Comment by rapjr9 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rapjr9 | Hacker News Reader

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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.

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.

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.

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