thing I've read on the internet today. Congrats.
While largely true, that trucks have adorned the comforts of luxury cars, most are running 6' beds. This largely ignores the evolution of the truck and the job site. My family operates contracting and excavating businesses that operating in all manner of weather and terrain, no one is carrying loads in their truck beds anymore... its not even legal most places unless you convert to a dump bed...
Whats in their trucks? Well, a crew cab occasionally is used for car pooling workers, where they all park their vintage beater trucks at the business... Sometimes weather sensitive tools, or job related items, documents, you can just throw these in a glove box... The bed usually has a gas pump for refilling remote equipment. Cones and other safety shit. Sand hoppers for plowing. Yes they also use these "luxury" trucks to plow.
The thing is... These people are making decent salaries... my direct relatives are multi-millionaires who still pick up a welder, a hammer, a shovel.
Im see alot of assumptions about why trucks evolved the way they did, who owns them, and what for... I would argue the "luxury faker" is a very small crowd, one that likely moved to the cybertruck... and despite the trucks looking modernized, are beaten to pulp over long service lives.
Now, go get in a modern tractor, dump truck, or excavator. They are also all AC, Radios, Computers, Leather Seats, etc... People want to be comfortable.
Back in 2020, a friend working at Tesla told me how frustrated the engineers working on the cybertruck were, because they knew its design choices pushed by Musk made no sense, making the cybertruck way too complicated to design and build for no reasons, and everybody already knew the product would be a failure.
As someone who has used both light and heavy pickups for work, recreation, and farm work for decades, the Cybertruck is absolutely terrible at everything you want a truck to do.
It's a brodozer for people that are slightly environmentally conscious or have Elon issues.
And again, I say this as an actual cowboy, in that yes, I own cows. And a lineman who ferries manly men (and a few manly women) to do manly man work on high voltage power lines that will kill you so dead it's a guaranteed closed casket funeral. Trucks aren't just dick compensators, they exist to do work. And the Cybertruck sucks at all of that work. The F-150 lightning was a useful fleet vehicle due to the 120VAC outlets alone, aside from being, you know, a usable truck.
There's a reason most of the offering are very similar. We figured out what work pickup trucks need to do and how they're engineered to do it 50 years ago. The Hilux and friends made it highly economical. So you've got the Hiluxies and the SuperManlyMinivans and those are the two main kind of pickup trucks.
Trucks being dick compensators is also based on their association with the work they do. Easier to pretend to be a salt of the earth tough guy when you both drive the same truck but with a different trim package.
I'll always give Tesla, SpaceX etc props for the work they accomplish, even though Elon is at the helm, he's not a perfect dude but I will give him props when he gets something right too. At the end of the day his employees are doing incredible work and it should not be written off because of Elon. To any Tesla / SpaceX employee whether you agree with Elon or not, thank you for helping to build a more interesting tomorrow.
I mean as with most "product" things related to Musk, it's more about the meme stock than any fundamental coupling to finances in the real world.
Ford is a car company. They sell cars. The Lightning was a poorly selling car, so they stopped selling it. Pretty simple!
Tesla is a lifestyle company. They make line go up by owning the libs, catering to edgelord identity, and triggering speculation. The Cybertruck probably gained the company more memetic shareholder value than it lost as a real product.
Elon going off the deep end is the tail wagging the dog. It's an objectively terrible car.
The collapse of the company overall, particularly the Model Y, which is a great car, is all about Elon. Not only his unveiling as a fascist, but he essentially looted the company.
Honestly, both the Lightning and the Cybertruck are just bad trucks. Some review of the Lightning I read said it has less than a 100 mile range towing a full load.
> Some review of the Lightning I read said it has less than a 100 mile range towing a full load.
Because of course towing long distances is the only reason you'd ever want a truck.
Obviously we can start by acknowledging that the vast majority of F-150s (and other half-ton pickup trucks) sold in the US these days are purchased by people who maybe haul a load of mulch or dirt once a year and otherwise use them as daily commuter vehicles for which no part of their "truckiness" actually matters for any reason other than image. I absolutely agree that these people should drive something that's not a truck, but that's a battle we're not going to win, so I'd rather have them driving an EV truck instead of a gas-guzzling V8. It's an improvement in some ways even if in reality that suburban parent would be best off with a minivan as their daily and renting a pickup from Home Depot for that mulch run.
My one friend who has a Lightning is exactly this. She used to have a gas F-150, replaced it with a RAV4 that she didn't like so she rapidly replaced that with the Lightning and loves it. Lots of power, quiet, smooth, and never needs to go to the gas station. I don't think she's ever fast charged it, just plugs in at home and goes about her life.
Where I live there are a lot of people who actually do need a truck or truck-based SUV for recreational purposes but don't really go long distances, like towing their boat up to the lake for the weekend, towing ATVs to the trail, or towing a RV trailer to a nearby state/national park where they'll then plug in to the nice 50A outlet and charge back up overnight without having to think about it.
There are also an absolute ton of commercial fleets that need pickup trucks for one reason or another but their trucks never leave their metro area and always end up back at the office every night. Lawn care, delivery, etc. where the only downside of the current lineup of electric trucks is that they're all only offered as the ultra short bed crew cab configuration instead of a long-bed standard cab.
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EVs are absolutely the wrong choice for time-constrained long distance travel, like long-haul trucking or the midwestern three-day-weekend road trip, but the Lightning and its GM competition that were actually designed to be good at things instead of a pure image machine are very good at certain roles.
But a lot of the people who buy trucks for image want the image of somebody who's going out towing, carrying a bunch of stuff, and doing "truck things".
They don't fit the image if they drive an e-truck because e-trucks aren't great at those "truck things. At least that's my theory why the e-trucks aren't doing well, even if they should be.
No doubt a used Lightning is a great deal if you only need to carry stuff once in a while.
I'm very much on the left, and I honestly like the design of the Cybertruck. (I know this puts me in a minority.) It is disappointing that the original "unibody" design was abandoned. The new design where the body panels just randomly fall off is silly.
If it was made by some other company I would genuinely consider buying one. But I would never buy another Tesla. I owned an older Model X, before Elon went full-fascism. And even ignoring Elon, the car was awful. It was shoddily built, kept breaking down, and the service experience was shockingly bad. Absolutely atrocious.
But after all that, I can't give money to Elon ever again. I can't fund America's descent into fascism. I could not live with myself.
> I'm very much on the left, and I honestly like the design of the Cybertruck. (I know this puts me in a minority.) It is disappointing that the original "unibody" design was abandoned. The new design where the body panels just randomly fall off is silly.
Function should drive form. The design would be cool if it was for a cool function.
Say you have a beautifully-made, expertly-weighted tack hammer. That looks cool on your work bench and works well. If you refashion the hammer into a kitchen spoon, it looks dumb in the kitchen and works poorly for stirring a pot.
It is designed for cool functions, although a pure exoskeleton turned out to be infeasible the thick panels still help with side crashes, helping it get the Top Safety Pick+ award (equal/better than the competition other than "safety belt reminders). The steel makes it great for driving in places with branches and grocery cart/door dings. The panels also don't just "randomly" fall off, there was a period of time where the manufacturing process didn't follow the spec on applying the adhesive so ice crystals would form and degrade the adhesion.
It's not just you, it's universally tasteless and that's the point: It is a contrarian vehicle.
In an age where the Internet has flattened subcultures into surface phenomenons, the only remaining way to publicly distance yourself from normality is by making patently, obviously bad decisions and using the backlash to further fuel your ego.
This is true. If I see a Tesla I don’t immediately assume that driver is personally aligned with Elon. It’s a popular and good car.
If I see a Cybertruck I’m extremely confident that driver approves of Elons antics and likely fervently supports them. It’s a physical manifestation of his ego and mostly bought by his legions of fans.
If you’re a Cybertruck driver and you don’t want people to think that, you’re in the wrong car.
There are plenty of reasons I don't want a Cybertruck, but I can assure you that your opinion (or any other Karen's opinion), doesn't even come close to making the list.
I think the dealership monopoly is partly to blame. Dealers get more reoccurring revenue from ICE vehicles, so they are incentivized to not stock EVs and to steer customers away from them. Ford seemed to understand this and attempted a direct sale program for EVs, but they canceled it due to dealer pushback.
Yes I think there's a real innovators' dilemma here for traditional automakers with dealer networks. Dealers make most of their money on servicing vehicles, not selling them. And EVs require almost no servicing.
I bought a used Audi etron a couple months ago. Agent was going to try to sell me a service plan and realized none of them apply to electric :) The downstream fanout of the auto industry is huge…
> There's still brakes, suspensions, tires, etc. to sell to EV buyers.
The brakes last a lot longer because of regen, everything else applies but is pretty marginal, although I had to pay BMW $500 to replace a tire on my i4 because of a nail. I could have shopped around for that I guess.
Yes, you are encouraged to slam on your brakes at least once a month to get the rust off. I live on the west coast (rain but low humidity and hardly any snow), so its less of an issue.
You'd think with all that electronics it would be smart enough to use real brakes every now and then. The plug in hybrid Prius runs the gas engine every 100 miles or so.
I don't think that is a good feel, you sort of get a feel for how fast you slow down with regenerative braking and throwing real brakes into the mix randomly sometimes would make for a horrible driving experience.
Better to have a reminder, surely the car could figure that one out.
Some cars do this. Audi and Porsche (if I recall correctly) use the disc brakes for the first couple stops each drive to knock off the rust if there's any build up. I think I remember reading that Ford uses the real brakes if you're under 5mph. I'm sure other manufacturers do something similar (other than Tesla which apparently doesn't do anything to help).
Yes, it's studied. Rust and metal have different frictional properties, and the rotors produce different torques when the brakes are applied. This results in a sort of uneven shuddering when you use the brakes if they're heavily corroded.
It's not immediately deadly, but your brakes are one of the most important safety systems on the vehicle. They should be in good working order.
Totally, I'm not thinking for a second that you are wrong there. I'm not saying rust on brakes isn't bad. What I'm questioning is whether rust buildup is an actual issue happening for most EV drivers right now.
I'm genuinely curious because, for no good reason, I take pride in the fact that most trips I don't even touch the brake pedal other than to come to a complete stop and only when parking, etc where you can't regen all the way to a stop.
If anything unsafe happens when you slam on your brakes, you need to get your car serviced. Just do it on a quiet street and check your rearview mirror for someone following too closely (a good habit any time you brake).
That looks alien to me. Here, in europe, the usual thing it's go to your car workshop of trust. And they know where and how pick the parts and service your vehicle. Some car workshops could be "oficial" for a car maker, and it's where you should go when your car is new and under warranty period.
Ford did try to make it up to them by offering a bevy of aftermarket add-ons for the Lightning that were sold through the dealerships. As a consumer, I wanted them to keep the EV and ICE versions as similar as possible, with the hope that parts would be cheaper and easier to find.
They seem to be flooded on dealership lots and are not selling whatsoever. OEMs force dealers to take the crap vehicles if they are to get the good ones. You have a vehicle that started off as a hard sell to the crowd that normally buys the vehicle and then you make it so the price is astronomical...forget the dealer reluctance, what did you think was going to happen?
They will buy both ICE and EVs at the right price. I don't think Ford sells anything at the right price currently. But the Lightning was a mistake at that price.
I have a conspiracy theory take on traditional manufacturers being so anti-EV.
Basically the primary differentiator between car companies and the primary barrier to entry in the combustion vehicle business is the engine, especially in the US. Look at the marketing, horsepower and torque are always the topline numbers. Zero to sixty and quarter mile drag races are the favored metrics. Each company spent decades perfecting the engines and the majority of the engineering effort goes into them. Even the transmissions get second fiddle status.
But now EVs come along and the electric motors are commodity parts that are already well optimized. There's little one company can do to make the motor significantly better. Battery tech is cutthroat and also largely outside of the car company's scope, although Tesla does more than other car companies with their megafactories and experiments with oversized cells. If EVs become popular there's little to stop competition from sprouting up everywhere and killing profitability for the legacy auto manufacturers.
That's one way of seeing it, but the fact is that automobile parts are already nearly commodity parts. The wall that stops automaker upstarts in their tracks is the need for safety testing and approval from the US DOT.
Even if you had the chutzpah to get all of the materials together for a fleet of vehicles, you have to spend big cash and grease a lot of palms to get a vehicle you make certified. It takes years and millions of dollars to get to the 1st sellable vehicle.
This is a portion of why BYD, for instance, isn't selling in America.
There are other reasons of course, but one of them is the millions and millions of dollars you're putting at risk just to potentially be told "No" by the government.
Do you think the DOT should have a X program similar to the FAA that allows manufacturers that sell less than some number of cars a year (maybe 100?) to bypass most of the testing but require buyers to sign a disclaimer that they know the vehicle has not been fully tested for safety?
Also, I don't think it is the cost of DOT testing that is the primary barrier to entry for a company with three quarters of a trillion dollars in revenue. The domestic car manufacturers are never going to stand for a repeat of the Japanese invasion of the 70s that nearly bankrupted all of them simply because they were not listening to the customers and trying to sell vehicles that were too big and too expensive. Everyone knows what would happen if some bare bones $15,000 EV with a 250 mile range and ample supply appeared in the market.
Well, that is why I say One of the reasons, lol. US Automobile companies are actively lobbying the government to protect them from chinese emergence in America.
They're actively scamming americans by artificially limiting their choices, raising prices, and calling it freedom.
And yes, I think there should be some loopholes or programs to get small numbers of vehicles made by small companies, but I also know that insuring a car with such small numbers would likely be a nightmare for the owners.
> Ford seemed to understand this and attempted a direct sale program for EVs, but they canceled it due to dealer pushback.
Why didn't they just do it anyways? Dealerships seem like a pointless middleman, but I know absolutely nothing about what leverage they have. Self-driving cars can not come fast enough
Because dealerships are the automakers' real customers, at least right now.
You don't buy a vehicle from Ford; your local Ford dealership buys a large number of vehicles from Ford, and then you buy one of those.
Yes, an argument could be made that eliminating the dealership keeps the same customer base while eliminating the middleman (see also: Carvana), but now you have a lot more cost and logistics (shipping individual cars to individuals' homes, for example, rather than shipping truckloads to a single well-known spot) and unless you're willing to do the Carvana/CarMax thing of offering a 7-day return window (which adds even more cost and logistics and risk), the average American customer won't feel as comfortable buying a vehicle sight-unseen from across the country as they would if they could sit in the thing while a salesperson pitches it to them.
That means you're taking on whole new category of cost and risk, while assuming that you won't lose any of your incoming revenue.
That's kinda a big assumption, and the major established/legacy/whatever-you-call-them automakers aren't known for having a high risk appetite.
Or the manufacturers just run what look exactly like traditional dealerships, just without the stupid crap that no customers want. It can’t be that hard or expensive. It’s a parking lot and a small office building.
Every state in the country prohibits car manufacturers from competing with their franchised dealerships. At the minimum the manufacturer would have to stop using dealerships altogether. And about a third of states only have narrow exemptions that only apply to EV-only manufacturers or manufacturers that never had franchises at the time the law had passed.
As an EV owner, it sucks that the main thing holding the technology back is misconceptions and misunderstanding, rather than actual practical matters.
People think EVs are cars with tanks of electrons, and run aground the same way you would if you thought horses were cars full of hay. It's a different transport tool that gives the same results, you just have to know how to use it properly.
> It's a shame the Lightning got discontinued.
> As an EV owner, it sucks that the main thing holding the technology back is misconceptions and misunderstanding, rather than actual practical matters.
The F150 Lighting (and the Cybertruck) are failing precisely because it was impractical. It was expensive, has limited range when doing actual "pickup truck" work, like hauling tons of construction materials. It was built for the very niche market of buyers at the intersection of luxury pickups and EVs.
People who buy huge luxury pickups tend not to want EVs, and people who buy EVs tend not to want huge luxury pickup trucks.
A practical work truck needs to be smaller, less luxurious, and less expensive, electric or not. If Ford follows through and releases a plugin-hybrid Maverick with 150ish miles of EV range plus the onboard generator, that would be ideal.
A pure EV drivetrain on the other hand is incredibly practical for daily commuter and even long distance travel - assuming you have home charging - but not for hauling tons of stuff long distances.
The lighting is fine for towing, especially the type that people usually do. You can tow up to 10,000lbs and the truck has ridiculous power to pull it.
What you can't do it tow it long distances (>90mi, worst case) without 40 minute stops every 1.5 hours. That sucks.
But the truth is very few truck owners are towing huge loads long distances.
However, if you are pulling your lawn care trailer around town, you will not have a problem, because every day you start with a full charge.
As an aside, the main killer of range for a trailer is a function of speed and drag. Low drag trailers driven at highway speeds (60-65) have marginal impacts on range, regardless of weight.
Again, the whole thing is ridden with misconceptions and misunderstandings. The majority of people who tow stuff, can still tow stuff while reaping cheaper operating costs.
> But the truth is very few truck owners are towing huge loads long distances.
This pattern also applies more broadly. Most people don't actually need to drive 400 miles without stopping, don't actually need an SUV, and in some cases don't actually need a truck. For a huge swath of the population some variation on a hybrid/electric hatchback/wagon or minivan is actually the best match for their needs, but practicality is rarely the prevailing factor in vehicle purchase decisions.
The reason I'm holding out for a 400 mile range vehicle is many fold.
1: Sometimes I actually do drive 400 miles in a single sitting, and I want to be able to keep doing that.
2: The last 10% of charge seems to take the longest. If I can safely fast charge in 20 minutes from 30 to 300 miles range, then I would have no range anxiety even when I'm on a long road trip.
3: I know the tech is coming, and I can wait until it gets here. I don't have an "only" option when it comes to vehicles.
The word "can" in your sentence is making some bold assumptions about my vehicle budget. The R1T Dual with Max battery (the combo that gets an estimated 400+ mile range) is $95,000.
That would be about a $1,300/month loan for 6 years.
I would either need to add $30,000 annual pre-tax to my income or to pay off every debt other than my house to even begin to consider that as an option, and there are so many other things I could spend $1,300/month on.
I will keep an eye on the used market though. I'm sure some deals will come up eventually.
oh sure yeah, they're expensive (although used are getting cheaper!). I didn't read "holding out for a 400m range" as "holding out for a 400m range less than $X". But yes, all the long range EVs, rivian, lucid, are expensive today. I think it will take another year or two for more affordable long range options to come out in the rest of the world, and some unknown years after that for them to hit the US due to protectionism and tariffs.
All that said, the average new car price in the US topped $50k in 2025, which is pretty wild in of itself. These expensive EVs are actually cheaper than some of the optioned up trucks that sell in huge numbers. It all seems crazy over-extended debt to me but, is what it is.
I wouldn't mind so much if all I had to worry about was making car payments, but having an entire life to support and car payments puts some brakes on my purchasing power.
I could swing $600/m if I needed to, but $1,300/m is a cheap mortgage or rent, not a car payment imho.
> However, if you are pulling your lawn care trailer around town, you will not have a problem,
I live in a high CoL area, but I still can't imagine a lawn care business affording an $80k truck. Most of them seem to drive used Tacomas and Mavericks.
> The majority of people who tow stuff, can still tow stuff while reaping cheaper operating costs.
People who are paying $80 to $90k for a luxury pickup truck aren't particularly worried about operating costs.
With perhaps the exception of a few climate-change believers who happen to also run construction companies or farms/ranches (they do exist!), what F150/Cybertruck owners are worried about is signaling to others that they paid $80 to $90k for a luxury pickup truck.
To this day, I've seen 1 Lightning loaded with construction gear.
I've never seen a Cybertruck doing heavy work - they are usually rolling squeaky clean around ritzy parts of town, or getting stuck in snowdrifts in the mountains.
The EVs I see doing work: Ford Electric transit vans.
I don't think that market is a niche at all. From what I can tell, most pickup owners don't use them as a pickup. They use them as a more masculine pavement SUV. So, you'd think, the F150 L and Cyber truck would be perfect.
If you just use it as a pick up a few times a year, it could be worth it. I have furniture that I want to get rid of, and if I had a pick up I would have done it already.
This is Seattle, anything that involves people is expensive. Also You’ll see furniture left on the corner and it will just stay there forever, it’s not like Austin where all the junk is combed though ever morning.
In Seattle, it costs $30 per large furniture item to make it go away using official methods. How much do you have? (And how does that compare to the price of buying and keeping a pickup truck?)
Ya, thats actually quite reasonable. And no, I'm not thinking about buying and keeping a pickup, just because I have nowhere to park it :). But maybe one of those kei trucks that are so popular recently might be worth it, if I can just get used to the steering wheel being on the left.
There's a couple of Honda (I think?) Kei trucks around me. 4WD, low bed, fold-down rails. I don't know about taking them on the highway with a load of furniture, but they're the most versatile-looking 'round-town vehicle I've ever seen.
I really wish we could have something like that, that's less than 25 years old.
Lots of people do exactly that. You can load it all the way past GVWR and it has little effect on the range. It's towing that hurts. Many people use these for business with great success.
> The niche market that does exist wants a Rivian.
Ford's sales for the Lightning were outpacing Rivian, too.
> For EV trucks priced and appointed for everyone else, I'm looking forward to what Slate and Telos make.
I do hear that fairly often. It reminds me a lot of the brown diesel wagon phenomenon. Lots of online interest, very little follow through. I guess time will tell.
I think both Slate and Telos will be failures. They will be too expensive to make economic sense for people, as opposed to businesses, to buy over a more conventional full-size half ton pickup.
In some ways the massive online interest is proof, because most people outside of pickup truck forums who would talk it up have neither experience nor use for pickups. They are simply never going to buy any pickup truck-shaped vehicle and so are irrelevant to commercial success.
> A pure EV drivetrain on the other hand is incredibly practical for daily commuter and even long distance travel - assuming you have home charging - but not for hauling tons of stuff long distances.
You know that electric trains are very practical, not ?
Also, what about these EV trucks and EV vans ?
Yes, I've had conversations with ice owners and the misconceptions are enormous in their minds.
Practically speaking¹, normal people could buy a tesla and drive it like a gas car, except with a full tank of gas every morning. They could still drive across the state once a month to grandma's and they could supercharge if range got low.
This is due to a couple things that were not in place for early EVs.
- teslas have a lot of range/battery compared to early EVs
- superchargers are in many locations, have plentiful charging spots, and are reliable
- teslas have a good UI to navigate and charge
[1] 99% of the time. If you're an apartment dweller in the artic circle with a supercharger 2000 miles away, please scroll onwards.
Tesla with lowest range has 430km, highest range 650. Let's average it to 500km.
The average American driver drives 60km per day. In other words you need to charge less than every 8 days.
You can charge to 80% in about 20-30 minutes.
In other words if you find yourself near a charge (easy) for 20-30 minutes a week (easy), then on average there is no range issue.
You're either in a rural area in a single-family home with home charging, or in low-density urban area with single family home charging, or in a dense urban area with lots of public charging. Very few sit outside these three categories that don't enable them home charging or 20-30 minutes a week public charging.
And that's only going one direction. The number of fastchargers 10x'd in ten years, the range of the model S grew by 50% in the last 15 years, the charging speeds roughly tripled. Sufficient charging infrastructure seems like a solved problem, resolving it is a matter of a mere operational roll-out everywhere rather than a political/technical/economical challenge, a matter of when, not if, and a matter of increasingly smaller pockets of the country that are yet to be fully connected. (whether it's 1% or some other small percentage, range shouldn't be a driving factor for tesla sales anymore).
The main thing holding EV back is the oil industry, not the tech. The US is the only country lagging on EV and its all because the industry puts so much effort in to squashing all progress.
EVs are simpler and cheaper. Look at how fast adoption is growing outside the US. If US citizens could buy a BYD for the same price as in China, the the US auto makers and oil companies would be in trouble.
US was also the one that started the solar panel industry during the cold war. After the cold war the politicians saw no value in it and a lot of the IP was sold to China. China is now out pacing the technology in solar. [0]
It is not about being first it is about continual investment to do it better. China are also the ones that have the most electric infrastructure to greatly reduce their reliance on foreign countries because of that momentum they kept up.
I drive quite a lot throught southern Europe with my EV, and it's super frustrating that gas stations have the infrastructure on the highway while for my EV I have to go just outside the highway to a fast charger (wasting time), then I need to pay again (and waste a lot of time to go through the gate) to get back on the highway for example in Italy.
Spot on. The misconceptions, even from other EV owners is astounding. People are constantly confused about kWh vs kW, Amps, voltage, temperature, range, mi/kWh, etc. Even PhD Computer Science and other highly educated folks who have owned EVs for a long time can't quite communicate the difference between those units of measurement. So of course when a curious person asks them or others, they only quote the falsehoods that someone told them.
Some examples:
1. I constantly see EV owners install 60A/11kWh service, costing them on average $10k when their driving needs don't require it.
2. People thinking they need more than 300mi of range and think they will run out of batteries like they do on their headphones.
All of this needs an understanding of the aforementioned units and basic physics. But, you're not going to get that by just talking to people. Salespeople are especially not going to do that, they can't even do that for combustion cars.
Most households do not drive more than 100KM per day... yet people are obsessed with range.
My next EV will be a small BYD (dolphin or dolphin surf), these things can get between 200KM and 400KM per FULL charge, depending on your speed and settings. If you use the "slow" wall charger (that doesn't require installation or modifications to home circuits), not only will the batteries last longer, it will easily charge up your 100KM actual drive range in a couple of hours, typically overnight.
If you empty the battery each day and recharge it each night, that nets you 300KM per charge, or 2100KM per week. I don't know a single person or family that does 2100KM a week with their cars. So the whole range anxiety is rubbish. Just plug in every night and go to bed and tomorrow you have another 300km available.
Oh and then there are public fast chargers if you do get stuck. I live in Africa and this is solved problem.
Sorry for the rant..your comment about the expensive charger installations makes my blood boil as most people can just use the normal wall charger and charge overnight.
The thing with range is it's another "thing to worry about" - with a gas car, it's basically nothing to worry about unless you happen to be absolutely on empty and no time to fill up the tank (5-10 minutes unless you have to go way out of your way for gas; rare).
It's like when phones went from 8-10 hour capacity to over a day; suddenly it wasn't a thing you think about anymore.
An F-150 Lightning and Cybertruck weigh somewhere between 6000 and 7000 pounds, so I personally think of them the same way as if you replaced your horse with a hippo.
It's not hard to convince people to move to electric, just make it such a better economic proposition that it would be silly not to.
I don't need a pickup truck, but if I ever did, I'd get whatever my landscaper has. Unlike most people with Rivians, Lightnings, Cybertrucks, Ridgelines, and Raptors, he totally relies on that truck for work.
So far it's Tacoma. Maybe some day he'll have an EV instead.
I knew someone who had a Tacoma for construction work; he got it because everyone had one.
Later he had to take it in to the shop and they gave him a loaner cargo van, and from then on he regretted not getting a cargo van instead of a truck.
The vast majority of what he did with the truck was carry tools, which are easier to access in a van; the few times he carried materials he would have to unload the whole truck or get the trailer anyway.
I disagree. I really want a Lightning but live in a very rural place, weekend in an even more rural place, and need to pull a trailer pretty often.
I already have a plug-in hybrid that gets 40+ miles/charge and have opined all over the internet that the perfect car is one that gets 100+ miles/charge before firing any gas engine.
It sounds like the next Lightning will give me that though I don’t put much stock in their promises. Personally the Scout is too bougie but it does similarly.
I don’t get plug in hybrids. All other engine types save you more money compared to the next less efficient alternative the more you use them, but plugins get closer to the less efficient alternative (regular hybrid) the more you use them. Add in the approximately 25% price hike over the hybrid version when there is one and it makes no sense to me.
> but plugins get closer to the less efficient alternative (regular hybrid) the more you use them.
As long as most of your drive cycle fits within the EV range of the plugin hybrid, they are cheaper to operate than a regular hybrid. The crossover point depends on the drive cycle and the cost of electricity vs gasoline.
I had a plug-in hybrid SUV that got 2.2miles/kWh in EV mode, which covered 75% of the miles I drove. The net savings were significant vs an equivalent plain hybrid SUV in my area, which would get basically the same gasoline miles/gal.
But the problem is that means you drove a minuscule amount so if you’d bought a hybrid you would have still used very little gas and your car would have been much cheaper.
Generously, the full range of a plugin hybrid is equivalent to about a gallon of gas.
> But the problem is that means you drove a minuscule amount so if you’d bought a hybrid you would have still used very little gas and your car would have been much cheaper.
A 2023 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (38 miles EV range) costs less than a 2023 Toyota Highlander Hybrid with the same mileage on the odometer, and far less than Land Rover or other luxury SUV brands.
I bought my Outlander used - also was a great deal.
The real way dumb money loses is by buying new cars, not by choosing an electric drivetrain.
Using a plug-in hybrid as an EV can and will wear out the drive battery over the lifetime of the car. It doesn't even matter if you don't intend to keep the car for very long as a rational market will price this in. The cost ($10k or more) goes a long way at the pump.
> Using a plug-in hybrid as an EV can and will wear out the drive battery over the lifetime of the car
PHEVs have battery management systems and buffer capacity to protect the battery just like pure EVs. For many, at extremely high power demand, they switch to the gass engine anyways, so if anything the batteries are less stressed.
Depends on the car and driving patterns. I've got a friend with the PHEV Escape that he charges in his garage. It's the cheapest hybrid Escape that Ford sells, and he does all his driving on EV mode unless he has to do a longer trip outside of the city.
I still don't think that perspective is rational. It saved at most 1 gallon of gas per day from being burned, and you still burn gas on longer trips.
I drive a plain ICE engine, but I plan for my next car to be a full EV for the reasons you state, plus the savings on gas for all miles driven (and I have driven 30k miles in the past year).
I disagree along with you. EVs would work for 80% of the population, there is a long tail of people who an EV will never (well foreseeable future) work for.
Thankfully, the mass of humanity that should be transitioning lives in populated areas and never tows anything for more than 75 miles. There is no need to get bogged down in back and forths with the small subset of people who an EV will not work for.
Surprisingly to many, rural and very rural places are actually a great location for EVs - if they have enough range.
Because even very rural places have electricity - almost always. I can find quite nice homes that are 20 miles from a gas station, but have power and could easily charge a vehicle. If I lived there, a vehicle I could use without a gas station would be quite desirable.
Yup. We also overestimate how much range we need. Average American driver drives 60km a day. The average Tesla has >500km range, meaning you need to charge fewer than once every 8 days.
Rural tends to mean space, and space tends to mean you can charge your car at home (that's different for a New York apartment dweller), making a once-in-8-day charge absolutely trivial.
In terms of economics, electric fueling of your car wins per mile.
And rural homes tend to have easy access to home-solar (again, good luck installing solar in a New York apartment rental). Electric cars tie into solar really nicely with a basic smart system, as it lets you charge at off-peak rates at night, or dump excess solar during the day into your car.
And what you've said before, it creates energy-independence, great when remote. Not to mention modern EVs allow bi-directional use of the battery, meaning the car can power your home essentials during an outage.
Range is the misconception, because people view range through the "sit and fill up then drive till empty" paradigm.
That is not how EVs work or how they should be used. They should be charged overnight/when you are doing something else, and on road trips should be charged to align with other stops even if those stops are 10 minutes. It's rare that I have ever done the "sit in the car for 40 minutes waiting for charge", and extremely common to do the "Put car on charger for 13 minutes while going into [insert any of the gazillion places with chargers in the parking lot] to use the bathroom, stretch legs, and get a snack, or see a landmark"
Also you usually structure it so you arrive at your destination with very low charge, because you fill up while there. I've yet to be at a hotel with a gas pump in the lot.
Again, EVs function differently than gas, and that change of paradigm really gets people ruffled up and confused.
I actually leased a Kia EV6 recently without too much research into the charging situation, assuming that in 2025 it was probably pretty well figured out, and I could just do as you propose and just charge in small bursts at the grocery store etc. But:
- It didn't come with a home charger at all. They're not cheap.
- It came with a J1772 adapter, but no CCS adapter. The car itself has NACS. So I'm limited to Tesla superchargers, which are expensive, unless I buy a new adapter (not cheap, or cheap, but suspicious Temu brands).
- The experience of using all of these different branded charging points is _awful_. You need to create 10 different accounts with a bunch of terrible apps. The maps to find charging infrastructure seem universally awful.
- Pretty common to arrive at a charging location to find that some nutjob has hacked off all the charging cables. The only reliably maintained charge points are the larger, more expensive high speed charging locations.
I think a lot of the issues would be solved if I was more committed to the car and the house that I'm living in, and installed a home charger to charge at night. But the charging experience out in the world is absolutely _dismal_ when compared to gas vehicles, even if you change your behavior.
The thing is, for most people a standard wall outlet is plenty. The math works out that a simple 15/20 amp circuit can charge over 40 miles overnight, and the vast majority of people aren't driving more than that for their daily commute plus errands. Level 1 charging is genuinely sufficient most of the time. I was particularly swayed by the technology connections video on this topic I watched before buying my first EV https://youtu.be/Iyp_X3mwE1w
The real pain point, in my opinion, is whether you have any place to plug in nightly. If you don't, then as you pointed out, it becomes a nightmare to own. Range anxiety is completely justified when public charging infrastructure is still as unreliable as it is, years after the initial build outs. Your points about charging pain are all too common.
If you have a garage with an outlet, you are generally fine. I lived off a level 1 charger for over a year before I decided I wanted the convenience of a level 2 charger.
Sorry, I love Technology Connections as much as anyone, but that's a ridiculous argument. Even people who drive less than 40 miles a day will occasionally need to drive 100 miles a day for two days back to back. That's not even a long distance trip, it's just driving around. With level 1 charging they are stuck and frustrated. With level 2 they're fine. Not to mention the hassle and mental energy required to plug in and out for every little trip.
For most people a 240V outlet is worth it. Not to mention it's at least 10% more efficient, which is quite significant and weird that Technology Connections didn't mention that.
You can use DC fast chargers to fill gaps as needed.
Also if you are always driving 40mi/day, you likely float with a battery percentage around 80%, leaving plenty of capacity for those consecutive 100 mile days with your standard overnight slow charge.
Again, this cannot be said enough, EVs are not gas vehicles, they do not refill like gas vehicles, if you apply gas vehicle logic to them, they look awful. But they are not gas vehicles, they don't follow the same logic and rules of gas vehicles. So you don't apply gas vehicle logic to them.
It's like handing chopsticks to an 18th century westerner, they'll stab their food with it and laugh about how stupid and useless they are. You need to learn and use chopsticks before criticizing chopsticks.
This whole thread (as always) is full of people stabbing their food with chopsticks.
Look, I don't care, I know there are strong opinions about how these discussions sway people one way or another. I'm as much of an EV technology fan as anyone, but I'm speaking from personal experience with this exact situation: if I didn't have a 240V charger in my garage, my EV experience would be garbage and I'd give up on it in frustration. I own one of the most common EVs, I have DC fast chargers in my area, I don't drive my EV that much during the week, but when I need to drive a bunch of short trips on the weekend, this exact scenario arises. I don't care what your theoretical model of an average EV driver looks like, I'm telling you that it doesn't match my reality and I am certain the reality of many others.
What's bizarre is that this should be incredibly non-contentious when it comes to EV adoption. By code, everyone in the US already has two phases at their panel and running a wire and outlet in their garage (or a weatherized cable to the outside) costs $100-150 in materials and a similar amount in labor. This is literally negligible in the broader scheme of the automotive economy. My humble suggestion to you is: save your breath, we're on the same side, raise your voice instead when it comes to demanding a sane EV industrial policy, regulatory policy, urban planning policy, removing subsidies for oil and gas industries, and the like.
That example doesn't make sense, because 100 miles back to back is only 200 miles. You've got about 80 miles from charging overnight those two days and another 200+ miles already in the battery. In that situation you're totally fine. After that there are superchargers of course.
> It didn't come with a home charger at all. They're not cheap.
Level 1 EVSE's are super cheap, almost all of them are under $200. They aren't fast (most are 1.44kW), but that doesnt really matter if you are parked at home for 12+ hours a day.
(also small semantic nitpick, but your car did come with a charger, its built in to the vehicle. the EVSE that connects it to a wall outlet is basically just a fancy extension cord. this is why they are so cheap)
That’s exactly the problem. I’d be happy to use an EV daily, as I drive short distances. But when I drive longer, then I don’t want to waste hours on charging.
The other day I drove 700km in just about 5.5 hours (German Autobahn). Few stops to pee. With EV that would be few hours more (!). If this doesn’t bother you, then it’s fine. It matters to me though.
Sometimes I also drive early in the morning 600km, and in the afternoon back, so I’m home until 22:00. With EV, that’s just impossible.
You are perhaps an edge case. For many people (the vast majority), you end up spending way, way less time refueling, even if the occasional road trip takes a little longer. It depends on how important time is to you.
As long as there's a fast charging station somewhere along the route you'd need more like 30 minutes to charge midway through, not multiple hours.
You also surely recognize that your driving patterns are very atypical and a car not working for them says very little about how suitable the car is for the market as a whole.
A fast charging station that is working, that has the correct connector for your car (including adapters you carry), that your car will work with (Tesla hasn't opened their superchargers to call cars with the NACS connector), that you have an account with... There are too many things that just are not there.
One top of that you need to find a charger. They are all over, but many of them are slow speed chargers. There are also a lot of gaps, if you pass a charger with 50% battery remaining you can't be sure you will make the next one. (most cars can pass several gas station with 5% gas in the tank and still make it to one). You need to ensure you will get back to your car when it is charged so they don't charge extra (this is a problem if you are at a concert or something and are trying to charge while doing something else that can't be interupted)
Someday all the above will be fixed. Everyone agrees NACS is the future connector, but it isn't rolled out. Someday every "gas station" will have a charger with the gas pumps (or perhaps something else?) - at least along routes where people often make long trips. Someday you won't need a phone/account, just swipe a card - or so I hope. But someday isn't today.
In your typical 475km EV sedan, you would only need about 20 minutes of charging to do that 700km.
This is why I am like a broken record repeating that EV misconceptions kill EVs. You are applying gas car logic to electric cars, which is what people do, and stops them from getting an EV.
If you often mowed a town park, you wouldn't buy a hand-push lawnmower and then be upset about lawn mower technology.
The Renault 5 is a town car. Its specs are closer to a golf cart than a motorcar. It fills a niche, but if you are traveling often, a different EV would suite you better.
People assume everyone has the same resources as they do. Your point would be fine, if Renault 5 would be very cheap.
But it’s not. It’s the car what many people can afford.
Thinking that people have “misconceptions”, because they don’t buy expensive EV-s, which have good capabilities, is very strange.
You say EV-s are good and people just don’t get it. But people who buy EV-s for 25k, their experience is SIGNIFICANTLY worse than in EV-s for 50k.
These people are buying those cars, because that’s what they can afford, not because they are stupid to see that a more expensive car can do better.
Look at 25k ICE cars. They offer lot more comfort regarding “charging”, as same price EV-s. They work in a city and outside city as well. No trade-offs.
That’s my point, when I say “price and range”.
———-
Renault 5 EV is a pretty normal car in Europe regarding its specs. Why would it be a golf cart?
> Renault 5 EV charges with 11kW. This is the size of car I need.
AC only EVs dont exist in the US market any more AFAIK. Looking at the Renault 5 models currently available in the UK market, they dont have any AC only models either (maybe they do in other countries though).
> The other day I drove 700km in just about 5.5 hours (German Autobahn). Few stops to pee. With EV that would be few hours more (!)
If you got an EV with fast charging (and there were fast chargers on your route) it would actually be under 20 minutes more.
For example Ioniq 5 has a range of ~480 km. Let's say you started at 100% and drive down to 10%. That gets you 430 km, so 270 km left to go.
At a 350 kW charger the Ioniq 5 goes from 10-80% in 18 minutes. Assuming you do not want to take it below 10% that's 340 km before you next need to charge, more than the 270 km you need to reach your destination. You arrive with 70 km left before needing to charge again.
Let's do the round trip extra time. That's 1400 km for the trip. Again assuming we start at 100% and we don't let it go between 10%, then we get 430 km using before the first charging stop.
At that point we've got 970 km left that will have to be powered by our charging stops. Every 20 minute stop is giving us 340 km, so we'll need 3 stops, or one hour of stop time.
You might also need a stop, most likely shorter, at your destination if you are going to do a lot of driving there before returning home.
In a majority of cases with EVs charging speed is a bigger factor in how much time you spend stopped than range. Many people overlook this and might be a longer range EV when they would actually have faster trips if they got one with a much higher charge rate even if it had a substantially lower range.
The way to think of it is once you get past the range you got from charging before you left, every km travelled on the trip comes from stops during the trip. If EV X charges twice as fast as EV Y and they both need a stop at the same place, Y is going to spend twice as much time on chargers for the rest the trip as X no matter how many times they have to stop. If the fast charging X has half the range it will stop twice as often, but an X stop will be 1/4 the time of a Y stop actually charging.
Y making few stops does mean less time spent on stop overhead, by which I mean the time when you are off the highway but not actually charging. That should only be a couple minutes or so per stop though since you can overlap time consuming stop activies like visiting the bathroom with the actual charging.
On most trip that saving from less total stop overhead can't come anywhere near the savings from faster charging and so fast charging meh range will usually beat crap charging but great range unless the trip is short enough that only the short range car needs to stop. The great range car also does got farther before needing the first stop, so it doesn't need to add as much mileage during the trip put that too usually doesn't make much difference either other than fairly short road trips.
But “price and range/charging speed” still applies.
I can’t afford an expensive EV with fast charging, but I can afford a cheap ICE. I get it that in US people buy 100k cars as there is no tomorrow. But not everywhere it’s like that.
For 10k one can get a decent ICE. Can you get fast charging used EV for 10k?
We are slowly getting there, the used EV market takes time to build up a stockpile of good and fast charging cars. Also for total cost of driving you need to factor in cheaper charging than fueling on average, lower maintenance and maybe reduced (road) taxes depending on the country.
The big problem here is we need a hybrid stage in between.
I have a hybrid now, it's still a conventional powertrain, and it's not chargeable. That's not exactly what I want, but it's what I could get.
I want a fully electric drive train hybrid with around 100 miles capacity on the battery, then a generator that's big enough to keep it running if the battery is drained.
100 miles gets you through the average day without having to use gas.
An electric drive train turns your engine to a generator that runs at a fixed speed and is more efficient. It also massively reduces the complexity turning into a system more like an EV.
And, if I go on a long trip, the car still gets me to where I'm going without charges (unless I choose to so I can save gas).
On the flip side, it massively increases your BOM and maintenance considerations, as now you have to have all the bits of an electric powertrain and most of the bits of a gas powertrain. All for the few times that you’re driving more than 300ish miles in a stretch?
It’s easy to say that EV charging on long trips should align with other stops until you factor in kids. Doing a normal 2-3 hour one way trip with kids is already not fun, I don’t want to pull over for them to pee 20 minutes before I need to sit and let the thing charge for 30 minutes.
Nevermind the fact that there are very, very few EVs suitable for anyone with more than 2 kids.
I can do a ten hour road trip with a family of four plus a dog in a used (2022) EV that I got for ~30k last year. I think the idea that price and range are problems is exactly the misconception that op was taking about. They are somewhat more expensive, although when I originally did the calculus, fuel savings made up the difference in monthly payments for a new vehicle, but that's going to vary a lot. The is a very small proportion of people for whom range is a legitimate concern.
Now do the range/time/stops calculation with a travel trailer.
Yes, if we're talking about normal family travel, an EV works fine for many trips (though there are still charging "dead spots" in parts of the country - looking at you WV).
But, "truck stuff" like towing, they aren't there yet. Maybe in a few years when we get the next generation of battery and charger tech.
Yep. It takes a massive battery (and massive "normal" range) to pull off towing any distance. Unless I'm wrong, only the Chevy Silverado EV has the range (480ish) to make a reasonable tow vehicle, but only with the big battery, which pushes the price north of $90k.
I actually enjoy doing road trips in my tesla more so than in ICEs, because of the forced breaks. With ICEs, stops would be either for food or for bathroom breaks. A lot of times just eating in the car while driving. But for a 10 hour drive I am forced to take 4 20 minute stops - so once every 2 hours. This ends up making me feel a lot better at the end of the trip and also gives you "guilt free" time to enjoy a random park you've never been to, or sit down and have a meal. So, lets say 80 minutes of added time for a 10 hour trip, vs maybe 40 minutes that I would have added in my gas guzzler. 40 minutes extra on a 10 hour trip just isn't that big of a deal to me and especially so considering all the benefits from walking around for a bit or seeing some new places.
Obviously you could do that same thing in an ICE car, but I feel the pressure to keep moving so it hits different.
For me, it's some intermediate trips where the EV really "fails" (though admittedly the gap closes every year and the use case below is basically a worst case scenario short of trying to tow trailer on the same route).
A common trip for me is DC -> Dolly Sods WV for camping. Less than 3 hours drive time each way, about 150 miles. I only need to stop for gas once during the trip and for only as long as the tank takes to fill (no meal needed).
In an EV, that ~6 hour round-trip takes about 9 hours due to 2 hours of charging and a 60 mile detour. That's using ABRP, with an Ioniq 5 from Reston VA to Dolly Sods Wilderness and back, no overnight charging because it's a wilderness location (gravel parking lot in the middle of nowhere).
> In an EV, that ~6 hour round-trip takes about 9 hours due to 2 hours of charging and a 60 mile detour. That's using ABRP, with an Ioniq 5 from Reston VA to Dolly Sods Wilderness and back
That a fairly dead area of the country charger wise but I see several CCS chargers <5 miles out of the way and a lot more if your Ioniq has NACS.
> This ends up making me feel a lot better at the end of the trip
My SO commented the same after our first long trip with an EV. She drove the whole way.
Yes it took an hour longer due to charging, but when we arrived she wasn't exhausted like she was used to, so she could go out and do stuff right away. So overall she preferred it a lot.
I make sure to have 100% charge before I leave, and then I drive it down to 5-10% and hit up a super charger. The batteries charge the fastest from 0-50%(~15 mins), so I end up having about 60-70% charge by the time I'm heading out. Then I just repeat the process. I also arrive at my destination with 5-10%. I have a 2023 model Y for the record.
I also try to drive in a manner that is friendliest to the battery (ie I'm not accelerating a bunch to pass people or driving 90 mph), and almost all the driving is on a highway. But, that's how I naturally drive in my gas car as well.
I do ~Denver to ~Salt Lake City and back 2x/year through the Wyoming route and I've done it 6 times so far in a Tesla and 4 times in a gas SUV. I do it in the early/late summer so temperatures are warm, which I'm sure helps the mileage.
The tesla mapper site claims you can do it with only 35 mins charging, but I prefer the northern route, and my actual departure/destinations are about ~1hr more driving, but I'm sure that wouldn't add more than 45 minutes to the charging time: https://www.tesla.com/trips#/?v=LR_RWD_NV36&o=Denver,%20CO,%...
I recently did a road trip to Maine, and the whole week it didn't get above 15F. The difference in range was about 20% less. But I drive at 65mph with cruise control all the time.
Nah. EVs can often charge ~80% in 20-30 mins. Pumping gas takes me at least 5 mins. You win pretty quickly on this metric unless you do a lot of 200+ mile trips.
You can buy 1-2 year old used Teslas and BYD's in Australia for ~30% below retail.
Meanwhile Toyota hybrids not just retain their value but there have been moments where used RAV4's are listed above retail because the waitlist for new was so long.
The poor resale market for EVs just means that people who actually have some understanding of the battery lifespans can get very good deals on 1-2 year old cars
Tesla is a special case because they manipulate their pricing on a monthly, sometimes daily basis, and in the past they've changed the price quite significantly. In the US, the tax credits also really screw with the market dynamics. Lots of people think the car depreciates really quickly because they don't realize the original buyer didn't pay MSRP. I paid $20K under MSRP for my Lightning and in the just over a year I've owned it, the value has dropped about 7-8K. Pretty normal for the first year of a new vehicle.
Most other car prices are "manipulated" on a minute-by-minute basis, insofar as pricing is different for each customer, based on their their willingness to go hard in negotiation, manufacturer incentives, demand levels, stock levels, finance packages, and the current mood of the dealership principal.
The difference with Tesla is that their current "best price" is published out in the open.
That can be true, but at least in the case of Ford's EVs, many (maybe even most, for a while) of us did not really negotiate with the dealer, the price came from Ford. The dealer wasn't even allowed to negotiate, in fact.
Depends a lot on the particular example. My Lightning was less expensive than the Powerboost I had been shopping for originally. And 250-300 miles is well beyond my typical daily driving range requirement (and Superchargers are pretty plentiful in most of the areas I ever find myself).
My 2024 Lightning Flash was just under 51K, FWIW. Extended range, plenty of toys, definitely not the base model.
I admit I was also under the impression they were expensive, and I was shopping for a Powerboost F150 first, until someone told me that MSRP was a lie.
A 600 mile trip can (theoretically) be done with 1 charge, because you leave home with full range, and arrive with 0 charge (and fill up overnight). That one charge is done while eating dinner, or spaced out in increments over the course of the trip, stops which you would take anyway. I know few people who want to bang out 10 hours without stopping for at least 1-2 hours over the course of the trip. And those who do, can be the edge case with gas cars.
So you need to go 600 miles, and you need 1 full charge worth of energy during that.
If that one charge takes 1 hour, you can also break it up into four 15 minute sessions at any time of your chosing.
I'm sorry, but almost no regular person does 10 hours without at least four 15 minute stops.
Range is not at all the problem people make it out to be.
Where can I find chargers on demand like that? There are a lot of slow chargers that won't give you much range in an hour. There are a few fast chargers that will, but they are much less common - enough to make the long trips possible but you need to stop where the fast charger is not where you are going to eat a meal or use a bathroom anyway. (gas stations are everywhere and so if you need a bathroom you can get gas at the same time)
My 10hr drives usually have 2 stops at 30mins-1hr each, for food. Unfortunately, stopping at a restaurant for a meal doesn't leave the vehicle in a location that has a charger, for the most part. Other parts of the world may differ, but the infrastructure to "just spend 15 minutes charging" whenever you want is not there.
I picked Shreveport, LA as a starting location and went west towards El Paso until I found a city that was slightly over 600 miles of distance. The cities are mostly irrelevant unless you pick something that is exceptionally hilly such as routes through mountain ranges or something.
You can get Model 3 LR that will do it for $20k used.
Like everyone else, you are thinking in "gas car" trying to resolve an electric car problem.
You start every trip in an EV with full range (unplug from home base charger). You drive 300 miles. You full recharge. You drive another 300 miles. You plug-in and go to sleep.
A used Model 3 LR cannot do 300 miles of highway driving in almost any condition. Even a brand new one cannot do that. The only way you get 300mi of driving out of a Model 3 is if you drive at 35mph or something, which would be wildly impractical for any road trip situation.
They have worse prices (higher) and worse range (lower, particularly for towing). These aren't misconceptions. (My only car is an EV that I'm happy with. But lying about EVs doesn't benefit advocates.)
Ok, thanks. Current 2026 base trim prices are 29k for the ICE and 35k for the EV. If you told me GM was eating thinner unit margins on the EV version, I wouldn't be shocked either.
> Does this factor in cost of ownership? Gas, oil changes, less complexity?
No, I'm just talking about sticker price.
Lifetime EV costs are relatively unknown at this point, so that would be a relatively speculative comparison. You have to have a pretty optimistic view on long-term EV maintenance costs and charging costs to have EVs pencil out better with long-term cost of ownership.
If you want to talk about ongoing costs like oil and gas in ICE vehicles, you probably also need to be thinking about cost of charging (whether you can charge at home, or only at expensive DCFS) and perhaps relative cost of consumables like tires (EVs might require costlier higher load rating tires and the torquey motors might make it easier to chew through tires faster). E.g., in my area, fast charging has a per-mile cost roughly on par with gas prices (~4x home electricity prices). So if I couldn't charge at home, ownership would be somewhat costlier.
> Towing reduces a gas powered car’s range, too.
Yes, yes, but that's more acceptable when you're starting from 500 miles of non-towing range than 230, and filling up gas is still faster than filling electrons.
> So a car that's free to operate - zero maintenance, zero fuel cost - that cost $10k more than a regular car would not be a financial win?
You're just throwing around fictional numbers. EVs don't have zero maintenance costs or zero fuel costs. Real numbers for fuel can be lower than gas (in particular if you have home charging), and you could certainly color an argument that maintenance costs are lower. But it's not zero. Brand new gas or hybrid cars also have very low maintenance costs.
> Sticker price is a silly metric to solely focus on. Doubly so considering people rarely actually pay sticker.
Pretend I wrote "average out the door price" instead of "sticker." This number is higher than comparable ICE/hybrid vehicles, and for pretty obvious reason -- high capacity batteries are still enormously expensive. This is why range+price tends to be worse than similar gas/hybrid cars. I expect battery prices to continue to fall in the future, which will improve the economics for BEVs. But that's in the future! Not today.
> According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.
Hell, ain't true for any gas pickup I've owned, either. Big tanks, and often temperamental bastards that have to be babysat and won't take fuel at full pump speed in any case.
Most road trip stops, according to the AAA, are 15 minutes anyway. Only on the Internet does everyone take 5 minutes to refuel.
~60 kWh still takes 18 minutes to charge at 200kW, and 200kW is a relatively optimistic average charge speed for most EVs at this time. Bigger batteries, or slower charge rates, take longer.
That's more of a Tesla thing. The Korean EVs have a more modern 800V setup and get much closer to the 400kW charger rating. Ford also lags in this department because they're using 400V and a big battery, which isn't a great combo.
The Hyundai/Kia EVs see peak charging above 200kW on chargers that support enough amperage (and native voltage), but not necessarily average charging above that rate. (I'm familiar; I own one.)
They have artificially worse prices in the US where EVs are mostly only getting sold as "luxury" vehicles and competition is hobbled by dealer networks and dealer laws and import tariffs.
Most other parts of the world EVs are starting to be cheaper than the equivalent ICE in the same category.
Range often doesn't need to get better, the impression of range needs to change. That's where a lot of misconceptions play into effect, over-focusing on things like gas-station-like charging stations over at-home charging. Over-focusing on "zero to full tank/battery statistics" when no one keeps a gas vehicle with a full tank overnight every night. Over-focusing on high speed charging and ignoring boring but useful "Level 1" charging, which is "just about everywhere" because our society has been building electrical outlets for a long time. Sure, the experience changes in things like long distance trips, but experience changes aren't "worse" by default of being a change.
The main thing holding them back for me is the range.
A few times a year I do quite long drives, sometimes you get the odd road closure and you've added a day to your trip at best, could be stranded at worst.
There will be a phase shift where there are lots of fast chargers but in Australia we aren't quite there yet. Lots of my friends have EVs. The busiest routes are pretty good.
On the one hand I will be a late adopter of the tech but on the other at least I know it will be a significant upgrade when I get there.
...misconceptions and misunderstanding, rather than actual practical matters.
What's the range of an F-150 Lightning when towing a small travel trailer? The Rivian R1T is ~150 miles give or take. I assume the F-150 is similar.
At least for towing, the math isn't great. Especially when you add in the cost - my Honda Ridgeline was $42k in 2021. EV trucks are roughly double that amount.
It's the most boring and practical vehicle I've ever owned. But, it does everything, so I'm having a hard time convincing my wife I need a Ranger Raptor or (used) AMG GLE.
Judging from how many people seem surprised by my open frunk at the grocery store, saying things like "I had no idea Ford made an electric truck!" I think they could have done more to market it. I sometimes wonder if they really wanted to sell a lot of them.
I remember when tesla was young and elon talked about selling electric cars through dealers. He said it would not work, they would not be advocates, they would prevent sales.
And I think that is spot on.
I also suspect internally the thinking is that the f150 lightning costs more to make than sell, which means it won't get strong advocacy.
Thing is, I'm 100% certain years of tesla vehicles cost more to make than they sold for, just in the nature of developing new things.
I wonder who makes their decision by going to the dealer, though? Ford didn't even regularly stock Lightnings at the dealer, in fact, they basically sold them online and kept inventory at regional fulfillment centers. As soon as someone pulled the trigger, they'd ship the truck the last mile to the dealer of their choice.
Maybe the dealers could have done better. In fact, they definitely could have. Most did have a demo Lightning, in my experience, but that doesn't mean salespeople were pushing customers towards them.
I guess that’s kind of the defense of Musk on the cyber truck. If Ford can’t sell hem off their F150 platform, it means you need to make more of a splash. He just went too far…
I've seen an argument that the Prius was intentionally made "ugly/noticeable" because they knew the buyers would be interested in the technology AND want to be recognizable as such.
When hybrids are common, the styling reverted to more normal car-like.
There's an argument that they did that intentionally - some hated it, but more bought it because they wanted to be recognized as having bought a hybrid - hence the "Toyota Pius" nickname.
There is a hypothesis that dealers disincentivized salespeople from selling EVs due to a lower expected amount of service department revenue in the future. I work in the industry close enough to get a whiff of that and I never heard anything more than speculation.
At the size of Ford, sales numbers can be at a different mark for what is considered successful than others. Not to mention dealer gamesmanship fudges real sales numbers.
As to the Cybertruck it's both interesting and kind of ugly... repairability is another concern/issue as is pure cost...
I'm far more interested in the Slate[1] myself. It's probably closer to what a lot of consumers would want in an electric truck. It really feels like a spiritual successor to the OG Jeep (GP).
> At the size of Ford, sales numbers can be at a different mark for what is considered successful than others.
Does this really hold when Tesla has a considerably higher valuation?
Tesla is sitting at an egregious 30x market cap of Ford. If anything... I'd expect them to have sales targets that are ~30x the size of Ford.
When you consider that Ford also makes many more models than Tesla (Tesla has like 8 core models incl the cybertruck [and the not-yet-for-sale semi...] , Ford has like 20+)
By all measures - Tesla should be considerably more aggressive with sales targets for a core model, and it seems pretty clear the cybertruck is just a slow rolling market failure.
> Does this really hold when Tesla has a considerably higher valuation?
> Tesla is sitting at an egregious 30x market cap of Ford. If anything... I'd expect them to have sales targets that are ~30x the size of Ford.
It almost holds BECAUSE of that. Tesla's valuation has been wildly detached from its sales numbers for years, so having a poorly-selling Cybertruck doesn't really matter.
But admitting that a high-end high-profile product was a big failure, on the other hand, might be much more undesirable for the company whose valuation depends on vibes vs sales.
("Should" that be true, though? Well, that's a different question. ;) )
I agree that Tesla has incentives to mislead with continued announcements about how great everything is (while the board/musk continue to dump their stock as fast as they legally can...).
But eventually... people are going to want their money out of this pie, and it clearly can't provide.
My personal opinion is that Tesla is now Enron 2.0 - and at some point we'll see a similar collapse, on a larger scale. But who knows if enough of the regulatory framework in the US will survive to actually slap them once it happens. I'm not super optimistic.
For 2025, Ford sold about 2.2 million vehicles, Tesla was like 1.6m. Given, more variety for Ford... But there's also margins and supply chains to consider.
The Cybertruck is kind of ugly and very expensive... not to mention that no EV truck really does towing well. The fact that the Lightning sold more than the Cybertruck doesn't make it a success.
The Cybertruck, imo, is not too different than a limited run sports car from a major car company... it's just a step above a concept car. The Lightning from Ford was an attempt to see if a market was really ready to shift to EV, it largely isn't. Even though I think it's probably a great option for a lot of work truck use, that doesn't include long distances or heavy towing, but then it likely prices itself out of that market segment too.
I'm not sure what the takeaway from your comment is?
I'm not arguing that the F-150 lightning was a commercial success for Ford, I'm suggesting that the argument that Tesla should be held to a different standard on sales numbers feels pretty shaky.
Both of these are basically "concept cars", and neither company has really delivered.
Both are expensive to make, and have very high sticker prices with low/negative margins (Tesla claims cybertruck is profitable, but they're sitting on an absolutely insane inventory count, which they can't seem to sell... so again... my guess is they're deep in the red for this model if you look at total costs instead)
I think the difference is what each company respectively thought of the model itself. For Tesla, Cybertruck is imo like a lower-volume sports car... for Ford, it was an upscale work truck option. The expectations are imo very different. Maybe not so much a Ford/Tesla comparison, but the respective market expectations.
Ford didn't exactly expect the Ford GT to be a mass seller, which is probably closer to what Tesla expected of the Cybertruck, or not, who knows.
I'll be interested in the Slate when I can actually buy one. I've seen far too many startup car companies fail to launch to ever get my hopes up. Also, the hopes that the very first vehicle from a brand new company will be affordable are not realistic. Making affordable vehicles requires production at large scale, and that requires enormous capital investment, which generally means your company needs to already have income. Even if it just to prove to potential investors that you have basic competence.
Don't think that just because a billionaire is interested in the project that the funding will be easy. Billionaires don't like to spend their own money and can be easily distracted by newer and shinier projects.
When the cyber truck was announced we decided to buy a Super Duty instead. That was 5 years ago. It's now paid off and driven us and our RV all over the country, and still worth more than half it's purchase price with many more miles to go, and no issues at all (knock on wood).
A lightning, cyber truck, or even rivian can't do those things.
Instead of waiting for a slate just buy a little gas pickup and GO USE IT, live you life!!!
To be clear, I'm not waiting for it at all... I'm not that interested in EVs for my own use so much... I work from home and not going to buy a new vehicle any time soon. I'm just more interested in it conceptually. Much like I was interested in the Local Motors Rally Fighter, I wasn't ever going to buy one, just thought it was cool. Well, maybe not the same, as the Slate could be something I would actually buy if/when it hits market in any numbers.
If it's got a good level of repairability beyond the body/form, then the company collapsing may be a lot less of an issue. The way it's being done does remind me a lot of the original GP (General Purpose) vehicle. Though not necessarily fit for military/combat environments; As fuel is easier to transport than electricity to the middle of nowhere.
If you want to kill coal and oil just tax them the fair market price of carbon sequestration for the amount of carbon they ultimately emit. Use that money to sequester the carbon. This is how carbon markets should have been set up, but unfortunately that would have killed the modern economy.
Look at the same specs for the cyber truck. There is about twice the carbon in the manufacturing of these, so it counts on people driving them for hundreds of thousands of miles, I don't see that happening with them because you can't even take a normal road trip while towing. These things just aren't going to see the miles, because they can't. They're just not usable as trucks.
My understanding is the difference in carbon emission from manufacturing a BEV vs. an ICE vehicle is about 4 tons of carbon, roughly what you would get from 400 gallons of gasoline. So to make up the carbon deficit the BEV needs to drive about 8,000 miles assuming the ICE truck has above average highway MPG. This does assume the electricity comes from renewables though, if you have coal fired electricity then the figure may vary wildly.
I don't see how that is relevant to the discussion. Also if you are one if the low single digit percentage of people who do long distance towing regularly then yeah, get a diesel. I was talking more about people who live in the suburbs and commute to work and back in their truck, never tow anything, and use the bed maybe twice a year. About 67% of truck owners in the US.
It means cybertrucks and similar are not usable as trucks. They're only usable as vehicles that you shouldn't buy a truck for that use case for. If you need a truck to do actual truck things you can't use these. See this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nS0Fdayj8Y
If that was the goal, then killing nuclear power and holding it back for the past 4 decades was probably the wrong move. Solar and other "renewable" sources aren't enough to meet energy needs now, let alone the near future.
I see the slate as the successor of the now extinct (in Can + US) mini-truck. 90s trucks like the small Toyota Truck, old Ford Ranger, Nissan hardbody, etc.
The kind of trucks that landscapers are still using, that are beat to shit, and have three features, cheap, load carrying, reliable by way of simplicity.
I can see that, but I mean in terms of body specs and room to reshape/cover/modify the vehicle to different needs beyond pickup truck. Including a second row of seats.
It’s also the fact that Ford investors care about profits and its stock is not just a meme stock with no relationship to current or future profits like Tesla.
Same. The Slate is so close to what I actually want out of an EV: basic, utilitarian, cheap, not made out of 5 iPads. It's not perfect, but neither is any of its competition.
It says a lot that spacex had to buy so many trucks just to help the sales numbers. I always thought the ford lightning was a better option for most people anyway. It is too bad they are stopping production when it seems to be the winner.
5,600 units of Cybertrunk and Semi combined is basically 5,600 units of Cybertruck. The Semi is still a boondoggle. I can believe that number. Your maximum sales figures are capped by your price point, and the Cybertruck, as well as the S and X, are in that "Fully successful this vehicle will have sales in the mid-thousands" price bracket.
I sometimes wonder about a world where those trucks managed to hit their $40,000 price points. For the Cybertruck it was clear that Elon demanded way too much (four wheel seering? Come on) to ever get close to it, but for the F150 it seems more like the price was due to Ford halfassing the production.
There is also the optic that the premiere US EV company failed to deliver an EV pickup truck behind Rivian, Ford, Stellantis, and arguably did a far worse job at it.
The F150 lightning was always going to be a tough sell for die hard truck customers but it at least has all the fit and finish that those customers expect, with access to the F-series aftermarket.
I suspect the reasoning was similar to the reason Tesla bought Solar City or X.ai acquired the site previously known as twitter. Pure unvarnished investor value.
Armchair internet analysts think they know better than the biggest car producer in the world that reinvented the modern supply chain.
"But look at Tesla market cap!!!"
Toyota had the right intuition: focus on EVs when the global sales will make sense for it, meanwhile avoid throwing good money after bad like most legacy automakers did with EVs.
Toyota is not immune to throwing good money after bad. They have dumped billions into hydrogen fuel cell research and production over three decades. Last year they sold more Venzas than hydrogen cars.
Notably, the Venza was discontinued after the 2024 model year and those sales figures represent inventory leftover from prior years.
No, because the manufacturers who took a risk on EVs, at large, did it due to FOMO and investor pressure after seeing Tesla balloon in the stock market.
Now that's a hot take, do you own Toyota stock or something? ;-) A more sober analysis would suggest that EVs have been surging in popularity while every rational analysis of hydrogen overwhelmingly suggests it is infeasible.
We reached the point a long time ago where there weren't really any 'shit' cars any more, just variations on okay. Toyota does have a good record, though it tends to mean that buying them brand new is the best choice, they hold their value too well on the used market compared to their actual reliability advantage.
Yeah, what on earth are people even talking about here? EVs are clearly destroying ICE in the car market in terms of growth rates. Even without any government mandates, I highly doubt most new car sales in a decade will be ICE. There's just too many advantages to EVs, and ICE's few advantages keep slipping away.
The idea that complex Rube Goldberg machines powered by fire and explosions are somehow going to have a future compared to devices with minimal moving parts powered by a fundamental force of nature in its most pure form is absurd on the surface.
Americans and American companies often hold onto technologies long after they are clearly done for in the belief that hope and marketing and stubborn refusal to let go of some romantic view that gas stations and loud noisy slow devices that require constant maintenance are cool.
Toyota and others are rightly betting the American taste will be slow to swing, that our leadership is spineless and has no forward vision, and that they can keep monetizing old technology. What they are getting wrong is the inexorable force of economic and technological reality will strangle ICE manufacturers in a slow then sudden death. BYD, MG, etc are r through the regulatory grind while building their production and logistical capacity. Once they can penetrate the US market veil it’ll be over for Ford, GM, Toyota, and others. Tesla will have to cut margin so fast it’ll be dizzying.
If you’ve driven these Chinese EVs you’ll know the writing is on the wall, and as these legacy automakers cancel their last gasp attempt to be relevant in the future, they’ve ended their role in world manufacturing in the quixotic notion that hope is a strategy.
It wasn't canceled for poor sales. It was canceled because it was too expensive to produce, and would not fund all their other EV/battery projects. They found a better road to profitability in that front.
Exactly. Their truck was apparently quite nice but expensive. And then dealers made it worse by adding a hefty markup to that. It would have done fine at a much lower price point. But that would have required a manufacturing cost level that Ford could not deliver:
There are a few reasons for that:
- Ford designed this as a one off vehicle, not as a platform to build multiple vehicles on. So, a lot of the manufacturing process is making components in low volume just for this truck that they are selling in small numbers. It never hit the economies of scale where they could optimize and lower cost.
- It's a big heavy vehicle that needs lots of battery. Batteries are expensive.
- The tariff situation made importing components from Mexico, China, and elsewhere prohibitively expensive. Ford can't source everything they need locally just yet.
All this drives the production cost up. When they launched the vehicle a few years ago, they were still able to import components. They had a shot at sourcing much cheaper batteries from China down the line. All that went away and locally produced batteries aren't as cheap.
Another factor is that it's a product that was designed to be premium and more expensive than the ICE F150 in order to protect sales of that. It was forever going to be compared to that in terms of performance and towing capacity. And the combination of being more expensive than that while having less range and even less while towing is not a great selling point.
Companies like Rivian or BYD that have no ICE truck sales to protect can operate differently. They simply make the best and most affordable vehicle they can without artificially making it needlessly expensive. Rivian isn't cheap of course but they sell well because it's a desirable product. And Rivian has done a lot of work to lower cost and is now introducing cheaper models on the back of that. BYD is cutting well below F150 ICE prices with their Shark truck. Because they can. Not for sale in the US of course but it makes F150 Lightning international sales a bit unviable. As a US only niche vehicle selling in the low thousands per year the Lightning had no future.
And because they have problems as it is sourcing aluminum for more profitable F150 variants. Ford lives or dies based on the F150, they needed to focus on higher profit margins on the trucks they could actually build.
This is the answer, CyberTruck achieved positive gross margins in Q3 2024. The F-150 never did. So the Lightning is canceled and the CyberTruck lives on.
It seems China has won the race for EV dominance in battery technology and manufacturing. Probably not much the U.S. can do to catch up. From the insane oil needs of the U.S. Military to the gasoline needed for a functioning economy and transportation, China will be light years ahead in every category which will have huge implications for U.S. National Security.
EV dominance is not only defined by battery technology but also by ADAS functions, driving dynamics and many other considerations also common to ICE cars.
In Europe, Chinese vehicles are only selling in any meaningful quantities in the low and very low price segments. And that is mainly due to cheaper labor costs in China and very thin margins (something European OEMs are not interested anymore).
When it comes to higher price segments, European OEMs and Tesla dominate clearly due to superior technology offerings. As an example, the BMW iX3 is completely sold out for months even before market release, as it’s the first car so far that has reached 1000km without charging (Debrecen - Munich). That’s not only a battery technology achievement but also aerodynamics and drivetrain efficiency, where BMW leads together with Tesla.
The Chinese market is very competitive itself as well, and is clearly dominated by Chinese OEMs. Classic European OEMs are seen as vehicles for old people, and newer generations are opting for local manufacturers. Infotainment and ADAS are also driving customers towards Chinese OEMS, mainly because of looser regulation which allows Chinese offerings to edge what Europeans and Americans are offering at the moment. To the point that the big three, Mercedes, BMW and Audi had to switch their ADAS stack to a Chinese made one (Momenta) in order to not lose more customers.
Battery technology is quickly becoming commodity and margins are thinning. Same as it happened in other industries: no one knows who is manufacturing their Samsung or iPhone battery. They might know about the CPU but they clearly care about the brand and the software experience. Cars are becoming not different.
In Europe that software experience (including driving dynamics) is and will be dominated by European OEMs, while leaving the cheap offerings for Chinese brands. They might even recover long term in China if they can quickly adapt their software to Chinese needs.
American OEMs will do fine, they either have high quality software offerings like Tesla or Rivian, or they can easily partner with American software companies to provide Americans with their desired experience.
After 10 years batteries tend to have about 80% charge retention and a usable life of 20+ years and have basically no maintenance for the life of the vehicle. So, economics work out well for EVs.
Unless they come right back with a comparable implementation with a maverick/ranger type form factor, Ford is absolutely shot itself in the foot canceling the lightning. I’ve been Evie only for five years and have driven both the electric Silverado and the lightning. I bought the lightning. It’s fantastic. They are absolute idiots for discontinuing it.
Also bought a Lightning. I use it for plenty of truck related things that don't involve towing and it's great. I like to target shoot on family farm land, and it's awesome to toss my steel targets and equipment in the bed and offroad to the area I shoot on (there's an area pretty far in with a sharp elevation change that's created a large berm). Or going to lowes to get a ton of fertilizer/plants/gardening equipment for my spouse.
I also use it to commute, and it's even better at that (part of that is mine being the Platinum trim). Quiet, smooth, powerful, has Android Auto/CarPlay (unlike GM's products), etc.
They really are a fantastic vehicle for those who don't need to quickly tow heavy trailers 400 miles. Especially on the used market.
I think the issue was that Ford wasn't making much margin on them and they weren't moving sufficient volume to make up for that. (around 20K/yr avg)
I wanted an F-150 Lightning when it launched. Demand was high enough that I was told I'd have to pay over retail. I did not buy an F-150 Lightning and bought an ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle. The depreciation of electric vehicles has made me appreciate those circumstances more and more.
> The depreciation of electric vehicles has made me appreciate those circumstances more and more.
The depreciation for most EVs isn't all that different from that of new ICE vehicles. For a while, MSRPs were artificially inflated by the EV tax credit, which could give artificially worse depreciation appearance.
Yes. Ask Tesla owners who bought at certain times in the past just how much the loss of the tax credit can hurt resale value when the manufacturer adjusts the price to account for it.
Idk why you make it sound like a hypothetical lol, the tax cuts already expired and price cuts already happened. HMC dropped their prices by $7k+ right after the tax credit expired
> Demand was high enough that I was told I'd have to pay over retail
Meanwhile the article says "the Ford F-150 Lightning delivered approximately 27,300 units in the US."
I wonder how much dealers lie about these things. They tell you that there's not enough of them to go around, then Ford cancels them, because of what exactly?
There were not enough to go around when it first came out. A couple years latter and everyone who wants one has one and there are plenty. This is normal for new cars - people who want the latest model line up to buy them as they come off the assembly line, then they all have one and sales drop.
The depreciation though has meant that used EVs are a bargain now.
But yes, as usual, dealers killed an EV. Same story for so many EVs. They don't want to sell them. They saw their opportunity to milk and screw up a product they didn't want, because of scarcity, and effectively poisoned it.
Same here. I was told it would take a at least year on the waitlist. A month later I had 2 friends offer me their spot. They weren't impressed with the truck after a few reviews came out showing bad towing performance. I opted to buy a used ICE truck instead and have zero regrets.
The Cybertruck failed to sell because it is stupendously ugly. All other (technical) reasons are and were manufactured for political purposes. We're too itchy to stop picking at it, so we blame everything else we see and hear as an add-on reason, but really it was how it looked. Ford didn't cancel the electric pickup, they did even more research and decided the upcoming EREV F150 will eventually eat it's mother, so it is better to stop now.
imho, CT is horribly looking car with absolute disregard to any aesthetics. everything else is secondary. it has vibes of Aztec. one of the worst selling car ever.
I’m still shocked that the CT went into production.
I’m convinced that the CT could’ve become a legend if they had just done a limited run of like 500-1,000. At that level, nobody would care if it was poorly built or worked well as a truck. It’d just be a crazy collector item that would go to car shows.
This is a case study in the failure of product market fit.
There is tons of room for a low cost, high quality small electric or hybrid pickup in today’s market.
Ford Maverick sales have been exceptionally strong, setting records in 2025 with 155,051 units sold in the US of A, up almost a fifth from last year.
Tesla needs to make a product that people want, and continuing to try to sell one they don’t want just won’t work. Why not pivot and build the truck people are asking for? Otherwise, this program will fail.
They should’ve released the electric tuck for the segment that wanted the maverick. Even better would e been an electric lei truck, but I don’t know if you’d be able to stack enough batteries on one of their tiny li’l frames
I find it funny that car discussions here are so much busier than computer discussions. I wonder if over there at the mechanics forum they spend as much time discussing their laptops and ignoring the drills and screwdrivers
I see many many F-150 lightnings in Canada (Quebec at least) used by construction people. Are there any country or more detailed stats on where F-150s were sold?
Looks are subjective, but what I don't understand is why they put an enormous vision obscuring frunk on it. The vehicle could have been considerably easier to maneuver in tight spots and safer to pedestrians at the loss of just some dubious storage space with no loss in bed capacity. Or it could have been the same length or even a little shorter and have a full 4x8 bed in the back.
If anything the vehicle was designed more for aesthetics than for practicality. There is no engine up front. There's no need for all of that space in front of the driver. It's entirely possible to engineer crash resistance without needing 4 goddamn feet of crumple zone. They could have had both a crew cab and a full size bed. Or the short bed but a more practical size.
Be it as it may, its aesthetics are so distinct it isn't for everybody. Also a big part of the target audience expecting to buy an utility vehicle have cheaper, proven and more practical alternatives. I guess the fact its not road legal in the EU doesn't help either whilst other Tesla models are quite popular there.
Ford swapping pure EV for generator backed EV seems quite sensible. There's some youtube saying such vehicles have been a hit in China https://youtu.be/rTT5Wq49Ss4?t=286
Just before its release there was some press about a few high ups at Tesla who urged Elon to make a “traditional” looking pickup alongside the cyber truck in case it was a flip, but Elon shut them down hard.
I’d be really interested to know if they’re going to do that.
The tech is incredible and will filter into all vehicles in a decade or so (48v, Ethernet instead of CAN, etc)
They’re both things the legacy automakers have been trying to do for 10 or 15 years, but they just couldn’t pull it off without getting all the suppliers on board.
Both result in much lighter wiring, saving money.
The steer by wire is also very cool, but I don’t know enough to say if it’s justified on regular cars or a cost saving.
I love my EV, but for anything that needs the range they should have a super-efficient gas or diesel engine that can charge the batteries? It could be a much less complex engine.
That said, they big car makers only chased the government incentives, which was a great reason to have them.
Electric everything is the future. It is obvious (e.g. heat pumps, EVs).
For people discussing about truck sizes, here is a good web sites that highlight the history of trucks and how they the cab size and bed size did a 180 [0].
I've owned a few F-150s over the last 20is years. It has the best fold up seats of any truck - entire back cabin floor is flat which is great for my dogs.
I rented a lightning on Turo and it was amazing - planned on getting one as my next truck. I would drive a CT depending on price but they just draw too much attention.
Absolute sales numbers are not the determinant of whether or not a product is sustainable. It's unit profitability. Ford was spending 17k per pickup on the battery alone. Larger sales flow can improve efficiency and unit economics but so can savvy engineering
And they announced the next version of the Lightning last month. People don't like that it isn't purely BEV, but I don't see the big deal.
Unlike a traditional hybrid, the F-150 Lightning EREV is propelled 100
percent by electric motors. This ensures owners get the pure EV driving
experience they love — including rapid acceleration and quiet operation —
while eliminating the need to stop and charge during long-distance towing.
F-150 Lightning is better vehicle than Cybertruck - however Ford is a political company (not like Musk) as in the fortunes of Ford lie to an extent with politicians, unions etc
so hopefully ford can turn the F-150 into an Extended Range Electrical Vehicle
I'm as much of a Tesla Fan Boy that you can be but I have to say, the F-150 seems like a darn good vehicle and it's sad they're killing it. I especially like the V2X features.
I have one and it is an amazing vehicle. However, what they are planning with their new EREV system coming out in 2027 seems pretty interesting too. You get your usual battery only mileage and then a generator kicks in to recharge the battery for longer trips. I would imagine it wouldn’t be required in 95% of most people’s trips but it gives folks the option n long road trips or heavy tows.
I like it because it skips the usual hybrid approach of switching over to an ICE engine that drives your wheels in a different way and simplifies things immensely.
I remember when Elon promised that they would have an extended range battery option for the Cybertruck, but then realized the logistics of such a thing are extremely challenging and quietly dropped it.
I like the idea of easy additional range, but I use my frunk all the time and I don't think I'd give it up for additional range that would only benefit me two or three times a year. Along with additional things to maintain.
I don't think they're really killing it. The Lightning EREV is next, and my bet is it's almost identical to the BEV version but with an engine where the big beautiful frunk is now. Gives them something to sell the people who think they need big range numbers, but also gives them an easy path back to a full BEV. I kind of expect them to backpedal on the full cancelation and make both vehicles.
> my bet is it's almost identical to the BEV version but with an engine where the big beautiful frunk is now
Would be interesting how small and how cheap you can design a ~50kW genset to be (any smaller and you don't gain that highly coveted towing range). I don't think it's an easy task, you still need to integrate the crash compliant fuel tank, the emissions compliant exhaust system, water cooling for the engine, ect.
It's a pretty long BOM you're adding to an already expensive BEV, so you don't really have thousands of dollars of budget to add to the production cost.
> It's a pretty long BOM you're adding to an already expensive BEV, so you don't really have thousands of dollars of budget to add to the production cost.
Agreed. And I don't think it will be cheaper. The Lightning was already selling for less than the comparable ICE equivalent, there is no way they will sell the Lightning EREV at the same price point after adding a generator along with the associated supporting parts. I bet it will be at least 10K more, and I won't be shocked if it's closer to 20K.
If I had to bet; they'll put their 3.7L V6 in and run it on the miller cycle with a fixed drive to hit @130+kW or so.
The changes for cooling, etc. will be substantial, but the problem space is already well-known by the team, so the time to market probably won't be as long as we think.
That's probably a quick way to do it, but considering that using a miller cycle means we're going to want the turbo version of the engine, that alone is going to cost like $4k on Fords end. Add a 100kW+ generator with the power electronics to charge while driving, fuel system, exhaust system and cooling system, and we're probably approaching $10k upcharge for the customer.
Gotta remove a whole lot of batteries from that car to make it cost competitive again. Realistically, with an engine this powerful, we can probably cut down to like 30kWh of total battery capacity, which gets us back to where we started financially. And 30 kWh is enough to drive 70 miles all electric, which should pretty much should cover most daily use for people who charge at home.
Now, the questions if we can do that cheaper with a much smaller engine. Ford has a 1 liter inline 3 in the Fiesta and Focus that makes half as much power. Should be enough...
The dreamers amongst us have noted that Ford has a patent (at least an application for one, I don't recall if it was granted) for putting an EREV generator under the bed near the back of the truck. Since it can be a smaller engine and does not require an attachment to the drivetrain, maybe this is feasible.
If they did that, it would remove one of my reasons for not being too interested in the Lightning EREV -- the anticipated loss of the frunk. It still introduces a bunch of mechanical bits and associated maintenance requirements, that is unavoidable, along with a substantial increase in cost.
I bought my Lightning with the intent of keeping it 7-8 years, and it meets my needs very well, so this is mostly just navel gazing for me. The EREV version would have more range that I would rarely benefit from, and be substantially less powerful, which is also a negative from my perspective, in addition to costing a bunch more. My current truck is by far my favorite so far. I hope when I'm finally ready to try something new, there are better options. It's a high bar.
Cars are almost a niche form factor at this point (sadly). The Mercedes-Benz GLS vastly outsells the S-class, and the same holds true for the BMW X7 vs. 7-series.
What evidence do you have of Tesla performing poorly as a whole compared to others in the space, and/or Elon not successfully growing the company at reasonable rates?
They are the worst of both worlds: not enough battery range to satisfy on long trips plus the weight and maintenance headaches of a gas tank and engine, especially silly to lug that around if 90% of your trips are in battery range.
As a 2012 Volt owner I think EREV was a great idea in the 2010s given battery tech and networks at the time. In the 2020s, they seem a weak compromise that I wouldn't recommend to people.
> especially silly to lug that around if 90% of your trips are in battery range
The same argument works for large batteries, right? On 90% of your trips, you're lugging around several hundred pounds of battery you're not using.
If you want to tackle the weight argument, you could always drop 40 kWh battery capacity from the truck. That frees up around 600 lbs you can now use for the genset.
The maintenance thing is a real problem, of course. A 50 kW genset that almost never runs will be much better on mainenance than a classic ICE car, but still add significant maintenance cost to a BEV.
Which is part of why I think Range is often a distraction in EV discussions. The people asking for 600+ mile Range EVs may see those built because it always sounds like there are plenty of people "demanding" that, but the weight trade-off in batteries isn't going to make those great cars, most of that range will be "waste" given average trips. But it is easier to get to 600+ miles of range by adding more (and better) batteries than by making larger gas tanks and engines.
& battery tech continues to evolve at high speed. China is already selling 1000v 5min charging evs. Semi solid state are shipping. 500+ mile range cars exist. EREV is going to be obsolete in a few short years, if it isnt already.
No shit. The CT is ugly to most consumers' sensibilities, and not a "real" truck to most consumers in the truck segment. It only survives as long as it serves Musk's ego. But that's ok -- Tesla is Musk's company and shareholders are happy with that status quo. Who else cares?
The Cybertruck isn't a "real" truck, but the vast majority of trucks never do real truck stuff anyway so that's not as big of a gotcha as people think. Hell, even F-150s and Dodge Rams and GMCs have stunted vestigial cargo beds now, they're more like minivan utes. How many trucks can you buy today that can fit a standard everyday 4x8 sheet and a load of 8' studs in the back and close the tailgate?
> but the vast majority of trucks never do real truck stuff anyway so that's not as big of a gotcha as people think.
The whole point for those non-utilty buyers is the badass, tough-guy branding. Would a whiskey-drinking, steer-wranglin', meat-smokin', spur-boot-wearin', woodshop-havin', permanent-5-oclock-shadow BAMF drive a electric CT? No. Therefore the CT fails at the one thing they expect of trucks due to its lack truck aura.
Oh no. What if Elon's highly visible foray into right wing politics is an attempt to market his truck to people who would not normally give it time of day? Basically turn it into a rolling red baseball cap.
The GOP cancelled he Lightning - it's not irony that Trump is touring their plants a week or two after them cancelling the Lightning, while going all in on oil.
What sickened me is our quarry wanted to buy 5 Lightning F150s a few months after they came out and no dealer near me in DFW would even take an order because “the wait list is too long”.
Ford sold more than 100K Lightnings. By many metrics that don't involve "compared to the best selling truck in America" that would be considered a successful run for a model.
Do you know how pickups became the most popular vehicle in America? By not being appealing to just one type of guy. There is no "truck guy", there is "everyone." (well, yes, there are some anti-truck people, but they're niche and mostly online).
SUVs are the most popular body type in America, not pickups.
Pickups always top the "best selling model" list, but there are only a couple models of pickup and dozens of models of SUV. If you total up all the SUVs, they sell much better than pickups.
It's sad to see how much of an echo chamber hackernews has become, used to see a a decent number of users engage in critical discussion and exchange perspective, now threads like this are just a gong show of self-reinforcement.
To give some weight to the above, this thread leans way too heavy into EVs being awesome and the main issue is "the people or industry" (misconceptions, misunderstanding, oil industry bad, etc) while backing that with "rest of the world is winning the race" (FOMO).
Here's some counter points to a bunch of claims made in this thread:
1) EVs are not as practical as this thread proposes:
- Battery degradation is still mostly an unsolved issue. 10% within 3 years is common on the latest models as reported by drivers, 15% within 5-7 years is also quite common. LFPs do better but provide considerably less ideal range. 20% degradation is the cliff, where degradation accelerates and lithium ion batteries are considered EOL. For cars that under ideal conditions do 500km - 550km that's not okay over the lifespan of the car where you want good performance in the 8 to 16 year range. In addition, average car on the road in the USA / Europe is at 12 years (many cars far above 12 years old). These batteries will be lucky to make it to 12 years so the average age of EV fleet will end up much lower than ICE (not great)(more disposable) unless you replace the battery. Battery replacements are $10k-$20k and poor warranties (4 years or less). Costs are not coming down for various reasons.
- Actual cold performance (under -10C) is not good, there's no way to resolve this without increasing ideal range
- Range is considerably lower at highway speeds than city driving due to energy dynamics, exactly the opposite of what users need. ICE cars have an advantage here because their power curve is non-linear and power output improves with RPM, RPM goes up with higher speeds in the final gear so efficiency improves for a portion of the curve.
- Charging when living in apartment complexes or in multi-home units is not competitive at all with filling up at a gas tank, time wise or cost (unless subsidized).
- Most people drive few miles daily but long road trips yearly, often to remote places without reasonable charging infra. Versatility of use cases is a core requirement for most car users and EVs are not competitive here.
2) Growth is not as significant and growth rate has significantly slowed down
- EV sales are not at 30%+ of all car sales world wide as someone proposed in this thread claiming China is at 50%. China is at 50% NEV, which stands for new energy vehicle and makes up hybrids, BEV and EREV. EREV + hybrids are 40% of sales in China. That means BEVs are only at 30% of total which is what the rest of the world considers EV. World can't be at 30% EV sales itself as the rest of the world is far behind this sales % compared to China.
- China is pushing higher EVs not due to tech superiority but for energy security for obvious reasons, i.e. a lack of traditional energy independence and rising geopolitical risk
- Subsides have played a huge role in the growth and removal of subsidies will depress sales growth more
3) "rest of the world is winning the race" (FOMO)
- No one has won this race because the tech is not technically sufficiently superior to the currently available. This will change when solid state batteries become common place, but the problems with the tech are hard with a long tail of issues so that's still many years away from being widely rolled out.
Cybertruck is a gimmick. And the fad has passed. No wonder they're not selling well.
And they don't age well. Most of the ones around here are starting to look... grimy. Or dingy. After just a couple of years. It's a poor advertisement for itself.
And, yeah, then there's cultural eye-rolling. It's really the only vehicle I hear people openly mock when they see one... And that's not a Tesla/Elon thing entirely, since people don't have the same reaction to other Tesla vehicles.
I swear, Telsa makes cars for gamers. If you're not in this demographic, it's not for you. Ford, GM, everyone needs to stop emulating Tesla. Practical people do not want this.
Unfortunately other automakers see this as the pinnacle of interior engineering; swoon over this and try to pull a "LETS REMOVE ALL OF THE BUTTONS, ITS WHAT CONSUMERS WANT" maneuver.
All consumers really need/want is an affordable, repairable, minimalistic and simple vehicle. What automakers are shoving down their throats is touch screens, animations, ridiculous LED light displays, etc. Then they wonder why electric sales suck.
My anecdata feeling from all the Tesla owners I know is that they stole customers wanting affordable, repairable, etc. from Japanese manufacturers and they stole customers who were luxury car buyers (Ford, GM, etc. weren’t even competitors) willing to forego some luxury for the EV.
If the Lightning OUTSOLD Tesla, is that really losing to them? Feels to me like an indictment of the scale that Tesla actually operates: an order of magnitude less than the big car makers. If Ford declares a truck that sold better than CT as a failure, it's because for their size it didn't sell enough. If that lesser number IS enough for Tesla, they're simply not a player in the same league as Ford.
This reflects a very common pronunciation of syllable-final Ls in English, called a vocalised L, but I've never seen it reflected in spelling in such a way. Very cool!
I'm extremely curious - did you go for that spelling as an intentional stylistic variation, or was it a typo reflecting your usual pronunciation?
The Toyota Rav4 outsold the Model Y in 2025. Toyota led all brands worldwide with 10.3 million cars sold by November. Tesla which sold 1.64 million, didn't make the cut for top ten brands.
Here’s the Tesla source.
Everything I’m seeing for the rav4 is dated before the end of 2025, so the data is projected for the rav4 to make a headline, not actual data.
I'm sure the usual detractors will be here to whine "Electrek is biased against Tesla!"
To which I would ask: Is it "bias" because they simply report on Tesla frequently? Would it be "less biased" if they ignored Tesla? Obviously Electrek can't simply invent positive press for Tesla to report on.
Putting that aside though. The Cybertruck by all measures has been an abject failure. Its production run was so limited that insurance companies refused to cover it [1] and the NHTSA took something like two years just to crash test the thing due to how few of them there were on the road.
Combine that with 10 fucking recalls for absolutely horrific safety issues [2] and the company making the batteries taking a 99% slash in its $2.8 billion dollar contract [3] the thing is a complete travesty
Fred Lambert (Electrek founder) was pro-tesla and was using his site to get a huge number of referral credits. Then Tesla changed the rules on that referral program.
That's what triggered the beef. Fred sold all shares, took down all the pro-tesla articles, and posts nearly exclusively only negative tesla articles since.
Seems both parties were/are within legal rights, but it is clearly bias.
Literally the only people who can think that this dude is anywhere remotely objective is if you are already a Tesla hater; he posts qualifications in every title and always adjusts the wording and tone to be negative. Every Electrek's take on an article is him describing how he warned everyone about the Elon/Tesla heel turn as you laid it out. It screams confirmation bias but since he isn't a journalist there's no code of ethics he's bound to follow.
I'm bullish on EV's at large. They're far nicer to ride in. So I find his coverage informative. I've never owned a Tesla but I've ridden in hundreds and must admit (other than the original Roadster) I've been thoroughly "whelmed" by their mediocrity.
However, short of going to places like Reddit's "Tesla Lounge" or "Cyber Truck Owners Forum" I have yet to see many (any?) places that cover Tesla/Elon positively. Not because "every website is biased against him" but simply because they're reporting on events that've happened
Nicer to ride in in what sense? I find single-pedal to be nauseating because many drivers can’t control their foot raise well enough for smooth or gentle braking, and the suspension feels chunky as hell, most likely due to how heavy the car is. But maybe that’s just Teslas. Their ride is just categorically worse than most ICE vehicles.
Makes it even more impressive that Model Y is the best selling car worldwide. If you sell enough, I guess by definition you achieve mediocrity. You eventually become the average simply numerically.
Best selling car worldwide and not a super affordable one at that, but if you listen to everyone on the internet who "doesn't own a Tesla but has ridden in hundreds", they'll you very authoritatively they're mediocre cars.
Yeah. Obviously we should ask the people who own them for their opinion. Obviously they'll gleefully deride their not super affordable purchases :)
Speaking of not super affordable. When's that "affordable Tesla" coming. Or did Elmo turn on the 'full self driving' and it drove itself into a ditch along the way?
I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift around its launch.
That said, even though it's not to my taste, I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new.
>I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics
That and also it's just a bad product.
>That said, even though it's not to my taste, I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it.
A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
edit: agree there's a market for the raptor off-road tremor package thing, but it wasn't ford's first and they've been selling commerical trucks for 75 years. A true tesla f150 competitor would have sold like crazy, I think
> A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility. It's a $60,000 four-door lifted luxobarge with leather interior and a short bed. It signals (perceived) wealth while preserving working-class alignment. It can also be justified by way of having to pick up used furniture for TikTok refinish and flip projects or bimonthly runs to Home Depot to buy caulk and lightbulbs. Independent tradesman can write them off as work vehicles or, allegedly, use COVID-era PPP loans to buy them.
It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner. Investment bankers generally don't go scuba diving and if they did a dive computer would be vastly preferable.
I say all of that to say that making a pickup truck for that market segment isn't a bad idea from a numbers perspective. You just can't market it as a luxury vehicle because the whole point is that it is but it isn't.
Bingo.
Sprinter vans, utility vans, or even minivans are far, far more useful for trades than modern pickups. Heck, my minivan was the goat for home renovations—it’d easily fit a dozen full 4x8 sheets of drywall/osb/ply/mdf/etc and I could still close the rear gate. I always got chuckles from guys awkwardly wrangling/securing sheets onto a pickup’s bed at the supply yard when I’d easily slide the sheets off the cart directly into the van by myself.
A heavy duty pickup makes sense when you have regular towing, or large bulky transport, needs. While on this topic, I’ll take a moment to lament the demise of the light duty pickup that provided a bit of extra utility while still fitting in a normal parking space.
> I’ll take a moment to lament the demise of the light duty pickup that provided a bit of extra utility while still fitting in a normal parking space.
I miss the hell out of my '82 Chevrolet S10 with extended cab and two-tone paint job. The extended cab isn't going to be used for hauling the soccer team, but I could put it was plenty of space for "inside only" cargo. Damn thing threw a rod and cracked the case, and I never could convince my parents to keep it and put a new engine in it. I'd like to think I'd still own it today if they had.
You could run a single issue presidential campaign on bringing the S10 back (all it would really take is patching some weired emissions regulations mistakes). A better truck from a better time.
My pitch to the people near me who have no connection to the auto industry is that an electric Ranger (90's style) would have been a huge hit. I get the feeling that the Lightning came about because Ford managers don't really know how to make vehicles that regular people want.
Funny thing is that Ford made an electric 90’s Ranger. Sold only in Mexico IIRC. Internally it was referred to as the Ranger Glider.
They were sold in California as well.
A fully-electric Maverick?
That new Slate pickup looks pretty cool.
I have never owned a truck or a new car and I might buy one if they can truly keep the slate under 20knincluding delivery and all taxes and fees.
IIRC the 20k number depended on the 7k federal rebate that recently expired, so it will probably be more like 27k
F-150 Lightning was supposed to start at $39,974 and ended up at $54,780. I'll be surprised to see Slate actually happening under $30k. Having lost the $7,500 rebate, more like $35k.
USA seemingly can't sell small or base trim cars.
A fun-sized six speed pickup with a turbo four banger? Sign me up.
Educate me: How is the Canyon, Ranger, or Frontier not a modern equivalent to the S10? All small(ish) trucks available in a two door or extended cab configuration with basic options.
The Frontier is massive compared to what it used to be. 90s Frontier was a small pickup truck. 2010s Frontier is the size of a 90s F-150.
Product of mfrs cheating CAFE standards.
Small pickups could be pretty fuel efficient. The problem is not CAFE standards but the fact that zero Americans buy small trucks, because the entire market for new vehicles in the US is people who are financially illiterate and easily marketed to and making them buy $80k brodozers is more profitable than a $30k S10
Half these people still choose to buy the vehicle they do for insane and superficial reasons like "It's got a Hemi", like my uncle, even though Hemispherical combustion chambers haven't been state of the art or even good ICE technology in decades.
Also a lot of contractors consider their vehicle appearance a tax deductible marketing expense.
They're substantially larger in all around size. Like comparable to a Dodge Dakota. A Maverick or Santa Cruz is comparable to a historical Ranger or S10, with the caveat that they're only available in one cab and bed configuration.
I'm taking my 1st gen Tacoma 5-spd to the grave
Buy a Ford Maverik hybrid. Similar size, great mileage.
Except it's a Ford and not a Chevy. If you think those things don't matter, you're just fooling yourself.
The 2.5 hybrid in the Maverick is better than any 4 cyl GM could plop into a mini truck at the moment.
> I’ll take a moment to lament the demise of the light duty pickup that provided a bit of extra utility while still fitting in a normal parking space.
Remind me of my favorite article title: In the land of the free, why can’t we have mini-pickup trucks like the Taliban and ISIS?[0]
[0]: https://www.kansas.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/dion-lefler...
You can buy a hitch for any vehicle and a brand new 8 foot trailer for < $2k.
For the "I need to sometimes pick up large objects" use case it's hard to beat.
I have 3 vehicles, an old project jeep, an old truck, and a sedan.
Sedan handles 99% of my driving, but can't really tow anything. Truck handles all of my towing stuff, but gets ~14mpg which hurts so I don't drive it.
Jeep is a jeep, it's always being worked on, but when I use it I'm using it to go ride around on dirt paths or for camping. It gets 17-20mpg when I'm driving it but I don't want to drive it often.
If the jeep was a 2000's series jeep I would totally just get a small trailer for the occasional towing things that I do with the pickup and downsize to 2 vehicles. I know I could rent a uhaul from time to time for about what I pay for insuring and titling the truck, but the $100 annual difference is worth it for the convenience of not having to deal with uhaul 4 times a year.
But I said all of that to say, that a hitch isn't a perfect solution for everyone. I would feel very uncomfortable towing an empty 4x6 trailer behind my sedan, not to even mention the occasional couch or dresser or bunch of boxes from helping a friend move.
> I would feel very uncomfortable towing an empty 4x6 trailer behind my sedan, not to even mention the occasional couch or dresser or bunch of boxes from helping a friend move.
Why? 1500 lbs rated tow hook on an average sedan should be no problem at all. And that's more than enough for a 4x6 with a couch and a couple of boxes. Might even get a slightly larger trailer so you don't have to take the couch apart.
I've towed 14' sailboats including all gear behind a Corolla, didn't even feel the trailer was there.
I bought a used "regular" F-150 with an 8-foot bed about the last year that made sense, and when the frame finally rusted out and it could no longer pass inspection, the prices of used trucks was insane, and most of what was available was a lot of luxuries I didn't want to pay for.[0]
So I replaced it with a 5x8 trailer, which anymore gets pulled behind a Chevy Volt. I'd hesitate to load it to the max and take it on the thruway, but for most of my tasks it's actually more convenient than the truck. Loading up a riding lawn mower or a few hundred pounds of scrap metal is way easier with it being closer to the ground, and I'm mostly driving 10-15 miles over back roads so if I'm worried the load is too heavy for the compact car I don't mind taking it a little slow.
Also, it's convenient to load it while it's unhooked, piling in garbage and debris over a week or a weekend and then hooking it up to run to the dump; likewise, just unhooking the trailer full of construction materials and (weather permitting) just unloading it as you build.
I occasionally miss being able to drive it into the woods, but to be honest not being able to parallel park the trailer is a bigger inconvenience than not being able to off-road it.
[0] Since having kids I've come around on the second-row-of-seats/short bed trade-off; not being able to pick up dimensional lumber with kids in tow is way more limiting in my current phase of life than not being able to fit it in the bed with the tailgate up.
I don't know the specifics but the US has some sort of strict requirement on Towing, such that vehicles like hatchbacks and sedans that have ubiquitous 1500lb towing ratings in Europe are not rated to tow at all in the US.
People mostly still do it though, because it's cheap and easy to do.
It's at least as much about being able to stop it as it is being able to pull it. An loaded utility trailer with no trailer brakes on a wet road is going to jacknife in any kind of emergency stop, and the brakes on a Corolla are going to be challenged to do it even on a dry road.
I towed heavily loaded trailers - stuffed with books, tools, furniture, the trailer was loaded to the roof and I couldn't get up steep San Franscisco hills - to and from Alaska, and across the entire United States.
With an Impreza.
That included highways in the Yukon that were more river rock than gravel, backwoods of Montana and Wyoming, you name it.
It was totally fine. Especially in a Subaru, with AWD and a low well centered center of gravity. I'd do it again.
Just because. It's a Malibu, its tow rating is don't. I'm sure I could, but its not worth jeopardizing a $25,000 cars' drive train to potentially save about $600/year in insurance and tags and fuel for the truck.
2001 Wrangler owner, I do some towing (particularly like the flexibility of UBox for borrowing a box on a trailer for a few days to store items at my house or leisurely pack up for storage).
The 2 door model unfortunately has a pretty weak tow rating of 1 ton, and I'm fairly certain I have gone well over that a few times. IIRC the four door models a few years later took that up to 5000 lbs because of the extra length.
We bought our first minivan in 1998, a Ford Windstar. It was purchased to run our teenagers to activities, but I quickly fell in love with all the other things it could do, including what you've mentioned above. We put a ton of miles on it before trading it in. Next was a 2007 Town and Country with two sliding doors! By this time we were running grandkids and it was perfect.
After deciding to replace it, we struggled to decide what kind of vehicle to upgrade to. For our lifestyle and the side projects I like to do, another minivan was the obvious choice. Now it's a 2018 Pacifica and we're retired. The quality is outstanding, with 112K miles on it, I expect to put on another 100K before seeing what's available for the next upgrade. None of these vans ever gave us any engine or transmission trouble, despite the high number of miles I was able to put on them.
I have a 2018 Forester and it holds a surprising amount of furniture or 8' lumber. My only regret is that it won't fit 4x8 sheet materials well - if only they had designed the interior plastic cladding a little better it would be a great workhorse.
I remember my 1982 Toyota Corolla wagon had an obvious cut-out in the plastic interior, that was just a hair wider than a 4x8 sheet. I still miss that car.
Yep, my parents had an old Honda Odyssey (minivan) that exactly fit a 4x8 sheet of plywood. Comical that some pickups can't quite measure up.
Manufacturers are selling what their market wants. It sucks.
Ironically, the Honda Ridgeline - long lambasted as “not a real truck” - can fit a 4x8 sheet of plywood, at least width-wise. You’ll have to either prop it up on the tailgate, or drop it and strap it down (which honestly you should do either way), but it will fit between the wheels.
I love my Ridgelines; had a Gen1 RTL, and now a Gen2 BE. A neighbor I used to have traded his F-150 for an F-350. The most I ever saw him haul was a very small trailer with some furniture. I’ve had a cubic yard of mulch dumped into mine repeatedly (a Gen1 Ridgeline will hold and haul this, but it’s heaped, and depending on moisture content it’s slightly over max rating, so maybe don’t bring a passenger).
Try buying a compact Toyota pickup without the extra row of seats. The last one was made in 2015. They sell for more than the price of new for mileage < 100k.
I think there's basically one 4x4 van on the market in the US right now. So you're making a pretty bad generalization here. In the Bay Area, it's probably true that a van would work well, although I lived in a mixed-income neighborhood and all the construction guys had beater pickups. But if you live in a place with snow and unpaved residential roads, 4x4 is pretty much a must (and pickups can be also be used for plowing, etc).
Since when? I sincerely do not understand that point about snow. I've lived in Canada (not southern Ontario) for most of my life and everyone had (and still mostly has) FWD. 4x4 was only for people actually going off road... I don't get how this is now a "must".
it's a perceived must. when running "all season" tires year round the AWD inspires more confidence, and most people don't even know winter tires are a thing. Plus 4x4 only helps you start moving, but once you are, every car still only has 2 wheels to turn and 4 to stop, which are quite possibly more crucial in snow....
4x4/AWD makes slides in snow/slush more controllable as you spin around the center of the vehicle and have two extra drive wheels to regain traction with.
More fun, you mean.
Couple years ago I was driving through Arizona during a massive blizzard. Everyone's doing 15, and I'm doing 50 - taking things slow and careful because of the traffic.
I had people in vests standing out in the road waving at me trying to get me to slow down! And I'm going "What in the hell are you doing out in the road!? Don't you know this is a blizzard!"
I grew up in Alaska, we laugh at the snow :)
I would rather drive my rear wheel drive Camaro with its snow tires in a snowstorm than my the pickups I've borrowed over the years with their all season tires. It's quite the thing to remember that you need to drive like an old lady suddenly, even though you're in a big bad 4x4 pickup.
Surely that has nothing to do with the weight distribution and handling characteristics that result in the pickup and sports car having different ability to create traction out of whatever friction coeficient is available. /s
Snow tires don't really stand on their own merit unless you're constantly encountering the conditions the snow tire people use in the commercials to magnify the difference. The biggest reason to get snow tires is simply that then you can run a "pure" summer tire rather than an all season the rest of the year. The second biggest reason is dry road performance.
> AWD inspires more confidence
Stop and work backwards and ask yourself why that is rather than doing the Principal Skinner "no everyone else is wrong" routine. In practice, all seasons on an AWD car result in less slipping around than snow tires on a FWD car. Heck, if the difference where anywhere near close everyone rich enough to have a new car would probably have snow tires because the dealership or tire shop would be able to make that sale. The reason they can't is because in people's experience they're just not necessary.
Stupid internet circle jerks about stopping distance are not the pain point or performance bottleneck for the average user. The degree to which you can enter/exit a side street that has snow plowed in front of it, navigate a steep and poorly plowed driveway, park in an unplowed space, cross the slush between lanes on a main roads or highway, those are what "real users" care about and they're where AWD shines.
>but once you are, every car still only has 2 wheels to turn and 4 to stop, which are quite possibly more crucial in snow..
These trope needs to be taken out back and shot. Regardless of your tire type the amount of traction available in snow conditions is such that "not being stupid enough to come into a situation too hot" is the dominant factor in overall outcome in braking/turning situations. Snow tires are an incremental improvement, not a categorical one. And the difference between a wet road and a snowy one is very much a categorical one.
AWD is the right choice for the statistical average person or "casual user" who's snow experience is dominated by somewhat plowed, somewhat churned snow/slush roads and is already driving incredibly conservatively. If you're driving on a frozen lake all the time like in the tire commercials or live somewhere rural and drive on a ton of fresh snow, by all means get the snow tires. But most people aren't, in that category they're better served by some random crossover and not thinking about it. And if you are one of those people, then spend a little more and get something with studs for all the ice you're inevitably also encountering.
> Stupid internet circle jerks about stopping distance are not the pain point or performance bottleneck for the average user.
Uh, it should be? The ability to confidently stop is far more important than to go. If you can’t get going, you’re not in a wreck. If you can’t stop, well…
You also missed another key reason to get snow tires: many (most?) vehicles do not come with AWD even as an option. Telling someone to trade their Civic in for a CR-V just so they can get AWD isn’t sensible, when they could mount snow tires and get a significant traction boost.
>Uh, it should be? The ability to confidently stop is far more important than to go
First off, this is the principal skinner "everyone else is wrong" take.
Second, it's just not how things work in practice. In practice what happens if you have a FWD car that can't "just go" you wind up driving way harder to make up for it. Stuff like hitting hills at speed and trying to take on-ramps at the limit of traction because you are having to work around the limitation of being unable to actually put power to the ground when you need to. Say nothing of all the sketchy situations that happen at the margin of that (backing down a hill you couldn't go up, getting stuck less than graceful merges, etc).
>You also missed another key reason to get snow tires: many (most?) vehicles do not come with AWD even as an option
I don't think that's anywhere near true for the US market.
There was an anecdote that went something like "a 4x4 will just get you stuck worse then a 2wd" =)
And, like you said, people think that an AWD car will stop faster. No, it'll just start moving faster, more traction doesn't make the brakes better or the road any less slippery.
I owned a single 4WD car and it was super fun in the winter, but... when it's icy, you're most likely moving faster than you would be with a 2wd, which again results in some heart palpitations when you're trying to stay on the road =)
> more traction doesn't make ... the road any less slippery.
What does more traction mean unless it's that the road is effectively less slippery (to my vehicle)?
>And, like you said, people think that an AWD car will stop faster.
The only people I know who think this way are made up people who exist only in the minds of people seeking to validate a purchasing decision.
I remembering driving in a near-blizzard in Connecticut one night (got caught out in it; this wasn’t on purpose), and feeling like this explanation was the only one that made sense. I had a Pontiac G6 at the time, which was a fairly boring FWD sedan. Having learned to drive in Nebraska, I was decent at driving in snow, so I tootled along at about 25 MPH. I was being passed by SUVs and trucks, and then felt vindicated from seeing many of them off the road a few miles later.
I would’ve stopped to help, but I was concerned that if I lost momentum, I wouldn’t get going again.
Yeah..h as someone in Upstate New York, one of the snowiest places in the country. Snow tires are really what you want. AWD is really nice. BUT end of the day, if you can only go 30 you can only go 30. What really saves you with AWD is when you are dealing with tracks through the snow, AWD makes that a lot easier without spinning out.
> who exist only in the minds of people seeking to validate a purchasing decision.
Don't forget the people who just want to sneer at other people in ill-considered condescension! Plenty of that from the "the world outside the Bay Area and NYC isn't real and none of those people exist" folks.
Now those people absolutely largely exist in the minds of others.
Since California required drivers to equip chains when driving in the mountains, unless they have AWD or 4x4. So, probably at least 70 years ago.
If you mean true 4x4, there are none. Sprinter went AWD a few years ago.
But I believe most vans on the market have an AWD option. Ford Transit and Volkswagen IDBuzz both offer AWD. Toyota’s Sienna is (only?) AWD with a silly lifted trim for the off-roading soccer mom market. Chrysler’s van is AWD.
That leaves the ProMaster as the only two wheeler I’m certain about. Mazda and Kia also have vans, unsure about their drivetrain options. Did I leave anyone out?
I think your generalization is the bad one. Most trade jobs get better value out of vans compared to trucks. Vans offer awd, I am not sure a 4x4 offers much value.
Most companies prefer vans over trucks. Much better economics.
Fullsize vans don't offer AWD at a reasonable price point.
Either AWD/4wd is necessary when you're going to other people's property because you can't guarantee any given property isn't an icy shithole and when you're a professional being paid by them to be there for a specific purpose the last thing you wanna do is slip out trying to do a 25-point turn on their stupid sloped driveway and put a tire in the landscaping.
Maybe we are talking about different things. AWD is a $4k upgrade on a transit. 4wd buys you nothing and at that point it’s more about the tires.
Even in cold parts of the US your hvac or plumber is going to be using something like a transit. Very few trade jobs opt for a truck. They don’t make economic sense and impossible to secure anything in the bed.
Sure landscaping crews can utilize trucks but even then, your mowing operation can get more value from a transit style van if they are only using pus mowers.
Maybe it’s just in my neck of the woods but if you cannot get up or down a hill because a homeowner does not clear their driveway then it’s a no go. Very acceptable boundary.
> They don’t make economic sense and impossible to secure anything in the bed.
I've never seen or known a trademan that drove a van. They all drive pickups. Maybe this is a regional thing.
What region of the US are you in. I have lived in the south east, Midwest, NY, CA, TX and vans are the norm for most trade jobs outside of landscaping or jobs that can actually benefit from an open bed. HVAC, plumbing, electricians and the like all have equipment that is a lot easier to organize and safely store inside of a van. Now sometimes depending on the type of work that person does they may opt for a high roof and I have seen some opt for the chassis cab and go with a third party body that gives even more room but still enclosed and may even choose the van chassis.
I am quite surprised to hear you have never seen an electrician use a van. That said there are certainly specialities where it’s more common.
90% of trade work is all on pavement and trucks suck for tools. If you are a logger yeah sure you may be using a truck to get to your equipment, similarly for lineman but for the vast majority of trade jobs companies opt for commercial vans. You are describing trade work like it’s the tv show landman.
That's strange. All the plumbers and HVAC guys in my area seem to drive vans.
Is your area "the entire rest of the world outside the United States"?
Pickups are absolutely a regional affectation. I kinda want one, but I do not need one.
They absolutely are for consumers but not so much in business. Vans are superior for most trade jobs within the US and pretty big sellers. Yes there are some gaps like if you in parts of Alaska or other very rural parts of America but largely trade jobs are spending all of their time on pavement.
No I'm in the southeast US. I see tons of trucks here too but for certain jobs vans still dominate.
AWD is a luxury outside of the most extreme of extreme locations.
I grew up in Minnesota driving rear wheel drive cars to start. They worked fine even in the olden days where plows would take a couple days to clear the country backroads and even rock salt was applied sparingly due to the expense.
Not a single one of my vehicles had winter tires - all seasons were perfectly serviceable. You’d get stuck once in a great while but that’s what the bag of sand and shovel in the trunk were for.
Front wheel drive came along and made it easy mode.
All wheel drive is certainly something I love these days, but it’s an extreme luxury that makes winter driving laughably easy.
A basic utilitarian work vehicle does not need to be 4WD in 90% or likely even 99% of use cases anywhere in the country.
>AWD is a luxury outside of the most extreme of extreme locations.
Only in the most strictly technical "I'm not touching you" sense.
Either AWD/4wd is necessary-ish when you're going to other people's property because you can't guarantee any given property isn't an icy shithole and when you're a professional being paid by them to be there for a specific purpose the last thing you wanna do is slip out trying to do a 25-point turn on their stupid sloped driveway and put a tire in the landscaping.
Even if it's some megacorp's facility that "should" be plowed and salted, it might not be when you show up at 6am on the dot to service something.
>I grew up in Minnesota driving rear wheel drive cars to start. They worked fine even in the olden days where plows would take a couple days to clear the country backroads and even rock salt was applied sparingly due to the expense.
>Not a single one of my vehicles had winter tires - all seasons were perfectly serviceable. You’d get stuck once in a great while but that’s what the bag of sand and shovel in the trunk were for.
I completely agree but the past isn't coming back. Those standards of performance are unfortunately no longer acceptable, especially in business settings.
There are exceptions, like to everything in life. They just aren't really that interesting to discuss when talking about trends and averages.
The average contractor servicing suburban and exurban properties in a work van is going to be able to trivially navigate 95% of all snowfalls with FWD with a modicum of winter driving skills. It's just not that hard, and very few places get the type of snow that requires a fully off road capable vehicle.
If I lived in the mountains of Colorado and servicing ranches or something of course I'd be buying for those conditions. But a standard city in the northern US or Canada? Meh. Total waste of money for a fleet vehicle. These sorts of locations are where something like 99% of all vehicle miles are put on.
For personal use now that I can afford it? AWD is on all my vehicles. It's a magical technology since it allows turning your brain off, and making some situations comically easy to navigate. But I'm not optimizing for cost efficiency or practicality there - I'm optimizing for luxury and convenience.
>If I lived in the mountains of Colorado and servicing ranches or something of course I'd be buying for those conditions. But a standard city in the northern US or Canada? Meh. Total waste of money for a fleet vehicle. These sorts of locations are where something like 99% of all vehicle miles are put on.
I'm not talking about places that can be written off because "the boonies are a rounding error".
I'm talking about some guy who owns a plumbing business in Boston and wants to reduce the number of days per year that conditions make things sketchy. $3k per truck or $4k per van is absolutely chump change compared to the PITA of having to add more buffer to winter scheduling to account for delays and inconvenience.
>for personal use now that I can afford it? AWD is on all my vehicles. It's a magical technology since it allows turning your brain off, and making some situations comically easy to navigate. But I'm not optimizing for cost efficiency or practicality there - I'm optimizing for luxury and convenience.
Baffling that someone who readily admits that "you can turn your brain off" doesn't see why people who either have to drive their own work vehicle every day, or put a vehicle in the hands of an employee wouldn't value that even higher.
Ford Transit and Sprinter both have AWD. GMC apparently has a 4x4 van, the other 4x4 vans are aftermarket.
No vans are currently sold in the US with 4WD. The Sprinter and Transit are available in AWD, that's it. There are companies that will convert a van to 4WD but it's typically around $20,000 which is beyond the budget of most people.
2026 GMC Savana 3500 is first-party 4x4.
The only trims I see online at gmc dot com are RWD. Would you elucidate on this 4x4 option please?
There was some noise about an "Outland Edition" coming out in 2026 but all I can find now is AI slop, so maybe that's not real or maybe that's not done yet.
It could also be just a further deal with Quigley. You can already order from a dealer with the 4x4 option, and your vehicle will go factory->Quigley->dealer and be sold to you as "new", with good warranties.
Quigley is the main 4x4 conversion company I was referring to in my reply. It's about $20k.
Nobody drives sheet goods around in a pickup or a work van with any sort of regularity.
There are only two trades that use sheet goods: drywall and carpentry. Most of the time they’re getting dozens or hundreds of sheets delivered to a job site.
What are you going to do with (12) 32 sq ft pieces of sheet goods anyways, put up drywall in a half of a bedroom or reroof a quarter of a garage?
If you really want to do this, you’ll get a roof rack for hauling sheet goods.
How do you fit a 40ft ladder inside a van? How about a mound of mulch or compost? How about hauling away customer's old plumbing or any number of filthy things you don't want in a car interior? Not to mention that when it contains heavy items like a large beam of wood, you often can't physically lift it out with those awkward van angles, but could in a truck bed.
First of all I'm not convinced that the utility of the trucks is mostly unused. This seems like a trope from anticar people. But second of all and more concretely, I've done a lot of trade work that would have simply not worked in a van, so seeing your common sentiment is always bemusing.
> How about hauling away customer's old plumbing or any number of filthy things you don't want in a car interior?
Funny story, the guys who demolished an old bathroom for us hauled the crap & dust away in a very dirty beater van (either a small cargo van or a minivan with rear seating removed, can't remember). It was their designated demolition vehicle.
Light-duty pickups still exist, eg the Nissan Frontier with the 6’ bed is probably the most reliable, sturdy and cost-effective pickup out there. Europeans may know this truck as the Navarro.
A minivan with the two rear seats removed can move so much stuff.
Yeah but the same exact geniuses in here screeching about "you don't need a truck" will judge you so hard when they see you in the home depot parking lot stacking the thing floor to ceiling with building materials.
Source: own minivan
Sprinters vans are the GOAT. My wife drives a 2009 Ford Ranger, love that damn truck. When it goes, the Sprinter it is.
The sprinter is massively over-hyped by people who've never owned one.
Yeah, everything about it is generally "solid" and well done but at it's roots it's a very german car. The longblock will theoretically go a million miles but realistically you're gonna replace every part around it several times over to get it there. I'm sure they're fine when new but as they age it's basically the same "replacing way too much BS because while nice it's over engineered" as the rest of german car ownership. Like c'mon man, an asian or american car would "just" require simpler less invasive things and generally be less of a headahce in old age.
Source: semi responsible for keeping one running
Really hoping Slate works out! The modern pickup is usually a tuba for assholes not a working tool.
The only reason i have a pickup is because i put dirtbikes in it. They also fit in a van, but good luck finding a reasonably priced one with AWD (very high demand, especially due to camper conversions).
Vans are way better in almost every regard.
Actually, I'm buying a house with a garage and I may get a bike trailer, and a tow hitch for my BMW. That would be an even simpler solution
Same. Where are you, want to hit the trails sometime?
As someone who's just been trying to buy a crappy used truck to haul some crap to the dump a couple times a year, you're absolutely spot on. I even live in the southwest US where trucks make up a considerable portion of vehicles on the road.
Crappy used trucks simply aren't up for sale. And even the rare listing I do come across, the asking price is ridiculously inflated.
I was looking for the same thing and a friend gave me some advice.
Get an SUV with a trailer hitch.
worked out great. Maybe better than a pickup.
For example - taking mountain bikes somewhere to ride - you can put them in the back, go ride, and leave them there while you go eat without someone stealing them. You can even load them the night before.
dirty stuff can use a trailer (I've never needed one)
and suv carries lots of people - which has worked out many many times more than I predicted.
(it is a gas guzzler, but was cheaper because of that, and didn't compete with higher-priced pickup market)
Never understood why the yanks don't like vans? Pickups are much less popular here in the UK, many more people use vans. A crew cab van with removable seats is infinitely more flexible than a pickup, other than long stuff which you chuck on a roof rack.
Indeed. It's because of the fashion preferences of American SUV and pickup buyers.
I can attest to the fact that minivans are much more comfortable. I picked up my Pacifica hybrid minivan in early 2021 before the price hike and it was a steal compared to SUVs and pickups. When I was doing paperwork for the vehicle at the Chrysler dealership, I was chatting with some sales guys and discovered the shocking fact they had recently sold a luxuriously loaded-down pickup for over $100K. I was fortunate to easily haggle with them over my minivan because they don't make much money on minivans so they focus on pickups, Jeeps, etc.
A couple decades ago, I had started looking to replace an old hand-me-down car from my grandma, and had been mulling over whether I could ever justify spending $30K on an Infiniti at that time. My boss at work got a new pickup, and he was rather proud of it, and I innocently asked if it cost $25K because plenty of my Texan relatives had driven them over the years and I assumed they were a no-frills working man's practical vehicle. After a brief pause, he answered, "It was a little over 40 thousand." That was over 20 years ago.
Vans don't project manliness. Most people don't use pickup trucks for pickup truck things. They'd be fine with a station wagon, but they have self-confidence issues.
This is the main thing. The US is very, very weird in terms of how it genders every possible lifestyle choice, and polices those gender norms. The rise of SUVs in the US was partly driven by things like inconsistent emissions standards, but also by the need to make a more "masculine" alternative to the minivan or station wagon.
Euros claiming we gender everything in the USA as though their romance languages don't arbitrarily gender literally every noun.
Vans usually have a very difficult time off-road or in mountainous terrain.
Vans are commonly used in urban areas, especially by businesses, but suburbs, rural, and construction benefit from higher clearences of SUVs and trucks.
SUVs are also usually much better in hazardous driving conditions because of a more optimal weight distribution.
Vans work just fine on mountain roads. And driving off road is simply not a thing for like 99% of drivers.
Reality is, people buy these things thinking they would drive them off road, and never actually do it.
It's possible to make an off-road van, by the way. It's just that real demand is so vanishingly small that you don't really see them.
Having grown up in the mountains, and currently living in a hilly snowy area, no thanks I'll keep my SUV. My in laws have a mini van, and it's not great.
I deal and have dealt with enough deep snow that would eat a van.
I still might get a Sienna Hybrid for daily commuter
He said Van, not mini van. I think you two are thinking of different vehicles.
I like sprinter vans, but they won't fit in my garage.
It also makes more sense for me to get a large SUV, as towing is important.
The SUV or Truck is still more capable in hazardous road/off-road conditions compared to the van.
Though in my current neck of the woods, a Sprinter would satisfy my needs well.
I can't take this comment seriously unless you are buying snow tires. If you have snow tires, and you still can't get where you want in the winter, sure get 4wd.
I had a RWD pickup with snow tires and went anywhere I wanted to through two utah winters and many vermont ones too.
Yanks never got cool vans. Vans also became synonymous with Chester the Molester. Yanks also had Chevy Astro as an option. I grew up with the family owning a full sized custom van with 2 rows of captain chairs and the third row bench folding out into a bed.
From all of the bitching in the driveway, vans were not pleasant to work on the engine. Some of them had to remove a cover from inside the van to gain access, and that cover tended to not be well insulated and was the source of a lot of heat. Not much of a firewall as a car with the engine fully separated from the passenger compartment.
There were a lot of things people did not like about vans available in the land of Yanks. The Limey vans are not the same, so do not equate your experience as being the same.
Vans had tones of popularity. They are an iconic part of 60s culture(minibus) and 80s as well(A Team van)
There are two current reasons
- Millennials grew up in minivans and its viewed as a mom mobile and they don't want that look (despite the fact that most family SUVs are basically mini vans with out the sliders
- US laws favour light trucks
I love a van, but they're a pain to work on compared to a full size truck. Like a popular minivan that has a 5 hour book time to do a simple tuneup. Reaching the plugs between the firewall is most of that time. Same with compact PCs, it's a puzzle to get everything in your 7L case.
Anecdotally, a lot more people in the US tow. And pickup trucks are the indisputable king of towing.
There's also the fact that it's a lot harder to take the top off a van than it is to add a top to the bed of a pickup. If I sometimes moved manure and had a van... I'd probably rent a trailer.
Some "yanks" align their identity with their vehicle. There are songs about trucks but yes a van or mini-van are more flexible.
There are many that buy trucks for off road capabilities but probably 70% or more of truck owners don't go off road more than once a year. Many pick up truck models, like stock versions with crew cabs, are too long and not equipped for serious off-road use. Shallow sand/snow they can handle but so can SUVs.
The powertrain packaging for vans is much tighter than for trucks. Who amongst us remembers removing the interior to change sparkplugs 6 and 8 in a GMC Vandura?
Even if you're not going to do the knuckle-skinning work yourself, the packaging negatively influences book rates when you take it to a shop
The same reason we don't like wagons.
The 70s/80s screwed them up big time. They were big ugly garabge cars. I love fast wagons, but they are dying here.
I wouldn't want to haul 3 yards of dirt/mulch in a van, or yard refuse. I wouldn't want to try and move a full-sized fridge in a van, or a queen bed box spring, neither will fit.
I can't fit an ATV in a van, and I really don't want to put a dead deer in the back of a van after I hunt one.
I wouldn't trust a van to haul 75 8x8x16 concrete bricks (over 2000 lbs/1100kg) because the suspension wasn't designed to do that, nor was the transmission, and the van will quickly deteriorate.
How about moving a couch? Fits in the truck, not in a van.
I did all of those things in the past 12 months.
All that being said, vans are great, especially with kids. They absolutely do not replace trucks... if you use the truck and don't mind getting it dirty. Shiny trucks with 5.5ft beds are fucking stupid. My kids all laugh at "trucks with a baby bed" these days.
Or, downthread, people just assume everyone with a truck is insecure, projecting wealth, and generally ignorant. Which ironically, is a very ignorant take.
The larger vans used by tradespeople in the UK, like a full size Ford Transit, would be fine with those loads (though I agree I wouldn't stick a dead deer in one as they're harder to hose out than a pickup bed). 10ft long loadspace, 1400kg payload, plenty of room for couches, beds and things. They're quite different beasts than the smaller kind like a minivan with removable seats. Plus it rains so much here that having a roof on is generally an advantage.
There are some pickups here, having said that: more rural utilities people, or landscapers who move lots of dirt, or farmers, might have one. They tend to be smaller than an F-150, but then everything's smaller in Britain including the roads...
Most of what you said is not true, at least for a full sized van. Sure you may not want to get it dirty inside, that makes sense. But they have more space than an 8' pickup bed. You can absolutely carry 2000lbs in a 1 ton van. An ATV or a couch will fit in one better than a pickup.
Yep, the bed of a van being 2-3 feet lower than a truck saves a lot of pointless effort, and having that load carried lower makes far more sense.
Not all trucks are lifted… but sure, the tailgate of a van is a few inches lower than the tailgate of a truck. Inches, not even a half foot.
You don't actually do anything of those things though, if youre the average US pickup truck owner
Yeah yeah, and 30-50 feral hogs could burst into your yard any moment.
For moving yards of mulch, topsoil or concrete blocks, almost anyone in my country, including people in construction would just have that delivered to the site, next day, by the seller.
No clue what van you're imagining, but weather alone makes many things much worse in an open bed. Moving a couch is a very common use of vans, people rent them specifically to move furniture all the time.
minivan != van.
It’s 10 bucks for me to haul mulch and topsoil from a place down the road.
It’s hundreds of dollars to have the same literal dirt, delivered and dumped on my property. So now, instead of driving the truck full of dirt around my property and using it as desired, I now need to do it one wheelbarrow full at a time.
Fuck that.
As for weather, they make removable flat and domed “roofs” for truck beds, the weather argument is a nonstarter.
"infinitely" more flexible is kinda laughable -- Van's have a height restriction. They're inherently more limited.
I own a station wagon, a van and a pickup (none of which are nice or new) vehicle and three trailers (to be fair one is special purpose) and I'll put up to ~1000lb on the roof of the car before I drag a trailer around.
Trailer is kind of obnoxious pain in the ass and has a bunch more shit to go wrong with it's use compared to a vehicle that "just does what you need".
It might not be the literal cheapest but a truck with the desired cab to bed ratio is the right call for the casual user who just wants to do homeowner things and doesn't wanna think about it.
I just plain don't have room to store a trailer, but I do have room for a second car - hence I own a ute (pickup or whatever in American parlance).
Which is really the thing: it's very useful to have a second car, but a trailer can't be a second car.
What's really desperately missing is useful payload capacity: a standard ute can't carry 1 ton in the tray confidently (and it's downright impossible to find accurate info on what you should do to get that outside of "add a tag axle").
Even cheaper than SUVs are used minivans. My 2005 Honda Odyssey was an amazing “truck” with a good amount of towing capacity for most cases.
I appreciate the suggestion! It's crossed my mind, but unfortunately a trailer doesn't really work for my living situation. It'd require off-site storage which just sounds like more of a headache (and expense) than I care to take on.
Do you not have services in the US to do this for you? The problem: I have a pile of construction waste, household junk, garden waste etc. is solved by many businesses who'll come pick it up for a small fee.
If your local government doesn't offer this, there are many commercial operators that do this in the UK. Seems bizarre to buy a whole giant, inefficient, vehicle just for 'hauling' occasionally.
Scheduling a "bulk trash" pick up at my current home is only accomplished by calling my landlord, who then calls the trash company, who then calls back with some arbitrary date and time a month or more in the future. When I have crap I want to get rid of it, I don't want to deal with any of that. I'll take the "inefficiency" of storing and maintaining a second vehicle -- which my family would easily make use of other than hauling duties -- over dealing with the bureaucratic nuisance.
There are private options, of course, but the fees are nowhere near "small" for this service.
If you only need a truck a couple of times per year, maybe it makes more sense to rent one?
Not even. When I lived in the boonies trash service was ~$75 a quarter, the local hardware store would deliver pallets of mulch for free, and furniture stores offered free delivery above certain purchase amounts. My buddy's dad would haul your boat between the marina and your house for a flat fee. Hell, I was able to cram a full PA with floor monitors and a few guitars into my Corolla for weekend band gigs.
I started looking into getting a trailer or hitch hauler but it didn't seem to make much sense. I could usually pay somebody on-demand to move stuff around and it always worked out to be cheaper than owning and maintaining a truck. I presently work from home and don't even own a car anymore; the math is quite similar with rideshare and motorcycle maintenance coming in significantly cheaper.
Consider a trailer if you have even a mildly acceptable tow vehicle that can take a 2 inch receiver. Use what UHaul will rent you as a rough limit for what your vehicle can handle, and then if you want to save some weight get your own because it will be lighter than UHaul's brick shithouses.
Having said that, I'm still in the market for a larger vehicle with a better tow weight rating as I use the trailer more than a handful of times per year, and my current tow vehicle is getting a bit long in the tooth.
Consider a Honda Acty - they even have models with a dumping bed.
These are quite expensive for what you get and are slooooooow. It's fine if you want an expensive, quirky neighborhood runabout, but you'll be made very aware that this is a product not at all designed for the US market (there's a good reason most examples do ~1000 miles a year). The ACTYs I found online were in the $7-20k range, for a ~30 year old model - more for a nice van.
The best used work truck is actually a van. They lack the coolness factor of trucks, but are far more versatile. You can pick up a <10 year old Transit with under 100k miles for like 10-15k. That price point will get you a >10 year old F150 in the 100-150k mile range.
Plus, there are good options if you want something smaller can car-based, like NV2000s and Transit connects. Which don't really exist for trucks outside of newer (maverick) or niche (Ridgeline) options.
Bonus points, a nice Transit is a great daily driver too.
Harsh did a tipper conversion for the Daihatsu Hijet, which had an 850cc triple with a lot more poke than the Acty's 660cc twin, and had a "true 4WD" variant.
In the UK, Truck and Driver Magazine featured one so equipped in a head-to-head AWD tipper test (AWD in the sense of all wheels driven regardless of number of axles, not Subaru AWD/Audi Quattro type AWD), alongside a variety of extremely large trucks. Proper trucks, not F150s, we're talking 18-tonne Scanias and stuff here.
Everyone wanted one of the little Hijets to take home.
> As someone who's just been trying to buy a crappy used truck to haul some crap to the dump a couple times a year,
I don’t get it. Why would you buy, maintain, and park an entire second vehicle for something that is beyond trivially cheap to hire out?
If you wanted to DIY then renting a truck for the day makes more sense.
Trivially cheap, huh? Wish I were so lucky.
Renting a vehicle invites bureaucratic nonsense. For my personal situation, I need it ready to go at virtually a moments notice or I'll simply just avoid the chore.
I have had good luck with farm type auctions just check the rust. IronPlanet is also really good but a little more expensive.
Rent?
For me personally, it's too much hassle. Between the paperwork, rental fees, getting a ride to and from, etc. I just start to lose motivation, and end up deciding to do the chore the "next weekend" which never comes. I need as few barriers between me and accomplishing a chore if I ever want to have any hope of completing it.
That's opinion/stereotype, and unsupported. From Rob Cockerham's experiment (2002):
"I guessed that 98% of all truck beds are empty"
"In 25 minutes I had counted 150 trucks, and 99 of them had been empty. This 66% empty ratio was much lower than I had expected. I hadn't realized that so many trucks were being so successfully utilized."
"The results were similar: 39% of the trucks were hauling goods, and 61 of them were empty"
"Along with this adjustment of my perception, I also realized that an empty truck is no more wasteful than an empty back seat. Most cars AND trucks in the US drive around with 75% of the cargo space unutilized...what difference does it make if it is interior or exterior space?"
https://cockeyed.com/science/data/truck_beds/truck_beds.html
A vehicle thousands of pounds heavier, with much worse mpg, and almost by definition terrible aerodynamics, is no less efficient than a car with empty rear seats? Sure.
The only part that matters is the weight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
I'd imagine that % changes heavily on hour in the day and road observed.
People using truck for work (tradesman etc) do it all thorough the day. People who just use it as status symbol get to work and back from work at given hour. Also probably more usage in weekend when people doing weekend project go shop and people not doing that don't even get out on the longer trips.
Sitting on one road for an hour (and looking at photos, far from peak traffic) is near meaningless
The "peak traffic" that all the 9-5 office workers on HN see is also not when trucks that carry things move. Blue collar work usually starts at 6/7/8am.
It is utility, just not the utility you're thinking of. Try spending all day, every day in a basic, rough riding pickup truck, then compare it to spending all day in a "luxobarge" that can still tow a 7,000lb trailer.
To the people I know who drive trucks like that, they're basically mobile offices.
Yep. The internet loves to bash truck owners as all being the same one guy who buys a truck to drive 1.3 miles to the office every day, but the audience of truck buyers is huge and diverse. Acting like nobody who buys a truck actually uses it or thinking that contractors couldn’t possibly appreciate (or deserve?) a nice interior for what is basically their mobile office is pretty out of touch.
> thinking that contractors couldn’t possibly appreciate (or deserve?) a nice interior for what is basically their mobile office is pretty out of touch
I'm not familiar with the USA. What do contractors over there do in terms of clean/dirty clothes? Do they change into clean boots and trousers before getting into the truck? Or are they all in roles where they don't get their hands dirty?
In my country, vehicles marketed to tradesmen and agricultural workers usually aim for a hard-wearing, easy-to-clean interior that's fairly spartan.
The trades are wide and varied. A lot of tradespeople will show up to the job in an old 250,000 mile Honda if they’re just doing dirty work and going home.
The farm and woodworking people I know have nicer trucks, but they’re not afraid to get them dirty. Put some rubber floor mats down and the floor is easy to clean. Leather seats are actually easier to clean than cloth seats. The steering wheel wipes clean.
Every square inch of my truck’s interior is covered in a layer of fine dust every time we go off roading because the windows have to be down. I can clean it all relatively quickly because everything is accessible and the interior is smaller and boxier than my car.
LOL. I know you're serious, but that's just funny.
Using my wife's fairly recent (2024 model year) pickup truck as an example, every horizontal surface is covered in papers, clipboards, horse tack and medications (she trains horses and operates a horse rescue). The floors and kick panels are probably muddy at this time of year, but I'm so used to it that I don't notice. The surfaces that aren't covered by papers or something else have a nice thick layer of dust (the truck spends a lot of time on gravel roads).
It might actually be vacuumed out a few times a year, but that's far from a priority. Generally, the cleanup only happens if one of us has to wear "nice" clothes to go somewhere.
But bear in mind that the areas that your body touches tend to clean themselves simply because you're moving around. So, the floors, dashboard, etc., might be muddy or dusty but the seats will generally be clean.
The basic "spartan" trucks tend to be for uses where you don't have to travel very far. If you're driving a hundred miles or so on an average day, you'll want to be as comfortable as possible or it gets old really fast.
>he internet loves to bash truck owners as all being the same one guy who buys a truck to drive 1.3 miles to the office every day
Because the only truck owners the people who bash trucks see are their neighbor across the street who is that guy.
The demographically comparable guy who commutes in 80mi one way from his "country estate" in his Audi isn't on the internet bashing truck owners because the guy he lives across from uses his truck.
Also, acting like the whole of the working class are basic burger shop cashiers who struggle to buy anything while simultaneously being idiots who buy 80k trucks just to "virtue signal"... This thread is totally incoherent. Most of the jobs people have are better than that, and most of the trucks people drive are cheaper than that, but the two extremes are mixed to create the most outlandish narrative.
You're out of touch with the working class. Some people practically live in these trucks. A little comfort goes a long way toward making their day bearable. Leather is easy to clean, power adjustment makes the seat more comfortable. Auto wipers, climate, etc., help them focus on the calls they're taking. And so on. Fleets of these are bought for commercial purposes as well. Companies wouldn't spend that kind of money without a reason.
There's a reason these "luxobarges" are the best selling vehicle in the U.S., and the answer is not virtue signaling.
Brother, people are scraping by right now. Auto loan defaults are nearing all-time highs. Car loan lengths are longer than ever. The average age of a vehicle on the road is something like 14 years old now.
I promise you with all my heart, those luxobarges are not being purchased because they’re practical in any way, shape, or form. It’s 110% virtue signaling.
I don’t get the recent internet trend of trying to excuse any bad behavior by saying it’s all actually very logical and simply a tragedy of reality. Nobody is buying a gigantic vehicle because it has seats that are easy to clean. Nobody is buying an expensive ride because they just NEED those auto rain wipers.
People are bad with money, and keeping up with the Joneses has always been a high priority in American culture. I see people making $20-25/hr driving brand new Cadillac SUVs. I talk to my car selling friends, and they have the loan rates for 6-10 years memorized, not 3-5 years. Nobody does those anymore.
Of course there is an enormous amount of virtue signaling around cars. It’s one of the strongest social signals people purchase.
> they have the loan rates for 6-10 years memorized, not 3-5 years
Playing Devil's Advocate, if you're going to be fucked either way, why not be fucked and have a nice truck than not?
It seems like, at least from an uninformed EU perspective, that if the "system" gives you the ability to get a big truck for no worse off that if you weren't going to get it, why wouldn't you?
It seems like auto manufacturers overly inflated their prices, and the loan issuers are mopping up said inflation back - so in the end the borrower (at least if poor and they're going to default either way) is better off getting more truck for their buck than less.
Because most people who are fucked, are fucked due to terrible money spending habits. Tons and tons of people who make six figures are living paycheck to paycheck. Not because they must but because they won't stop spending poorly.
Again, I don't understand the desperate internet trend of defending terrible choices by focusing on the, like, 0.001% of people who do everything right and still fail. We've got the highest living standards on the planet. It's absolutely a choice.
I was hoping for some genuine counterpoints but this just feels like a rant? It feels like the stereotypical response that millennials could afford property if only they didn’t spend their money on avocado toast at Starbucks.
Let’s say a normal car costs you $200/month and a big truck costs 400.
200 is not going to make a difference in your situation - you are either good either way or close to breaking point and therefore fucked either way (if not this month, then the next one when you have an unexpected large expense).
If you’re fucked, why not take advantage as much as possible and get the most truck for your buck? Well “your buck” in quotes but you get my point.
If my budget was at breaking point and for only 200 bucks extra (one time payment since I’m gonna default next month) you can bet I’m gonna take advantage and get another ~20k worth of truck that I’ll get to keep until the bankruptcy proceedings complete (at which point the extra would’ve depreciated off anyway). Or is there something I’m missing?
The thing you’re missing is that it isn’t a $200 difference. Auto loans above $1k/mo are becoming common now vs the $400 for something “affordable”. Since people don’t have large down payments, the monthly rate scales beyond linearly to offset default risk with the loan upside down.
You’re also presenting a false scenario of “screwed either way”. One decision is getting a car that doesn’t leave you with $10k+ negative equity in a year because you did $1000 down on a $85k truck financed over 10 years with an 8% rate. That’s a decade long financial albatross that will cost you $150k by the time it’s done.
The alternative is you put $1k down on a $30k vehicle over 4 years with the same monthly payment and never end up with negative equity.
The gulfs here are enormous and the “screwed either way” altitude is pure defeatist financial ignorance.
I don't think most people are buying trucks and then defaulting the next month either that's a bizarre argument to make. And 200 a month is a lot of money!
200 * 12 = 2400 * 4 years( let's be real it would be longer ) = 9600. That IS a lot of money, it's not going to solve every problem immediately but applying the mindset of whatever Im screwed so I might as well set my money on fire is exactly how people keep sinking into the hole. You take the 200 extra on the car, on the apartment, the 150 pants. Its death by a thousand paper cuts and it will make a bad situation much worse.
If you think people are spending just $200-400/mo on a car, I can see why you don't understand how bad this situation is. Most people are spending more like $700-1000/mo.
It has nothing to do with avocado toast, though that wasn't nearly the zinger you thought it was. As it turns out, eating out is insanely expensive. Cook most of your food and you can save a TON of money. The fact that this simple idea is so hard for people to pull out of the avocado toast comment continues to astound me.
And you're right - you can certainly scam the system for 6 months of "more truck". That's exactly the kind of monetary responsibility that got us into this situation in the first place. Thank you for showing everyone a perfect example, I suppose.
>Brother, people are scraping by right now
Yes some are, but not everyone with a big truck. I'm in truck country and most people can afford their big trucks no problem at all. It's not virtue signaling, they are do-everything cars. Nothing else beats them.
You can go to a off-road work site during the day, and take it downtown for dinner after. Lots of people are making good money and can easily afford them.
> I promise you with all my heart, those luxobarges are not being purchased because they’re practical in any way, shape, or form. It’s 110% virtue signaling.
not sure virtue signalling is best description here. I think "conspicuous consumption" is far better description of the process
Indeed, in a sense it might even be better referred to as "vice signalling".
You're absolutely correct, thank you.
> I promise you with all my heart
You have such a deep misanthropic view that it's prevented you from seeing anything outside of it. You're preaching a faith not practicing an understanding of the world.
> Nobody is buying a gigantic vehicle
There are tons of contractors, laborers, small business and property owners who need the space or the utility of the vehicle. The reason these vehicles sell well is because they come in _tons_ of configurations.
> because it has seats that are easy to clean
No, that's why the manufacturer puts them in there, it helps them sell more vehicles by expanding their options.
> People are bad with money
Just.. like.. universally? Then how do you explain the number of billionaires and millionaires in this country? Let me guess.. from your heart it's 110% graft and corruption and 0% skill and sense and building wealth?
> I talk to my car selling friends,
Who has "car selling friends?" Your access to anecdotal information may not be helping you.
> It’s one of the strongest social signals people purchase.
We know this.. how?
> According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.
> So what do people actually like about trucks? According to Edwards, the answer is counterintuitive. Truck drivers use their trucks very much like other car owners: for commuting to and from work, presumably alone. The thing that most distinguishes truck owners from those of other vehicles is their sheer love of driving. “The highest indexed use among truck owners is pleasure driving,” says Edwards. Truck drivers use their vehicles this way fully twice as often as the industry average. “This is the freedom that trucks offer,” says Edwards.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...
The F-series is the best selling car family in the US. Some of them are using it for its intended purpose sure, the majority are just using it as parent said, a luxobarge.
>The F-series is the best selling car family in the US. Some of them are using it for its intended purpose sure, the majority are just using it as parent said, a luxobarge.
A F550 box truck and a crew cab shortbed F150 are both F-series as well as everything in between.
If not the best selling it had better be damn close with all the different vehicles that exist under that one nameplate.
The F-150 alone has been Americas best selling vehicle for 47 years straight until getting dethroned by the RAV4 in 2024 (unless you add any of the other F-series trucks). It appears to be back on top in 2025.
> the majority are just using it as parent said, a luxobarge
25% use it for towing.
30% use it off road.
65% use it for hauling.
Obviously there's overlap but how many people do none of those three?
It's less than 35% which is not a majority.
100% because they want to and it's their choice.
Can't believe we sit here and judge people for choosing to drive a truck or not.
one time a year or less was the suffix for each of these, many more people fall into the once a month or so category. The economical thing to do is buy a civic and rent a truck the one time a year you use it for truck things.
How many people driving a civic never have someone in the back seat?
If your argument is that most Americans should be on public transit and save the average $500,000 they spend during their lives on private vehicles then I completely agree.
If you're saying "a less bad thing is still bad!" then your comment reads more like the "We should improve society somewhat. / Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very intelligent." meme.
The argument seems to ve that trucks are bad because people don't use them to 100% capacity all the time.
People generally buy vehicles for to fit all of their needs not 95% of them. My back seat and trunk are almost always empty and my passenger seat is mostly empty.
>You have such a deep misanthropic view
For being certain about something based on industry data?
>There are tons of contractors, laborers, small business and property owners who need the space or the utility of the vehicle.
And if that was the majority of these purchasers, this would be a reasonable response, but the extreme majority of truck owners use their truck for its intended purpose ONCE A YEAR. Bro just rent it from frickin' Home Depot and drive a Camry.
>No, that's why the manufacturer puts them in there
Ah, and of course the cheaper cars are purposely given seats which aren't cleanable? Or is it still correct that in the context of our conversation, it's nothing special and completely unrelated to how most people use their car? It's not within a million miles of a decision point.
>Just.. like.. universally?
Yes. You got it. I literally meant that every single person on the planet, rich, poor, and everything in between, is bad with money. I certainly wasn't making a hyperbolic point to bring an idea to the forefront - incredible detective work.
>Who has "car selling friends?"
I buy a lot of cars, and eventually made friends with the people I keep buying them from. We hang out sometimes. Do you just... not make friends with anyone?
>We know this.. how?
Who knows? My friends actually sit around talking about the specs on their refrigerators and the color options. They tinker in the garage on the cooling coils for hours a day. You should see how smooth the drawers in mine are.
On the out of touch point, I will just note that every time we drive to West Virginia or Pennsylvania you can see when you leave the rich exurbs because it goes from $80k vanity trucks to fuel and maintenance efficient sedans, old Toyotas and vans, and the heavy trucks guys like welders use. There is zero question that they’re using those trucks from the wear patterns, whereas the luxury trucks in the areas where the average house is a million plus are spotless.
It’s not “virtue signaling”, it’s lifestyle messaging like wearing cowboy boots or walking around with DJ headphones as if you’re going to drop a set after the morning standup.
Those aren't the people I'm talking about in my post and they aren't the primary buyers of the vehicles I'm describing.
Maybe you are out of touch. I bet even many people here think it's mainly virtue signaling.
I mean… do any of the commercial services in US use pickup trucks? It seems to all be vans? Why not to get a van then as a contractor?
Here (southeast US), lawn services use pickups, often also with a trailer. Most other services (plumbing, electrical, HVAC) use vans. Less sure about contractors, I interact with them less.
Most commercial services near me use trucks with or without a trailer. Painters tend to use vans, and some electricians. Everyone else has a truck with a logo on it. You can't tow well with a van, so it has to be a company that never tows.
Granted probably most people on here are CA or SV adjacent, which has a fairly idiosyncratic relationship with its service industries and stricter emissions regs.
I see commercial lawn services driving in pickups a lot. It's a job that benefits from the open bed.
I tend to see them with either flatbed, trailer, or both. Occasionally box van plus trailer. Not usually a pickup and certainly not a luxury one.
I don't understand why flatbeds aren't more popular here. (Well if we assume that pickups aren't actually for utility then I guess it makes sense.)
You still need to tow.
You need body on frame, not the van unibody junk.
[dead]
But I think the Venn diagram of "people who can afford these new trucks" and "people who live in their truck" is two completely separate circles.
> The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility. It's a $60,000 four-door lifted luxobarge with leather interior and a short bed. It signals (perceived) wealth while preserving working-class alignment.
Reading the HN version of truck drivers is such a stark contrast to interfacing with actually contractors on a day to day basis.
A vehicle being comfortable and luxurious isn’t something only the bourgeoisie can appreciate. People who work spend a lot of time in their vehicles too.
No, but a sprinter van is going to provide better actual utility for most trades and a 80k f150 platinum is a long way away from a white 2 door long bed which can make the spend not make sense business wise.
As you say though I do see trades workers with the fancy pickup trucks (often with a trailer, cant scratch that bed paint aha) which I attribute to low interest on auto loans and poor business sense.
> but a sprinter van is going to provide better actual utility for most trades
Certain jobs in certain trades, not all of them
> and a 80k f150 platinum
Base F150 starts at half that. This is silly
> Base F150 starts at half that. This is silly
No it isn't [1].
> There seems to be no limit these days to how lavishly equipped, not to mention expensive, full-size standard-duty pickup trucks have become at the upper reaches of their respective model lines. [...] They’re brash and uniquely American alternatives to fine-tuned European luxury SUVs. For those keeping score, Kelley Blue Book says the average full-size pickup sold for $66,386 last month, due in large part to the growing popularity of such upscale models.
Sixty. Six. Thousand. Dollars.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2026/01/14/the-cos...
How dare those workers buy nice cars for themselves to drive every day! What were they thinking?
> Certain jobs in certain trades, not all of them
Correct, which is why I used said most trades and not all trades
> Base F150 starts at half that. This is silly
The average new vehicle price in the US is 50k, people are not buying the base model.
> The average new vehicle price in the US is 50k, people are not buying the base model.
$50K is much closer to the $40K base model than the $80K platinum model.
Everyone loves to cite the platinum model as if all the contractors or CEOs or whoever were bashing today are driving it, but most people are not buying the most expensive models.
> The average new vehicle price in the US is 50k, people are not buying the base model.
Half of the vehicles are below 50k.
Way than half. Average is dragged up by 100k F-550s with $100k service bodies installed on them and $200k+ exotic cars. There are no negative and zero dollar sales to drag down the average.
This is a textbook example of a case where median would be better.
Lol, these people do not care about sprinter vans.
The online crowd has such a love for sprinter vans, I don't see anyone talking about them except a very small group.
The people around me have F250s + a trailer twice the size of a small sprinter. They can work and have a small house behind them when needed.
The Euro vans (sprinter and transit) are very well suited to businesses who'll own new stuff, depreciate and trade in before it's out of warranty. There's a reason those things get exported to the low labor cost 3rd world from there rather than winding up on used car lots like domestic van based single rear wheel box trucks and utility body stuff.
Oh I know they are good and I see them almost daily on the road. But it is a completely different market.
Sprinter/Transit will NOT replace F250s.
> It's a $60,000 four-door lifted luxobarge with leather interior and a short bed
It can be that but all the major manufacturers have a ton of trim levels and options. Personally I drive a f150 that doesn't even have power windows.
Most Cybertrucks I've seen in the wild are running at a low ground clearance, reminiscent of a 'coupe utility' vehicle like an El Camino.
If you look at the cybertruck's architecture it basically is the "top end" of that line.
It's a big car platform with a bed. It's the "top of the line" for "car based" pickups like the old Subarus, the Maverick/SantaCruz and Ridgeline.
While it nominally competes with the F150 it doesn't really. Same as how the Ridgeline nominally competes with the Ranger, but doesn't really.
I think it's a real shame the cyber truck never took off. While gimmicky I think the longevity of it's absolutely stupid thick(er than typical) gauge stainless body would have put pressure on other OEMs to stop building shitty truck beds that dent and rust if you look at them funy.
The venn diagram between people who say what you just said (which to be clear, I'm not disagreeing with) and people who screech about safety if they see a pickup being anywhere near full utilized is way too close to a circle for me to take either seriously.
The modern US pickup truck still has the utility image and they make sure they sell a bunch to people who want utility to ensure that the image is not lost. That is why the lightening came in a cheap pro trim clearly targeted at the things pros are likely to want. (I don't know how well it worked, but they seriously tried to sell to that market)
Of course the real money is in the high trim levels that sell for twice as much but don't really cost much more.
I believe you're accurate for some purchases, but also woefully inaccurate outside of your experience space.
There are millions of workers carrying tools, parts, supplies, and refuse in pickup trucks. Where I live (rural), almost everyone has a truck, and it is for work, not show.
And in cities, as I walk around neighbourhoods, I see endless roofers, plumbers, builders, gardeners, and more using them for work.
Pickup trucks also portray toughness - the other all-important American virtue in addition to wealth. I always get a kick out of American Football ad breaks, where every other commercial is either a truck commercial narrated by some guy with an extremely gravelly voice talking about how tough their trucks are, or an ad for ED pills.
They can be luxury vehicles with reasonable running costs - regular gas and less depreciation than the usual luxury brands. They also have utility in case you need it. Pickup trucks aren't my cup of tea but it can be very rational to buy one even if you don't need it as a work truck.
I know plenty of engineers with expensive trucks used to carry their families around during the week and haul their hunting bounty home on weekends. In that scenario, the Cybertruck is a total failure. Where's the exposed bed for a deer? How about hauling the boat to the lake?
Cybertruck is a product management failure.
Yes, and they're awesome. Also much closer to 100k.
What's 100K? My Lightning was just under 51K out the door, and it is not a base model. You must be referring to something else? Maybe pickups in general? It's true that they do tend to be expensive.
Edit: OH, you mean the CT. Silly me.
I'm looking forward to the Telo-- if they get to market. It's absolutely all about utility. It will be interesting to see if people only want pickups as a fashion statement or if a weird, very practical vehicle can win.
(Same bed-size as Tacoma; midgate that folds down to hold a full sheet of plywood; seats 4 people comfortably; same length as a Mini Cooper SE).
I'd love it if Telos were cheaper, though. $40-50k is enough to keep me buying used cars.
It never stopped being possible to order a bare bones F-150 with a 8ft bed. Might not have the tradeoffs that many people are looking for, but difficult to argue something like that has less utility than a mini truck that can't drive on the highway.
I once rented a "kei van" in Japan once. I think I remember seeing similarly utilitarian trucks, but forget what they were called. I found the kei vans very practical.
I have one. Four wheel drive, turbo, 660cc little motor. There's even a cute "bashguard" built in to the oil filter, which is hilariously the lowest thing to the ground. No frills. Knobs control everything.
I love it. Full-flat back allows for camping in your car (I'm just over 6 feet tall.) Three bicycles and three people can fit. Wood, tools, DIY... And it is tiny, so it is easy to drive and park.
It doesn't like driving faster than about 110km/hr, but that's good enough for me.
The utilitarian trucks you are talking about are k-trucks, or kei-trucks. "Kei" just means "lightweight."
In Japan, they are refered to as "kei-tora": 軽トラ
On that note, kei car minivans like the Honda N-box are just about the most practical car you can buy for your teen offspring - 4 seats and a ton of boot space.
> It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner.
The difference is that the Submariner can actually be used as a dive watch. If it turned to fail significantly more often than other dive watches underwater, people would be much less inclined to buy it even though it would literally make no difference for them.
> The difference is that the Submariner can actually be used as a dive watch.
Are you suggesting that modern trucks can’t be used as trucks?
I mean the Cybertruck, and EV trucks in general to a certain extent, are rather lousy trucks, so they aren't seen as aspirational the same way a normal F150 or Submariner are.
> and EV trucks in general to a certain extent,
There are some good EV trucks out there. The Cybertruck is kind of uniquely bad because they tried so hard to make it unique and funny looking.
The customer is always right. If they were good, sales wouldn't have plummeted as soon as the novelty wore off.
a pick up without flat bed rails has significantly reduced the areas where it can be used as a work truck. Pretty clear signal that the CyberTruck was a status symbol not a work truck.
My impression is that the pickup truck as status symbol began with a Back to the Future product placement. You may recall that the character Marty lusts after a 1985 Toyota SR5 Xtra Cab.
I saw the movie in the theater and, at the time, found it strange that anyone would have a work vehicle as a dream car.
Maybe temper your otherism a bit, and try reading this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/opinion/marie-gluesenkamp...
<blockquote>
“Spreadsheets can contain a part of truth,” Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez told me. “But never all of truth.”
Looking to illustrate this, I bought the recent book “White Rural Rage” and opened it more or less at random to a passage about rural pickup trucks. It cites a rich portfolio of data and even a scholarly expert on the psychology of truck purchasers, to make what might seem like an obvious point — that it’s inefficient and deluded for rural and suburban men to choose trucks as their daily driving vehicles. The passage never does explain, though, how you’re supposed to haul an elk carcass or pull a cargo trailer without one.
It’s all but impossible to go into any rural bar in America today, ask for thoughts on pickup trucks and not hear complaints about the size of trucks these days, about touch-screens and silly gimmicks manufacturers use to justify their ballooning prices. Our economy, awash in cheap capital, has turned quality used trucks into something like a luxury asset class.
It’s often more affordable in the near-term to buy a new truck than a reliable used one. Manufacturers are incentivized by federal regulations, and by the basic imperatives of the thing economy, to produce ever-bigger trucks for ever-higher prices to lock people into a cycle of consumption and debt that often lasts a lifetime.
This looks like progress, in G.D.P. figures, but we are rapidly grinding away the freedom and agency once afforded by the ability to buy a good, reasonable-size truck that you could work on yourself and own fully. You can learn a lot about why people feel so alienated in our economy if you ask around about the pickup truck market.
Instead, the authors of “White Rural Rage” consulted data and an expert to argue that driving a pickup reflects a desire to “stay atop society’s hierarchy,” but they do not actually try to reckon much with the problem that passage raises — that consumer choices, such as buying trucks, have become a way for many Americans to express the deep attachment they have to a life rooted in the physical world. A reader might conclude that people who want a vehicle to pull a boat or haul mulch are misguided, or even dangerous. And a party led by people who believe that is doomed among rural voters, the Midwestern working class and probably American men in general.
</blockquote>
> The passage never does explain, though, how you’re supposed to haul an elk carcass
Would you believe that moose are also hunted in places that have very few pickups?
> The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility.
Not really true. Something like an F150/250/350 is absolutely built for utility. It's popular for a reason. It's just not used for utility by a large number of buyers. It's a "pavement princess".
The Cybertruck is an objectively bad product for many reasons of which utility is pretty high up there.
For example, it's really heavy because of the steel body yet it has an aluminium frame. The problem with aluminium is that it deforms with stress in a way that steel doesn't. Why does this matter? If you're towing a heavy load over rough terrain the frame is going to face large forces up and down that will end up snapping that frame.
> It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner.
That's a funny example because it shows you know just as much about watches as you do about trucks, which is to say nothing.
Sure, finance bros might buy Submariners but that doesn't change the fact that it's a very robust product designed for diving, originally. Now the need for that has been diminished because we now have dive computers, quartz dive watches and such and you can argue it's not worth ~$10k or that there as good or better options for less (which there are) but it's still an excellent product with many years of design to suit its original purpose.
Even if you use a dive computer as an experienced diver, you'll generally also have a dive watch because computers can fail [1].
> I say all of that to say that making a pickup truck for that market segment isn't a bad idea from a numbers perspective
So we have luxury SUVs where once the SUV was a commercial vehicle (eg Toyota Land Cruiser) and they may sacrifice some of the features such vehicles originally had (eg AWD) but the trades are made for a product that people want.
So yes, you could make an equivalent truck and say it has a market. Maybe it does. But even if it does, the Cybertruck isn't it. Because it's a terrible product for every purpose other than an expensive demonstration of your political leanings.
[1]: https://www.analogshift.com/blogs/transmissions/watches-for-...
> That's a funny example because it shows you know just as much about watches as you do about trucks, which is to say nothing.
Nice ad hominem. No diver is buying a Submariner specifically as a backup for their dive computer for the exact reasons that you went on to outline in your post. It's a textbook Veblen good. The Chinese can build a mechanical Sub clone that keeps the same time as a real one for $100. Swatch (via Omega) builds a more technically-impressive dive watch at a fraction of the price. Oris makes one with an analog depth gauge for even less than the SMP. All of them are more inaccurate and less reliable than anything quartz or digital.
Rolexes stopped being tool watches a few years into their post-Quartz crisis recovery. My GC buddy drives a Tundra. Fleets of white collar workers drive Crew Cab F-150s with wheels more expensive than the worthless Regular Cab I had years ago. No need to get twisted up about it.
Class tourism is a succinct term here. Blending in with hardworking blue collar Americans is a whole marketing industry in itself.
Blending in with imaginary people, you mean. Every single actual blue collar worker who needs a truck for that purpose drives a 1997 Toyota Tacoma.
I had a 2008 Tundra I sold when I moved to the EU not too long ago. Still miss it. It was big, but could easily tow my boat or haul anything I needed. Was a 4 door and had a full sized bed. Had 125k miles when I sold it, and still ran great.
I would have gotten a Tacoma, but I need the extra towing capacity.
I searched this thread for "Tacoma" to see if anyone was mentioning this. (A few other comments had similar sentiments as well.) It's so true. I live half a block from an auto shop that is well patronized by small-time gardeners, contractors, etc. A sizable proportion of the vehicles there at any time are 20- to 30-year-old Tacomas.
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> A pickup truck should just be max utility
A working truck should be max utility. Around the core market of "working trucks," there are various wannabe truck products that do not have to be max utility. For example, a Subaru Brat or a Hyundai Santa Fe. Niche products compared to an F-150, but they had/have their fans.
I personally can't stand the design, but the idea of an impractical "halo vehicle" that appeals to a niche audience but burnishes the brand as "forward-looking" is not a bad one. It's just the execution of this particular halo vehicle that I would have a problem with were I in the market for a lifestyle look-at-me vehicle.
Oh sure, but look at the vast popularity of these monstrosities that never even see gravel. I get how you (and I) find that abhorrent, but there's clearly LOTS of folks that find a blinged out useless luxury pretend truck to be very attractive.
I was in the market for a pickup recently. I had wanted to like the Cybertruck, but ... too damn ugly, too version 0.3, too many dweebs driving them, too many teething issues even for a first cut. Plus it's as heavy as an F-250. There's almost no actual reason to grab one besides it being electric. Since I drive so little, I'd never pay back the embedded energy it takes to make the thing - so even that isn't a selling point.
So instead I got a used Tacoma, and disappeared into the ocean of Tacomas that exist here in the PNW. It could be worse :)
Trucks don't have to see gravel to be working trucks.
If you use a truck for work purposes once a year it is likely cheaper to just drive a truck for everything than have a second car. Don't say rent a truck is an option - you probably can't rent a truck for most work purposes - most rentals have fine print against that, even if you can find a place to rent a truck the cost quickly gets to more than just owning your own truck.
Are you in the US? Most Home Depot locations will rent you one of several sizes of work truck for as low as $20 for a quick there-and-back of 75 minutes, or ~$100-200 for a day. I understand Lowe’s to do something similar. U-Haul does trucks.
And if your needs are more ambitious, there’s Sunbelt Rentals through much of the country and Enterprise’s Trucks arm as opposed to their more consumer-familiar operation.
If I’m using it once a year, I’ll splurge for a bigass 1 ton 4x4 which Enterprise Trucks is currently listing for $139 a day including 150 miles… and in 100 years, have spent the $13,900 difference between a dweeby little smarte car and owning my own pickup
Not that there’s the least thing wrong with just preferring to own one, just options that I wish I’d known about earlier in life.
Have you read the contract with Home Depot? You can't use their trucks for anything other than hauling your purchased from Home Depot home.
I haven't see the contract with enterprise trucks, but I suspect it is similarity restricted against the type of damage this is normal from using a truck for work. You can at least tow a trailer with them. Their locations are not convenient for me either.
I have thoroughly audited Home Depot truck contracts many times and don't believe this to be true. Do you have a source? I have never seen "secret" fine print beyond the agreement which is embedded badly in https://www.homedepot.com/c/Tool_Rental_FAQ . People use these trucks for work all the time, and I use their trailers very frequently to haul all sorts of things.
EDIT: I realized I have plenty of these contracts archived and don't need to believe HN conspiracy theorists:
(a) Use Restrictions. The following restrictions apply to the use of the Vehicle:
• The Vehicle will not be operated by anyone who is not an Authorized Driver;
• All occupants in the Vehicle must comply with seat-belt and child-restraint laws;
• The number of passengers in the Vehicle will not exceed the number of seat-belts and child-restraints;
• Renter will only operate the Vehicle on regularly maintained roadways;
• Renter will ensure that keys are not left in the Vehicle and will close and lock all doors and windows upon exiting the Vehicle;
• Renter will not (i) transport people or property for hire; (ii) tow anything (with the exception of an attached trailer if rented pursuant to this Agreement); (iii) carry or transport hazardous or explosive substances; (iv) engage in a speed contest; or (v) load the Vehicle or transport weight exceeding the Vehicle’s maximum capacity;
• Renter will not engage in reckless misconduct which causes the Vehicle damages or causes personal injury or property damage; and
• Renter will not use the Vehicle for the commission of a felony or for the transportation of illegal drugs or contraband.
So unless you are trying to reuse the vehicle for hire or tow a non-Home-Depot trailer (which I admit is kind of restrictive, but nothing like what the parent post says), it seems fine.
Can’t use a truck for towing and can’t drive it off of the road is pretty restrictive.
For a truck you rent in an at least semi-urban area by the hour it’s never mattered for me, it’s always covered all of the “I live in a city but need a pickup truck” cases like picking up landscaping materials, appliances, large furniture, and so on - a lot more than “just being allowed to bring stuff home from home depot.” Since I drive an SUV which can tow now I just do the opposite and rent a trailer when I would have needed a pickup bed, which also works well.
I’m actually far from a pickup truck hater; they certainly have their place (my parents live in a rural area and I can’t really see them not having one), and I occasionally miss owning one, but I’ve never managed to make the economics come even close to balancing out vs. renting for myself.
Yep. Renting a truck where you could actually haul a load of dirt or mulch, or tow anything, you will need to go to with a "commercial" rental which will be 5x the rate for a consumer rental or "Home Depot" truck rental. The Home Depot/consumer trucks don't even have a tow hitch.
LOL, the Home Depot flatbed I rented a week ago (the $19 deal although I went a little long and ended up paying $32 total) had just hauled a load of dirt or mulch. No one read me anything saying I couldn't use it for purposes other than carrying a Home Depot purchased item (although that's what I was doing). The HD page for the F250 flatbed does say they only supply a hitch if you are renting something towable from them but says nothing about using it for other purposes (like hauling dirt).
The fine print is on the cantract and not elsewhere.
I have not read the contract with Lowe's - but I know home depot's contract states that you can only use the truck to take things you by at Home Depot home. If there is an accident you could be in big legal trouble with your rental use (so long as there isn't one they might not care)
U-Haul rents work trucks and vans meant to be haulers and rented out specifically for hauling.
Their trailors only though. Which often have surge breaks (terrible)
It's a lot cheaper to rent a trailer.
I hope someone fully capitalizes on what Edison is trying to do up in Canada.
That is a fully electric drive train hybrid. That way you can charge it at home and charge it with a generator under use. Problem is our current laws are making certifications a mess.
> Oh sure, but look at the vast popularity of these monstrosities that never even see gravel.
Normal-sized pickups aren't meant for offroading.
Say what?
A decent SUV can get you by in a pinch. A “normal sized” truck, is exactly what you take off road - yes you might have to do some modding, upgrades, but I don’t understand this take. And I’ve been around many a truck at the top of a gnarly mountain.
I must be misunderstanding what you’re saying here. Even rock crawlers aren’t typically using F250 and larger truck sizes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/opinion/marie-gluesenkamp...:
> It’s all but impossible to go into any rural bar in America today, ask for thoughts on pickup trucks and not hear complaints about the size of trucks these days, about touch-screens and silly gimmicks manufacturers use to justify their ballooning prices. Our economy, awash in cheap capital, has turned quality used trucks into something like a luxury asset class.
> It’s often more affordable in the near-term to buy a new truck than a reliable used one. Manufacturers are incentivized by federal regulations, and by the basic imperatives of the thing economy, to produce ever-bigger trucks for ever-higher prices to lock people into a cycle of consumption and debt that often lasts a lifetime.
> This looks like progress, in G.D.P. figures, but we are rapidly grinding away the freedom and agency once afforded by the ability to buy a good, reasonable-size truck that you could work on yourself and own fully. You can learn a lot about why people feel so alienated in our economy if you ask around about the pickup truck market.
> Instead, the authors of “White Rural Rage” consulted data and an expert to argue that driving a pickup reflects a desire to “stay atop society’s hierarchy,” but they do not actually try to reckon much with the problem that passage raises — that consumer choices, such as buying trucks, have become a way for many Americans to express the deep attachment they have to a life rooted in the physical world. A reader might conclude that people who want a vehicle to pull a boat or haul mulch are misguided, or even dangerous. And a party led by people who believe that is doomed among rural voters, the Midwestern working class and probably American men in general.
> This approach to politics governed by data and experts is what we mean when we talk about technocracy. It’s a system that no longer really functions today because the broad societal trust that once allowed data and experts to guide political choices has broken down. Democrats, increasingly, live in a world where data and researchers convincingly show that low-wage immigration raises the economy and our gun laws are reckless and misguided.
> A reader might conclude that people who want a vehicle to pull a boat or haul mulch are misguided, or even dangerous.
How about I just conclude that while pulling a boat or hauling mulch are completely OK things to want a vehicle for (*), one does not need a F150 with a front end that reaches my chest and has gas mileage to prove it.
As many have noted, pickups like the 90s Toyotas did these things just fine for almost everyone, but most US based manufacturers have stopped making them.
Me noting that doesn't make me part of the doom of the political party I always vote for.
(*) to the extent that we live in a society where private ownership of vehicles is completely unremarkable, that is. And we do, for the foreseeable future.
The Tacoma is the modern equivalent of the 90s Toyota, and while it is certainly bigger, it is not that much bigger.
Also, there are a lot of boats, RVs and trailers which my 2019 Tacoma absolutely would not have towed successfully.
> How about I just conclude that while pulling a boat or hauling mulch are completely OK things to want a vehicle for (*), one does not need a F150 with a front end that reaches my chest and has gas mileage to prove it.
Did you miss like the entire first half of the quoted passage? Because it kinda sounds like you're judging the people buying the trucks.
One buys from the options the market gives them, and the market often does not optimize for what consumers want. It optimizes for barely tolerable products that maximize profit.
No, actually, I did not. But I thought that the part that I requoted stood in a weird opposition to it ...
> No, actually, I did not. But I thought that the part that I requoted stood in a weird opposition to it ...
Which kind of makes sense, because it's Gluesenkamp-Perez critiquing a book she opposes.
The Santa Cruz is about the same size as a Santa Fe and weighs less.
The Ford Maverick is a smaller vehicle but also a truck. It is a working truck for some, and a rec/handyman vehicle for others.
A Maverick is hardly a working truck. It's got the same towing capacity of an older Kia Sportage. It's got front wheel drive (or awd). It's a car with a bed, not a truck.
I don't get this attitude. Everyone criticizes auto companies for not making a small truck anymore, and then Ford comes out with the Maverick and then you say it doesn't have enough towing capacity. It can tow 4000 lbs. That covers a whole lot of use cases. It also has a payload capacity of 1500 lbs which is quite respectable for a small truck. As for FWD vs. RWD, who cares? How does that affect your ability to move things around?
Really the only thing I think you can ding it for is the small bed. It used to be that trucks this size would have a regular cab or an extended cab with the two tiny side facing seats, and they would have a longer bed. With the tailgate down you can still move sheet goods with a Maverick though.
I get your point, but those tow numbers are notoriously optimistic. Most people I bet would not be comfortable towing 4000 lbs with a Maverick, and it would struggle on grades or in heat. You can even feel that kind of weight with a full-size truck. Above 5000 lbs in most places you need independent trailer brakes.
The real issue that limits the Maverick for a wider audience is the rear is too small to comfortably fit kids, especially in car seats. Adding 4 in of leg room to the rear and making the whole truck 4 in longer would've made in a great homeowner family option without sacrificing much agility.
Most people don't need to tow 4000 lbs period. If I had a Maverick and needed to tow 4000 lbs I would absolutely do it though. I've towed more than that in an older Tacoma that's not that different from the Maverick. Would I do it at 75mph? Probably not. Would I be towing 4000 lbs going 65 up an 8% grade in the heat at high altitude in Arizona? Again probably not, but the idea that a small truck needs to be able to do everything is just against the concept of a small truck. If you must have the ability to do that, get something bigger.
I agree that the Maverick's bed is small and the back seat is small. IMO they would have been better off making a regular cab or an "access cab" thing with two doors and fold-down seats, and used the extra length to add to the bed. Those are great if you're single or don't have kids, and you just need to carry passengers very occasionally. If you're regularly hauling kids around you definitely want the next step up. A lot of tradesmen essentially never even use the passenger seat though, and the back seat is just lost bed space unless you're using it for locked storage.
People want smaller, not weaker, trucks. The 1985 Ford ranger compact truck could tow over 3000 lbs base, and over 5000 with upgrades.
The Maverick only tows 2000 base, the 4000 is an upgrade package and only for trailers with their own brakes.
RWD is pretty functionally important for a vehicle to maintain control while towing significant weight, as all the weight sits on the back of the frame, and that's where you want the engine power to go.
The Maverick is not a working truck, which was my original point. In terms of what matters, it is worse in every way than a 40 year old design.
You need to have AWD for the Maverick to have the 4000 lbs rating. It's going to be sending power to the rear wheels when you're towing.
You can't really compare the tow ratings with a 1985 Ranger. Back then the ratings were not standardized and were generally inflated for marketing purposes. Today tow ratings are standardized by SAE J2807. The Maverick has way more power than the old Ranger and weighs about 600 lbs more, plus it has trailer sway control. You're going to have a much easier time towing 4000 lbs in the Maverick than the Ranger.
Edit: The Maverick also has 300 lbs more payload capacity than the 1984 Ranger. The fact is, not everyone needs a giant heavy truck. I see loads of tradesmen driving Mavericks.
The '22 ranger tows up to 7500, payload 1500. Sure, bed is only 5-6 feet, but is 4x4, and interior feels good, and is about as bougie as the big F gets. Had it down to 12L/100km, a full tank gave me a 700km range at that point. Fits my family of 5 when it needs to. I would buy one again e-z.
Grabbed it in '25 with factory warranty still on it for about the price of a new maverick.
A BMW i3 is a body-on-frame rear-wheel-drive vehicle, but I don't think anyone would call it a "truck without a bed, not a car".
Ford calls it a truck. Ask a random person on the street, and they'll say it is a small truck.
I've seen plenty of people in working clothes driving them, carrying working tools and such.
> It's got the same towing capacity of an older Kia Sportage.
How often do you need to pull 2000kg?
Several times a year at a minimum, and not always with good notice.
Towing weight is also a good proxy for frame strength. I do some light forestry work moving and bucking logs, freeing stuck cars, plowing snow in addition to towing trailers and equipment.
Okay, so a Kia Sportage ought to do then, I guess?
I didn't really trust it for some of the logs I was moving, as the trailer hitch was added on after and the frame isn't really designed for shocks like what I was putting it through. On top of that, hauling messy stuff in the back was a pain with having to lay down tarp and hoping it caught everything and didn't rip.
Plus, you can't really put a winch or snow plow on a Sportage.
If it's able to have a trailer hitch fitted, it's designed to have a trailer hitch fitted. You can't just stick it on with a couple of random holes drilled and a bolt through.
I always find it kind of surprising how large a vehicle people in the US think they need to pull trailers, especially when you compare with the size of trailers people pull in the UK. My own elderly Range Rover (1990s P38A) has a plated towing weight of 3500kg which means you can pull another one on a trailer with it easily. With the back full of tools and spares and a couple of passengers, you've got an all-up weight well over six tonnes!
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There are different sized trucks for different purposes. A Maverick or Kei truck is lighter and safer than a lot of cars on the road while being way more useful.
Maverick has a tiny bed (4.5 foot) whereas kei trucks can have up to 7 foot beds. I really wish we did small trucks with bigger beds here in North America. Really all I want is a hilux champ.
The Subaru Brat was not a large and heavy vehicle, and the Santa Cruz is basically an SUV with a bed instead of a third row. Niche vehicles do not have to be Hummers.
Tragedy of the commons.
This is a tragedy of an awful taste.
Tragedy of not having better regulations. The commons don't have anything to do with it.
Some of the motivations to get vehicles like that, like being up higher than everyone and having more mass in a collision, are solidly tragedy of the commons.
The reason is personal preference. Same reason people buy sports cars. I also wish their preferences were different
Reply to the sibling comment about little to no negative externalities:
Sports cars sure do have negative externalities. I live next to a custom car mod shop in the boonies. People hoon around here like there's no one else alive. They put my life and the lives of my family at risk on the regular. That is most definitely a negative externality.
Sports cars largely don't have any of the negative externalities of trucks.
Their fuel consumption is about the same, what externalities are you referring to?
Sure, if you're talking about high-power cars (M2, Corvette, etc). A Miata or Civic Type R will get far better fuel consumption.
And there's also wear on the road, noise, and damage to property and people when accidents happen (physics is a bitch).
Sure, if you’re talking about high-power trucks (F350, Ram 3500). A Ford Maverick hybrid will get far better fuel consumption.
I think more sports cars are burning out, revving loudly (or getting modified to take out their mufflers), and the damage from going a lot faster creates more damage.
It might depend on where you live. Nine times out of then when a vehicle with an obnoxiously loud and high revved gear vehicle drives by it's a truck. Probably more like 95% of the time.
Around here, it's usually beater Accords or other random generic sedans. With fake LEds, slammed to the ground, and lots of dents.
No, you just don’t dislike them enough to find them.
HN has hated Trucks and American cars, except when Tesla came out, for as long as I’ve been here. Same with Reddit.
It's pretty funny how much truck rage there is here.
It’s crazy to me. If you hate automobiles, trucks still make the most sense- if you’re just carrying people and a grocery or two you should probably be on a bike or ebike.
That is quite a European take there. Most places in the US do not have safe pedestrian infrastructure mandating "share the road" policies with bicycles which puts you into direct contact with motor vehicle traffic, and suburban spread means you're probably not close enough to walk to your grocer.
In the same line of thinking we wouldn't be able to do anything for fun at all, since our very presence increases the living cost for everyone else. When we stand in the same line for ice cream, you're making it take longer to get mine, especially if you also have kids. Should kids be allowed in line for ice cream? They've made our shared line take longer and our shared source of ice cream more expensive.
This is a modern society in which we must live and let live. That core value of tolerance, which preserves our personal freedoms, deserves to be weighed as much and more than our shared infrastructure, imo.
A modern F150 doesn't have "max utility". It's for site foremen and driving to Walmart.
I can't speak for the Santa Fe, but most Brat owners admit they have no intention of using it as a utility vehicle. The same cannot be said for most F-150 owners I know.
These days Brat owners are classic car collectors...
>A pickup truck should just be max utility,
The problem is as soon as you go EV, you use a lot of utility from the get go. With a truck specifically, because its a brick aerodynamically. There is no reason to buy a Cybertruck or Lightning when you can get a gas or hybrid F150 (or a Raptor) for a little bit more, and be able to sit at 80 mph on highways without worrying about range.
The biggest suprise about the lightning is that Ford didn't put in a gas engine in it as a range extender. They have 3 cylinder ecoboost engines that would have been perfect for that.
My brother has one, it is an amazing vehicle with better range performance than Tesla. It's dramatically better in the snow. Towing of large loads is a valid downside, but reality is that most people don't tow, and people who do are probably fine with 80% of the use cases (construction trailers, lawn trailers, etc).
The business problem Tesla solved at Ford cannot is the dealer network. He pre-ordered his, and the dealer he was stuck with tried to rip him off like 4 different ways.
The other issue is that car guys are afraid of electric, as the entire supporting industry is essentially obsolete. It's hard to get excited about something that will take away your ability to pay your mortgage. Every car dealer employee and mechanic knows that.
Electric cars still need maintenance. They don't get regular oil changes, but they wear out tires sooner. They have more recalls in general than ICE (this will likely change, but manufactures are still learning how to make EVs reliable). The parts of a car that are not common with EVs don't break for the first 100k miles, and almost nobody is using the dealer for cars that old. There is plenty of other work that is common that dealers will still need to do.
Your argument hinges on any level of maintenance being enough to maintain our current level of investment. The truth is always more complicated.
Take for example DVD rental. The market completely evaporated, while there is still a small lingering community that could be serviced by rentals. My local library is proof that there is a market. But there are, bar some weird exceptions, no remaining DVD rental stores.
If an EV needs 50% of the maintenance, then it stands to reason that you need 50% of the staff. That's the easy part. But what about all the other staff? Can you afford as many staff in front of house when your main profit centre shrank massively? Can you keep the same amount of cars in the lot if you don't have the cash to pay the manufacturer fees?
I'm sure that some mechanics will need to go. However a lot of them will still remain because there are a lot of cars and a lot that can go wrong that is common. There are also potential new failure modes, though only time will tell.
It displaces well paid mechanic jobs with greasemonkey stuff.
It's not bad for consumers, but a significant amount of the economy is maintaining cars. It's the same thing that happened when emissions standards made cars more reliable. The corner repair shop was displaced by convenience stores, and repair consolidated.
> they wear out tires sooner.
This is dependent on how you drive them. EVs are fun, so you get a disproportionate number of people driving them aggressively. That's hard on tires. If you drive normal, you get normal tire life.
EVs are typically heavier than ICE cars so will cause more tyre wear.
Yes, but typically by a small margin. Close enough that tire wear is dominated by driving style. The problem is that instant torque is simultaneously addictive and also maximally damaging to tire tread.
The F-150 lightning weighs about 25-35% more than the ICE version. That's a significant margin.
They wear out tires because they weigh a shit ton, not because their drivers like to go below the limit trying to draft off a rig.
They weigh slightly more than a similar ICE vehicle. And why would drafting a big rig increase tire wear? The problem I mentioned was that EV drivers frequently drive more aggressively because it's intoxicating to be able to silently dust basically every other car on the road that isn't another EV. Those people do have tire wear issues :). And they're not drafting a big rig...
Here's a different aspect of utility: The F150 Lightning includes 120V and optionally 240V outlets, so it replaces the need to carry a separate gas-powered generator.
That's probably more relevant to fleet vehicles for construction and maintenance firms than to individuals towing boats. But just to offer an example of how the F150 Lightning is a great fit for certain uses.
I'm surprised it didn't sell based on that. 20 years ago when I was in construction the truck drove at most 130 miles per day (we made sure to work 14 hour days when we were going to spend an hour on the road - the crew hated those jobs), but typically more like 30. The the first thing we did was pull the generator out of the truck and started it. If would could just plug into the truck that would have saved a lot of space/weight in the truck, it seems like a no-brainer.
Then again, all the construction sites I see these days have mains power on a post, which we never had back then (I don't live in the same state so I don't know if this is universal or just this area has always been different).
You can also get a standard hybrid F150 with the "Pro Power(?)" package, and the hybrid drive-train turns into a 7.2kW generator.
I just read about the hybrid F150. I didn't know about it until recently I guess because of all the press the Lightning received. The hybrid works the best for me. My state also charges a lot less yearly registration for a hybrid compared to an EV.
7.2kW could run most of my house for days, and it wouldn't be very loud I guess.
It's great for rural folks or others with power issues. For a few thousand bucks, you have a backup generator in your garage.
The only question is range when those rural folks go to the big city (if less than an hour they do this once a week because groceries in the suburbs of a big city are so much cheaper. If farther than that they still go once a month because of things they can't get. Though I don't know anyone who lives so far out that they can't get to a city and back in a long day.
Otherwise rural folks often have something to fix on the other side of their property that needs tools. Cordless tools do a lot but sometimes are not enough.
> Here's a different aspect of utility: The F150 Lightning includes 120V and optionally 240V outlets, so it replaces the need to carry a separate gas-powered generator.
A small generator costs few hundred bucks and fits comfortably in any truck actually used for work. It's a small perk that some pro users would probably pay for, but it's not a selling point for a radically different car design.
it's a few hundred bucks, an extra thing to remember, takes up bed space, requires bringing gas, and is loud and annoying to use. It's not the biggest thing, but it's a pretty nice value add.
I mean, if you bought a Cybertruck, you've already given up on a ton of bed space. I'm not saying that a built-in power source isn't nice, but I doubt it swayed any minds.
Easily stolen.
The thing is, charging an EV in todays age is something that takes planning. Its not as easy as getting gas. For most people that end up at their house every night. For people that use their vehicles more, it becomes more of a problem. If you are going somewhere overnight, you have to make sure that place has charging.
For fleet vehicles this is the same story. You have no idea what kinda bullshit circumstances you are going to run into, and investing in EVs is just not worth it at this point when a F150 XLT or XL + Honda generator suffices.
Until that trend flips where fast charging takes the same time as gas station stop (or automakers start putting small gas engines in their vehicles) EVs are always going to lag behind gas vehicles.
Next generation of lightning is doing exactly that with a smaller battery, they're claiming 700+ miles of range: https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/next-ge...
> "The biggest suprise about the lightning is that Ford didn't put in a gas engine in it as a range extender."
From a manufacturing perspective, adding a range extender does add a lot of cost and complexity. And from an ownership perspective it adds a lot of service, maintenance and reliability considerations that you don't have with a pure EV.
But in any case, this is exactly what they're doing: replacing the Lightning with a range extender ("EREV") plug-in hybrid. But a new all-electric truck based on Ford's upcoming, cheaper "Universal EV platform" is also due in 2027.
You have one reason listed, which is going 80mph (which is illegal in most states). They also can't tow long distances easily, but are superior in nearly every other way.
Most of the places where you would realistically use a truck have highways that are at least 75 mph. And its not the 80 mph thats important, its the fact that the faster you try to get to the destination, the more the range drains, which conversely takes you longer to get to the destination if you consider charging time.
> The biggest suprise about the lightning is that Ford didn't put in a gas engine in it as a range extender.
They announced that along with the EV Lightning cancellation: https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/next-ge...
You also gain some utility. Infinite torque at idle, cheaper 4wd, better traction control, fewer mechanical problems, etc.
They tow way better aside from reduced range. And the near perfect 50/50 weight distribution means they handle better than a truck should.
> max utility
As the owner of a rusty 1985 pickup with manual windows and no radio, I can tell you there is great demand for utility pickup trucks that the manufacturers WILL NOT MAKE.
The first problem is CAFE rules. Congress legislated the light pickup truck out of existence. To get around CAFE rules, manufacturers increased the size of trucks and added a back row so they could be reclassified in a way that skirted CAFE rules.
However, there's a big demand for pickups, so people bought these because they needed trucks, and nothing else was available. Manufacturers took advantage of demand and started adding features normal pickup drivers didn't want or need, to access a high-market class of buyers. "Where else are you gonna go?"
$100k pickups, here we are.
Manufacturers are in no hurry to go back to the low-margin pickup days, even though that is what classic pickup buyers actually want.
> A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
> 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.
[1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...
I wonder if there are any other countries in the world where the best-selling automobile is something completely impractical? Or are Americans unique in that regard?
Serious question. I can't think of any, but I'm also not familiar with car markets the world over. In Japan, for example, the best-selling car is the Honda N-BOX [1], which is an incredibly practical car.
[1] https://car.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/2076520.html
> pickup truck should just be max utility
Except the main demographic buying F150s is suburban dads driving to their office job.
I think the reason this take gets push-back in discussions (including here) is that it's highly regional.
I've lived in parts of the US where I doubt more than 10% of pickup trucks on the road (and there were a lot of them) were really justifiable purchases as trucks. They were aspirational purchases, and/or were selected for status/class/politics signaling.
I've lived other places in the US where the whole region had far fewer trucks (but a hell of a lot more Volvos... like, easily 10x as many as the other place) where I bet at least 50% of pickup trucks saw enough truck-use to really be justifiable.
This. Where I live the suburban dads wouldn't be caught dead projecting the "fullsize truck owner" image. They buy a Tacoma. Or they did until the Maverick came out.
And using the truck on weekends to tow the boat, or do other work with it. Not every weekend, but once a month in summer.
Usually the imagined uses are very aspirational at best. The imagination doesn't fit reality. I've seen it firsthand, many years ago my dad got the fancy pickup because he "needs the utility." Whenever an opportunity presented itself for him to use his truck as a truck though, he'd pay the extra fee for delivery because he didn't wanna bother.
It did make his reckless driving more dangerous for the innocents, though.
I'll go further, Most Americans who buy stuff like boats don't use them anywhere near enough to justify the purchase. I'm pretty sure well less than 30% of boats are being used at least once a year.
America is so full of hoarding and objects that go years without anyone touching them. It's profoundly sad.
There are 5x more households with trucks than households with boats, so this hardly explains it.
There are a lot more uses of a truck than towing a boat.
Gas doesn't cost enough.
I think the problem is Trucks are a visible lifestyle preferences that does not align with yours.
You can have all the weird lifestyle preferences you want that don't involve conspicuous waste of natural resources and accelerating anthropogenic climate change.
It’s very hard to not see how any resource using activity falls in that bucket including: boating, shopping, having kids, going on vacation, having a home, ordering exotic things, eating at restaurants, using AI, etc.
The primary limiter is on how many resources we give people.
Tax carbon and we can ration it out using market prices. But yes, many of those things are also carbon-intensive lifestyle choices, but some are more valuable than others.
> You can have all the weird lifestyle preferences you want that don't involve conspicuous waste of natural resources and accelerating anthropogenic climate change.
you’re right.
but I’m still not changing my habits. fuck the environment
I find most people with critical looks at trucks have not looked at their own habits the most. Some have but I bet there are a lot of meat eaters here talking about how wasteful trucks are.
Are we not talking about electric vehicles here?
>A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
How do you even define that? Give it a heavy duty bed and you're wasting weight that could be put toward hauling/towing capacities (and lord knows how people here would feel about ignoring those). A big engine for "reasonable driving" when fully loaded guzzles fuel.
I don't know much about car economics but I'd think Tesla probably should have built a truck to sell as a fleet vehicle first. There are very few car brands that aren't part of a larger entity doing b2b vehicle sales.
I remember the unveiling (loved the "bullet proof" glass demo). That was before I understood who Elon really was and I was pro Tesla. I never would have bought such an ugly vehicle, and I don't normally use looks to evaluate a potential ride.
>A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
I don't think this is actually true, most pickup trucks aren't designed for maximum utility. They're designed to sell a lifestyle.
Heartbreaking but true. The most popular pickups today are not the most useful pickups. There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US.
Pickups are a little bit interesting in this regard. For any given model (eg: Tacoma, Frontier, etc.) the more premium the truck, the worse it is at being a truck. Each feature you add reduces its payload, and in the case of the Frontier, you could drop from a 6' bed with ~1,600 lbs of payload on the base model all the way down to a 5' bed with ~900 lbs of payload for the most premium offroad model.
I would be willing to say that a small Japanese kei truck is more than the average American would ever need for hauling furnishings, appliances and lumber. If you really need something bigger renting a trailer or truck is dirt cheap
>If you really need something bigger renting a trailer or truck is dirt cheap
It’s neither convenient nor cheap to rent a trailer in much of the US. Major cities have options, rural areas less so. Full disclosure I have a mid-sized pickup, but I recently looked into renting a trailer for a landscaping project that was above the weight limit for my truck. First issue I ran into was that there were not any trailers available for rent anywhere near my location. Second issue was that after factoring in driving distance + rental cost + dump fees, it was ~ the same price just to pay a junk company to haul the materials…and it was not cheap. Anecdotally, my pickup was cheaper than most other vehicle options at the time I bought it, my commute is short (so fuel economy is less an issue), and as a homeowner I use the bed to haul something at least once/month (Unfortunately kei trucks weren’t available at the time). So the cost/benefit/convenience factor of owning a truck over renting a trailer works for me. YMMV.
Yeah, I cannot speak for rural US as much, I live in a large metropolitan area, and I would estimate around 1/5th cars here are pickups. You can rent a truck from Home Depot for as low as $100 a day.
But you cannot tow with it. Just haul.
You can tow a trailer rented from them, but not your own trailer/boat/whatever.
I found out a couple of years ago that you cannot rent a vehicle and use it to tow. This is a major barrier to the argument "when you need to tow <X> just rent a vehicle that can do that" (an argument I would like to support).
https://www.enterprisetrucks.com/truckrental/en_US/towing.ht...
That's good to know.
However, the most likely place to rent a pickup from (U-Haul) does not allow this.
I found this out recently as well, and it's really interesting since it must mean that a lot of these "just rent a truck when you need to tow" claims must have been unfounded.
I agree with you on the kei truck. They are pretty darn tough, and have so many uses.
However, they are TINY inside. If you are taller 6'1" and/or heavier than 200lbs, it is a tight squeeze, especially for anything longer than 30 minutes. The "average American" can't fit it a kei truck.
Also, the weird manliness of the average American man would make this truck unsuccessful, simply because it is too small. Which is hilarious, because some of the most resourceful, strongest, reliable and adventurous men I have met drive kei trucks.
I guess finally, the big highways with longhaul trucks and fast speeds are not so good in a k-truck.
Except most people also use trucks as daily driver vehicles. You can't exactly fit the wife and kids in a kei. Sure you could also own a car for that but now I need to own/store 2 vehicles instead of one.
Yeah let's not pretend every family with a truck only owns one vehicle. Most families already have a second car anyways. Especially people spending $60k+ on a truck.
That is my argument for EVs as well. One truck with an ICE for take the whole family on long trips, or towing. Then an EV for everyone else - whoever is making the long trip that day gets the truck.
Truck works well for those role because it can do so much. It isn't the best for most of those, but it can do them.
Sure, you can. Two kids up front and your wife in the bed.
Jokes aside I could purchase a new hatchback and a small old Kei truck for a fraction of the cost of something like an f150
>Sure, you can. Two kids up front and your wife in the bed.
Quieter than the other way around.
At least this way round its perfectly legal in some states
Daihatsu "Deck Van" is pretty rad.
>Heartbreaking but true. The most popular pickups today are not the most useful pickups. There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US.
Any OEM will happily sell you a white vinyl floor half ton with your preferred cab/bed/engine/drivetrain configuration.
The GMC 4cyl 1500s were stupid cheap for awhile, because they shat out a bunch for CAFE and weren't selling so they were going for like 25-30k going into the new model year. I wanna say this was 2024 into 25, maybe 23 into 24, idk.
Ford Maverick seems to fit the bill for compact stuff though I suspect it may make the goalposts zip to "single cab option" and "body on frame"
The Ford Maverick is pretty utilitarian, inasmuch as any new US vehicle is.
The Slate is utilitarian, but remains to be seen if it actually ships. https://www.slate.auto/en
I decide if a truck is utilitarian by whether I have to flag a 2x4x8 in the bed or not.
I decide if you need to have a step on your bumper because the truck is too high to get anything in and out of it. Lowering my truck made it way easier to load and unload.
You don't have to flag stuff under 4ft of overhang in most states.
I can fit one of those into my Ford Fiesta with the hatch closed. :smh:
I used to fairly often carry 2x4x8 and 4x4x8 in a Toyota Matrix (Corolla wagon) with the hatch closed. Couldn't do a full-width sheet of plywood, though.
Closed and latched? I find that hard to believe (used to own an 80s Honda Civic which would allow "closed but not latched" for 4x8 sheet goods) ...
Yes, with room to spare. I assume the grandparent was referring to a stud, i.e. the nominal "2x4" that is 1.5x3.5inches in cross section and 8 feet long :-) Sadly I cannot fit 4x8 sheet goods though I haven't tried very hard. I can definitely fit them if I ask nicely for a lengthwise cut, so I end up with 2' wide 8' strips. Those I can fit and close the hatch.
Ford had a terrible but well packaging rear suspension design in those cars. It was designed to not have strut towers so he gets the full width which is probably around 4ft.
No way does the length check out though. I haul lumber in a similar size car and 8ft is basically trunk to dash so there's no way he's hauling an 8ft by 4ft sheet without it conflicting with the driver's seat if not torso.
Individual boards should fit in just about anything though.
> There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US.
What makes you say this? The F-150 series has a pretty serviceable option in their XL trim. 8ft bed, 4x4, "dumb" interior (maybe not, looking at their site looks like the most recent is iPad screen, sigh) - but what else would you look for to call it utilitarian?
You're right that each feature is further limiting, but I would argue premium and utilitarian are reaching for opposite goals.
A F-150 from the previous century is much utilitarian than today's F-150's. The bed height and rail height are much more reasonable heights -- you can reach into the bed from the side.
Manual gearbox, triangle vent windows, engine bay room, repairability, bench seats.
I would argue that the first couple of these could be considered "features." Not sure what you mean about the bench seat - the "regular cab" configuration is a 3 person bench.
Yes, utilitarian features. A manual gearbox is simpler than an automatic.
I wish it had even fewer features, but I take your point.
these trucks are still a thing; Toyota sells a 10k stripped down work truck for places like Thailand
https://www.roadandtrack.com/reviews/a45752401/toyotas-10000...
wouldn't fly due to chicken tax + other safety and emissions. they plan on selling em in Mexico tho, so maybe we'll see some float up...
The most utilitarian truck is probably the Hilux champ and it’s not even sold in the US.
Lifestyle sells.
I drive a wagon. Of course wagon owners talk about the utility. And yet, you can buy a wagon with a twin-turbo V8 engine. What's the "sportwagon" segment all about? Certainly not going to Home Depot to buy four toilets for the new house, it's about putting your $15,000 Cannondale Black Ink MTB on the roof and swanking up to the trailhead.
I drive a wagon, among other vehicles. I live in a "tech area" of the country.
Last weekend I hauled ~700lb of rebar on the roof (because they come in 20ft sticks so the wagon is the best choice). The number of dirty looks I got was off the charts. The same exact demographics that are in here shitting on pickups were judging me for not using one. Good thing I don't give a shit what anyone else thinks.
I'm a wagon-person. I picked up four new toilets when I moved into my home, take as many as four bikes to the trailhead, and our full-sized Chesapeake Bay Retriever likes having the entire "trunk" area to himself.
I also do not allow my lifted pickup and Model Y neighbours to choose my vehicle for me.
It's about drag racing on the way to your Jiu-Jitsu club with the baby seats in the back. And still being able to fit that new vanity from Home Depot in on your way back home!
The brain is a confabulation/justification engine.
In reality ideal utility is likely found in the shape of a 2008 Toyota Camry and a U-Haul truck rental when necessary.
You may underestimate how much consumption some people in the US have and why a Camry wouldn't work. Hell, for the amount of hobby project stuff I bring home on a bi-weekly basis a car just doesn't cut it. Then again, I'm not sure where I fit in the average population.
It's not even "stuff I bring home". There's just never ending amount of shit that needs to be schlepped around. Sometimes I wish I lived in a condo, leased a Prius and golfed for a hobby.
More like a 2001 Renault Clio. Camrys are already bloatware.
safety standards, gas milage, and a bunch of other factors have improved dramatically since 2008.
buy yourself a gently used 2019 Camry
I struggle to think what vehicle has more all around utility (by my own definition) than my Lightning. The only things it does not do well is tow 300 miles, and drive in NYC. Neither of which are on my requirements list.
Not just trucks. Almost all cars sell a lifestyle.
> ... most pickup trucks aren't designed for maximum utility. They're designed to sell a lifestyle.
Yes, but that lifestyle can and sometimes does include actual needs for some of the utility. There is a great observation from Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat from Washington’s 3rd District in an NYT piece a couple of days ago. I included a perhaps too long quote in lieu of apologizing for the paywall.
> “Spreadsheets can contain a part of truth,” Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez told me. “But never all of truth.”
> Looking to illustrate this, I bought the recent book “White Rural Rage” and opened it more or less at random to a passage about rural pickup trucks. It cites a rich portfolio of data and even a scholarly expert on the psychology of truck purchasers, to make what might seem like an obvious point — that it’s inefficient and deluded for rural and suburban men to choose trucks as their daily driving vehicles. The passage never does explain, though, how you’re supposed to haul an elk carcass or pull a cargo trailer without one.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/opinion/marie-gluesenkamp...
If I mostly trim my hedges, but sometimes, very rarely, need to cut down small trees, am I best served by simply owning a hedge-trimmer and renting a chainsaw or other appropriate tool when necessary, or by buying a katana for both jobs?
Everybody knows why you bought the katana. We know you have a story to tell yourself, it's just not convincing.
> and renting a chainsaw or other appropriate tool when necessary,
I don't think most people realize how expensive and time consuming tool rental is.
This is where things also get kind of messy in the US. In manicured suburbs you probably don't need a chainsaw. But in older growth and places with larger lots you really do need one. If you wait till you need one after a big storm, you may travel 100 miles out of the storm damage to find one to rent or have to wait for weeks as your driveway is blocked and contractors are booked up.
For me the utility function is somewhere in between a car and a truck, hence why I have an SUV. I can carry the large boxes/items I seem to have at a regular basis. When I need something bigger I can rent a trailer to hook to it. Trucks themselves are way too expensive now, and I don't need that much capacity. A car would have me constantly renting or borrowing one from someone else (which I did when I owned a car and it was a pain in the ass).
We recently moved to a more rural location that has needed more tools. It is shocking just how expensive and inconvenient it is to rent tools (and even vehicles to some extent) and just how much worse it is being even just a little bit rural.
The big box store in our town doesn't rent tools or vehicles. You have to drive 45-60 minutes to get to a store that does. This means the 4 hour rental prices (which for something like a wood chipper or chain saw might be sufficient for a lot of jobs) become nearly non-viable or highly stressful rushing through unfamiliar power equipment that really shouldn't be rushed.
A full day tool rental is often 1/3 to 1/2 of the price of a new mass market version of the tool. A week rental is almost always more. The tools are rarely in great shape. You are almost always way better off going to an estate sale or local marketplace and buying a used tool. If there is a job you end up doing 2-3 times or need for more than a week its even cost effective to just buy new ones. You save so much on labor doing things yourself that even with new tools you basically always come out ahead.
The best case is that you have a community run tool library that lets you check stuff out cheaply for a week and can have a relationship with the folks that run it. Similarly, getting to know the neighbors and being able to swap/borrow stuff. For vehicles this is a little more dicey because of liability & insurance issues.
We've definitely struggled with the vehicle for long and sheet goods. We really don't need a pickup truck and it would honestly be a hazard on skinny mountain roads... but we do need to move lumber, sheet goods, appliance sized things just enough that it's a pain without one. We settled on a midsized SUV with passable towing power (as an aside, EV power and control makes towing a breeze as long as your round trip fits in one charge). Renting a trailer is still annoying, but at least can be done close by. For larger orders delivery can sometimes be cost effective (vs renting a vehicle or buying and maintaining a truck) especially because places often subsidize delivery to win business.
>A full day tool rental is often 1/3 to 1/2 of the price of a new mass market version of the tool
For sure. I had to dig some post holes in limestone that was very hard. Rental was going to be $200 for a tool that would do it in a day.
Instead I went to harbor freight and bought a tool closer to $100 even though it took me a bit longer, and I get to keep the tool which is still working to this day.
Heh, and labor costs in the Austin area are off the hook. I did a project for around $5000 that a neighbor had a similar but smaller in scope project quoted for $21,000.
> I don't think most people realize how expensive and time consuming tool rental is.
Same with truck rentals.
People seriously underestimate how much trouble a pickup truck rental from U-Haul can be.
I’ve wasted so much time trying to track down which location near me has one available on the exact day I want to do major yard work. Often I have to reschedule my work or plan out super far in advance. Or take a day off during the week because everyone else also wants to rent trucks on the weekend. Then I’m running against the clock the whole time.
An extra $100-$200 a month car payment to have a truck instead of a crossover is totally worth it.
> A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
That's very unrealistic considering the market.
> A pickup truck should just be max utility
Yet we are in a thread where one with max utility has been cancelled and one flop of the century continues to sell.
> That and also it's just a bad product.
I want whatever the v3 equivalent of the Cybertruk would be. Assuming they improve on it.
That's basically the F150 or a rivian
That's... a very uneducated take, even according to those car's CEOs RJ and Jim.
Normal cars vs the fever dreams of a ketamine addict.
And a lot of the best automotive+ engineers in the world.
That's a challenging claim to justify when their output is the Cybertruck. Honestly, none of Tesla's lineup is currently impressive - it's mostly gimmicky with less than stellar build quality.
I strongly considered a Model S years ago when they first came out, but the price just didn't seem justifiable. Now? The world has moved on, and Tesla... hasn't.
Has the world moved on? While it may be anecdotal my area has only exploded with Teslas, I live in Florida for context. I see Cybertruks nearly everyday (some days I don't have to drive anywhere due to working remote). I always see a Tesla, heck, sometimes I see two or more of them at any given time, all over Central Florida I always see a Tesla somewhere, but in my area in particular it feels like "Tesla Country" at this point, and I don't see it dwindling, they just built another Tesla building near our Airport (MCO) too. Even see some bumper stickers on Teslas with "Elon" crossed out on them. Heck, my wife's own relatives have Teslas and they don't like Elon's politics, nor do they live in my area.
Panel gaps
> it's just a bad product. So you've never driven one?
> A pickup truck should just be max utility You don't know much about trucks? What does this even mean, max utility? Trucks are designed for different purposes. Should we eliminate all programming languages besides bash or python?
> especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one Seems like you don't know much about business either. Most new products should NOT try to do everything at once the first time.
BINGO: the folks buying these things are doing so to virtue signal their politics. If you need a truck for work or hunting, you're still buying a truck, not some Silicon Valley concept car like the Cybertruck.
Cybertruck is the greatest vehicle ever made.
But Cybertruck has better vibes. /s
That be easier to believe if there weren't so many Model 3 and Y vehicles that are clearly the new ones (changed headlights/taillights) all around. I'm sure Elon's "political" salutes gave their sales some headwinds, but I'm inclined to think it is more like 15% less sales (Q4 2024 vs Q4 2025). The CyberTruck factory is operating at <20% capacity.
The biggest problems are: it costs ~2x what Elon said it would, it has less than half the range he said it'd have, and it has had 10 recalls in its short life.
The recalls have been for things as basic as: light bar falling off, exterior trim falling off, bed trim falling off, the acceleration pedal falling off, inverter failures. It paints a picture of a low-quality product that has a very premium price.
I know this is a dead thread, but...
How do so many people justify buying the new redesign? I mean it came out after the CEO went in front of the world and gave two nazi-like salutes, then did DOGE!
Do they buy his 'autistic' defense? Do they just not care about what the CEO does and support him with their money anyways? Do they actively support his ideology?
I suspect it's likely a mix of these depending on the person, and probably more that I can't think of.
I mean they're good cars, no doubt, and it's a damn shame many decent engineers and workers put in so much effort to have it all tainted by such nasty politics.
But I cannot ignore those salutes, nor the myriad other slights starting with calling those Thai cave-diving heroes pedophiles. Tesla is dead to me, a victim of this insane time and its CEO.
> I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination.
I 1000% agree with this, in fact I love the way it looks, like something out of a SEGA Saturn game. But I would never buy one for the same reasons I would never buy any Tesla, or in fact any EV, or any post-2014 car at all. But the looks of it are not one of those reasons :)
I do have to laugh every time I see a Tesla with one of those “Bought this before we knew Elon was crazy!!” stickers, because to me they just read as “Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!”. It's weird to me to think that other people are thinking that way about their automobiles, because I bought mine (Prius C) based on its features and how they fit into my needs and my life. I guess the Prius line was a popular “statement car” of the pre-Tesla era, though, like how Brian drives one on Family Guy, or the “Smug Alert” episode of South Park, but it was never that for me.
> Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!”. I
I read it exactly the opposite. Somebody bought a car not because they were making a statement but just because they thought it was cool, only to find out later Elon was a nazi nutjob, and they don't want people to think they bought it because they share the same views.
Nobody thinks you share the same views as the CEO of your car company. Jesus. GP is right. It makes them seem utterly self-conscious.
People were absolutely giving attitude towards people in Teslas in general, and Cybertrucks in particular, around the peak of all the DOGE nonsense.
Still are, for Cybertrucks
Nonsense?
Yeah, you're right, the US Federal government is a peak engine of efficiency and it's nonsense to think massive sums of money are wasted.
If I told you I could save you money on fuel by making your car more efficient, then removed it's engine, you would still call that nonsense no matter how much of a gas guzzler it was before or how little fuel gets put in it now.
You just made a massive non sequitur. The government does have waste, as does any large organization, including in the private sector. Whether or not DOGE saved money needs an independent analysis, not numbers which DOGE itself produces.
Musk and Trump cut a large number of jobs and declared, without any evidence, that it was all fraud and waste. For example, they dismissed everyone who was in a probationary period, claiming these were all low-performing people. In fact, every person hired or promoted was automatically in a probation status. In many cases the fired people turned out to be critical and the government asked them to come back.
Think about this: when Enron exploded, it took a team of forensic accountants months to untangle the bookkeeping. Musk came in with a team of mostly teenage hacker types to siphon all the data from all the agencies he could and in less than 48 hours declared he had found hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and fraud. It beggars belief that Elon Musk just happens to be an accounting expert and could process terabytes of data and make sense of it in a day or two.
Another thing you should know is the founder of Gumroad, a man in his 30s and who joined DOGE in a good-faith effort to help make the government more efficient, found that things were not at all like he expected. Even if you don't believe him, he was closer to the action than Musk, has more technical knowledge than Musk, and if nothing else, offers a counter-narrative from what you apparently have bought:
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/02/nx-s1-5417994/former-doge-eng...
After expressing his opinions he was quickly sacked by DOGE. Transparency indeed.
Oh, and many (hundreds?) of thousands of people will die each year due to loss of international aid. Meanwhile Musk was dancing around on stage like an idiot with a chainsaw thinking he was the coolest guy.
I witnessed massive fraud first hand in the DoD and the VA (the area this gumroad guy was dealing with) as a Booz Allen contractor.
I worked directly with fraudulent shell 8a firms (literally a big white dude made his Filipino American wife the CEO of like 6 people and then subcontracted to my team with a direct award minority woman owned business contract valued at a $100m).
I witnessed massive waste by VA employees at the joint MHS/VA hospital in North Chicago, IL (they sandbagged an expensive IT modernization that was trying to reduce wait times because it was going to put a bunch of local VA sys admins out of work by shifting to a gov cloud data center).
You don't know what your talking about. You don't have first hand knowledge. Nobody on the ground for years in the Federal sector agrees with you or the gumroad guy. They agree with me.
My twin brother worked at a "Native Owned" defense contractor in Arlington, and literally never saw a Native American in their office a single time. There were employees with Washington Redskins merch everywhere and nobody cared because they KNEW that the single tribe that collected the checks at the top was never going to see the office. They just subbed out work to the big consulting firms anyway.
I have endless examples from working in the beltway for 10 years. Sorry that reality doesn't line up with your political tribal beliefs.
Nonsense in how they approached things. Clinton-era we had govt. cut backs all over the place. It was done according to a plan and according to the law.
This was just a hatchet job, aimed and cutting and gutting any and every agency they thought they could get away with.
Not that you share the same views but at least directly funneling money to someone harming many.
You do that merely by using the monetary system at all.
"You criticize society, yet you participate in it!"
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/259/257/342...
If only you knew how bad things really are. https://i.ibb.co/7NTZdSC8/intelligent.jpg
Even were I to be more charitable to your original comment, it is nihilism, which I dislike. "Don't criticize any particularly immoral component of our system, because it's all bad and resistance is futile".
Nihilism is a self fulfilling prophecy.
You shouldn't confuse disinterest with The Spectacle and its siren song to Support or Oppose every new storyline with belief in nothing at all. I am definitely not a nihilist.
My bad. It's just that when someone criticizes a person for some small, specific action or boycott by saying "don't you know that does nothing and that other places also have their flaws", it usually comes off as nihilism and discouragement to having values.
Surely you recognize how someone could think buying a car from the company owned by a near trillionaore who helped a fascist get power and now tweets about the need for White solidarity is a bad thing.
You won't survive long without using the monetary system, but you could go your whole life without supporting many of the companies who you see as harmful. Now that money is speech and corporations are increasingly running the oligarchy there are very few levers people have left to try to influence their government. I don't think boycotting massive corporations will be any more successful than trying to get our representatives to care more about our wishes than the bribes they get from those same companies, but at least it feels like doing something.
I'm not sure how that adds to the conversation. Let's say North Korea puts out a really cool phone. Are you going to go: "yeah buying it supports a dictator who is brutal to his people but so does participating in a monetary system so nothing matters so it's okay"
I would buy a North Korea phone if it was cool, band-compatible with my domestic carrier, and wasn't embargoed (i.e. if sale was possible), yeah. I already daily a China phone and depending on who you talk to that isn't much better: https://redmagic.tech/pages/redmagic-9s-pro
People absolutely do. Elon, Trump, and his supporters have politicized the cars (https://www.the-sun.com/motors/11906310/trump-rally-cybertru...) and now the connection is to be expected.
It's not surprising since people don't really have meaningful representation in government and have to resort to trying to hit companies where it hurts in order effect change whether that means boycotting a car company because of a CEO, or boycotting a beer because of a trans person in an instagram ad.
Unfortunate as it is, what you buy and where you shop is very much a political statement.
You're labeling someone a "Nazi nut job" over nothing.
It's juvenile and silly and screams "midwit overly absorbed into political news."
Enjoy your unearned moral superiority. It's a thin blanket against the cold wind of mediocrity, but you do you.
In 2026, if you're genuinely unaware of his white supremacist opinions, perhaps you need to be more absorbed into [sic] political news.
He's alluded to thinking that Asians and Indians are "better" on some metrics so supremacy still seems a bit sensationalist. He certainly doesn't think all races are equal.
> You're labeling someone a "Nazi nut job" over nothing.
Nothing except his antisemitic tweets, his posts defending Hitler, his support of Alternative for Germany, his support of prominent white supremacists, his chatbot which praises Hitler, his endorsement of racist conspiracies, and the occasional "Sieg Heil". What exactly would "something" look like to you?
Being morally superior to that is an exceptionally low bar to clear and it's earned easily by everyone who rejects the hate and lies he publishes, supports, and encourages.
The man is officially a dear friend of Israel, he has never defended Hitler, he indeed supports the German far right party, his chatbot had an alignment issue that has been patched within 16 hours.
What you call a "Sieg heil" was an innocent hand gesture made once, and that hoax has been debunked by both the anti defamation league and the Israeli PM personally. You know this, yet you cannot let go of your hate.
If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then we have to entertain the possibility that we are dealing with a duck.
To me it looks like Musk is overly concerned about discrimination against whites as well as woke ideology, also out of personal experience with his child.
The rest, where progressives slander Musk and label him a Nazi or, their newest addition, a pedophile, appears to be a litany of lies, like the ones just shared above.
> Elon was a nazi nutjob
I find it hilarious that people think this because he did some tangentially Roman-salute-esque gesture once. His political platform is nowhere near Nazism. He would actually be a much more interesting person if it were.
Then sell the car. Putting the sticker on the car won't make you look good in the eyes of either Elon fans or Elon detractors.
Selling the car is complicated by market conditions and tariffs which could make the cost of a replacement and/or the terms of the sale much worse. We can cut people some slack for making a stupid purchase under very different circumstances. They're already being punished by owning the shitty car as it is.
This seems like it is speaking from privilege. I have not even paid the car off, 5.5 years later. I am not going to sell a perfectly working (if not very good IMO) car at a loss. And buy what instead? No, I will stick with my functional but terribly unergonomic car now built by a nazi.
Let me get this straight. You bought a "statement car" but not for its statement, and then you assume that other people driving a different "statement car" bought it because of the statement?
Yes, anybody who puts a sticker on their car apologizing for owning it is somebody who bought it to make a statement. I bought mine because I researched best gas mileage, lowest ongoing maintenance cost, and dimensions that fit the the city, and that's what I came up with.
>Yes, anybody who puts a sticker on their car apologizing for owning it is somebody who bought it to make a statement.
Or the opposite, buying the car wasn't a statement at the time and they don't like that driving it feels like a statement now so they got a bumper sticker to acknowledge that their continued ownership is not a statement of support for Musk and his ideology.
Real ones wouldn't be thinking about it at all.
Lots of reports of Tesla's getting keyed. I know Tesla owners who bought the sticker just to avoid getting keyed.
My favorite is the cybertruck with the T O Y O T A decal on the back
The world's richest man did a nazi salute. Real ones would fight WW2 against him
So it all boils down to "No True Scotsman"? How about I offer you an alternative:
We don't try to guess why you bought what you bought, or why you need to so actively rationalize it, and you stop assuming that those stickers are something other than "Please don't key this car" signs. Less dramatically some of them are also "I bought this before the guy started throwing celebratory HiterGruß on stage and carving up important parts of the government for nonexistent savings."
Which... for people outside of your bubble is something important.
How are you defining "real ones"? Because it seems like you're implying that someone can't have political opinions while also occasionally making apolitical decisions.
Until someone who hates Elon (not saying that's wrong per se) throws a brick through the window (which IS wrong per se) and you're on the hook for paying for it.
Then you are really bad at research
The 175k miles I've put on it over the last decade say otherwise :)
> then you assume that other people driving a different "statement car" bought it because of the statement?
He assumed that people who drive a statement car emblazoned with a big sticker that says "HERE'S THE STATEMENT I INTENDED TO MAKE" bought it because of the statement. I think that's a reasonable assumption.
How is a Tesla a "statement car"? A Cybertruck, sure. But Tesla's are as normal as anything on the road nowadays.
Depends on the market. In Australia Tesla is much pricier than all the Chinese options (more the norm). In my area people who would have probably bought a Tesla are looking at BMW's range.
They also avoid buying certain cars to make a statement.
You're right about it looking like something out of a game. I passed one wrapped in fluorescent green at a gas station the other night (owner was checking the tire pressure) and it indeed made think 'low polygon count'. I would not have been entirely surprised if the driver had looked similar.
Thing is, after the initial momentary amusement the novelty quickly evaporates. It doesn't have the compelling presence of, say, a Tumbler. https://brucewaynex.com/pages/tumbler
> “Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!”
The correct interpretation for most people is "I bought my car because it was a good car and now for reasons beyond my control it may appear to be a political statement. Also sorry for giving that guy money, I didn't know he would spend it on Trump."
I understand you don't think it's a good car, which is fine, but most people who bought one did not agree with you.
Your comment is a little confusing because you obviously understand this concept, you bought a Prius because you thought it was a good car, not because of a political statement others may have projected onto your purchase. The same is true of most Tesla owners.
> The correct interpretation for most people is "I bought my car because it was a good car and now for reasons beyond my control it may appear to be a political statement. Also sorry for giving that guy money, I didn't know he would spend it on Trump."
No, he had it right. Those stickers are idiotic. It won't make anyone like them any better. Sell the car if you don't like it that much.
They may not have put it there because they were "self-conscious" about their "statement car." They may have put it there in an honest attempt to avoid having their car vandalized for something they had nothing to do with.
> I guess the Prius line was a popular “statement car” of the pre-Tesla era, though, like how Brian drives one on Family Guy, or the “Smug Alert” episode of South Park, but it was never that for me.
... So you admit to falling for Toyota product placement in cartoons.
Did Toyota pay for "Smug Alert"? Wasn't that the one where owning a Prius was smelling your own farts?
Learn to read. I actually didn't see that episode until years after I both owned a Prius and lived in San Francisco, and I found it very funny :)
Politics or no, the price point ultimately dictated its maximum sales. By that measure it's a reasonable success, and if Elon was forecasting that they would sell multiple tens of thousands of vehicles per year at a $80,000 price point he needs to lay off the drugs. Elon sometimes seems like the living embodiment of "How much could a banana cost, Michael, $10?" parody of out of touch rich people.
I think if people who like trucks didn't see videos of things like the bumper ripping off when towing or minor failures leading to whole vehicle shorts it might have done better. The people who want trucks want resilience and ability to self-service more than the average car buyer.
Cybertruck offroading attempts were also a hoot to watch. The whole vibe is that it is merely a truck-shaped Tesla EV that's terrible at most truck tasks. Sure, there's a market for mall-run trucks with pristine beds and never get any mud on them, but it's not a big one.
It's an amazing vehicle well suited to many normal tasks and more, and is an absolute pleasure to drive off road. I think you were subjected to either misinformation or very biased clips that were intended to warp your opinion.
It actually wasn't the bumper that ripped off in that video, it was the entire rear subframe tearing in two.
If you're talking about the JerryRigEverything video, the negative interpretations represent a fundamental misunderstanding of physics. Pinning the front down removes the main real-world load-sharing path (vehicle rotation and suspension compliance) so the rear subframe is forced to absorb an unrealistically large bending moment that would normally be distributed across the whole vehicle. This created conditions which do not occur in real towing, and which give no insight into the actual towing limits of the vehicle.
All the test demonstrated is that you should not exceed the towing capacity of Cybertruck while its front subframe is pinned to the ground by a tractor.
I've never seen a JerryRigEverything video.
I remember the "under $40k" announcement price
2019 just before covid was a bad time to make price estimates five years into the future.
well half of the problem is that it ended up 2 years late.
Have we completely forgotten about how Tesla dealerships were shot up, firebombed? Video after video showing cybertrucks vandalized with scratches and spray paint?
It may be a terrible car from a terrible program, but these events at least bear mentioning. If you saw it happening in 2025, would it have a cooling effect on your decision to purchase? Who would want the trouble?
The targeted vandalism/terrorism definitely stopped a lot of purchases.
Lots of people are still buying other Teslas.
The discussion was about the cybertruck. If vandalism specifically against cybertrucks has cooled sentiment, then a response stating that all the other Tesla models are still selling is a non sequiter.
You seem to have forgotten why those things happened. It was the Nazi salutes Elon did at an official US government event.
Well that totally justifies terrorism against people who aren't even Elon Musk
You can attribute the failure of this vehicle to politics if you like, but it's fairly obvious to anyone watching why it failed - it came out at double the proposed priced with half the proposed range. It's not even the hideous design, there were hundreds of thousands of "pre orders" who knew about the horrible design. It's the price and range.
Eh, that might explain failure to convert preorders to sales. But it doesn't really matter when comparing to other vehicles in the same market.
I was already a Tesla owner and I reserved a Cybertruck right after I saw the original Cybertruck Unveil live stream on November 21, 2019. The infamous one where the window glass shattered.
That was when it was supposed to cost around $35,000.
Four years later when my reservation was ready to order, on December 8, 2023, the CyberTruck cost more than $100k.
Because it cost almost 3x more than what was originally advertised, I cancelled the order. I know many other people who canceled for the same reason. Keeping in mind this was after several delays, so I and many others with reservations were already frustrated with the product before it became available to order.
> Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit
I think the Cybertruck was DOA and his involvement in politics got people who shared his views to buy one in order to signal the same.
Also the fact that many truck deliveries were literally DOA as in the truck bricked itself in the driveway.
This isn't even remotely true though?
I don't know man maybe I hallucinated all the news coverage
https://www.thestreet.com/electric-vehicles/teslas-cybertruc...
I'll applaud anything that tries to move us away from the current stale design trend where every car looks like the same boring bar of soap and every truck looks like the same aggressive, drivable, mechanized fist.
But anything in this case is a pedestrian-maiming, finger-slicing, dumpster on dubs. Not sure that's really a move in the right direction.
I like the fact the design is bold. I don't like the fact it's criminally unsafe.
There are lots of interesting concept cars on every car show. Too bad companies choose to never make them.
It might be safer foe pedestrians than most trucks due to the significantly lower hood, despite the sharp edges. We don’t have statistics on that. But we know trucks are more deadly because instead of launching a struck person up and over the hood, they maim them underneath
The bar of soap is aerodynamic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient
Right. All cars are converging on the shape of the Dodge Intrepid Hybrid. It is simply unavoidable. It is carcinisation, but for cars.
They're so ugly to me.
Anything with that teardrop shape is immediately out of my purchasing decision matrix.
I like boxy vehicles and sharp angles you could cut yourself on. The Toyota FJ Cruiser. The new Ford Bronco. The new Land Cruiser FJ.
The original DeLorean DMC-12 speaks to me. The Ferrari F40. The Corvette C8.
The Unimog. FMTV trucks.
Nothing that looks like a dollop of sour cream or a tear drop breast implant is ever going to appeal to me. Aerodynamics be damned.
I love the look of Unimogs and FMTVs.
I was seriously thinking about looking into finding a surplus FMTV until I realized just how loud and uncomfortable they probably are. Sure, that can be fixed, but I have enough projects.
Elon Shithead promised a lot for apparently a good price and wasn't able to deliver.
It wasn't just the hate i think.
The Cybertruck also does the tightest turns because it has front and back wheel steering. I could imagine that to be useful on job sites.
The kinds of people buying cybertrucks aren't going to be caught dead on a job site.
That's not true. Boss likes being flashy. You won't see them being used for actual work, but that's a different proposition.
2002 GMC Sierras did this, it was called quadrasteer
There is a certain subset of Tesla owners who have this belief that features in certain Tesla vehicles are completely novel to Teslas and other auto manufacturers haven't even considered them. They can often be identified by how they refer to them as "dinosaurs".
Adjustable ride height? Miraculous. Meanwhile my car is mapping the road surface, actively leaning into corners and following road camber, actively avoiding potholes, and adjusting the suspension, including ride height, constantly.
Traffic Sign Recognition, including recognizing school zones, and recognizing active school zones.
Adaptive blind spot - so nice. Speed differential low, or you're going faster? Will not activate, or only activate last moment. But if someone is blowing by you in the HOV lane, it will warn of them when they're still several hundred feet back.
Laser headlights. Matrix headlights. Night vision with thermal imaging.
Predictive active suspension - The car actively scans the road ahead with sensors and it will adjust suspension for poorer road conditions.
The car can not just stop, but will actively swerve, if safe, around obstructions to avoid a collision, or even a parked car opening a door into traffic.
As did some models of Honda Prelude starting in '87.
whoa I was not aware of this, super cool
A full-size Ford Transit - which is much larger than a Cybertruck, and much more useful - turns in about an 11-metre kerb-to-kerb circle.
That's fully a metre and a half tighter than the Cybertruck.
In my opinion it isn't useful at all because if the only thing you can get into a spot is a vehicle with 4-wheel steering, you have already fucked up your site planning. You aren't going to be delivering materials with that thing, bulk materials are too heavy and light materials are too large. Maybe tools, but it isn't that large to be a tool truck and too expensive for small handyman type work.
There are many situations that are not proper job sites. All sorts of rural situations that require turning.
No it doesn't. A regular Suburban without 4 wheel steering still has a tighter turning radius. A fucking Suburban!
Not really, sites are pretty much always spaced out. Ironically, it’s best for city and daily driving - it’s a pure luxury feature.
It would be amazing in the city if it weren't two lanes wide.
It's the same width as an F150
Tbf F150s also suck in the city lol
Its not amazing in the city. The turning radius on the cybertruck is atrocious. Go look it up and quit believing the marketing bullshit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjIPEtegPt4&t=2780s
It's great, maybe stop looking it up and go drive one?
A Suburban without 4 wheel steering has a tighter turning radius. It's pathetic that something with 4 wheel steering can't outdo a Suburban.
And why would I want to drive one? I have literally no reason to drive that waste of batteries.
I'm one of the few people that love the cybertruck design, but even I can't look at one these days and not think "swasticar". It's terribly disappointing, really. Fully self-inflicted.
> many vehicles ... are almost indistinguishable
That is so right on the money. I attended the LA Auto Show a couple of months back and the takeaway was that every manufacturer pretty much makes the same safe car. There might be a feature here and feature there, but it's the same car.
In the years past they at least had lots of concept cars. This year, I maybe saw two and they weren't all that "concept".
> I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it.
Why? Do you want your other tools to be _different_ for no reason at all? Do you want your drill come with sharp corners you can't touch just because it'll look different?
> So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination.
Because utilitarian design and purpose of this vehicles has been established long time ago. Cybetruck "wanted to be different" but it fails in every aspect of its own "innovation". It's ultimately stupid vehicles with so many flaws that arguing it tried something is pointless. Like, having a man walking to North Pole in runners - he's not trying something new, he's straight stupid and should be treated like that
It's just a darn shame that we're reduced to a simple measure of a single dimension, whether a right or left point on a single axis. You'll find many EV owners are multidimensional, a little bit up and down and all around an x-y plane, or even x-y-z cube. Conservative and liberal progressive alike in Europe are sick of Musk and it shows on the Tesla sales tanking.
https://electrek.co/2026/01/06/tesla-full-2025-data-europe-t...
As much as this is to blame, don't forget the year plus delay, ~60% increase in price, omitted features, safety investigations, recalls, etc.
It's clear the design was half baked from the start.
The thing with Cybertrucks losing panels certainly didn't help.
A big part of the Cybertruck marketing was the robustness of its unusual design: exoskeleton! space grade materials! They smashed the door with a hammer and it didn't dent (just avoid pétanque balls...), Elon Musk commented that it would destroy the other vehicle in an accident. Morally dubious arguments sometimes, but it appeals to many potential customers.
And then, the vehicle that is supposed to be a tank falls apart by looking at it funny. And the glued on steel plates, is it that the exoskeleton? Not only the design is controversial, but it failed at what it is supposed to represent.
> So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new.
You haven't seen enough trucks and pickups then. The Cybertruck serves no utility purpose.
The main problem was that it was and is twice as expensive with less range as they said it would be with seemingly no push to address either.
It seems to be a good product (with compromises as any product) but its not a slam dunk to choose that as a Model 3/Y is.
> I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift around its launch.
IMO the sort of person who wants a vehicle like Elon's dumpster has a strong overlap with Elon's politics. Basically everything about its design and marketing was aimed at the sort of person who is focused on presenting a masculine image, who thinks they're going to be in a war zone on their daily commute, who wishes they could drive through a crowd of protesters, etc.
Basically the only thing "left wing" about it is the fact that it's electric.
> Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new.
The only thing it actually did new was the drive-by-wire steering, which is by all accounts impressive but could have been done on any normal vehicle as well. The "unique" styling is mostly just re-learning lessons that John DeLorean taught the rest of the industry decades ago.
> IMO the sort of person who wants a vehicle like Elon's dumpster has a strong overlap with Elon's politics. Basically everything about its design and marketing was aimed at the sort of person who is focused on presenting a masculine image, who thinks they're going to be in a war zone on their daily commute, who wishes they could drive through a crowd of protesters, etc.
Elon is an ass, but this is still the most crudely and childishly stereotyped thing I've read on the internet today. Congrats.
While largely true, that trucks have adorned the comforts of luxury cars, most are running 6' beds. This largely ignores the evolution of the truck and the job site. My family operates contracting and excavating businesses that operating in all manner of weather and terrain, no one is carrying loads in their truck beds anymore... its not even legal most places unless you convert to a dump bed...
Whats in their trucks? Well, a crew cab occasionally is used for car pooling workers, where they all park their vintage beater trucks at the business... Sometimes weather sensitive tools, or job related items, documents, you can just throw these in a glove box... The bed usually has a gas pump for refilling remote equipment. Cones and other safety shit. Sand hoppers for plowing. Yes they also use these "luxury" trucks to plow.
The thing is... These people are making decent salaries... my direct relatives are multi-millionaires who still pick up a welder, a hammer, a shovel.
Im see alot of assumptions about why trucks evolved the way they did, who owns them, and what for... I would argue the "luxury faker" is a very small crowd, one that likely moved to the cybertruck... and despite the trucks looking modernized, are beaten to pulp over long service lives.
Now, go get in a modern tractor, dump truck, or excavator. They are also all AC, Radios, Computers, Leather Seats, etc... People want to be comfortable.
I wager people care way more that it simply costs a lot, and they don't like it or need it
Elon had to ignore so many people who told him using stainless steel was a very bad idea
Back in 2020, a friend working at Tesla told me how frustrated the engineers working on the cybertruck were, because they knew its design choices pushed by Musk made no sense, making the cybertruck way too complicated to design and build for no reasons, and everybody already knew the product would be a failure.
As someone who has used both light and heavy pickups for work, recreation, and farm work for decades, the Cybertruck is absolutely terrible at everything you want a truck to do.
It's a brodozer for people that are slightly environmentally conscious or have Elon issues.
And again, I say this as an actual cowboy, in that yes, I own cows. And a lineman who ferries manly men (and a few manly women) to do manly man work on high voltage power lines that will kill you so dead it's a guaranteed closed casket funeral. Trucks aren't just dick compensators, they exist to do work. And the Cybertruck sucks at all of that work. The F-150 lightning was a useful fleet vehicle due to the 120VAC outlets alone, aside from being, you know, a usable truck.
There's a reason most of the offering are very similar. We figured out what work pickup trucks need to do and how they're engineered to do it 50 years ago. The Hilux and friends made it highly economical. So you've got the Hiluxies and the SuperManlyMinivans and those are the two main kind of pickup trucks.
Trucks being dick compensators is also based on their association with the work they do. Easier to pretend to be a salt of the earth tough guy when you both drive the same truck but with a different trim package.
I'll always give Tesla, SpaceX etc props for the work they accomplish, even though Elon is at the helm, he's not a perfect dude but I will give him props when he gets something right too. At the end of the day his employees are doing incredible work and it should not be written off because of Elon. To any Tesla / SpaceX employee whether you agree with Elon or not, thank you for helping to build a more interesting tomorrow.
Yeah SpaceX's tech is amazing. Funny China's like "star link launches are bad" then they're trying to do even more, China knows what's up.
gl getting out of one in case of a crash when the battery that opens the doors malfunction
I mean as with most "product" things related to Musk, it's more about the meme stock than any fundamental coupling to finances in the real world.
Ford is a car company. They sell cars. The Lightning was a poorly selling car, so they stopped selling it. Pretty simple!
Tesla is a lifestyle company. They make line go up by owning the libs, catering to edgelord identity, and triggering speculation. The Cybertruck probably gained the company more memetic shareholder value than it lost as a real product.
I mean, in certain circles online, people were literally calling Cybertrucks "Swasticars." Not the greatest for marketing.
Elon going off the deep end is the tail wagging the dog. It's an objectively terrible car.
The collapse of the company overall, particularly the Model Y, which is a great car, is all about Elon. Not only his unveiling as a fascist, but he essentially looted the company.
pumped the stock and then tried to use the twitter buy as a way to sell greatly without taking the price too hard.
they wouldn't let him out of the sale -- he sued 3 times to get out of the twitter buy agreement -- so now he owns that too.
I feel like kudos for making a public eye-sore merely because people typically don't make public eye-sores is a bit missing the point.
Honestly, both the Lightning and the Cybertruck are just bad trucks. Some review of the Lightning I read said it has less than a 100 mile range towing a full load.
It's a fashion statement, not a work vehicle.
> Some review of the Lightning I read said it has less than a 100 mile range towing a full load.
Because of course towing long distances is the only reason you'd ever want a truck.
Obviously we can start by acknowledging that the vast majority of F-150s (and other half-ton pickup trucks) sold in the US these days are purchased by people who maybe haul a load of mulch or dirt once a year and otherwise use them as daily commuter vehicles for which no part of their "truckiness" actually matters for any reason other than image. I absolutely agree that these people should drive something that's not a truck, but that's a battle we're not going to win, so I'd rather have them driving an EV truck instead of a gas-guzzling V8. It's an improvement in some ways even if in reality that suburban parent would be best off with a minivan as their daily and renting a pickup from Home Depot for that mulch run.
My one friend who has a Lightning is exactly this. She used to have a gas F-150, replaced it with a RAV4 that she didn't like so she rapidly replaced that with the Lightning and loves it. Lots of power, quiet, smooth, and never needs to go to the gas station. I don't think she's ever fast charged it, just plugs in at home and goes about her life.
Where I live there are a lot of people who actually do need a truck or truck-based SUV for recreational purposes but don't really go long distances, like towing their boat up to the lake for the weekend, towing ATVs to the trail, or towing a RV trailer to a nearby state/national park where they'll then plug in to the nice 50A outlet and charge back up overnight without having to think about it.
There are also an absolute ton of commercial fleets that need pickup trucks for one reason or another but their trucks never leave their metro area and always end up back at the office every night. Lawn care, delivery, etc. where the only downside of the current lineup of electric trucks is that they're all only offered as the ultra short bed crew cab configuration instead of a long-bed standard cab.
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EVs are absolutely the wrong choice for time-constrained long distance travel, like long-haul trucking or the midwestern three-day-weekend road trip, but the Lightning and its GM competition that were actually designed to be good at things instead of a pure image machine are very good at certain roles.
But a lot of the people who buy trucks for image want the image of somebody who's going out towing, carrying a bunch of stuff, and doing "truck things".
They don't fit the image if they drive an e-truck because e-trucks aren't great at those "truck things. At least that's my theory why the e-trucks aren't doing well, even if they should be.
No doubt a used Lightning is a great deal if you only need to carry stuff once in a while.
I counted 49 pickup trucks with empty beds in the parking garage downtown this morning.
Wouldn't there be a selection bias, as trucks in parking garages are much less likely to be doing hauling /towing tasks?
Half of them sticking out into the roadway blocking half the lane. What an entitlement.
I counted 50 sedans with empty seats in the parking garage downtown this morning.
So? You saw them for one subset of what they are doing. Perhaps the most common one, but still just a subset.
But a lot of people buy trucks so they can tow and carry stuff when they need to, not because they're doing it all the time.
Downvote all you want, the sales numbers speak for themselves.
Point being the majority of pickup trucks you see day-to-day are fashion statements.
I agree they are not work trucks, not meant for work tasks.
I'm very much on the left, and I honestly like the design of the Cybertruck. (I know this puts me in a minority.) It is disappointing that the original "unibody" design was abandoned. The new design where the body panels just randomly fall off is silly.
If it was made by some other company I would genuinely consider buying one. But I would never buy another Tesla. I owned an older Model X, before Elon went full-fascism. And even ignoring Elon, the car was awful. It was shoddily built, kept breaking down, and the service experience was shockingly bad. Absolutely atrocious.
But after all that, I can't give money to Elon ever again. I can't fund America's descent into fascism. I could not live with myself.
> I'm very much on the left, and I honestly like the design of the Cybertruck. (I know this puts me in a minority.) It is disappointing that the original "unibody" design was abandoned. The new design where the body panels just randomly fall off is silly.
Function should drive form. The design would be cool if it was for a cool function.
Say you have a beautifully-made, expertly-weighted tack hammer. That looks cool on your work bench and works well. If you refashion the hammer into a kitchen spoon, it looks dumb in the kitchen and works poorly for stirring a pot.
It is designed for cool functions, although a pure exoskeleton turned out to be infeasible the thick panels still help with side crashes, helping it get the Top Safety Pick+ award (equal/better than the competition other than "safety belt reminders). The steel makes it great for driving in places with branches and grocery cart/door dings. The panels also don't just "randomly" fall off, there was a period of time where the manufacturing process didn't follow the spec on applying the adhesive so ice crystals would form and degrade the adhesion.
> it's not to my taste
It's not just you, it's universally tasteless and that's the point: It is a contrarian vehicle.
In an age where the Internet has flattened subcultures into surface phenomenons, the only remaining way to publicly distance yourself from normality is by making patently, obviously bad decisions and using the backlash to further fuel your ego.
This is true. If I see a Tesla I don’t immediately assume that driver is personally aligned with Elon. It’s a popular and good car.
If I see a Cybertruck I’m extremely confident that driver approves of Elons antics and likely fervently supports them. It’s a physical manifestation of his ego and mostly bought by his legions of fans.
If you’re a Cybertruck driver and you don’t want people to think that, you’re in the wrong car.
There are plenty of reasons I don't want a Cybertruck, but I can assure you that your opinion (or any other Karen's opinion), doesn't even come close to making the list.
I think the dealership monopoly is partly to blame. Dealers get more reoccurring revenue from ICE vehicles, so they are incentivized to not stock EVs and to steer customers away from them. Ford seemed to understand this and attempted a direct sale program for EVs, but they canceled it due to dealer pushback.
https://fordauthority.com/2025/02/ford-ev-inventory-hub-syst...
Yes I think there's a real innovators' dilemma here for traditional automakers with dealer networks. Dealers make most of their money on servicing vehicles, not selling them. And EVs require almost no servicing.
I bought a used Audi etron a couple months ago. Agent was going to try to sell me a service plan and realized none of them apply to electric :) The downstream fanout of the auto industry is huge…
There's still brakes, suspensions, tires, etc. to sell to EV buyers. Especially when EVs are so heavy that they have more wear on many of these.
> There's still brakes, suspensions, tires, etc. to sell to EV buyers.
The brakes last a lot longer because of regen, everything else applies but is pretty marginal, although I had to pay BMW $500 to replace a tire on my i4 because of a nail. I could have shopped around for that I guess.
If you don't use your brakes and just regen all the time, you run the risk of having your brakes rust.
https://nrsbrakes.com/blogs/supporting-articles/the-unused-b...
Yes, you are encouraged to slam on your brakes at least once a month to get the rust off. I live on the west coast (rain but low humidity and hardly any snow), so its less of an issue.
You'd think with all that electronics it would be smart enough to use real brakes every now and then. The plug in hybrid Prius runs the gas engine every 100 miles or so.
I don't think that is a good feel, you sort of get a feel for how fast you slow down with regenerative braking and throwing real brakes into the mix randomly sometimes would make for a horrible driving experience.
Better to have a reminder, surely the car could figure that one out.
Some cars do this. Audi and Porsche (if I recall correctly) use the disc brakes for the first couple stops each drive to knock off the rust if there's any build up. I think I remember reading that Ford uses the real brakes if you're under 5mph. I'm sure other manufacturers do something similar (other than Tesla which apparently doesn't do anything to help).
Do we know rust on brakes is even a problem before assuming the electronics aren't smart enough?
Yes, it's studied. Rust and metal have different frictional properties, and the rotors produce different torques when the brakes are applied. This results in a sort of uneven shuddering when you use the brakes if they're heavily corroded.
It's not immediately deadly, but your brakes are one of the most important safety systems on the vehicle. They should be in good working order.
Totally, I'm not thinking for a second that you are wrong there. I'm not saying rust on brakes isn't bad. What I'm questioning is whether rust buildup is an actual issue happening for most EV drivers right now.
I'm genuinely curious because, for no good reason, I take pride in the fact that most trips I don't even touch the brake pedal other than to come to a complete stop and only when parking, etc where you can't regen all the way to a stop.
First read your owner's manual to see if it says anything about this.
My EV for example has a brake cleaning mode that turns off regeneration for approximately the next 10 times you use the brakes.
Using that is probably going to be safer than slamming on the brakes.
If anything unsafe happens when you slam on your brakes, you need to get your car serviced. Just do it on a quiet street and check your rearview mirror for someone following too closely (a good habit any time you brake).
iirc some OEMs will automatically apply the brakes lightly during regular driving from time to time to counteract this
I know Rivian does this.
What percent of people go to the car dealer for tires?
Dunno the percentages but I see them advertise tires, so not zero at least. Saves you from a separate run if you have them installed during service.
but nothing compared to the oil changes, filter changes, as well as an ICE having multiple moving parts, so more chances for something to break.
That looks alien to me. Here, in europe, the usual thing it's go to your car workshop of trust. And they know where and how pick the parts and service your vehicle. Some car workshops could be "oficial" for a car maker, and it's where you should go when your car is new and under warranty period.
Ford did try to make it up to them by offering a bevy of aftermarket add-ons for the Lightning that were sold through the dealerships. As a consumer, I wanted them to keep the EV and ICE versions as similar as possible, with the hope that parts would be cheaper and easier to find.
Also dealers are one of the most reliable GOP funding sources. The GOP does not like EVs.
I doubt that. I suspect there are virtually no customers who step into a dealership unsure if they want to buy EV or ICE.
They seem to be flooded on dealership lots and are not selling whatsoever. OEMs force dealers to take the crap vehicles if they are to get the good ones. You have a vehicle that started off as a hard sell to the crowd that normally buys the vehicle and then you make it so the price is astronomical...forget the dealer reluctance, what did you think was going to happen?
[1]:https://youtu.be/F0SIL-ujtfA?t=532
Yeah I mean the obvious problem is that consumers specifically want to buy new ICE cars.
They will buy both ICE and EVs at the right price. I don't think Ford sells anything at the right price currently. But the Lightning was a mistake at that price.
I have a conspiracy theory take on traditional manufacturers being so anti-EV.
Basically the primary differentiator between car companies and the primary barrier to entry in the combustion vehicle business is the engine, especially in the US. Look at the marketing, horsepower and torque are always the topline numbers. Zero to sixty and quarter mile drag races are the favored metrics. Each company spent decades perfecting the engines and the majority of the engineering effort goes into them. Even the transmissions get second fiddle status.
But now EVs come along and the electric motors are commodity parts that are already well optimized. There's little one company can do to make the motor significantly better. Battery tech is cutthroat and also largely outside of the car company's scope, although Tesla does more than other car companies with their megafactories and experiments with oversized cells. If EVs become popular there's little to stop competition from sprouting up everywhere and killing profitability for the legacy auto manufacturers.
That's one way of seeing it, but the fact is that automobile parts are already nearly commodity parts. The wall that stops automaker upstarts in their tracks is the need for safety testing and approval from the US DOT.
Even if you had the chutzpah to get all of the materials together for a fleet of vehicles, you have to spend big cash and grease a lot of palms to get a vehicle you make certified. It takes years and millions of dollars to get to the 1st sellable vehicle.
This is a portion of why BYD, for instance, isn't selling in America.
There are other reasons of course, but one of them is the millions and millions of dollars you're putting at risk just to potentially be told "No" by the government.
https://www.atic-ts.com/north-america-motor-vehicle-componen...
Do you think the DOT should have a X program similar to the FAA that allows manufacturers that sell less than some number of cars a year (maybe 100?) to bypass most of the testing but require buyers to sign a disclaimer that they know the vehicle has not been fully tested for safety?
Also, I don't think it is the cost of DOT testing that is the primary barrier to entry for a company with three quarters of a trillion dollars in revenue. The domestic car manufacturers are never going to stand for a repeat of the Japanese invasion of the 70s that nearly bankrupted all of them simply because they were not listening to the customers and trying to sell vehicles that were too big and too expensive. Everyone knows what would happen if some bare bones $15,000 EV with a 250 mile range and ample supply appeared in the market.
Well, that is why I say One of the reasons, lol. US Automobile companies are actively lobbying the government to protect them from chinese emergence in America.
They're actively scamming americans by artificially limiting their choices, raising prices, and calling it freedom.
And yes, I think there should be some loopholes or programs to get small numbers of vehicles made by small companies, but I also know that insuring a car with such small numbers would likely be a nightmare for the owners.
> Ford seemed to understand this and attempted a direct sale program for EVs, but they canceled it due to dealer pushback.
Why didn't they just do it anyways? Dealerships seem like a pointless middleman, but I know absolutely nothing about what leverage they have. Self-driving cars can not come fast enough
Because dealerships are the automakers' real customers, at least right now.
You don't buy a vehicle from Ford; your local Ford dealership buys a large number of vehicles from Ford, and then you buy one of those.
Yes, an argument could be made that eliminating the dealership keeps the same customer base while eliminating the middleman (see also: Carvana), but now you have a lot more cost and logistics (shipping individual cars to individuals' homes, for example, rather than shipping truckloads to a single well-known spot) and unless you're willing to do the Carvana/CarMax thing of offering a 7-day return window (which adds even more cost and logistics and risk), the average American customer won't feel as comfortable buying a vehicle sight-unseen from across the country as they would if they could sit in the thing while a salesperson pitches it to them.
That means you're taking on whole new category of cost and risk, while assuming that you won't lose any of your incoming revenue.
That's kinda a big assumption, and the major established/legacy/whatever-you-call-them automakers aren't known for having a high risk appetite.
Or the manufacturers just run what look exactly like traditional dealerships, just without the stupid crap that no customers want. It can’t be that hard or expensive. It’s a parking lot and a small office building.
Every state in the country prohibits car manufacturers from competing with their franchised dealerships. At the minimum the manufacturer would have to stop using dealerships altogether. And about a third of states only have narrow exemptions that only apply to EV-only manufacturers or manufacturers that never had franchises at the time the law had passed.
Extensive regulatory capture -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_US_dealership_disputes
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It's a shame the Lightning got discontinued.
As an EV owner, it sucks that the main thing holding the technology back is misconceptions and misunderstanding, rather than actual practical matters.
People think EVs are cars with tanks of electrons, and run aground the same way you would if you thought horses were cars full of hay. It's a different transport tool that gives the same results, you just have to know how to use it properly.
> It's a shame the Lightning got discontinued. > As an EV owner, it sucks that the main thing holding the technology back is misconceptions and misunderstanding, rather than actual practical matters.
The F150 Lighting (and the Cybertruck) are failing precisely because it was impractical. It was expensive, has limited range when doing actual "pickup truck" work, like hauling tons of construction materials. It was built for the very niche market of buyers at the intersection of luxury pickups and EVs.
People who buy huge luxury pickups tend not to want EVs, and people who buy EVs tend not to want huge luxury pickup trucks.
A practical work truck needs to be smaller, less luxurious, and less expensive, electric or not. If Ford follows through and releases a plugin-hybrid Maverick with 150ish miles of EV range plus the onboard generator, that would be ideal.
A pure EV drivetrain on the other hand is incredibly practical for daily commuter and even long distance travel - assuming you have home charging - but not for hauling tons of stuff long distances.
The lighting is fine for towing, especially the type that people usually do. You can tow up to 10,000lbs and the truck has ridiculous power to pull it.
What you can't do it tow it long distances (>90mi, worst case) without 40 minute stops every 1.5 hours. That sucks.
But the truth is very few truck owners are towing huge loads long distances.
However, if you are pulling your lawn care trailer around town, you will not have a problem, because every day you start with a full charge.
As an aside, the main killer of range for a trailer is a function of speed and drag. Low drag trailers driven at highway speeds (60-65) have marginal impacts on range, regardless of weight.
Again, the whole thing is ridden with misconceptions and misunderstandings. The majority of people who tow stuff, can still tow stuff while reaping cheaper operating costs.
> But the truth is very few truck owners are towing huge loads long distances.
This pattern also applies more broadly. Most people don't actually need to drive 400 miles without stopping, don't actually need an SUV, and in some cases don't actually need a truck. For a huge swath of the population some variation on a hybrid/electric hatchback/wagon or minivan is actually the best match for their needs, but practicality is rarely the prevailing factor in vehicle purchase decisions.
The reason I'm holding out for a 400 mile range vehicle is many fold.
1: Sometimes I actually do drive 400 miles in a single sitting, and I want to be able to keep doing that.
2: The last 10% of charge seems to take the longest. If I can safely fast charge in 20 minutes from 30 to 300 miles range, then I would have no range anxiety even when I'm on a long road trip.
3: I know the tech is coming, and I can wait until it gets here. I don't have an "only" option when it comes to vehicles.
You could do 400 miles with a model 3 LR with one ~20 minute charge.
For 6 hours of straight driving, 20 minutes to stand and use the bathroom isn't too bad.
the rivian max variants are 400 mile range, you can buy one today.
The word "can" in your sentence is making some bold assumptions about my vehicle budget. The R1T Dual with Max battery (the combo that gets an estimated 400+ mile range) is $95,000.
That would be about a $1,300/month loan for 6 years.
I would either need to add $30,000 annual pre-tax to my income or to pay off every debt other than my house to even begin to consider that as an option, and there are so many other things I could spend $1,300/month on.
I will keep an eye on the used market though. I'm sure some deals will come up eventually.
oh sure yeah, they're expensive (although used are getting cheaper!). I didn't read "holding out for a 400m range" as "holding out for a 400m range less than $X". But yes, all the long range EVs, rivian, lucid, are expensive today. I think it will take another year or two for more affordable long range options to come out in the rest of the world, and some unknown years after that for them to hit the US due to protectionism and tariffs.
All that said, the average new car price in the US topped $50k in 2025, which is pretty wild in of itself. These expensive EVs are actually cheaper than some of the optioned up trucks that sell in huge numbers. It all seems crazy over-extended debt to me but, is what it is.
Yeah, it's bizarroland out there.
I wouldn't mind so much if all I had to worry about was making car payments, but having an entire life to support and car payments puts some brakes on my purchasing power.
I could swing $600/m if I needed to, but $1,300/m is a cheap mortgage or rent, not a car payment imho.
> However, if you are pulling your lawn care trailer around town, you will not have a problem,
I live in a high CoL area, but I still can't imagine a lawn care business affording an $80k truck. Most of them seem to drive used Tacomas and Mavericks.
> The majority of people who tow stuff, can still tow stuff while reaping cheaper operating costs.
People who are paying $80 to $90k for a luxury pickup truck aren't particularly worried about operating costs.
With perhaps the exception of a few climate-change believers who happen to also run construction companies or farms/ranches (they do exist!), what F150/Cybertruck owners are worried about is signaling to others that they paid $80 to $90k for a luxury pickup truck.
To this day, I've seen 1 Lightning loaded with construction gear.
I've never seen a Cybertruck doing heavy work - they are usually rolling squeaky clean around ritzy parts of town, or getting stuck in snowdrifts in the mountains.
The EVs I see doing work: Ford Electric transit vans.
The Lightning has an incredibly low charge speed given the huge size of both batteries. 155..175 kW is laughable for a 130 kWh net battery.
I don't think that market is a niche at all. From what I can tell, most pickup owners don't use them as a pickup. They use them as a more masculine pavement SUV. So, you'd think, the F150 L and Cyber truck would be perfect.
Right, but the people who buy luxury trucks dont want EVs. EVs dont align with the signal they are trying to send
If you just use it as a pick up a few times a year, it could be worth it. I have furniture that I want to get rid of, and if I had a pick up I would have done it already.
you can just rent a u-haul for $35 or whatever the four times a year you need it
U-haul doesn't offer those in my location. The only place that would work is home depot, but honestly its a prep so I haven't bothered yet.
For somewhere between 25 and 100 bucks, you can hire some dude with a truck to make furniture disappear for you.
This is Seattle, anything that involves people is expensive. Also You’ll see furniture left on the corner and it will just stay there forever, it’s not like Austin where all the junk is combed though ever morning.
https://www.seattle.gov/utilities/your-services/collection-a...
In Seattle, it costs $30 per large furniture item to make it go away using official methods. How much do you have? (And how does that compare to the price of buying and keeping a pickup truck?)
Ya, thats actually quite reasonable. And no, I'm not thinking about buying and keeping a pickup, just because I have nowhere to park it :). But maybe one of those kei trucks that are so popular recently might be worth it, if I can just get used to the steering wheel being on the left.
Yeah, indeed.
There's a couple of Honda (I think?) Kei trucks around me. 4WD, low bed, fold-down rails. I don't know about taking them on the highway with a load of furniture, but they're the most versatile-looking 'round-town vehicle I've ever seen.
I really wish we could have something like that, that's less than 25 years old.
I just meant rent a box truck from U-Haul, not specifically a pickup
> From what I can tell, most pickup owners don't use them as a pickup
You are right, except most of those people don't want an EV
Man, a gun is so much cheaper.
And equally less visible (or legally visible).
> hauling tons of construction materials
Lots of people do exactly that. You can load it all the way past GVWR and it has little effect on the range. It's towing that hurts. Many people use these for business with great success.
> Many people use these for business with great success.
Not enough to make it economically viable. Most people who want an EV want a compact, sedan, crossover, or sports car.
Most people who want a luxury pick up truck want to burn gasoline.
The niche market that does exist wants a Rivian.
For EV trucks priced and appointed for everyone else, I'm looking forward to what Slate and Telos make.
> The niche market that does exist wants a Rivian.
Ford's sales for the Lightning were outpacing Rivian, too.
> For EV trucks priced and appointed for everyone else, I'm looking forward to what Slate and Telos make.
I do hear that fairly often. It reminds me a lot of the brown diesel wagon phenomenon. Lots of online interest, very little follow through. I guess time will tell.
I think both Slate and Telos will be failures. They will be too expensive to make economic sense for people, as opposed to businesses, to buy over a more conventional full-size half ton pickup.
In some ways the massive online interest is proof, because most people outside of pickup truck forums who would talk it up have neither experience nor use for pickups. They are simply never going to buy any pickup truck-shaped vehicle and so are irrelevant to commercial success.
> A pure EV drivetrain on the other hand is incredibly practical for daily commuter and even long distance travel - assuming you have home charging - but not for hauling tons of stuff long distances.
You know that electric trains are very practical, not ? Also, what about these EV trucks and EV vans ?
There is a market for luxury electric pick-ups, and it's dominated by Rivian.
That market is insanely small. Rivian doesn't sell many trucks these days. The bed is also too small.
Yes, I've had conversations with ice owners and the misconceptions are enormous in their minds.
Practically speaking¹, normal people could buy a tesla and drive it like a gas car, except with a full tank of gas every morning. They could still drive across the state once a month to grandma's and they could supercharge if range got low.
This is due to a couple things that were not in place for early EVs.
- teslas have a lot of range/battery compared to early EVs
- superchargers are in many locations, have plentiful charging spots, and are reliable
- teslas have a good UI to navigate and charge
[1] 99% of the time. If you're an apartment dweller in the artic circle with a supercharger 2000 miles away, please scroll onwards.
It's not 99% of the time, it's for people who own single-family homes. Apartment dwellers maaaybe have EV spots but can't leave their cars there.
I think OP has it right.
Tesla with lowest range has 430km, highest range 650. Let's average it to 500km.
The average American driver drives 60km per day. In other words you need to charge less than every 8 days.
You can charge to 80% in about 20-30 minutes.
In other words if you find yourself near a charge (easy) for 20-30 minutes a week (easy), then on average there is no range issue.
You're either in a rural area in a single-family home with home charging, or in low-density urban area with single family home charging, or in a dense urban area with lots of public charging. Very few sit outside these three categories that don't enable them home charging or 20-30 minutes a week public charging.
And that's only going one direction. The number of fastchargers 10x'd in ten years, the range of the model S grew by 50% in the last 15 years, the charging speeds roughly tripled. Sufficient charging infrastructure seems like a solved problem, resolving it is a matter of a mere operational roll-out everywhere rather than a political/technical/economical challenge, a matter of when, not if, and a matter of increasingly smaller pockets of the country that are yet to be fully connected. (whether it's 1% or some other small percentage, range shouldn't be a driving factor for tesla sales anymore).
Sure, I'm not saying the EV is infeasible, just that the "full tank every morning" part is only for homeowners. That's what the 99% footnote was on.
My bad!
The main thing holding EV back is the oil industry, not the tech. The US is the only country lagging on EV and its all because the industry puts so much effort in to squashing all progress.
EVs are simpler and cheaper. Look at how fast adoption is growing outside the US. If US citizens could buy a BYD for the same price as in China, the the US auto makers and oil companies would be in trouble.
US was the first to make EVs mainstream
US was also the one that started the solar panel industry during the cold war. After the cold war the politicians saw no value in it and a lot of the IP was sold to China. China is now out pacing the technology in solar. [0]
It is not about being first it is about continual investment to do it better. China are also the ones that have the most electric infrastructure to greatly reduce their reliance on foreign countries because of that momentum they kept up.
[0] https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262537070/taming-the-sun/
I meant if the oil industry were so powerful, EVs would have started somewhere else first.
Yeah starting first doesn't mean winning. I don't put much stock in any stats that China self-reports, but none of those things would surprise me.
It's not only US, it's global.
I drive quite a lot throught southern Europe with my EV, and it's super frustrating that gas stations have the infrastructure on the highway while for my EV I have to go just outside the highway to a fast charger (wasting time), then I need to pay again (and waste a lot of time to go through the gate) to get back on the highway for example in Italy.
Toll gates in general are a waste of time. I use bip&go + telepass lanes in Italy to get through them faster.
I will order it, thanks! I see that it's good for 4 countries, that's great
Spot on. The misconceptions, even from other EV owners is astounding. People are constantly confused about kWh vs kW, Amps, voltage, temperature, range, mi/kWh, etc. Even PhD Computer Science and other highly educated folks who have owned EVs for a long time can't quite communicate the difference between those units of measurement. So of course when a curious person asks them or others, they only quote the falsehoods that someone told them.
Some examples:
1. I constantly see EV owners install 60A/11kWh service, costing them on average $10k when their driving needs don't require it.
2. People thinking they need more than 300mi of range and think they will run out of batteries like they do on their headphones.
All of this needs an understanding of the aforementioned units and basic physics. But, you're not going to get that by just talking to people. Salespeople are especially not going to do that, they can't even do that for combustion cars.
Most households do not drive more than 100KM per day... yet people are obsessed with range.
My next EV will be a small BYD (dolphin or dolphin surf), these things can get between 200KM and 400KM per FULL charge, depending on your speed and settings. If you use the "slow" wall charger (that doesn't require installation or modifications to home circuits), not only will the batteries last longer, it will easily charge up your 100KM actual drive range in a couple of hours, typically overnight.
If you empty the battery each day and recharge it each night, that nets you 300KM per charge, or 2100KM per week. I don't know a single person or family that does 2100KM a week with their cars. So the whole range anxiety is rubbish. Just plug in every night and go to bed and tomorrow you have another 300km available.
Oh and then there are public fast chargers if you do get stuck. I live in Africa and this is solved problem.
Sorry for the rant..your comment about the expensive charger installations makes my blood boil as most people can just use the normal wall charger and charge overnight.
The thing with range is it's another "thing to worry about" - with a gas car, it's basically nothing to worry about unless you happen to be absolutely on empty and no time to fill up the tank (5-10 minutes unless you have to go way out of your way for gas; rare).
It's like when phones went from 8-10 hour capacity to over a day; suddenly it wasn't a thing you think about anymore.
An F-150 Lightning and Cybertruck weigh somewhere between 6000 and 7000 pounds, so I personally think of them the same way as if you replaced your horse with a hippo.
It's not hard to convince people to move to electric, just make it such a better economic proposition that it would be silly not to.
No pickup is light. A Lightning weighs about the same as a gasser F250, and less than a diesel F250.
I don't need a pickup truck, but if I ever did, I'd get whatever my landscaper has. Unlike most people with Rivians, Lightnings, Cybertrucks, Ridgelines, and Raptors, he totally relies on that truck for work.
So far it's Tacoma. Maybe some day he'll have an EV instead.
I knew someone who had a Tacoma for construction work; he got it because everyone had one.
Later he had to take it in to the shop and they gave him a loaner cargo van, and from then on he regretted not getting a cargo van instead of a truck.
The vast majority of what he did with the truck was carry tools, which are easier to access in a van; the few times he carried materials he would have to unload the whole truck or get the trailer anyway.
I disagree. I really want a Lightning but live in a very rural place, weekend in an even more rural place, and need to pull a trailer pretty often.
I already have a plug-in hybrid that gets 40+ miles/charge and have opined all over the internet that the perfect car is one that gets 100+ miles/charge before firing any gas engine.
It sounds like the next Lightning will give me that though I don’t put much stock in their promises. Personally the Scout is too bougie but it does similarly.
I don’t get plug in hybrids. All other engine types save you more money compared to the next less efficient alternative the more you use them, but plugins get closer to the less efficient alternative (regular hybrid) the more you use them. Add in the approximately 25% price hike over the hybrid version when there is one and it makes no sense to me.
> but plugins get closer to the less efficient alternative (regular hybrid) the more you use them.
As long as most of your drive cycle fits within the EV range of the plugin hybrid, they are cheaper to operate than a regular hybrid. The crossover point depends on the drive cycle and the cost of electricity vs gasoline.
I had a plug-in hybrid SUV that got 2.2miles/kWh in EV mode, which covered 75% of the miles I drove. The net savings were significant vs an equivalent plain hybrid SUV in my area, which would get basically the same gasoline miles/gal.
But the problem is that means you drove a minuscule amount so if you’d bought a hybrid you would have still used very little gas and your car would have been much cheaper. Generously, the full range of a plugin hybrid is equivalent to about a gallon of gas.
> But the problem is that means you drove a minuscule amount so if you’d bought a hybrid you would have still used very little gas and your car would have been much cheaper.
A 2023 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (38 miles EV range) costs less than a 2023 Toyota Highlander Hybrid with the same mileage on the odometer, and far less than Land Rover or other luxury SUV brands.
I bought my Outlander used - also was a great deal.
The real way dumb money loses is by buying new cars, not by choosing an electric drivetrain.
Using a plug-in hybrid as an EV can and will wear out the drive battery over the lifetime of the car. It doesn't even matter if you don't intend to keep the car for very long as a rational market will price this in. The cost ($10k or more) goes a long way at the pump.
> Using a plug-in hybrid as an EV can and will wear out the drive battery over the lifetime of the car
PHEVs have battery management systems and buffer capacity to protect the battery just like pure EVs. For many, at extremely high power demand, they switch to the gass engine anyways, so if anything the batteries are less stressed.
Depends on the car and driving patterns. I've got a friend with the PHEV Escape that he charges in his garage. It's the cheapest hybrid Escape that Ford sells, and he does all his driving on EV mode unless he has to do a longer trip outside of the city.
The Escape is interesting. I wonder how they manage to sell without a premium.
I drive it to avoid burning gas, while not being dependent on electricity alone - not to save money.
For three years my plug-in hybrid let me commute 50 miles daily on next to no gasoline.
I still don't think that perspective is rational. It saved at most 1 gallon of gas per day from being burned, and you still burn gas on longer trips.
I drive a plain ICE engine, but I plan for my next car to be a full EV for the reasons you state, plus the savings on gas for all miles driven (and I have driven 30k miles in the past year).
I disagree along with you. EVs would work for 80% of the population, there is a long tail of people who an EV will never (well foreseeable future) work for.
Thankfully, the mass of humanity that should be transitioning lives in populated areas and never tows anything for more than 75 miles. There is no need to get bogged down in back and forths with the small subset of people who an EV will not work for.
Surprisingly to many, rural and very rural places are actually a great location for EVs - if they have enough range.
Because even very rural places have electricity - almost always. I can find quite nice homes that are 20 miles from a gas station, but have power and could easily charge a vehicle. If I lived there, a vehicle I could use without a gas station would be quite desirable.
Yup. We also overestimate how much range we need. Average American driver drives 60km a day. The average Tesla has >500km range, meaning you need to charge fewer than once every 8 days.
Rural tends to mean space, and space tends to mean you can charge your car at home (that's different for a New York apartment dweller), making a once-in-8-day charge absolutely trivial.
In terms of economics, electric fueling of your car wins per mile.
And rural homes tend to have easy access to home-solar (again, good luck installing solar in a New York apartment rental). Electric cars tie into solar really nicely with a basic smart system, as it lets you charge at off-peak rates at night, or dump excess solar during the day into your car.
And what you've said before, it creates energy-independence, great when remote. Not to mention modern EVs allow bi-directional use of the battery, meaning the car can power your home essentials during an outage.
So I agree, EV is a great idea for rural.
Seems to me like the Chevy Silverado with the 200 kWh battery pack is the EV pickup to beat.
I disagree that EV-s are held back by misconceptions. More their price and range.
Range is the misconception, because people view range through the "sit and fill up then drive till empty" paradigm.
That is not how EVs work or how they should be used. They should be charged overnight/when you are doing something else, and on road trips should be charged to align with other stops even if those stops are 10 minutes. It's rare that I have ever done the "sit in the car for 40 minutes waiting for charge", and extremely common to do the "Put car on charger for 13 minutes while going into [insert any of the gazillion places with chargers in the parking lot] to use the bathroom, stretch legs, and get a snack, or see a landmark"
Also you usually structure it so you arrive at your destination with very low charge, because you fill up while there. I've yet to be at a hotel with a gas pump in the lot.
Again, EVs function differently than gas, and that change of paradigm really gets people ruffled up and confused.
I actually leased a Kia EV6 recently without too much research into the charging situation, assuming that in 2025 it was probably pretty well figured out, and I could just do as you propose and just charge in small bursts at the grocery store etc. But:
- It didn't come with a home charger at all. They're not cheap.
- It came with a J1772 adapter, but no CCS adapter. The car itself has NACS. So I'm limited to Tesla superchargers, which are expensive, unless I buy a new adapter (not cheap, or cheap, but suspicious Temu brands).
- The experience of using all of these different branded charging points is _awful_. You need to create 10 different accounts with a bunch of terrible apps. The maps to find charging infrastructure seem universally awful.
- Pretty common to arrive at a charging location to find that some nutjob has hacked off all the charging cables. The only reliably maintained charge points are the larger, more expensive high speed charging locations.
I think a lot of the issues would be solved if I was more committed to the car and the house that I'm living in, and installed a home charger to charge at night. But the charging experience out in the world is absolutely _dismal_ when compared to gas vehicles, even if you change your behavior.
The thing is, for most people a standard wall outlet is plenty. The math works out that a simple 15/20 amp circuit can charge over 40 miles overnight, and the vast majority of people aren't driving more than that for their daily commute plus errands. Level 1 charging is genuinely sufficient most of the time. I was particularly swayed by the technology connections video on this topic I watched before buying my first EV https://youtu.be/Iyp_X3mwE1w
The real pain point, in my opinion, is whether you have any place to plug in nightly. If you don't, then as you pointed out, it becomes a nightmare to own. Range anxiety is completely justified when public charging infrastructure is still as unreliable as it is, years after the initial build outs. Your points about charging pain are all too common.
If you have a garage with an outlet, you are generally fine. I lived off a level 1 charger for over a year before I decided I wanted the convenience of a level 2 charger.
Sorry, I love Technology Connections as much as anyone, but that's a ridiculous argument. Even people who drive less than 40 miles a day will occasionally need to drive 100 miles a day for two days back to back. That's not even a long distance trip, it's just driving around. With level 1 charging they are stuck and frustrated. With level 2 they're fine. Not to mention the hassle and mental energy required to plug in and out for every little trip.
For most people a 240V outlet is worth it. Not to mention it's at least 10% more efficient, which is quite significant and weird that Technology Connections didn't mention that.
You can use DC fast chargers to fill gaps as needed.
Also if you are always driving 40mi/day, you likely float with a battery percentage around 80%, leaving plenty of capacity for those consecutive 100 mile days with your standard overnight slow charge.
Again, this cannot be said enough, EVs are not gas vehicles, they do not refill like gas vehicles, if you apply gas vehicle logic to them, they look awful. But they are not gas vehicles, they don't follow the same logic and rules of gas vehicles. So you don't apply gas vehicle logic to them.
It's like handing chopsticks to an 18th century westerner, they'll stab their food with it and laugh about how stupid and useless they are. You need to learn and use chopsticks before criticizing chopsticks.
This whole thread (as always) is full of people stabbing their food with chopsticks.
Look, I don't care, I know there are strong opinions about how these discussions sway people one way or another. I'm as much of an EV technology fan as anyone, but I'm speaking from personal experience with this exact situation: if I didn't have a 240V charger in my garage, my EV experience would be garbage and I'd give up on it in frustration. I own one of the most common EVs, I have DC fast chargers in my area, I don't drive my EV that much during the week, but when I need to drive a bunch of short trips on the weekend, this exact scenario arises. I don't care what your theoretical model of an average EV driver looks like, I'm telling you that it doesn't match my reality and I am certain the reality of many others.
What's bizarre is that this should be incredibly non-contentious when it comes to EV adoption. By code, everyone in the US already has two phases at their panel and running a wire and outlet in their garage (or a weatherized cable to the outside) costs $100-150 in materials and a similar amount in labor. This is literally negligible in the broader scheme of the automotive economy. My humble suggestion to you is: save your breath, we're on the same side, raise your voice instead when it comes to demanding a sane EV industrial policy, regulatory policy, urban planning policy, removing subsidies for oil and gas industries, and the like.
That example doesn't make sense, because 100 miles back to back is only 200 miles. You've got about 80 miles from charging overnight those two days and another 200+ miles already in the battery. In that situation you're totally fine. After that there are superchargers of course.
> It didn't come with a home charger at all. They're not cheap.
Level 1 EVSE's are super cheap, almost all of them are under $200. They aren't fast (most are 1.44kW), but that doesnt really matter if you are parked at home for 12+ hours a day.
(also small semantic nitpick, but your car did come with a charger, its built in to the vehicle. the EVSE that connects it to a wall outlet is basically just a fancy extension cord. this is why they are so cheap)
> You need to create 10 different accounts with a bunch of terrible apps
I've admittedly only used public fast charging twice in my year of EV ownership, and both times, I used a credit card at the machine. No app.
The two were EVGo and ElectrifyAmerica. I don't know if the other ten brands require an app ;)
That’s exactly the problem. I’d be happy to use an EV daily, as I drive short distances. But when I drive longer, then I don’t want to waste hours on charging.
The other day I drove 700km in just about 5.5 hours (German Autobahn). Few stops to pee. With EV that would be few hours more (!). If this doesn’t bother you, then it’s fine. It matters to me though.
Sometimes I also drive early in the morning 600km, and in the afternoon back, so I’m home until 22:00. With EV, that’s just impossible.
You are perhaps an edge case. For many people (the vast majority), you end up spending way, way less time refueling, even if the occasional road trip takes a little longer. It depends on how important time is to you.
As long as there's a fast charging station somewhere along the route you'd need more like 30 minutes to charge midway through, not multiple hours.
You also surely recognize that your driving patterns are very atypical and a car not working for them says very little about how suitable the car is for the market as a whole.
A fast charging station that is working, that has the correct connector for your car (including adapters you carry), that your car will work with (Tesla hasn't opened their superchargers to call cars with the NACS connector), that you have an account with... There are too many things that just are not there.
One top of that you need to find a charger. They are all over, but many of them are slow speed chargers. There are also a lot of gaps, if you pass a charger with 50% battery remaining you can't be sure you will make the next one. (most cars can pass several gas station with 5% gas in the tank and still make it to one). You need to ensure you will get back to your car when it is charged so they don't charge extra (this is a problem if you are at a concert or something and are trying to charge while doing something else that can't be interupted)
Someday all the above will be fixed. Everyone agrees NACS is the future connector, but it isn't rolled out. Someday every "gas station" will have a charger with the gas pumps (or perhaps something else?) - at least along routes where people often make long trips. Someday you won't need a phone/account, just swipe a card - or so I hope. But someday isn't today.
someday is today in california at least. there are so many superchargers everywhere that i have never worried about the problems you mention.
Assuming car can charge that fast. This is why I said “price and range”.
Renault 5 EV charges with 11kW.
In your typical 475km EV sedan, you would only need about 20 minutes of charging to do that 700km.
This is why I am like a broken record repeating that EV misconceptions kill EVs. You are applying gas car logic to electric cars, which is what people do, and stops them from getting an EV.
But it's wrong.
Are you assuming 250kW chargers? …and cars which can charge that fast?
Renault 5 EV charges with 11kW. This is the size of car I need.
If you often mowed a town park, you wouldn't buy a hand-push lawnmower and then be upset about lawn mower technology.
The Renault 5 is a town car. Its specs are closer to a golf cart than a motorcar. It fills a niche, but if you are traveling often, a different EV would suite you better.
I see the confusion now.
People assume everyone has the same resources as they do. Your point would be fine, if Renault 5 would be very cheap.
But it’s not. It’s the car what many people can afford.
Thinking that people have “misconceptions”, because they don’t buy expensive EV-s, which have good capabilities, is very strange.
You say EV-s are good and people just don’t get it. But people who buy EV-s for 25k, their experience is SIGNIFICANTLY worse than in EV-s for 50k.
These people are buying those cars, because that’s what they can afford, not because they are stupid to see that a more expensive car can do better.
Look at 25k ICE cars. They offer lot more comfort regarding “charging”, as same price EV-s. They work in a city and outside city as well. No trade-offs.
That’s my point, when I say “price and range”.
———- Renault 5 EV is a pretty normal car in Europe regarding its specs. Why would it be a golf cart?
> Renault 5 EV charges with 11kW. This is the size of car I need.
AC only EVs dont exist in the US market any more AFAIK. Looking at the Renault 5 models currently available in the UK market, they dont have any AC only models either (maybe they do in other countries though).
What’s your point?
Can Renault 5 EV be charged in 30 min?
> The other day I drove 700km in just about 5.5 hours (German Autobahn). Few stops to pee. With EV that would be few hours more (!)
If you got an EV with fast charging (and there were fast chargers on your route) it would actually be under 20 minutes more.
For example Ioniq 5 has a range of ~480 km. Let's say you started at 100% and drive down to 10%. That gets you 430 km, so 270 km left to go.
At a 350 kW charger the Ioniq 5 goes from 10-80% in 18 minutes. Assuming you do not want to take it below 10% that's 340 km before you next need to charge, more than the 270 km you need to reach your destination. You arrive with 70 km left before needing to charge again.
Let's do the round trip extra time. That's 1400 km for the trip. Again assuming we start at 100% and we don't let it go between 10%, then we get 430 km using before the first charging stop.
At that point we've got 970 km left that will have to be powered by our charging stops. Every 20 minute stop is giving us 340 km, so we'll need 3 stops, or one hour of stop time.
You might also need a stop, most likely shorter, at your destination if you are going to do a lot of driving there before returning home.
In a majority of cases with EVs charging speed is a bigger factor in how much time you spend stopped than range. Many people overlook this and might be a longer range EV when they would actually have faster trips if they got one with a much higher charge rate even if it had a substantially lower range.
The way to think of it is once you get past the range you got from charging before you left, every km travelled on the trip comes from stops during the trip. If EV X charges twice as fast as EV Y and they both need a stop at the same place, Y is going to spend twice as much time on chargers for the rest the trip as X no matter how many times they have to stop. If the fast charging X has half the range it will stop twice as often, but an X stop will be 1/4 the time of a Y stop actually charging.
Y making few stops does mean less time spent on stop overhead, by which I mean the time when you are off the highway but not actually charging. That should only be a couple minutes or so per stop though since you can overlap time consuming stop activies like visiting the bathroom with the actual charging.
On most trip that saving from less total stop overhead can't come anywhere near the savings from faster charging and so fast charging meh range will usually beat crap charging but great range unless the trip is short enough that only the short range car needs to stop. The great range car also does got farther before needing the first stop, so it doesn't need to add as much mileage during the trip put that too usually doesn't make much difference either other than fairly short road trips.
That’s actually pretty cool.
But “price and range/charging speed” still applies.
I can’t afford an expensive EV with fast charging, but I can afford a cheap ICE. I get it that in US people buy 100k cars as there is no tomorrow. But not everywhere it’s like that.
For 10k one can get a decent ICE. Can you get fast charging used EV for 10k?
We are slowly getting there, the used EV market takes time to build up a stockpile of good and fast charging cars. Also for total cost of driving you need to factor in cheaper charging than fueling on average, lower maintenance and maybe reduced (road) taxes depending on the country.
The big problem here is we need a hybrid stage in between.
I have a hybrid now, it's still a conventional powertrain, and it's not chargeable. That's not exactly what I want, but it's what I could get.
I want a fully electric drive train hybrid with around 100 miles capacity on the battery, then a generator that's big enough to keep it running if the battery is drained.
100 miles gets you through the average day without having to use gas.
An electric drive train turns your engine to a generator that runs at a fixed speed and is more efficient. It also massively reduces the complexity turning into a system more like an EV.
And, if I go on a long trip, the car still gets me to where I'm going without charges (unless I choose to so I can save gas).
On the flip side, it massively increases your BOM and maintenance considerations, as now you have to have all the bits of an electric powertrain and most of the bits of a gas powertrain. All for the few times that you’re driving more than 300ish miles in a stretch?
Na, far less bits of a gas powertrain. Generators are are a pretty simple setup.
I guess one way to think about it is imagine a Ford Lightning that has a trailer that can keep it running "indefinitely".
Would you drive around with the trailer all the time? Probably not ...
It’s easy to say that EV charging on long trips should align with other stops until you factor in kids. Doing a normal 2-3 hour one way trip with kids is already not fun, I don’t want to pull over for them to pee 20 minutes before I need to sit and let the thing charge for 30 minutes.
Nevermind the fact that there are very, very few EVs suitable for anyone with more than 2 kids.
> They should be charged overnight/when you are doing something else
This is fine if you're a homeowner. For a huge chunk of people living in denser housing, this is not feasible, and at best impractical.
So.... what happens when you don't have at home charging, or it's too limited to give you any meaningful range?
Get better at home charging, or have your apartment/condo install it? If none of the above, then an EV isn’t the right choice for you.
Of course the answer is “don’t be poor”.
Just buy a house and install charger.
people forget all the stuff they had to figure out about ICE cars when they first started.
Like:
- turn off the engine in your garage
- don't hold the ignition switch on and break the starter
- don't smoke cigarettes while filling up with gasoline
- the heater doesn't come on until the engine is warm
also everything transmission-related
I can do a ten hour road trip with a family of four plus a dog in a used (2022) EV that I got for ~30k last year. I think the idea that price and range are problems is exactly the misconception that op was taking about. They are somewhat more expensive, although when I originally did the calculus, fuel savings made up the difference in monthly payments for a new vehicle, but that's going to vary a lot. The is a very small proportion of people for whom range is a legitimate concern.
Now do the range/time/stops calculation with a travel trailer.
Yes, if we're talking about normal family travel, an EV works fine for many trips (though there are still charging "dead spots" in parts of the country - looking at you WV).
But, "truck stuff" like towing, they aren't there yet. Maybe in a few years when we get the next generation of battery and charger tech.
In truth you cannot really do this because range is a function of drag, not really weight.
So if you are towing a 2000lb empty box mobile home it's gonna be worse than towing an 8000lb flat bed of decorative boulders.
Yep. It takes a massive battery (and massive "normal" range) to pull off towing any distance. Unless I'm wrong, only the Chevy Silverado EV has the range (480ish) to make a reasonable tow vehicle, but only with the big battery, which pushes the price north of $90k.
AgingWheels on youtube did a video testing exactly this.
I actually enjoy doing road trips in my tesla more so than in ICEs, because of the forced breaks. With ICEs, stops would be either for food or for bathroom breaks. A lot of times just eating in the car while driving. But for a 10 hour drive I am forced to take 4 20 minute stops - so once every 2 hours. This ends up making me feel a lot better at the end of the trip and also gives you "guilt free" time to enjoy a random park you've never been to, or sit down and have a meal. So, lets say 80 minutes of added time for a 10 hour trip, vs maybe 40 minutes that I would have added in my gas guzzler. 40 minutes extra on a 10 hour trip just isn't that big of a deal to me and especially so considering all the benefits from walking around for a bit or seeing some new places.
Obviously you could do that same thing in an ICE car, but I feel the pressure to keep moving so it hits different.
For me, it's some intermediate trips where the EV really "fails" (though admittedly the gap closes every year and the use case below is basically a worst case scenario short of trying to tow trailer on the same route).
A common trip for me is DC -> Dolly Sods WV for camping. Less than 3 hours drive time each way, about 150 miles. I only need to stop for gas once during the trip and for only as long as the tank takes to fill (no meal needed).
In an EV, that ~6 hour round-trip takes about 9 hours due to 2 hours of charging and a 60 mile detour. That's using ABRP, with an Ioniq 5 from Reston VA to Dolly Sods Wilderness and back, no overnight charging because it's a wilderness location (gravel parking lot in the middle of nowhere).
> In an EV, that ~6 hour round-trip takes about 9 hours due to 2 hours of charging and a 60 mile detour. That's using ABRP, with an Ioniq 5 from Reston VA to Dolly Sods Wilderness and back
That a fairly dead area of the country charger wise but I see several CCS chargers <5 miles out of the way and a lot more if your Ioniq has NACS.
Maybe? I didn't dig beyond ABRP's route suggestion.
> This ends up making me feel a lot better at the end of the trip
My SO commented the same after our first long trip with an EV. She drove the whole way.
Yes it took an hour longer due to charging, but when we arrived she wasn't exhausted like she was used to, so she could go out and do stuff right away. So overall she preferred it a lot.
How are you driving for 10 hours with only 80 min charging?
I make sure to have 100% charge before I leave, and then I drive it down to 5-10% and hit up a super charger. The batteries charge the fastest from 0-50%(~15 mins), so I end up having about 60-70% charge by the time I'm heading out. Then I just repeat the process. I also arrive at my destination with 5-10%. I have a 2023 model Y for the record.
I also try to drive in a manner that is friendliest to the battery (ie I'm not accelerating a bunch to pass people or driving 90 mph), and almost all the driving is on a highway. But, that's how I naturally drive in my gas car as well.
I do ~Denver to ~Salt Lake City and back 2x/year through the Wyoming route and I've done it 6 times so far in a Tesla and 4 times in a gas SUV. I do it in the early/late summer so temperatures are warm, which I'm sure helps the mileage.
The tesla mapper site claims you can do it with only 35 mins charging, but I prefer the northern route, and my actual departure/destinations are about ~1hr more driving, but I'm sure that wouldn't add more than 45 minutes to the charging time: https://www.tesla.com/trips#/?v=LR_RWD_NV36&o=Denver,%20CO,%...
That’s pretty cool!
How does cold weather affect this? What about when there is no supercharger (I live in Germany)?
Or driving faster, 160kmh/100mph in Germany is normal.
I recently did a road trip to Maine, and the whole week it didn't get above 15F. The difference in range was about 20% less. But I drive at 65mph with cruise control all the time.
This calculation gets even better when you count “never have to go to a gas station except during long distance travel”.
Those minutes add up!
The minutes add up, but it only takes one long distance trip to burn months or years of gas station time saved.
Nah. EVs can often charge ~80% in 20-30 mins. Pumping gas takes me at least 5 mins. You win pretty quickly on this metric unless you do a lot of 200+ mile trips.
tbh that sounds like cope, this isn't a constraint people want to add
Resale value is starting to ward some people off.
You can buy 1-2 year old used Teslas and BYD's in Australia for ~30% below retail.
Meanwhile Toyota hybrids not just retain their value but there have been moments where used RAV4's are listed above retail because the waitlist for new was so long.
The poor resale market for EVs just means that people who actually have some understanding of the battery lifespans can get very good deals on 1-2 year old cars
Tesla is a special case because they manipulate their pricing on a monthly, sometimes daily basis, and in the past they've changed the price quite significantly. In the US, the tax credits also really screw with the market dynamics. Lots of people think the car depreciates really quickly because they don't realize the original buyer didn't pay MSRP. I paid $20K under MSRP for my Lightning and in the just over a year I've owned it, the value has dropped about 7-8K. Pretty normal for the first year of a new vehicle.
Most other car prices are "manipulated" on a minute-by-minute basis, insofar as pricing is different for each customer, based on their their willingness to go hard in negotiation, manufacturer incentives, demand levels, stock levels, finance packages, and the current mood of the dealership principal.
The difference with Tesla is that their current "best price" is published out in the open.
That can be true, but at least in the case of Ford's EVs, many (maybe even most, for a while) of us did not really negotiate with the dealer, the price came from Ford. The dealer wasn't even allowed to negotiate, in fact.
This makes me laugh. We're early on the curve, but yeah you can get amazing deals.
Bought a $67K Polestar 2 with 20K miles on it for $29K.
So yeah, depreciation keeps me from buying $67K new cars (regardless of their powertrain.)
Depends a lot on the particular example. My Lightning was less expensive than the Powerboost I had been shopping for originally. And 250-300 miles is well beyond my typical daily driving range requirement (and Superchargers are pretty plentiful in most of the areas I ever find myself).
Exactly, price is a huge problem. IIRC, the average selling price of F-150 is ~50k.
The extended range Lightning tended to be $60k and up. Sure, it had AWD, but lots of people didn't need that. The Cybertruck is even more expensive.
Both had huge preorders when they were announced at ~50k.
My 2024 Lightning Flash was just under 51K, FWIW. Extended range, plenty of toys, definitely not the base model.
I admit I was also under the impression they were expensive, and I was shopping for a Powerboost F150 first, until someone told me that MSRP was a lie.
A 600 mile trip can (theoretically) be done with 1 charge, because you leave home with full range, and arrive with 0 charge (and fill up overnight). That one charge is done while eating dinner, or spaced out in increments over the course of the trip, stops which you would take anyway. I know few people who want to bang out 10 hours without stopping for at least 1-2 hours over the course of the trip. And those who do, can be the edge case with gas cars.
So you need to go 600 miles, and you need 1 full charge worth of energy during that.
If that one charge takes 1 hour, you can also break it up into four 15 minute sessions at any time of your chosing.
I'm sorry, but almost no regular person does 10 hours without at least four 15 minute stops.
Range is not at all the problem people make it out to be.
Where can I find chargers on demand like that? There are a lot of slow chargers that won't give you much range in an hour. There are a few fast chargers that will, but they are much less common - enough to make the long trips possible but you need to stop where the fast charger is not where you are going to eat a meal or use a bathroom anyway. (gas stations are everywhere and so if you need a bathroom you can get gas at the same time)
My 10hr drives usually have 2 stops at 30mins-1hr each, for food. Unfortunately, stopping at a restaurant for a meal doesn't leave the vehicle in a location that has a charger, for the most part. Other parts of the world may differ, but the infrastructure to "just spend 15 minutes charging" whenever you want is not there.
Here in the southern half of Norway most roadside restaurants along highways have EV superchargers. Same with gas stations.
That's certainly a factor that eases adoption.
Which EV can go 600 miles with one charge, or with so little charging?
How much does that car cost?
Are you assuming, that every charger on the way is 200kW?
Lucid Grand Touring can do it in one charge (that lasts ~45 minutes). Expensive, but it could do it.
I did Shreveport, LA to Pesos, TX as an example.
If you're OK with 2 charging stops, an Ioniq 6 or a Tesla Model 3 will work just fine.
Also, charging speed is irrelevant to how many stops you need. Most chargers are >150kW these days, though.
If you truly want to minimize charging stops, you'd be better served charging 3+ times for shorter periods of time, though.
> Most chargers are >150kW these days, though.
Nite that many cars can't charge that fast. And if they can, it's usually only for the very lowest SoC of the battery, say below 20% charge.
When buying, look at 20-80% charging times. Don't get dazzled by peak charge rate.
Pecos?
I picked Shreveport, LA as a starting location and went west towards El Paso until I found a city that was slightly over 600 miles of distance. The cities are mostly irrelevant unless you pick something that is exceptionally hilly such as routes through mountain ranges or something.
You can get Model 3 LR that will do it for $20k used.
Like everyone else, you are thinking in "gas car" trying to resolve an electric car problem.
You start every trip in an EV with full range (unplug from home base charger). You drive 300 miles. You full recharge. You drive another 300 miles. You plug-in and go to sleep.
600 miles. One charge. $20k EV.
A used Model 3 LR cannot do 300 miles of highway driving in almost any condition. Even a brand new one cannot do that. The only way you get 300mi of driving out of a Model 3 is if you drive at 35mph or something, which would be wildly impractical for any road trip situation.
You'd do a good bit better at 35. A realistic range at 65-70mph would be about 250-260.
Thanks for illustrating the point.
They have worse prices (higher) and worse range (lower, particularly for towing). These aren't misconceptions. (My only car is an EV that I'm happy with. But lying about EVs doesn't benefit advocates.)
Obviously this is slanted by tax credits, but the EV that I have shares a name with the existing gas model and was less expensive.
EVs aren't for everything, but mine fits my use case perfectly.
I'd be interested to hear which model, because that's pretty remarkable.
Equinox EV. Now that the tax credits have expired it is a different story.
The 2025 gas version's MSRP was about 30k, and the electric one was about 35k with a $7500 tax credit.
Ok, thanks. Current 2026 base trim prices are 29k for the ICE and 35k for the EV. If you told me GM was eating thinner unit margins on the EV version, I wouldn't be shocked either.
It's been a good car. Maintenance, so far, has been tire rotations and wiper fluid.
> They have worse prices (higher)
Does this factor in cost of ownership? Gas, oil changes, less complexity?
> worse range (lower, particularly for towing)
Towing reduces a gas powered car’s range, too.
> Does this factor in cost of ownership? Gas, oil changes, less complexity?
No, I'm just talking about sticker price.
Lifetime EV costs are relatively unknown at this point, so that would be a relatively speculative comparison. You have to have a pretty optimistic view on long-term EV maintenance costs and charging costs to have EVs pencil out better with long-term cost of ownership.
If you want to talk about ongoing costs like oil and gas in ICE vehicles, you probably also need to be thinking about cost of charging (whether you can charge at home, or only at expensive DCFS) and perhaps relative cost of consumables like tires (EVs might require costlier higher load rating tires and the torquey motors might make it easier to chew through tires faster). E.g., in my area, fast charging has a per-mile cost roughly on par with gas prices (~4x home electricity prices). So if I couldn't charge at home, ownership would be somewhat costlier.
> Towing reduces a gas powered car’s range, too.
Yes, yes, but that's more acceptable when you're starting from 500 miles of non-towing range than 230, and filling up gas is still faster than filling electrons.
> No, I'm just talking about sticker price.
So a car that's free to operate - zero maintenance, zero fuel cost - that cost $10k more than a regular car would not be a financial win?
Sticker price is a silly metric to solely focus on. Doubly so considering people rarely actually pay sticker.
> So a car that's free to operate - zero maintenance, zero fuel cost - that cost $10k more than a regular car would not be a financial win?
You're just throwing around fictional numbers. EVs don't have zero maintenance costs or zero fuel costs. Real numbers for fuel can be lower than gas (in particular if you have home charging), and you could certainly color an argument that maintenance costs are lower. But it's not zero. Brand new gas or hybrid cars also have very low maintenance costs.
> Sticker price is a silly metric to solely focus on. Doubly so considering people rarely actually pay sticker.
Pretend I wrote "average out the door price" instead of "sticker." This number is higher than comparable ICE/hybrid vehicles, and for pretty obvious reason -- high capacity batteries are still enormously expensive. This is why range+price tends to be worse than similar gas/hybrid cars. I expect battery prices to continue to fall in the future, which will improve the economics for BEVs. But that's in the future! Not today.
(Towing) You can fill it up in 5 min.
Not true for EV.
Pop in for a pee and a snack. In the 15-20 mins that takes, you'll have a good amount of charge.
Towing is also a bit of an edge case.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...
> According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.
Hell, ain't true for any gas pickup I've owned, either. Big tanks, and often temperamental bastards that have to be babysat and won't take fuel at full pump speed in any case.
Most road trip stops, according to the AAA, are 15 minutes anyway. Only on the Internet does everyone take 5 minutes to refuel.
~60 kWh still takes 18 minutes to charge at 200kW, and 200kW is a relatively optimistic average charge speed for most EVs at this time. Bigger batteries, or slower charge rates, take longer.
That's more of a Tesla thing. The Korean EVs have a more modern 800V setup and get much closer to the 400kW charger rating. Ford also lags in this department because they're using 400V and a big battery, which isn't a great combo.
The Hyundai/Kia EVs see peak charging above 200kW on chargers that support enough amperage (and native voltage), but not necessarily average charging above that rate. (I'm familiar; I own one.)
They have artificially worse prices in the US where EVs are mostly only getting sold as "luxury" vehicles and competition is hobbled by dealer networks and dealer laws and import tariffs.
Most other parts of the world EVs are starting to be cheaper than the equivalent ICE in the same category.
Range often doesn't need to get better, the impression of range needs to change. That's where a lot of misconceptions play into effect, over-focusing on things like gas-station-like charging stations over at-home charging. Over-focusing on "zero to full tank/battery statistics" when no one keeps a gas vehicle with a full tank overnight every night. Over-focusing on high speed charging and ignoring boring but useful "Level 1" charging, which is "just about everywhere" because our society has been building electrical outlets for a long time. Sure, the experience changes in things like long distance trips, but experience changes aren't "worse" by default of being a change.
I still have to pay the price whether it's artificial or not
The main thing holding them back for me is the range.
A few times a year I do quite long drives, sometimes you get the odd road closure and you've added a day to your trip at best, could be stranded at worst.
There will be a phase shift where there are lots of fast chargers but in Australia we aren't quite there yet. Lots of my friends have EVs. The busiest routes are pretty good.
On the one hand I will be a late adopter of the tech but on the other at least I know it will be a significant upgrade when I get there.
...misconceptions and misunderstanding, rather than actual practical matters.
What's the range of an F-150 Lightning when towing a small travel trailer? The Rivian R1T is ~150 miles give or take. I assume the F-150 is similar.
At least for towing, the math isn't great. Especially when you add in the cost - my Honda Ridgeline was $42k in 2021. EV trucks are roughly double that amount.
> my Honda Ridgeline was $42k in 2021. EV trucks are roughly double that amount
My Lightning was <$51K in 2024.
of course your ridgeline has other ways to hurt you :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWyjfbS7MMA
Funny because it's true.
It's the most boring and practical vehicle I've ever owned. But, it does everything, so I'm having a hard time convincing my wife I need a Ranger Raptor or (used) AMG GLE.
Don't forget it only drinks premium fuel. The #1 reason to avoid the raptor, otherwise it's very fun.
Test drive the tremor Lariat. Sure it's not the 3.0L but it costs a third to operate for a year, and you still go too fast in sport mode.
I don't think the Tremor is available in the US, at least not in '25/'26.
I don't think that's the only thing holding the technology back.
The only EV pickups in the US are like $60-$120K. Price is a huge barrier to entry.
Average sale price, per Gemini:
There needs to be a sub $40K EV pickup for it to be a real option for many.Judging from how many people seem surprised by my open frunk at the grocery store, saying things like "I had no idea Ford made an electric truck!" I think they could have done more to market it. I sometimes wonder if they really wanted to sell a lot of them.
I remember when tesla was young and elon talked about selling electric cars through dealers. He said it would not work, they would not be advocates, they would prevent sales.
And I think that is spot on.
I also suspect internally the thinking is that the f150 lightning costs more to make than sell, which means it won't get strong advocacy.
Thing is, I'm 100% certain years of tesla vehicles cost more to make than they sold for, just in the nature of developing new things.
I wonder who makes their decision by going to the dealer, though? Ford didn't even regularly stock Lightnings at the dealer, in fact, they basically sold them online and kept inventory at regional fulfillment centers. As soon as someone pulled the trigger, they'd ship the truck the last mile to the dealer of their choice.
Maybe the dealers could have done better. In fact, they definitely could have. Most did have a demo Lightning, in my experience, but that doesn't mean salespeople were pushing customers towards them.
Tesla made a lot of their money selling carbon credits so it is likely some of their cars didn't break even.
Making it look too much like a regular F-150 was a mistake. You need the vehicle to look distinctive enough for it to market itself.
I guess that’s kind of the defense of Musk on the cyber truck. If Ford can’t sell hem off their F150 platform, it means you need to make more of a splash. He just went too far…
I've seen an argument that the Prius was intentionally made "ugly/noticeable" because they knew the buyers would be interested in the technology AND want to be recognizable as such.
When hybrids are common, the styling reverted to more normal car-like.
The first gen Prius just looked like an average car
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_(XW10)
I would argue against that! If anything, I hated the firs hybrids that where distinctly different, and ugly.
There's an argument that they did that intentionally - some hated it, but more bought it because they wanted to be recognized as having bought a hybrid - hence the "Toyota Pius" nickname.
the dealerships did not want them, this already made it unlikely to succeed (towing range mania was the other thing)
Why did the dealerships not want them? (Honest question, I have no idea about any of this)
There is a hypothesis that dealers disincentivized salespeople from selling EVs due to a lower expected amount of service department revenue in the future. I work in the industry close enough to get a whiff of that and I never heard anything more than speculation.
Dealerships only make money on “the back end”, which is servicing.
Any vehicle that requires less servicing makes them less money, so they don’t want to sell them.
Taking a 7k lb vehicle to the grocery store is beyond dumb. If you can afford that EV, get a small car for in the city.
At the size of Ford, sales numbers can be at a different mark for what is considered successful than others. Not to mention dealer gamesmanship fudges real sales numbers.
As to the Cybertruck it's both interesting and kind of ugly... repairability is another concern/issue as is pure cost...
I'm far more interested in the Slate[1] myself. It's probably closer to what a lot of consumers would want in an electric truck. It really feels like a spiritual successor to the OG Jeep (GP).
> At the size of Ford, sales numbers can be at a different mark for what is considered successful than others.
Does this really hold when Tesla has a considerably higher valuation?
Tesla is sitting at an egregious 30x market cap of Ford. If anything... I'd expect them to have sales targets that are ~30x the size of Ford.
When you consider that Ford also makes many more models than Tesla (Tesla has like 8 core models incl the cybertruck [and the not-yet-for-sale semi...] , Ford has like 20+)
By all measures - Tesla should be considerably more aggressive with sales targets for a core model, and it seems pretty clear the cybertruck is just a slow rolling market failure.
> Does this really hold when Tesla has a considerably higher valuation?
> Tesla is sitting at an egregious 30x market cap of Ford. If anything... I'd expect them to have sales targets that are ~30x the size of Ford.
It almost holds BECAUSE of that. Tesla's valuation has been wildly detached from its sales numbers for years, so having a poorly-selling Cybertruck doesn't really matter.
But admitting that a high-end high-profile product was a big failure, on the other hand, might be much more undesirable for the company whose valuation depends on vibes vs sales.
("Should" that be true, though? Well, that's a different question. ;) )
At some point, reality does re-assert itself.
I agree that Tesla has incentives to mislead with continued announcements about how great everything is (while the board/musk continue to dump their stock as fast as they legally can...).
But eventually... people are going to want their money out of this pie, and it clearly can't provide.
My personal opinion is that Tesla is now Enron 2.0 - and at some point we'll see a similar collapse, on a larger scale. But who knows if enough of the regulatory framework in the US will survive to actually slap them once it happens. I'm not super optimistic.
For 2025, Ford sold about 2.2 million vehicles, Tesla was like 1.6m. Given, more variety for Ford... But there's also margins and supply chains to consider.
The Cybertruck is kind of ugly and very expensive... not to mention that no EV truck really does towing well. The fact that the Lightning sold more than the Cybertruck doesn't make it a success.
The Cybertruck, imo, is not too different than a limited run sports car from a major car company... it's just a step above a concept car. The Lightning from Ford was an attempt to see if a market was really ready to shift to EV, it largely isn't. Even though I think it's probably a great option for a lot of work truck use, that doesn't include long distances or heavy towing, but then it likely prices itself out of that market segment too.
I'm not sure what the takeaway from your comment is?
I'm not arguing that the F-150 lightning was a commercial success for Ford, I'm suggesting that the argument that Tesla should be held to a different standard on sales numbers feels pretty shaky.
Both of these are basically "concept cars", and neither company has really delivered.
Both are expensive to make, and have very high sticker prices with low/negative margins (Tesla claims cybertruck is profitable, but they're sitting on an absolutely insane inventory count, which they can't seem to sell... so again... my guess is they're deep in the red for this model if you look at total costs instead)
I think the difference is what each company respectively thought of the model itself. For Tesla, Cybertruck is imo like a lower-volume sports car... for Ford, it was an upscale work truck option. The expectations are imo very different. Maybe not so much a Ford/Tesla comparison, but the respective market expectations.
Ford didn't exactly expect the Ford GT to be a mass seller, which is probably closer to what Tesla expected of the Cybertruck, or not, who knows.
I'll be interested in the Slate when I can actually buy one. I've seen far too many startup car companies fail to launch to ever get my hopes up. Also, the hopes that the very first vehicle from a brand new company will be affordable are not realistic. Making affordable vehicles requires production at large scale, and that requires enormous capital investment, which generally means your company needs to already have income. Even if it just to prove to potential investors that you have basic competence.
Don't think that just because a billionaire is interested in the project that the funding will be easy. Billionaires don't like to spend their own money and can be easily distracted by newer and shinier projects.
This.
When the cyber truck was announced we decided to buy a Super Duty instead. That was 5 years ago. It's now paid off and driven us and our RV all over the country, and still worth more than half it's purchase price with many more miles to go, and no issues at all (knock on wood).
A lightning, cyber truck, or even rivian can't do those things.
Instead of waiting for a slate just buy a little gas pickup and GO USE IT, live you life!!!
To be clear, I'm not waiting for it at all... I'm not that interested in EVs for my own use so much... I work from home and not going to buy a new vehicle any time soon. I'm just more interested in it conceptually. Much like I was interested in the Local Motors Rally Fighter, I wasn't ever going to buy one, just thought it was cool. Well, maybe not the same, as the Slate could be something I would actually buy if/when it hits market in any numbers.
If it's got a good level of repairability beyond the body/form, then the company collapsing may be a lot less of an issue. The way it's being done does remind me a lot of the original GP (General Purpose) vehicle. Though not necessarily fit for military/combat environments; As fuel is easier to transport than electricity to the middle of nowhere.
>> no issues at all
Other than all the CO2, CO, and NOx you've emitted over that time period.
The government should have started taxing barrels of oil in the 70s.
If you want to kill coal and oil just tax them the fair market price of carbon sequestration for the amount of carbon they ultimately emit. Use that money to sequester the carbon. This is how carbon markets should have been set up, but unfortunately that would have killed the modern economy.
Look at the same specs for the cyber truck. There is about twice the carbon in the manufacturing of these, so it counts on people driving them for hundreds of thousands of miles, I don't see that happening with them because you can't even take a normal road trip while towing. These things just aren't going to see the miles, because they can't. They're just not usable as trucks.
https://insideevs.com/news/719434/tesla-cybertruck-awd-vs-ra...
Also the power plants and diesel generators for the data centers... https://www.selc.org/press-release/new-images-reveal-elon-mu...
Yeah the Cyber truck is no prize either for emissions. It's not a good alternative.
My understanding is the difference in carbon emission from manufacturing a BEV vs. an ICE vehicle is about 4 tons of carbon, roughly what you would get from 400 gallons of gasoline. So to make up the carbon deficit the BEV needs to drive about 8,000 miles assuming the ICE truck has above average highway MPG. This does assume the electricity comes from renewables though, if you have coal fired electricity then the figure may vary wildly.
8000 miles towing 10k lbs in a Cyber truck would be roughly 70 charging stops at an hour each
8000 miles towing 10k lbs in a diesel super duty would be 30 stops at 15 mins each.
That's 70 hours vs 7.5 hours. Every 8000 miles
I don't see how that is relevant to the discussion. Also if you are one if the low single digit percentage of people who do long distance towing regularly then yeah, get a diesel. I was talking more about people who live in the suburbs and commute to work and back in their truck, never tow anything, and use the bed maybe twice a year. About 67% of truck owners in the US.
It means cybertrucks and similar are not usable as trucks. They're only usable as vehicles that you shouldn't buy a truck for that use case for. If you need a truck to do actual truck things you can't use these. See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nS0Fdayj8Y
It's famous now...
If that was the goal, then killing nuclear power and holding it back for the past 4 decades was probably the wrong move. Solar and other "renewable" sources aren't enough to meet energy needs now, let alone the near future.
The government started taxing fuel (both gas and diesel) at the federal level in 1932.
Individual states go back to 1919.
I see the slate as the successor of the now extinct (in Can + US) mini-truck. 90s trucks like the small Toyota Truck, old Ford Ranger, Nissan hardbody, etc.
The kind of trucks that landscapers are still using, that are beat to shit, and have three features, cheap, load carrying, reliable by way of simplicity.
I can see that, but I mean in terms of body specs and room to reshape/cover/modify the vehicle to different needs beyond pickup truck. Including a second row of seats.
Get a vintage pickup off Autotrader for low 5 figures and put the Edison electric conversion kit on it. It will absolutely melt faces and hearts.
It’s also the fact that Ford investors care about profits and its stock is not just a meme stock with no relationship to current or future profits like Tesla.
Same. The Slate is so close to what I actually want out of an EV: basic, utilitarian, cheap, not made out of 5 iPads. It's not perfect, but neither is any of its competition.
the god awful range of the Slate is not closer to what a lot of consumers would want in an electric truck
Plenty of people use pickup/work trucks and travel under 150-250 miles a day.
It says a lot that spacex had to buy so many trucks just to help the sales numbers. I always thought the ford lightning was a better option for most people anyway. It is too bad they are stopping production when it seems to be the winner.
5,600 units of Cybertrunk and Semi combined is basically 5,600 units of Cybertruck. The Semi is still a boondoggle. I can believe that number. Your maximum sales figures are capped by your price point, and the Cybertruck, as well as the S and X, are in that "Fully successful this vehicle will have sales in the mid-thousands" price bracket.
I sometimes wonder about a world where those trucks managed to hit their $40,000 price points. For the Cybertruck it was clear that Elon demanded way too much (four wheel seering? Come on) to ever get close to it, but for the F150 it seems more like the price was due to Ford halfassing the production.
If you sell five thousand units but built production capacity for a quarter million units, that's not a success.
There is also the optic that the premiere US EV company failed to deliver an EV pickup truck behind Rivian, Ford, Stellantis, and arguably did a far worse job at it.
The F150 lightning was always going to be a tough sell for die hard truck customers but it at least has all the fit and finish that those customers expect, with access to the F-series aftermarket.
I take it that SpaceX looked at all the trucks on the market and chose the cyber truck to maximize investor value and do what's right for SpaceX.
I suspect the reasoning was similar to the reason Tesla bought Solar City or X.ai acquired the site previously known as twitter. Pure unvarnished investor value.
I've seen headlines / stories giving Toyota grief about not going 'all-in' on BEVs while many other companies did.
It seems that the hybrid-first strategy has been working pretty well for them. (The 2026 RAV4s are hybrid-only with no ICE-only options, AIUI.)
Armchair internet analysts think they know better than the biggest car producer in the world that reinvented the modern supply chain.
"But look at Tesla market cap!!!"
Toyota had the right intuition: focus on EVs when the global sales will make sense for it, meanwhile avoid throwing good money after bad like most legacy automakers did with EVs.
Toyota is not immune to throwing good money after bad. They have dumped billions into hydrogen fuel cell research and production over three decades. Last year they sold more Venzas than hydrogen cars.
Notably, the Venza was discontinued after the 2024 model year and those sales figures represent inventory leftover from prior years.
Yes doing business involves taking risks.
Avoiding EV fomo when the market wasn't there was a good calculated risk.
You give them credit for taking a risk on hydrogen but not the manufacturers who took a risk on EVs? Interesting.
No, because the manufacturers who took a risk on EVs, at large, did it due to FOMO and investor pressure after seeing Tesla balloon in the stock market.
Now that's a hot take, do you own Toyota stock or something? ;-) A more sober analysis would suggest that EVs have been surging in popularity while every rational analysis of hydrogen overwhelmingly suggests it is infeasible.
Toyota did make a BEV, too. FOMO?
Also conveniently ignores Toyota's quality slipping to shit in recent years
Toyota and Lexus are still the most reliable cars on the planet.
We reached the point a long time ago where there weren't really any 'shit' cars any more, just variations on okay. Toyota does have a good record, though it tends to mean that buying them brand new is the best choice, they hold their value too well on the used market compared to their actual reliability advantage.
> Armchair internet analysts think they know better than the biggest car producer in the world
The car producer that still seems to think hydrogen is the future? The armchair internet analysts seem closer to correct.
~40% of global car sales are EV.
25% in 2025. Of those, the overwhelming majority in China. If you take it out of the equation it's around 10%.
EV sales have fallen YoY in North America.
Sales fell 4% in North America last year. EV share is more like 20% globally and seeing a YoY increase every year for at least 10 years now.
Yeah, what on earth are people even talking about here? EVs are clearly destroying ICE in the car market in terms of growth rates. Even without any government mandates, I highly doubt most new car sales in a decade will be ICE. There's just too many advantages to EVs, and ICE's few advantages keep slipping away.
The idea that complex Rube Goldberg machines powered by fire and explosions are somehow going to have a future compared to devices with minimal moving parts powered by a fundamental force of nature in its most pure form is absurd on the surface.
Americans and American companies often hold onto technologies long after they are clearly done for in the belief that hope and marketing and stubborn refusal to let go of some romantic view that gas stations and loud noisy slow devices that require constant maintenance are cool.
Toyota and others are rightly betting the American taste will be slow to swing, that our leadership is spineless and has no forward vision, and that they can keep monetizing old technology. What they are getting wrong is the inexorable force of economic and technological reality will strangle ICE manufacturers in a slow then sudden death. BYD, MG, etc are r through the regulatory grind while building their production and logistical capacity. Once they can penetrate the US market veil it’ll be over for Ford, GM, Toyota, and others. Tesla will have to cut margin so fast it’ll be dizzying.
If you’ve driven these Chinese EVs you’ll know the writing is on the wall, and as these legacy automakers cancel their last gasp attempt to be relevant in the future, they’ve ended their role in world manufacturing in the quixotic notion that hope is a strategy.
It wasn't canceled for poor sales. It was canceled because it was too expensive to produce, and would not fund all their other EV/battery projects. They found a better road to profitability in that front.
Exactly. Their truck was apparently quite nice but expensive. And then dealers made it worse by adding a hefty markup to that. It would have done fine at a much lower price point. But that would have required a manufacturing cost level that Ford could not deliver:
There are a few reasons for that:
- Ford designed this as a one off vehicle, not as a platform to build multiple vehicles on. So, a lot of the manufacturing process is making components in low volume just for this truck that they are selling in small numbers. It never hit the economies of scale where they could optimize and lower cost.
- It's a big heavy vehicle that needs lots of battery. Batteries are expensive.
- The tariff situation made importing components from Mexico, China, and elsewhere prohibitively expensive. Ford can't source everything they need locally just yet.
All this drives the production cost up. When they launched the vehicle a few years ago, they were still able to import components. They had a shot at sourcing much cheaper batteries from China down the line. All that went away and locally produced batteries aren't as cheap.
Another factor is that it's a product that was designed to be premium and more expensive than the ICE F150 in order to protect sales of that. It was forever going to be compared to that in terms of performance and towing capacity. And the combination of being more expensive than that while having less range and even less while towing is not a great selling point.
Companies like Rivian or BYD that have no ICE truck sales to protect can operate differently. They simply make the best and most affordable vehicle they can without artificially making it needlessly expensive. Rivian isn't cheap of course but they sell well because it's a desirable product. And Rivian has done a lot of work to lower cost and is now introducing cheaper models on the back of that. BYD is cutting well below F150 ICE prices with their Shark truck. Because they can. Not for sale in the US of course but it makes F150 Lightning international sales a bit unviable. As a US only niche vehicle selling in the low thousands per year the Lightning had no future.
And because they have problems as it is sourcing aluminum for more profitable F150 variants. Ford lives or dies based on the F150, they needed to focus on higher profit margins on the trucks they could actually build.
This is the answer, CyberTruck achieved positive gross margins in Q3 2024. The F-150 never did. So the Lightning is canceled and the CyberTruck lives on.
It seems China has won the race for EV dominance in battery technology and manufacturing. Probably not much the U.S. can do to catch up. From the insane oil needs of the U.S. Military to the gasoline needed for a functioning economy and transportation, China will be light years ahead in every category which will have huge implications for U.S. National Security.
I am not so sure about it.
EV dominance is not only defined by battery technology but also by ADAS functions, driving dynamics and many other considerations also common to ICE cars.
In Europe, Chinese vehicles are only selling in any meaningful quantities in the low and very low price segments. And that is mainly due to cheaper labor costs in China and very thin margins (something European OEMs are not interested anymore).
When it comes to higher price segments, European OEMs and Tesla dominate clearly due to superior technology offerings. As an example, the BMW iX3 is completely sold out for months even before market release, as it’s the first car so far that has reached 1000km without charging (Debrecen - Munich). That’s not only a battery technology achievement but also aerodynamics and drivetrain efficiency, where BMW leads together with Tesla.
The Chinese market is very competitive itself as well, and is clearly dominated by Chinese OEMs. Classic European OEMs are seen as vehicles for old people, and newer generations are opting for local manufacturers. Infotainment and ADAS are also driving customers towards Chinese OEMS, mainly because of looser regulation which allows Chinese offerings to edge what Europeans and Americans are offering at the moment. To the point that the big three, Mercedes, BMW and Audi had to switch their ADAS stack to a Chinese made one (Momenta) in order to not lose more customers.
Battery technology is quickly becoming commodity and margins are thinning. Same as it happened in other industries: no one knows who is manufacturing their Samsung or iPhone battery. They might know about the CPU but they clearly care about the brand and the software experience. Cars are becoming not different.
In Europe that software experience (including driving dynamics) is and will be dominated by European OEMs, while leaving the cheap offerings for Chinese brands. They might even recover long term in China if they can quickly adapt their software to Chinese needs.
American OEMs will do fine, they either have high quality software offerings like Tesla or Rivian, or they can easily partner with American software companies to provide Americans with their desired experience.
Maybe they can sell them at the announced prices instead of the inflated ones. Used is selling around $40k with 20-40,000 miles.
New started at 40k, went to 60k for sale, pre-order fulfillment fell off a cliff so it sunk to 56k, and settled around 50k.
2022: 15,617 sold
2023: 24,165
2024: 33,510
2025: “Around 27,300 units sold in the U.S”
$4k-$6k per battery module replacement. Full pack $25k-$50k.
8 years of battery warranty though.
After 10 years batteries tend to have about 80% charge retention and a usable life of 20+ years and have basically no maintenance for the life of the vehicle. So, economics work out well for EVs.
Unless they come right back with a comparable implementation with a maverick/ranger type form factor, Ford is absolutely shot itself in the foot canceling the lightning. I’ve been Evie only for five years and have driven both the electric Silverado and the lightning. I bought the lightning. It’s fantastic. They are absolute idiots for discontinuing it.
Also bought a Lightning. I use it for plenty of truck related things that don't involve towing and it's great. I like to target shoot on family farm land, and it's awesome to toss my steel targets and equipment in the bed and offroad to the area I shoot on (there's an area pretty far in with a sharp elevation change that's created a large berm). Or going to lowes to get a ton of fertilizer/plants/gardening equipment for my spouse.
I also use it to commute, and it's even better at that (part of that is mine being the Platinum trim). Quiet, smooth, powerful, has Android Auto/CarPlay (unlike GM's products), etc.
They really are a fantastic vehicle for those who don't need to quickly tow heavy trailers 400 miles. Especially on the used market.
I think the issue was that Ford wasn't making much margin on them and they weren't moving sufficient volume to make up for that. (around 20K/yr avg)
I wanted an F-150 Lightning when it launched. Demand was high enough that I was told I'd have to pay over retail. I did not buy an F-150 Lightning and bought an ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle. The depreciation of electric vehicles has made me appreciate those circumstances more and more.
> The depreciation of electric vehicles has made me appreciate those circumstances more and more.
The depreciation for most EVs isn't all that different from that of new ICE vehicles. For a while, MSRPs were artificially inflated by the EV tax credit, which could give artificially worse depreciation appearance.
So now that the tax credits are gone we should expect to see the sticker prices on new EVs to drop right? Right? Any day now?
Yes. Ask Tesla owners who bought at certain times in the past just how much the loss of the tax credit can hurt resale value when the manufacturer adjusts the price to account for it.
Yes, exactly.
https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/2026-hyundai-ioniq-5-price....
Idk why you make it sound like a hypothetical lol, the tax cuts already expired and price cuts already happened. HMC dropped their prices by $7k+ right after the tax credit expired
Hyundai and Kia did exactly that...
This happened a few years ago, at least accounting for the dealer markups.
No, it was only a few months ago when the EV credit was ended.
Tax incidence is pretty much a solved concept.
> Demand was high enough that I was told I'd have to pay over retail
Meanwhile the article says "the Ford F-150 Lightning delivered approximately 27,300 units in the US."
I wonder how much dealers lie about these things. They tell you that there's not enough of them to go around, then Ford cancels them, because of what exactly?
There were not enough to go around when it first came out. A couple years latter and everyone who wants one has one and there are plenty. This is normal for new cars - people who want the latest model line up to buy them as they come off the assembly line, then they all have one and sales drop.
> Meanwhile the article says "the Ford F-150 Lightning delivered approximately 27,300 units in the US."
In one year. Total was north of 100K
The depreciation though has meant that used EVs are a bargain now.
But yes, as usual, dealers killed an EV. Same story for so many EVs. They don't want to sell them. They saw their opportunity to milk and screw up a product they didn't want, because of scarcity, and effectively poisoned it.
Truth. EV's need less service and will kill the dealership model if adopted at scale.
Same here. I was told it would take a at least year on the waitlist. A month later I had 2 friends offer me their spot. They weren't impressed with the truck after a few reviews came out showing bad towing performance. I opted to buy a used ICE truck instead and have zero regrets.
The Cybertruck failed to sell because it is stupendously ugly. All other (technical) reasons are and were manufactured for political purposes. We're too itchy to stop picking at it, so we blame everything else we see and hear as an add-on reason, but really it was how it looked. Ford didn't cancel the electric pickup, they did even more research and decided the upcoming EREV F150 will eventually eat it's mother, so it is better to stop now.
imho, CT is horribly looking car with absolute disregard to any aesthetics. everything else is secondary. it has vibes of Aztec. one of the worst selling car ever.
I’m still shocked that the CT went into production.
I’m convinced that the CT could’ve become a legend if they had just done a limited run of like 500-1,000. At that level, nobody would care if it was poorly built or worked well as a truck. It’d just be a crazy collector item that would go to car shows.
This is a case study in the failure of product market fit.
There is tons of room for a low cost, high quality small electric or hybrid pickup in today’s market.
Ford Maverick sales have been exceptionally strong, setting records in 2025 with 155,051 units sold in the US of A, up almost a fifth from last year.
Tesla needs to make a product that people want, and continuing to try to sell one they don’t want just won’t work. Why not pivot and build the truck people are asking for? Otherwise, this program will fail.
They should’ve released the electric tuck for the segment that wanted the maverick. Even better would e been an electric lei truck, but I don’t know if you’d be able to stack enough batteries on one of their tiny li’l frames
I find it funny that car discussions here are so much busier than computer discussions. I wonder if over there at the mechanics forum they spend as much time discussing their laptops and ignoring the drills and screwdrivers
It's because people have a bone to pick and aren't actually invested in the car industry
I see many many F-150 lightnings in Canada (Quebec at least) used by construction people. Are there any country or more detailed stats on where F-150s were sold?
> Tesla is actively trying to hide its Cybertruck sales performance.
Have they tried cladding it in flat, steel panels, to get it off everyone's radar?
Why was it so ugly? The front lightbars execution looked cheap and toy-like. Expecting awesome designs for future Ford electric trucks lets go!
Looks are subjective, but what I don't understand is why they put an enormous vision obscuring frunk on it. The vehicle could have been considerably easier to maneuver in tight spots and safer to pedestrians at the loss of just some dubious storage space with no loss in bed capacity. Or it could have been the same length or even a little shorter and have a full 4x8 bed in the back.
If anything the vehicle was designed more for aesthetics than for practicality. There is no engine up front. There's no need for all of that space in front of the driver. It's entirely possible to engineer crash resistance without needing 4 goddamn feet of crumple zone. They could have had both a crew cab and a full size bed. Or the short bed but a more practical size.
The Lightning was done the way it was because they were able to re-use a lot of existing F150 tooling/etc and keep the R&D cost lower in the process.
That makes sense. The front and end are the most unique.
Similar complaint for the chevy silverado, why can't they just make it look just like the regular silverado?
because they want to avoid selling these things as long as possible!
Same reason they shot the Volt in the back before it even hit the production floor.
They want you to get made fun of by your foreman for driving it,
so they sell very few,
and they can shrug at the government, or whoever, and say “See? Toldja nobody wants any.”
Be it as it may, its aesthetics are so distinct it isn't for everybody. Also a big part of the target audience expecting to buy an utility vehicle have cheaper, proven and more practical alternatives. I guess the fact its not road legal in the EU doesn't help either whilst other Tesla models are quite popular there.
Ford swapping pure EV for generator backed EV seems quite sensible. There's some youtube saying such vehicles have been a hit in China https://youtu.be/rTT5Wq49Ss4?t=286
Just before its release there was some press about a few high ups at Tesla who urged Elon to make a “traditional” looking pickup alongside the cyber truck in case it was a flip, but Elon shut them down hard.
I’d be really interested to know if they’re going to do that.
The tech is incredible and will filter into all vehicles in a decade or so (48v, Ethernet instead of CAN, etc)
The steer by wire that adjusts how much the wheels turn based on speed is by far the most innovative part of the cybertruck
Any other tech? Because Ethernet and 48v don't sound "incredible." They sound "incremental."
They’re both things the legacy automakers have been trying to do for 10 or 15 years, but they just couldn’t pull it off without getting all the suppliers on board.
Both result in much lighter wiring, saving money.
The steer by wire is also very cool, but I don’t know enough to say if it’s justified on regular cars or a cost saving.
I love my EV, but for anything that needs the range they should have a super-efficient gas or diesel engine that can charge the batteries? It could be a much less complex engine.
That said, they big car makers only chased the government incentives, which was a great reason to have them.
Electric everything is the future. It is obvious (e.g. heat pumps, EVs).
For people discussing about truck sizes, here is a good web sites that highlight the history of trucks and how they the cab size and bed size did a 180 [0].
[0] https://www.axios.com/ford-pickup-trucks-history
I've owned a few F-150s over the last 20is years. It has the best fold up seats of any truck - entire back cabin floor is flat which is great for my dogs.
I rented a lightning on Turo and it was amazing - planned on getting one as my next truck. I would drive a CT depending on price but they just draw too much attention.
https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/check-out...
Like this?
> I would drive a CT depending on price but they just draw too much attention.
That's your deciding factor? Not all of the other things wrong with it and the brand?
Absolute sales numbers are not the determinant of whether or not a product is sustainable. It's unit profitability. Ford was spending 17k per pickup on the battery alone. Larger sales flow can improve efficiency and unit economics but so can savvy engineering
I thought the F-150 was cancelled because their aluminum supply caught fire?
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a69147125/ford-f-150-light...
And they announced the next version of the Lightning last month. People don't like that it isn't purely BEV, but I don't see the big deal.
https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/next-ge...I do not understand why we haven’t seen someone take a cybertruck and drop a new body on top. I see “put a model 3 into x” on YouTube all the time.
I would love to buy a cybertruck chassis with a VW bus or minivan on top (current political issues of Tesla aside).
The Cybertruck is a unibody, not body on frame, so it would be a lot of work.
Not only that, it's aluminum. The first bit of work would be giving it a real frame.
F-150 Lightning is better vehicle than Cybertruck - however Ford is a political company (not like Musk) as in the fortunes of Ford lie to an extent with politicians, unions etc
so hopefully ford can turn the F-150 into an Extended Range Electrical Vehicle
The Musk suite of companies all exist at least partly to promote Musk's politics and policies.
I'm as much of a Tesla Fan Boy that you can be but I have to say, the F-150 seems like a darn good vehicle and it's sad they're killing it. I especially like the V2X features.
I have one and it is an amazing vehicle. However, what they are planning with their new EREV system coming out in 2027 seems pretty interesting too. You get your usual battery only mileage and then a generator kicks in to recharge the battery for longer trips. I would imagine it wouldn’t be required in 95% of most people’s trips but it gives folks the option n long road trips or heavy tows.
I like it because it skips the usual hybrid approach of switching over to an ICE engine that drives your wheels in a different way and simplifies things immensely.
I remember when Elon promised that they would have an extended range battery option for the Cybertruck, but then realized the logistics of such a thing are extremely challenging and quietly dropped it.
I like the idea of easy additional range, but I use my frunk all the time and I don't think I'd give it up for additional range that would only benefit me two or three times a year. Along with additional things to maintain.
I don't think they're really killing it. The Lightning EREV is next, and my bet is it's almost identical to the BEV version but with an engine where the big beautiful frunk is now. Gives them something to sell the people who think they need big range numbers, but also gives them an easy path back to a full BEV. I kind of expect them to backpedal on the full cancelation and make both vehicles.
> my bet is it's almost identical to the BEV version but with an engine where the big beautiful frunk is now
Would be interesting how small and how cheap you can design a ~50kW genset to be (any smaller and you don't gain that highly coveted towing range). I don't think it's an easy task, you still need to integrate the crash compliant fuel tank, the emissions compliant exhaust system, water cooling for the engine, ect.
It's a pretty long BOM you're adding to an already expensive BEV, so you don't really have thousands of dollars of budget to add to the production cost.
> It's a pretty long BOM you're adding to an already expensive BEV, so you don't really have thousands of dollars of budget to add to the production cost.
Agreed. And I don't think it will be cheaper. The Lightning was already selling for less than the comparable ICE equivalent, there is no way they will sell the Lightning EREV at the same price point after adding a generator along with the associated supporting parts. I bet it will be at least 10K more, and I won't be shocked if it's closer to 20K.
If I had to bet; they'll put their 3.7L V6 in and run it on the miller cycle with a fixed drive to hit @130+kW or so.
The changes for cooling, etc. will be substantial, but the problem space is already well-known by the team, so the time to market probably won't be as long as we think.
That's probably a quick way to do it, but considering that using a miller cycle means we're going to want the turbo version of the engine, that alone is going to cost like $4k on Fords end. Add a 100kW+ generator with the power electronics to charge while driving, fuel system, exhaust system and cooling system, and we're probably approaching $10k upcharge for the customer.
Gotta remove a whole lot of batteries from that car to make it cost competitive again. Realistically, with an engine this powerful, we can probably cut down to like 30kWh of total battery capacity, which gets us back to where we started financially. And 30 kWh is enough to drive 70 miles all electric, which should pretty much should cover most daily use for people who charge at home.
Now, the questions if we can do that cheaper with a much smaller engine. Ford has a 1 liter inline 3 in the Fiesta and Focus that makes half as much power. Should be enough...
The dreamers amongst us have noted that Ford has a patent (at least an application for one, I don't recall if it was granted) for putting an EREV generator under the bed near the back of the truck. Since it can be a smaller engine and does not require an attachment to the drivetrain, maybe this is feasible.
If they did that, it would remove one of my reasons for not being too interested in the Lightning EREV -- the anticipated loss of the frunk. It still introduces a bunch of mechanical bits and associated maintenance requirements, that is unavoidable, along with a substantial increase in cost.
I bought my Lightning with the intent of keeping it 7-8 years, and it meets my needs very well, so this is mostly just navel gazing for me. The EREV version would have more range that I would rarely benefit from, and be substantially less powerful, which is also a negative from my perspective, in addition to costing a bunch more. My current truck is by far my favorite so far. I hope when I'm finally ready to try something new, there are better options. It's a high bar.
What's there to brag to be a fanboy of a company?
I keep looking for good deals on a R1T, CT, or Lightning in the used market. To be fair they’ve dipped but not enough to make an amazing deal.
Until you solve the tow range problem of electric trucks, it’s going to be hard to replace ICE-based vehicles.
I'm surprised S sales are so low. I would have thought they'd be much better than the cybertruck.
Cars are almost a niche form factor at this point (sadly). The Mercedes-Benz GLS vastly outsells the S-class, and the same holds true for the BMW X7 vs. 7-series.
Trucks in general are doomed to decline in sales.
Meanwhile they're so high value, organised criminals are stealing them from driveways and shipping them to middle east: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/family-...
The Cybertruck was always the Homer car.
At a normal auto company the board would have fired Elon long ago. It's a shame too, because the right CEO could really turn Tesla around.
What evidence do you have of Tesla performing poorly as a whole compared to others in the space, and/or Elon not successfully growing the company at reasonable rates?
Tesla sales peaked in 2023
It also came in almost double the promised price. AWD costs $80K vs $50K as promised. In comparison Model 3 and Model Y pricing is bang on!
Range extended EVs make far more sense. Smaller cheaper batteries but range benefit of a gas tank. 90% of trips are less than 30 miles.
They are the worst of both worlds: not enough battery range to satisfy on long trips plus the weight and maintenance headaches of a gas tank and engine, especially silly to lug that around if 90% of your trips are in battery range.
As a 2012 Volt owner I think EREV was a great idea in the 2010s given battery tech and networks at the time. In the 2020s, they seem a weak compromise that I wouldn't recommend to people.
> especially silly to lug that around if 90% of your trips are in battery range
The same argument works for large batteries, right? On 90% of your trips, you're lugging around several hundred pounds of battery you're not using.
If you want to tackle the weight argument, you could always drop 40 kWh battery capacity from the truck. That frees up around 600 lbs you can now use for the genset.
The maintenance thing is a real problem, of course. A 50 kW genset that almost never runs will be much better on mainenance than a classic ICE car, but still add significant maintenance cost to a BEV.
Which is part of why I think Range is often a distraction in EV discussions. The people asking for 600+ mile Range EVs may see those built because it always sounds like there are plenty of people "demanding" that, but the weight trade-off in batteries isn't going to make those great cars, most of that range will be "waste" given average trips. But it is easier to get to 600+ miles of range by adding more (and better) batteries than by making larger gas tanks and engines.
& battery tech continues to evolve at high speed. China is already selling 1000v 5min charging evs. Semi solid state are shipping. 500+ mile range cars exist. EREV is going to be obsolete in a few short years, if it isnt already.
Motor generators allow for new engine form factors that are much smaller and lighter.
No shit. The CT is ugly to most consumers' sensibilities, and not a "real" truck to most consumers in the truck segment. It only survives as long as it serves Musk's ego. But that's ok -- Tesla is Musk's company and shareholders are happy with that status quo. Who else cares?
The Cybertruck isn't a "real" truck, but the vast majority of trucks never do real truck stuff anyway so that's not as big of a gotcha as people think. Hell, even F-150s and Dodge Rams and GMCs have stunted vestigial cargo beds now, they're more like minivan utes. How many trucks can you buy today that can fit a standard everyday 4x8 sheet and a load of 8' studs in the back and close the tailgate?
The CT is even worse on these metrics than common lifestyle trucks like the F150.
> but the vast majority of trucks never do real truck stuff anyway so that's not as big of a gotcha as people think.
The whole point for those non-utilty buyers is the badass, tough-guy branding. Would a whiskey-drinking, steer-wranglin', meat-smokin', spur-boot-wearin', woodshop-havin', permanent-5-oclock-shadow BAMF drive a electric CT? No. Therefore the CT fails at the one thing they expect of trucks due to its lack truck aura.
Oh no. What if Elon's highly visible foray into right wing politics is an attempt to market his truck to people who would not normally give it time of day? Basically turn it into a rolling red baseball cap.
The GOP cancelled he Lightning - it's not irony that Trump is touring their plants a week or two after them cancelling the Lightning, while going all in on oil.
Ford doesn't have a benefactor worth close to 1T usd...
Nether does Tesla
Right. Musk extracts value from Tesla shareholders, rather than the other way around.
Exactly. Pay me billions in options or I’ll quit … how about building up the company that made you rich in the first place?
Are you suggesting that markets are rational?
What sickened me is our quarry wanted to buy 5 Lightning F150s a few months after they came out and no dealer near me in DFW would even take an order because “the wait list is too long”.
Another truck thread on HN, another 150 bad comments about how trucks are pointless.
So what? They're from different companies with different product lines and economies of scale.
Not surprising. The Cybertruck looks awful and scary, like something out of a nihilistic dystopian scifi film, maybe Mad Max. Hostile.
I mean, Cybertruck sold specially poorly, it's not a hard bar to surpass.
Ford sold more than 100K Lightnings. By many metrics that don't involve "compared to the best selling truck in America" that would be considered a successful run for a model.
I will take your word for it, I have no idea what the metric for "good" sales is.
Have you met truck guys? Truck guys call you gay for driving an EV. Yes yes, not all truck guys.
Do you know how pickups became the most popular vehicle in America? By not being appealing to just one type of guy. There is no "truck guy", there is "everyone." (well, yes, there are some anti-truck people, but they're niche and mostly online).
SUVs are the most popular body type in America, not pickups.
Pickups always top the "best selling model" list, but there are only a couple models of pickup and dozens of models of SUV. If you total up all the SUVs, they sell much better than pickups.
That may be, but it remains true that pickups are extremely popular. They are not even slightly a niche vehicle, they are broadly popular.
It's sad to see how much of an echo chamber hackernews has become, used to see a a decent number of users engage in critical discussion and exchange perspective, now threads like this are just a gong show of self-reinforcement.
To give some weight to the above, this thread leans way too heavy into EVs being awesome and the main issue is "the people or industry" (misconceptions, misunderstanding, oil industry bad, etc) while backing that with "rest of the world is winning the race" (FOMO).
Here's some counter points to a bunch of claims made in this thread:
1) EVs are not as practical as this thread proposes:
- Battery degradation is still mostly an unsolved issue. 10% within 3 years is common on the latest models as reported by drivers, 15% within 5-7 years is also quite common. LFPs do better but provide considerably less ideal range. 20% degradation is the cliff, where degradation accelerates and lithium ion batteries are considered EOL. For cars that under ideal conditions do 500km - 550km that's not okay over the lifespan of the car where you want good performance in the 8 to 16 year range. In addition, average car on the road in the USA / Europe is at 12 years (many cars far above 12 years old). These batteries will be lucky to make it to 12 years so the average age of EV fleet will end up much lower than ICE (not great)(more disposable) unless you replace the battery. Battery replacements are $10k-$20k and poor warranties (4 years or less). Costs are not coming down for various reasons.
- Actual cold performance (under -10C) is not good, there's no way to resolve this without increasing ideal range
- Range is considerably lower at highway speeds than city driving due to energy dynamics, exactly the opposite of what users need. ICE cars have an advantage here because their power curve is non-linear and power output improves with RPM, RPM goes up with higher speeds in the final gear so efficiency improves for a portion of the curve.
- Charging when living in apartment complexes or in multi-home units is not competitive at all with filling up at a gas tank, time wise or cost (unless subsidized).
- Most people drive few miles daily but long road trips yearly, often to remote places without reasonable charging infra. Versatility of use cases is a core requirement for most car users and EVs are not competitive here.
2) Growth is not as significant and growth rate has significantly slowed down
- EV sales are not at 30%+ of all car sales world wide as someone proposed in this thread claiming China is at 50%. China is at 50% NEV, which stands for new energy vehicle and makes up hybrids, BEV and EREV. EREV + hybrids are 40% of sales in China. That means BEVs are only at 30% of total which is what the rest of the world considers EV. World can't be at 30% EV sales itself as the rest of the world is far behind this sales % compared to China.
- China is pushing higher EVs not due to tech superiority but for energy security for obvious reasons, i.e. a lack of traditional energy independence and rising geopolitical risk
- Subsides have played a huge role in the growth and removal of subsidies will depress sales growth more
3) "rest of the world is winning the race" (FOMO)
- No one has won this race because the tech is not technically sufficiently superior to the currently available. This will change when solid state batteries become common place, but the problems with the tech are hard with a long tail of issues so that's still many years away from being widely rolled out.
This list is not exhaustive. Moving on.
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Cybertruck is a gimmick. And the fad has passed. No wonder they're not selling well.
And they don't age well. Most of the ones around here are starting to look... grimy. Or dingy. After just a couple of years. It's a poor advertisement for itself.
And, yeah, then there's cultural eye-rolling. It's really the only vehicle I hear people openly mock when they see one... And that's not a Tesla/Elon thing entirely, since people don't have the same reaction to other Tesla vehicles.
I swear, Telsa makes cars for gamers. If you're not in this demographic, it's not for you. Ford, GM, everyone needs to stop emulating Tesla. Practical people do not want this.
Unfortunately other automakers see this as the pinnacle of interior engineering; swoon over this and try to pull a "LETS REMOVE ALL OF THE BUTTONS, ITS WHAT CONSUMERS WANT" maneuver.
All consumers really need/want is an affordable, repairable, minimalistic and simple vehicle. What automakers are shoving down their throats is touch screens, animations, ridiculous LED light displays, etc. Then they wonder why electric sales suck.
My anecdata feeling from all the Tesla owners I know is that they stole customers wanting affordable, repairable, etc. from Japanese manufacturers and they stole customers who were luxury car buyers (Ford, GM, etc. weren’t even competitors) willing to forego some luxury for the EV.
Short term Ford thinking again, that’s why they’re losing to Tesla.
If the Lightning OUTSOLD Tesla, is that really losing to them? Feels to me like an indictment of the scale that Tesla actually operates: an order of magnitude less than the big car makers. If Ford declares a truck that sold better than CT as a failure, it's because for their size it didn't sell enough. If that lesser number IS enough for Tesla, they're simply not a player in the same league as Ford.
> If the Lightning OUTSODE Tesla
This reflects a very common pronunciation of syllable-final Ls in English, called a vocalised L, but I've never seen it reflected in spelling in such a way. Very cool!
I'm extremely curious - did you go for that spelling as an intentional stylistic variation, or was it a typo reflecting your usual pronunciation?
Typo.
The Tesla model Y is the best selling car in the world.
The Toyota Rav4 outsold the Model Y in 2025. Toyota led all brands worldwide with 10.3 million cars sold by November. Tesla which sold 1.64 million, didn't make the cut for top ten brands.
Here’s the Tesla source. Everything I’m seeing for the rav4 is dated before the end of 2025, so the data is projected for the rav4 to make a headline, not actual data.
https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-tesla-model-y-worlds-bes...
I would gladly own a Cybertruck if prices come down.
Approximately 100k for a truck of any type is ridiculous.
I'm sure the usual detractors will be here to whine "Electrek is biased against Tesla!"
To which I would ask: Is it "bias" because they simply report on Tesla frequently? Would it be "less biased" if they ignored Tesla? Obviously Electrek can't simply invent positive press for Tesla to report on.
Putting that aside though. The Cybertruck by all measures has been an abject failure. Its production run was so limited that insurance companies refused to cover it [1] and the NHTSA took something like two years just to crash test the thing due to how few of them there were on the road.
Combine that with 10 fucking recalls for absolutely horrific safety issues [2] and the company making the batteries taking a 99% slash in its $2.8 billion dollar contract [3] the thing is a complete travesty
[1] https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/insurance...
[2] https://www.cnet.com/home/electric-vehicles/every-tesla-cybe...
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-29/tesla-cyb...
Fred Lambert (Electrek founder) was pro-tesla and was using his site to get a huge number of referral credits. Then Tesla changed the rules on that referral program.
That's what triggered the beef. Fred sold all shares, took down all the pro-tesla articles, and posts nearly exclusively only negative tesla articles since.
Seems both parties were/are within legal rights, but it is clearly bias.
Literally the only people who can think that this dude is anywhere remotely objective is if you are already a Tesla hater; he posts qualifications in every title and always adjusts the wording and tone to be negative. Every Electrek's take on an article is him describing how he warned everyone about the Elon/Tesla heel turn as you laid it out. It screams confirmation bias but since he isn't a journalist there's no code of ethics he's bound to follow.
I'm bullish on EV's at large. They're far nicer to ride in. So I find his coverage informative. I've never owned a Tesla but I've ridden in hundreds and must admit (other than the original Roadster) I've been thoroughly "whelmed" by their mediocrity.
However, short of going to places like Reddit's "Tesla Lounge" or "Cyber Truck Owners Forum" I have yet to see many (any?) places that cover Tesla/Elon positively. Not because "every website is biased against him" but simply because they're reporting on events that've happened
Nicer to ride in in what sense? I find single-pedal to be nauseating because many drivers can’t control their foot raise well enough for smooth or gentle braking, and the suspension feels chunky as hell, most likely due to how heavy the car is. But maybe that’s just Teslas. Their ride is just categorically worse than most ICE vehicles.
Makes it even more impressive that Model Y is the best selling car worldwide. If you sell enough, I guess by definition you achieve mediocrity. You eventually become the average simply numerically.
Best selling car worldwide and not a super affordable one at that, but if you listen to everyone on the internet who "doesn't own a Tesla but has ridden in hundreds", they'll you very authoritatively they're mediocre cars.
Yeah. Obviously we should ask the people who own them for their opinion. Obviously they'll gleefully deride their not super affordable purchases :)
Speaking of not super affordable. When's that "affordable Tesla" coming. Or did Elmo turn on the 'full self driving' and it drove itself into a ditch along the way?
Cybercab? It's already been unveiled and will be start production in Q2.
Elecdrek's bias against Tesla is only surpassed by its gushing over any/everything China.