Tesla ends reservation list for CT, only 2.5% buy rate

[Rick73]

4 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

Not sure what Tesla can do,

don’t really care, they have their novelty truck and some will continue buying it.

If Cybertruck sales tank suddenly, and proven due to appearance, I expect they could (or would) replace body with more conventional pickup — modern but not radical.   Getting away from stainless by itself perhaps could lower CT price significantly, though I’m only speculating.  Not sure if non-stainless body is even possible due to paint requirements.  However, on second thought, a body built like RoboTaxi/Cybercab may circumvent that particular paint challenge (assuming it’s even a problem).  Hard to say with Tesla.

[mackinaw]

1 hour ago, Rick73 said:

If Cybertruck sales tank suddenly, and proven due to appearance, I expect they could (or would) replace body with more conventional pickup — modern but not radical......

 

Elon has already said that if the CT flops, they'd bring out a more conventional pickup.

[morgan20]

12 minutes ago, mackinaw said:

 

Elon has already said that if the CT flops, they'd bring out a more conventional pickup.

 

Has Ford's head honcho prepared for that situation? According to the sales numbers posted by Rick73 here, F-150 Lightning is havin' trouble keeping up with the ugly ass Cybertruck. How is Ford gonna compete with a not so ugly ass conventional Tesla pickup?

[akirby]

34 minutes ago, morgan20 said:

 

Has Ford's head honcho prepared for that situation? According to the sales numbers posted by Rick73 here, F-150 Lightning is havin' trouble keeping up with the ugly ass Cybertruck. How is Ford gonna compete with a not so ugly ass conventional Tesla pickup?

T3

[morgan20]

28 minutes ago, akirby said:

T3

 

Fingers crossed that the T3 truck gives Tesla the middle finger. 😁 Doesn't matter to me whether Tesla is still selling Cybertruck or comes out with a conventional pickup by then.

 

Still feel sorry for Ford REVC employees who are getting furloughed, I never thought that Cybertruck and other competitors would demolish F-150 Lightning sales the way they did last month

[jpd80]

7 hours ago, morgan20 said:

 

Has Ford's head honcho prepared for that situation? According to the sales numbers posted by Rick73 here, F-150 Lightning is havin' trouble keeping up with the ugly ass Cybertruck. How is Ford gonna compete with a not so ugly ass conventional Tesla pickup?

Make a Lightning with better towing range and a more affordable price

[Texasota]

4 hours ago, jpd80 said:

Make a Lightning with better towing range and a more affordable price

Don’t think that is possible with current battery technology. Maybe when solid state batteries become available and affordable.

[Rick73]

4 hours ago, Texasota said:

Don’t think that is possible with current battery technology. Maybe when solid state batteries become available and affordable.

Agree it’s not currently possible, and also believe that as battery technology improves, the technology will most likely be available to competitors as well, so pretty much everyone will also have longer range and lower-cost pickups.  Unless Ford somehow obtains proprietary battery technology that gives them an advantage, the truck itself has to be better or more desirable than the competition.  Improved battery energy density should mostly help BEV pickups compete better against gas and hybrids.

 

It’s interesting to note that new Silverado has 205 kWh battery with 400 miles of range, which is pretty good when empty, but test data show that when towing large trailers, a pickup’s range can drop to as little as 1/3; and even with 100% full battery it makes towing too limited for many buyers.  On a longer camping trip, or similar, repeated charging between 20 and 80 percent state-of-charge means stopping every 100 miles or less.  That’s horrible considering it has 205 kWh battery.  Imagine the towing experience with much smaller battery.  Once the word got out, it’s not surprising most BEV pickup sales-growth-rate plummeted.  IMO it doesn’t matter much that many buyers don’t tow often.  The damage to image is done regardless.

[jpd80]

11 hours ago, Rick73 said:

Agree it’s not currently possible, and also believe that as battery technology improves, the technology will most likely be available to competitors as well, so pretty much everyone will also have longer range and lower-cost pickups.  Unless Ford somehow obtains proprietary battery technology that gives them an advantage, the truck itself has to be better or more desirable than the competition.  Improved battery energy density should mostly help BEV pickups compete better against gas and hybrids.

 

It’s interesting to note that new Silverado has 205 kWh battery with 400 miles of range, which is pretty good when empty, but test data show that when towing large trailers, a pickup’s range can drop to as little as 1/3; and even with 100% full battery it makes towing too limited for many buyers.  On a longer camping trip, or similar, repeated charging between 20 and 80 percent state-of-charge means stopping every 100 miles or less.  That’s horrible considering it has 205 kWh battery.  Imagine the towing experience with much smaller battery.  Once the word got out, it’s not surprising most BEV pickup sales-growth-rate plummeted.  IMO it doesn’t matter much that many buyers don’t tow often.  The damage to image is done regardless.

And you’ve just explained the biggest difficulty with building a BEV truck that needs decent towing range.

Even a conventional gasoline truck will use three times as much fuel wine doing max towing duties but

it can get by with a bigger gas tank to keep range reasonable, adding a 200kwhr battery just adds more 

weight an way less profit for the OEM……Higher battery density with lower weight is needed to advance.

[Rick73]

10 hours ago, jpd80 said:

And you’ve just explained the biggest difficulty with building a BEV truck that needs decent towing range.

Even a conventional gasoline truck will use three times as much fuel wine doing max towing duties but

it can get by with a bigger gas tank to keep range reasonable, adding a 200kwhr battery just adds more 

weight an way less profit for the OEM……Higher battery density with lower weight is needed to advance.

Yeah, towing a large boxy trailer at highway speeds kills range for any BEV, which explains why we have seen more discussions lately on Extended Range Electric Vehicles.  For example, a fairly light mid-size camping trailer can require 1 kWh per mile, or even higher.  When we consider Cybertruck’s battery at 123 kWh, that’s not much range; requiring charging every 100 miles or less.

 

Since Tesla is an all-electric manufacturer, it’s interesting to see their version of range extender for Cybertruck being a +/- 50 kWh battery pack that takes up a good portion of CT bed, and costs around $16,000.  When towing that additional investment could add 50 miles of range (more or less depending on trailer and speed), but if compared to ICE or hybrid truck, the same additional range could be obtained with roughly 5 extra gallons of gasoline (assuming ~ 10 MPG).  Obviously making a gas tank 5 gallons larger costs next to nothing compared to $16,000.  Also important is that the extra 5 gallons will add less than 30 pounds on average to truck, whereas Cybertruck Rang Extender will make truck around 500 pounds heavier all the time.  In my opinion battery and charging technology will have to improve significantly and at a much lower cost before electric pickups can compare favorably with ICE or hybrids.

 

One can argue that some buyers will purchase an electric pickup knowing it can’t tow much distance, but I think majority of buyers want capabilities even when they don’t have firm plans to use it yet.  It’s a just-in-case mindset IMO.

[Rick73]

Here’s an Internet picture of CT range extender mentioned above.

 

[jpd80]

On 11/6/2024 at 9:02 PM, Texasota said:

Don’t think that is possible with current battery technology. Maybe when solid state batteries become available and affordable.

Ford could avoid the whole situation by building an F150 EREV as a vehicle with the best of both worlds.

A sympathetic government might rewrite some of the rules to give PHEVs and EREV more freedom.

Edited November 8 by jpd80

[morgan20]

On 11/6/2024 at 1:04 AM, jpd80 said:

Make a Lightning with better towing range and a more affordable price

 

Lightning lost a recent comparison test to Silverado EV, but not by much. Wonder how these two trucks would fare against Cybertruck?

 

Coming into this long-anticipated matchup, we expected the from-scratch Chevy to wipe the floor with the essentially motor-swapped Ford, but the contest ends up much closer than expected. The Ford may always suit traditionalists better with its utterly familiar user interface, CarPlay, trailering aids, etc., but the electric truck future belongs to 800-volt, 400-plus-mile rigs like the 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV. Yes, this one is priced too high to suit its interior trim, but cheaper versions are coming, and we can envision easy software and hardware solutions to most of our other complaints. And as those more affordable and diverse models roll out, we anticipate Chevy giving Ford (and Tesla) a run for the sale lead. Maybe. Unless Ford’s Project T3–based 2026 Lightning is improved enough to retake the lead itself.

 

Link: https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2024-chevy-silverado-ev-vs-ford-f-150-lightning-comparison-test-review

[jpd80]

4 hours ago, morgan20 said:

 

Lightning lost a recent comparison test to Silverado EV, but not by much. Wonder how these two trucks would fare against Cybertruck?

 

Coming into this long-anticipated matchup, we expected the from-scratch Chevy to wipe the floor with the essentially motor-swapped Ford, but the contest ends up much closer than expected. The Ford may always suit traditionalists better with its utterly familiar user interface, CarPlay, trailering aids, etc., but the electric truck future belongs to 800-volt, 400-plus-mile rigs like the 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV. Yes, this one is priced too high to suit its interior trim, but cheaper versions are coming, and we can envision easy software and hardware solutions to most of our other complaints. And as those more affordable and diverse models roll out, we anticipate Chevy giving Ford (and Tesla) a run for the sale lead. Maybe. Unless Ford’s Project T3–based 2026 Lightning is improved enough to retake the lead itself.

 

Link: https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2024-chevy-silverado-ev-vs-ford-f-150-lightning-comparison-test-review

Yes, my post was a tongue in cheek response to Ford already having next Gen T3 BEV F150 production ready.

Although it keeps getting further delayed, there’s  nothing stopping Ford from upgrading the current Lightning’s

battery as an ongoing evolutionary process. 
 

The current issue for Ford is so many unsold Lightnings in stock, the prices are too high to interest most buyers.

Ford needs to get on and start moving the backlog with strong incentives, premium pricing is hurting sales.

[Rick73]

From Motor Trend article:

 

“We also recorded the range lost over the 13 miles, and each truck expended 35 miles of range driving this loop. The Chevy’s bigger battery will allow it to pull a trailer farther, but we feel trailering capability generally carries less weight because recharging while towing is such a cumbersome business. Customers frequently towing long distances should probably steer clear of electric pickups for now. For hauling a boat to and from a nearby lake? They’ll be excellent.”

 

A quick look at Ford F-150 site shows that towing makes up a huge part of its marketing, as is the case with all traditional trucks, and it’s difficult to imagine why Ford, Chevy, and RAM have been doing this for decades unless they though customers actually valued towing capabilities.  And now they are being asked to ignore the “cumbersomeness” of towing with EVs.  So yeah, towing must carry much less weight for BEV pickup buyers as Motor Trend implies, which probably also means market share of electric trucks will remain very small, whether Tesla, Ford, Chevy, or Rivian. 

 

[jpd80]

Yes, recharging in the middle of a towing journey is completely different experience 

to filling up at a gas station for a few minutes…..that is the big difference when it

comes to range anxiety when towing, you roughly use three times more energy.

 

For now, Lightning and othe BEV Pickups are acting like surrogate big electric cars.

Edited November 10 by jpd80

[DeluxeStang]

On 11/5/2024 at 3:39 PM, akirby said:

T3

But what if T3 is ugly ass? It was designed around the same time as the Ford 3 row. That was when Ford was all about areo at the expense of design appeal. Maybe t3 looks good, maybe it looks like ass because they were chasing after range and areo targets. 

[akirby]

33 minutes ago, DeluxeStang said:

But what if T3 is ugly ass? It was designed around the same time as the Ford 3 row. That was when Ford was all about areo at the expense of design appeal. Maybe t3 looks good, maybe it looks like ass because they were chasing after range and areo targets. 

I trust Ford when it comes to trucks.

[sullynd]

I’m still not sure T3 replaces Lightning (rather is in addition to it). I’m hoping Lightning gets some more improvements over time as well.

[DeluxeStang]

29 minutes ago, akirby said:

I trust Ford when it comes to trucks.

I trust their truck designers when it comes to conventional trucks without a doubt. But if this was a design that was created during Ford's era where areo was all that mattered, that does concern me. 

[Rick73]

2 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

But what if T3 is ugly ass? It was designed around the same time as the Ford 3 row. That was when Ford was all about areo at the expense of design appeal. Maybe t3 looks good, maybe it looks like ass because they were chasing after range and areo targets. 

What makes you think that more “aerodynamic” necessarily means uglier?  You always assume that but based on what?  Do you have pictures of 3-row for comparison?  For what it’s worth, correlation between aero and appearance doesn’t have to be the same between an SUV and Pickup.  There are plenty of butt ugly non-aero vehicles too.

 

Out of curiosity, how do you compare Lightning to new Silverado EV and also the older (than Silverado) Rivian pickup?  Lightning is much less aerodynamic, so does that make it much more attractive than the more aero Silverado?  Just curious how you rank these trucks on looks — and let’s leave Cybertruck out of it.  That thing is just ugly regardless of aerodynamics, which isn’t all that good anyway.

[Rick73]

1 hour ago, DeluxeStang said:

I trust their truck designers when it comes to conventional trucks without a doubt. But if this was a design that was created during Ford's era where areo was all that mattered, that does concern me. 

Seriously, what era are you referring to when Ford were all-in on aerodynamics?  I’m only aware of Mach-E and at Cd of 0.27 it is hardly an aerodynamic extreme.  Nor is Lightning or E-Transit.

[akirby]

10 hours ago, Rick73 said:

Seriously, what era are you referring to when Ford were all-in on aerodynamics?  I’m only aware of Mach-E and at Cd of 0.27 it is hardly an aerodynamic extreme.  Nor is Lightning or E-Transit.

The 3 row planned for Oakville.

[morgan20]

19 hours ago, akirby said:

I trust Ford when it comes to trucks.

 

Same here, and I would have purchased a Lightning even if I hadn't previously worked for and took a buyout from Ford and had A/Z plan.

 

Ford ought to get the T3 truck ready sooner rather than later. It's embarrassing that the ugly ass Cybertruck outsold the current Lightning recently and even worse that Ford REVC workers are gettin' furloughed in a couple weeks. The big shots at Ford need to take the competition more seriously

[jpd80]

Just heard that Hertz took a $1 billion charge against its Tesla vehicles,

the experiment with EVs is becoming an expensive lesson.