Zestyg

The claim appeared to be that it was 15-30% better than any other pickup, which would lead to a coefficient of drag around ~0.25. This would leave it behind the Model 3 comparison I described. If they did actually get a coefficient of drag of like 0.17 (15% better than Model 3 and Lucid Air) then that’s incredibly impressive. I don’t really doubt they have 300 miles of range, but it seems to me that they got a lot of that through things other than aero.

I do wonder where they are squeezing the last ~50 miles out of the battery. The Model 3 has like 60 kWh usable and a ~0.2 coefficient of drag and is supposed to get like 320 miles of range. It would be extremely impressive engineering-wise to get something as low drag as the Model 3 or even Lucid Air, but with 10 kWh less than the Model 3 the other efficiency gains have to add up. Otherwise its range would sit at like 250-270 miles.

On styling, one thing I had noticed a month or so ago was that one of the sketches for the skunk truck looked really similar to the Lightning Supertruck.

A lot of the most popular SUVs (the Big 3’s full sized SUVs, Rav4, etc) can get 400+ miles on paper. I full expect this doesn’t happen in reality because most people don’t drive in a fuel efficient manner, but its definitely possible. I have no clue if this is something people actually think about or if its just something that they notice when range gets too low (i.e. below 300) edit: I really want to echo the fact that cold weather also affects ICE

I didn’t have this much trouble with the Subarus I had before this, but at least I can get the touch up paint for free using my Fordpass points.

The presentation they had earlier this year about the technology of the platform I don’t recall quoting a specific range number but they did say that they chose LFP as the base in part because it would make longer range options on any other chemistry easy to implement. Basically it should offer ~300 on base LFP and a lot more on NMC or sodium or whatever.

I would be very surprised if it doesn’t have 300 miles of range, since it seems that a lot of the design of this thing is an optimization problem of “how little LFP can we use to get 300?”. It just wouldn’t make sense for it to have less than that.

I dunno why they’re saying limited range when the while thing is designed otherwise, but the charging is probably because 400V architecture

One of my main annoyances with Ford is that the paint seems to chip easily in general. Coincidentally I just got back home from AutoZone with more clearcoat.

I want to believe this and it makes sense, but without knowing the details of the truck, it’s hard to suspend my disbelief. The Maverick is a really fucking good product that I fear is difficult to internally compete against. Hell I drive an Escape and am looking forward to the EV sedan, but if I had to get a new car now it would probably be a Maverick. Then again this is Ford so if there’s anything they would be able to do what you’re talking about with it would be a truck. There is nobody better than them at these, perhaps aside from Ram doing the luxury-ish truck better as I’ve heard.

The GT looks great. I’ve increasingly grown to dislike the front without the sport appearance package. GT has it by default but the whole lineup should.

You could be right, although the wiggle room in affordable + I can’t predict trim mix is why I went to ATP. What they have inched around on for price makes me think MSRP of base trim will be like $32,500. I don’t see it being higher than $35,000 (the EV Equinox is already like $34,950 or something before incentives). I do think the MSRP of the Maverick probably limits how high they could put the skunk truck; if you could consistently get the Maverick for cheaper with competitive features why would anybody except Tesla conquests buy the skunk truck?

Of course, although I imagine if they start the MSRP around $30,000 for the lower trims they probably can’t get north of $50k for the highest trims. If the idea here is to provide affordable EVs, which probably means cost-competitive with similar ICE, Cox says the ATP of compact SUVs (which even tho the skunk truck is not, if its anything like the maverick it should be basically comparable to a compact SUV) is ~$37k right now. If the capex is $5 bn and the COG for these EVs out of Louisville can be like $28k (which I think is what Tesla does on the Model 3? *A lot* of guesswork here.) then making gross $9k on each EV sold at 100,000/yr puts you at nearly 6 years before you recoup investment before considering sg&a, depreciation, etc. the breakeven target is 2029, which would mean they want to do it in 2-3 years. My math is of course extreme guesswork and I ignored a lot of shit that could come into play but I imagine they’d need to be somewhere close to 200k/yr to actually meet that, at least above 150k/yr. They could be happy with those numbers since they’d at least justify the investment and replace the sales volume lost from the Escape with products presumably carrying a better cost structure.

honestly, the part on the most skeptical about is if 100,000/year would actually be enough volume. It is the low end of the stated range and seems incredibly achievable, but it would probably take a long ass time to recoup the capital expenditures.

Honestly unless the vehicles suck, if they keep it under $35,000 then at least 100,000 should be attainable across the truck and crossover. They sold 97,000 EVs in 2024 at like a $10,000 higher price point