Picking up beer cans…..

Yeah, it’s an entirely different game when comparing electric vehicles to those powered by internal combustion engines.  Most drivers today don’t like engines revving to higher RPMs, yet in a car like the new Bolt the electric motor will be spinning at over 10,000 RPM when cruising at normal interstate highway speeds.  Fortunately it won’t matter to them because the electric motor is extremely smooth and quiet even at those high RPMs.  There is also no tachometer to provide feedback on motor speed so it falls under the what you don’t know won’t hurt you umbrella.   An example of how different latest BEVs operate regarding gearing compared to ICE-powered cars is my old Mustang.  First gear is 2.99 to 1 and final is 3 to 1, for a total of 8.97 to 1 overall ratio at launch.  Essentially the new Bolt is geared considerably lower than my Mustang when in 1st, and the Bolt stays in its fixed ratio even when cruising at 75 MPH or faster.  There’s no real direct comparison because no one would drive an ICE Mustang at 75 MPH in first gear even if the car could.   I learned to drive on 3-speed manual-transmission vehicles and agree that more gears are beneficial, but think that going to 10 speeds is mostly overkill, and driven largely by marketing.  Depending on engine power and vehicles’ intended duty cycle, between 6 and 8 should be plenty for most applications.  I know greater numbers of gears are done to reduce emissions and improve fuel efficiency but there is a point of diminishing improvements relative to added costs and complexity.  This will soon become a moot point with transition to electrification so won’t matter anyway.

Stamp the pickup truck boxes out of steel? 

You would be shocked at how many companies don't, because it costs more money to do so. But hopefully this isn't the case with Ford. 

I understand the math.  My brain just has a hard time believing gearing can make up for 100 lb/ft less torque from a dead stop.  

They must’ve had contingency plans for something like this, they just take time to implement. There’s no way they could tolerate that level of risk without some kind of backup plan.

Last week E10/87 was up to 2.35/gal, but it was back down to $2.28 this evening. 

Yeah I went into the App store to see if needed an update. I'm on iOS26, so that might have something to do with it.

The difference is tq at the wheels, Rick did the math for you but gearing and rpm make it effectively the same thing. With ICE you usually run out of RPM (or gears in the trans, which is why they keep adding more) on the top end when you increase gearing, but if GM's claims about more RPM out of the electric motor and efficient are true then you aren't giving anything up. I don't know if you ever built a drag car or race car, but you usually increase gear ratio in the rear until you're trapping at or close the rev limiter in top gear, which makes you faster but you sacrifice top end and especially highway manners if it's not an OD trans.. but it gets you off the line quicker and makes the car faster in the 1/4 or whatever you're doing. If there's more RPM available then there isn't much of a trade off.

Ford is making a big hoopla out of CE1 because its mass roll out plan for  BEV F150 is looking decidedly over blown. Nobody really knows if enough buyers will be interested in the new mid sized BEVs but really what else can Ford do?     Back  when Ford delayed the three row BEV the first time, that was to give Mache more production space and to give battery production capacity over to e-Transit.