It's been my experience that F-150 owners are arrogant, southern-fried buttholes, but anyone who owns a Cybertruck is probably worse, just by merit of being associated with Elon Musk.
It is a reality that Teslas were the best affordable EV you could get for a long time.
Now that the IONIQ is below it in price, maybe we can be a bit judgier for new vehicle purchases.... but even still, that is remarkably few affordable EVs available to the typical consumer and there still are some reasonable reasons to pick a Tesla. Unfortunately, that is mostly their charger network, which is the lightning cable of chargers trying to pretend that a totally superior ISO charger isn't better for consumers in every way.
I am going to judge a lot of them for driving like assholes. There's a reason people call them Tasshole.
At least where I live Tesla is a good option for overpaid office guys, the guys that used to drive a BMW or Audi. Lots of Tesla drivers that are impatient, aggressive and just annoying on the road.
There are a lot of bad drivers out there. We all see them every day and it doesn't matter what make or model vehicle they're driving.
I can also say that your interpretation of who is driving these vehicles is a wild generalization. Claiming that Teslas are being driven by 'overpaid office guys' is a stretch, and I don't think you understand how much a Tesla costs relative to any other vehicle of the same year out there.
I don't think anyone driving a Tesla owes anyone an excuse. I've been driving one for a few years and one of the first things I did after purchasing one was block Elon on Twitter.
You don't have to respect a business or the people that run it to buy and enjoy what they're selling.
I owe one to myself every time this asshole posts some far right bullshit on Twitter. Really makes just want to torch the car, sometimes. Won't do that cause it's a fine car and utterly innocent, of course.
I've not seen somebody driving a ford truck made in the last decade that was doing "Real" work. this includes construction contractors. most the working trucks are Chevies or Toyos. though I'm also seeing an increasing number of Nissan (the NV's)
I have. A lot of pickup trucks, for example, are built out of F450s. Old F450s.
The F-150 line is almost entirely vanity vehicles, though, and I have never seen a Lightning on the road but am sure I do not exclude it from my judgment.
The Lightnings actually have a reasonable use case as short range delivery fleet trucks. They're not going to go very far but they will move materials across town super cheaply and relatively eco-friendly - provided you have the startup capital to buy a fleet of Lightnings and the charger hookups.
I would not buy one as a consumer daily driver though.
The transits are a much better platform/form factor for that use case, and probably would have been easier to modify into an EV.
The current iteration has too many compromises as a “consumer” vehicle while still pandering to the idea of being a working truck. A “man’s truck”, if you will. Let’s be honest here, they’re not advertising it to companies. They’re advertising it to men- the kind of men that need to remind the world that they’re men. kind of like how they used to pitch SUVs, at least until suvs became the go-to family car,
The Euro Transit vans are impressive. I had a guy come out to fix a flat tire on my rental car in Scotland. He made it down a singletrack dirt driveway to where I had parked and basically had an entire tire shop in his van. Ended up replacing the tire rather than patching it and it was still NBD.
I penciled out a business plan to use the lightning to run pallets and recyclable materials from several businesses to a nearby recycler, as a side gig. If the truck weren't so dang expensive it would work. I could even run a small commercial cardboard baler off the truck.
even the gas versions, the Dodge ProMaster, Ford Transits and Nissan NV's outperform. their fuel efficient, they have lower-to-the-ground beds allowing less lifting to get stuff in the bed size is larger- and lockable. and they cost less than their pick up counter parts
hell, I know a guy that delver's pallets of printed...things... in a prius, and would sniff at a pickup.
The thing that would make it work for me is free charging at work, which would also be one of the customers whose junk I'd be disposing. $0 fuel costs.
If you could get through a day without needing to use a fast charger, it might still work. Overnight charging on a slow level 2 is cheap. Needing to do a 20 minute top-up at a fast charger gets expensive in a hurry.
Fifth wheel trailer hauling is the only use case that makes a big truck worthwhile, imo. The toy he weight on the hitch is…. Not that impressive and usually the limiting factor. Keep in mind I’m not talking about recreational/consumer usage- talking about actual work-usage (ie a contractor, or plumber or something)
The only time I've seen it was when it was a company-issued truck lol
If I could get a new electric truck for less than $60,000 I'd use it though, because I get free charging and I could use the truck to make enough money to cover half of the payments. Just my personal situation.
Real trucks do have a full cabin my dude. Landscape/Hardscape crews prefer to take few vehicles onsite. Although we always get the normal bed size. Short bed is useless to everybody.
I mean… they can. I drive a Maverick. My bed easily fits a riding mower, a weed eater, pressure washer, pole saw, and all the manual yard tools I could need for working on other people’s yards.
And my wife and children can also comfortably ride in it when I’m using it for family transportation. And I average 43 miles to the gallon.
Not every truck needs a full size bed, and four doors doesn’t make a truck less useful but more.
He's not really wrong. A Ford pickup can be beat to hell, and u can source just about any part on the truck within a 20 minute drive. When your pay relies on your transportation and hauling, time is money. A truck made of a giant piece of sheetmetal and something that needs to go back to Tesla for any issue won't cut it.
I sure hope any of these inexpensive minitruck brands, especially all-electric ones, crack into the US market at some point.
Such ridiculousness, the arms race of ever-bigger "light" trucks that have double cabs and short beds. I cannot understand why any tradie would get a pickup over a van with a roof rack.
I hate how normal large vehicles like trucks and SUVs have become here in the US. Especially because 90% of people who buy them don't actually need them. I see so many big stupid vehicles all over the place with a single person just going to the grocery store.
I make Costco runs in my Golf just fine. Very few families really NEED that giant vehicle. Even the ones that do, could easily get by with a normal 5 seater car and one larger vehicle.
Yeah I mean 90% of the time, you’re not doing that. Because no shit.
So don't buy a truck? Admit it, it's just compensating for your insecurities. You do not need a truck. Just rent one for the 2 times a year you might maybe need one, then you can stop driving up prices for people who actually need one.
I'm really annoyed that status seekers like you are providing such an overwhelming market incentive that Ford doesn't even have a 2-door electric truck on the market. They're all 4-door because it's 99% familes who want an SUV, but more manly looking.
then you can stop driving up prices for people who actually need one.
Yeah that's not really how that works LOL. I'm all for people not driving trucks, but if they stopped, that would make them MORE expensive. It's simple economies of scale. The more they make, the less each individual unit costs.
People who don't need trucks but want them anyway are the main force driving what types of trucks go to market. If it weren't for that performative nonsense, automakers would go back to their primary market: practical work vehicles, without all the family suv bells and whistles. Therefore, cheaper.
All trucks are not built the same, that's my point. I want a truck that's a truck, not a minivan masquerading as a truck.
I hate Tesla now but that is a shit comment. It’s like when people say “real America” is in the farm as if people in cities - where most Americans live - are worthless.
From the MKBHD review of the F-150 Lightning that I saw, Chris Farley's cousin may be right. The F-150 Lightning seems designed to act as a giant mobile battery to power a tradesman's tools while on the job and seems overall designed to support a Contractor on the job. Nothing has been reported of the Cybertruck where it can do the same.
The Cybertruck looks and feels like a status symbol.
There's some pretty good evidence that while a very small fraction of blue collar jobs are worthless, a much higher fraction of white collar jobs are in fact worthless.
It's crazy that I live in a world where I'm rooting for Ford, of all things.
The Ford Maverick is actually a step in the right direction though. It's got a bed and it's relatively affordable. A lot of small contractors don't need giant jacked up V8s.
I like the F150 but when the Ford CEO says "I make trucks for real people who do real work," as a "non-real" person who "doesn't do real work as I don't need a truck", well, he can fuck right off. What an asshole.
I think the point still stands: people who buy trucks want to believe they can do real work, kind of like the fantasy of an SUV as a rugged vehicle even though their buyers typically treat them like street cars.
Well, you're right, that guy is an asshole. But he also makes a point, namely that there is no person in the world with a reason to purchase a Cybertruck other than just to jerk off Elongated Muskrat a bit more. It doesn't do anything practical. Even someone with an F150 or a Ram 2500, while yes they do generally own a parking lot princess, it can do truck stuff in a pinch. It has a bed and a tailgate and it can haul a trailer. Cybertruck can maybe haul a trailer but it isn't going to do anything else practical that a Ford won't. You'll never catch a contractor driving a Cybertruck. You will find them driving an F150.
Point is, he's not saying you aren't real, he's saying the hypothetical person that has a valid use case for a Cybertruck isn't real. If someone is going out to buy a truck to perform work they aren't looking at Tesla.
Very few newer full size trucks ever get used for "real" work..... Because they're so freaking expensive. Sure, some do, but that would be the big contractors who have a fleet of work trucks and so on. Regular guys will beat on the 15 year old stuff. Because they can afford to fix it if they have to.
If we're being real, neither truck is for people who do real work.
When it's 40 below out and your truck needs to go all day because you're at a work site and it's the only place to warm up in between getting some critical piece of equipment back up and running, a battery that's so dead it needs a 600V charger for a few hours just to get home isn't going to cut it.
Except that generally speaking, your gas tank doesn't really change capacity that much based on the weather -- the fact you have to idle it is obviously a concern, but typically your fuel economy doesn't dramatically change because the weather outside changes. By contrast, I've heard and seen an EV in very cold winter weather basically become a brick until it spends some time in a nice heated space, and then it only wakes up until you bring it back outside and the battery freezes again.
I've done really long road trips in extraordinarily cold weather. I used to live in the far north, and I still work up there occasionally. You're not losing 80% of your travel capacity or anything like that.
If it's 40 below out, the vast majority of outside workers should be not working. The vast majority of work that could use a truck is work that isn't going to frequently (or ever) encounter that kind of temperature range. A 600V DCFC is going to charge either of those trucks quickly in the majority of scenarios.
Most truck owners aren't people doing "truck work" anyway, though. They own a truck as a public facing part of their personality. It's virtue signalling.
I agree with you that most people driving trucks probably don't need to be driving trucks. My home vehicle is a nice little Corolla that gets great gas mileage.
But reality is that for a lot of workers, the show must go on, rain or shine, heat wave or cold snap. I've had to be that guy -- coldest day of the year and some piece of critical infrastructure is broken, the boss says "I don't care, we need it working, get out there". Temperatures that cold you literally start to feel death's caress. It starts to soak into your meat, and it at some point it doesn't matter what you're wearing.
Days like that, even a diesel is pretty scary, but pretty much no vehicle ever turns off. If it's a gas vehicle at least the block heater can let you start the thing.
This past winter, there was a crew building an attraction on the river for the winter festival in Winnipeg. They had a Ford Lightning there. They were using it as a warm-up hut, for charging up their tools and hauling crap around. Temps were in the -20C to -30C range. They were out there for days. Seemed to work just fine.
Everything I keep on hearing says that these things become basically worthless the moment you're not driving under perfect conditions. I've personally witnessed EVs become basically useless in winter, or when there's a few too many hills. I've even heard that you're going to want a heated garage to go with your fancy EV in real winters. I'd also like to know what toll real winters have on the overall lifespan of a battery on a $100,000 truck -- it'd suck if you have to send your expensive vehicle to the junkyard in just a few years because you don't live in an ideal climate. I guess I should also point out that -20 is not -40, and the work doesn't stop because it isn't warm out.
I've been eyeing an EV for running around town, but the risks hold me back.
I’m from a tropical climate. So the inverse applies. Aircon is incredibly efficient. Evs have enough battery to leave the aircon on for 3 days straight. I imagine heating would be similar.
I think you’re pointing out that the batteries don’t work well in the cold. That would be the perfect time to strap a solar panel to the roof connected to a battery heater or a space heater inside the car.
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