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Comment by vsskanth | Hacker News Reader

They're betting on solid state batteries for their EVs and offer hybrids until they are able to start making them.

Not sure how the solid state bet is going to play out but so far their hybrid strategy is working quite well. Their hybrids are selling out before they even leave the factory. It makes sense because they have a huge reputation for reliability and are sometimes the only hybrid offering in some segments like minivans and large three row SUVs.

Other manufacturers have bet on developing platforms using current battery tech but sales of current gen EVs seem to have stalled.

Customers are thinking rationally. You can either buy a current gen EV and deal with the depreciation or buy a hybrid and keep it until EVs mature and it's time to switch.

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> sales of current gen EVs seem to have stalled.

Have they? I've seen this repeated a few times but all the various articles[1][2] I can find that say anything about this are saying that the growth rate slowed slightly, probably due to interest rate rises, but not that sales have dipped or even plateaued overall.

The main decreases seem to be driven by specific models declining[3] but otherwise the industry is healthy.

[1]: https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1327-janu...

[2]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-09/tesla-rak...

[3]: https://www.carscoops.com/2024/02/fords-ev-sales-drop-11-whi...

The NY Times has an article about why sales of F150 Lightning EV Pickups have declined:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/07/business/fords-f150-light...

Reading that I was struck by how often they defer to dealers. My understanding is that dealers don't like EV's because it cuts their lucrative repair profits. If the dealers won't sell the EV's then it looks like demand has collapsed. But maybe it's just that the dealers are not pushing the EV's. It seems very suspicious that three months ago EV sales were booming and now they are not, for all brands simultaneously. I suspect a propaganda campaign.

It also seems that Ford's mileage estimator doesn't take into account temperature and they have not added a heat pump to the battery to optimize its temperature. So it is no wonder owners are surprised when the range meter drops by 70 miles when they drive 35 miles.

The propaganda compaing would be believing that dealers are conspiring to not give cars that people want to be. Okhams razor is that there is less demand.

Or you could think of it in business terms, dealers want to optimize profit. So they don't conspire together, but they all do the same thing anyway. One of the sources for the article is a national dealers association, which in some sense is certainly a biased source of information.

Sales incentives are set by corporate. The local dealers would have to override those.

I agree but the question is what is there less demand for? Ford's specific offerings, or EVs as a whole?

Generally speaking, EV sales continue to grow, so it would seem this is a Ford-specific issue and it's helpful to look at the reason why Ford's getting it wrong.

who needs a pick up that cant actually do pick up tasks like tow?

The trucks can tow, the owner just can't predict if they'll need to charge during the day. It does sound like the battery is too small to match the work day though, which is a design flaw.

Yeah IMO trucks were not the way to start out electrifying their fleet. They should have done something like turn the Fiesta into an electric instead of abandoning it, or brought back the Fusion as an electric.

But that would not have mattered if they kept making the same kind of mistakes. Having very unreliable range is a huge problem in any vehicle.

Their bet on hybrids with the Prius in the late 1990s-early 2000s definitely was a worthwhile one.

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