Comment by xoa | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xoa | Hacker News Reader

I've been in the market for an electric truck for a solid 5 years now to replace my aging Nissan Frontier. There has yet to be anything attractive at all that has made it into production at any price I've been able to find. Everything seems to be a gas truck with some electric stuff shoehorned in not taking advantage of the new design opportunities at all, and generally with a little 4' bed instead of 6.5 or 8 that I need. So far the best design I've seen was from the startup Canoo [0, 1], but as is unsurprisingly typically the case with a car startup (a really high capex challenging area) they have since gone bankrupt. The Cybertruck at announcement looked sorta promising, with a decent sized bed (6.5 at the time), decent top range (500 miles), and cab moved forward for better visibility with no engine in the way. And in principle there are some really good fully offline "cyber" sorts of features that an ambitious company could do, like making liberal use of modern screens to enable "look through your hood" and better all around awareness, built-in FLIR for enhanced animal detection at night, etc. A self-parking feature that was really solid would be good too, zero general public road self-driving needed for that to be handy. But of course the Cybertruck ended up downgrading in every respect, having mediocre build quality, being heavily delayed, full of Tesla spyware and stupid shit, and in general being made by a vehicle & power company that oddly doesn't actually seem interested in vehicles or power anymore.

It's frustrating seeing all the potential and then having to wait and wait for somebody to finally execute. Same as with PDAs/smartphones until Apple finally shook things up or countless other examples throughout tech history. Maybe it'll be China who actually does it this time around, and a small silver lining might be that could also go along with some actual anti-feudalism and pro-privacy laws in the US if we're very lucky :\.

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0: https://www.greencars.com/expert-insights/all-electric-all-a...

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzjqfQdj3sM

Why do you need a truck? Serious question, in europe professionals have a van, like the Ford e-transit, and if you just need to haul some stuff from your summerhouse sometimes you hitch a trailer to your car. Why do you need a truck? Couldn’t you buy an electric van instead?

> Couldn’t you buy an electric van instead

Not sold (really) in the US. There's the VW electric van but that's more of a gimmick than anything else.

In the US, there's also just a pretty big infrastructure around tooling trucks for professional work. Not that that doesn't exist for vans in the US, it's just somewhat more common to see trucks having full toolsets on the side for quick access with a decent sized bed. The F350 is a major workhorse for that sort of thing.

>> "VW electric van but that's more of a gimmick than anything else."

Really? ... I'm seeing them adopted more widely in Europe now by businesses. Perhaps as second hand or lease prices are coming down. Maybe that doesn't translate to the US ...

Quite nostalgic seeing them run around Central London with business signs on their side... much like the originals. My point: not a gimmick in my experience.

They don't sell the Cargo version in North America, and the price is a good chunk more expensive than, say, a Ford Transit or similar cargo van.

Ford themselves has the eTransit, and I guess it is mildly popular in a certain segment.

I live in rural northern New England, and as well on-road I have plenty of either off road or unmaintained road usage year round, and a number of loads in those conditions that exceed the width of the vehicle (so wouldn't be public road legal). Also equipment and loads that exceed the height of the vehicle (which is road legal if properly secured). In principle a van with sufficient towing capacity and off road capability could use a trailer of some kind for those roles, I have nothing against vans per se, but since I don't need extra "interior space" the bonuses of vans don't help much vs the reduced flexibility and extra complications. I do keep my eye on them too because the line between "truck" and "van" can be fuzzy and if something sorta convertible or with some innovative ways to straddle the sufficient for my purposes came along I'd certainly consider it, but it hasn't been the case yet and the truck form factor is just really handy for making do with a surprise need on the spot far from anything with sufficient straps and bungie cords, without needing any other equipment.

It'd be nice if it could be a reasonable price too and not include a lot of the bling, though I'm perfectly aware a huge percentage of the truck buying audience cares about that a great deal vs having their truck all beat up and just wanting it to go forwards/backwards/left/right on demand reliably with a bunch of random stuff every day. But it'd be good to see anything at all that tried to work with the advantages of electric vs the limitations and both give a good truck experience and improve the experience for others that share the land, like with greatly enhanced visibility and better shapes that enhance safety for pedestrians. Don't need a ginormous engine to have very good torque with electric. I'm hopeful somebody will get there eventually but I guess the path has proven more winding then I'd once thought it'd be, I'd expected the iteration to be going pretty hard and fast by now (in America/EU I mean, it does seem to be moving real quick now in China).

Anyway, hope that gives some answer to your question. Just one solitary data point, I don't mean to do any extrapolation from this to the wider market, but I do actually use my truck pretty hard for truck things. We have compact efficient cars as well though for long distance travel and the like, my truck at least will spend 99% of its time within a 150 mile radius for work or any other use.

On the flip side, as a van owner (though not a professional "working van") ...

1. you don't need straps and bungees for the van - ours can take pipework, framing lumber and other "long" stuff up to 16', straight on the floor, fully interior.

2. you don't need the gate down - it handles 4x8' sheet goods with all the doors closed, either vertical or horizontal

3. security concerns are much better

4. weather concerns are much better

5. for some folks, you can have highly effective work space inside the van (granted, I've seen some loose equivalents on custom work trucks)

6. mileage is generally significantly better

From my POV, the two wins of the truck form factor are (a) easy of loading/unloading bulk material (e.g. the van is 100% useless for gravel) (b) tall loads. That said, I don't think I've ever need to move anything that was too tall for our Sprinter - worst comes to worst, it gets laid down.

I rented a van to move a bed frame and I needed straps.

Not a big deal, but things still slide around in a van.

That's not a "flip side" just different uses. I said wide as well as tall, not just long. Truck is also useful for loose loads, including that I can put stuff (sand/gravel/soil) directly into the bed from my tractor bucket as well. And the form factor does feel better sometimes too imo. Like, just 3 days ago I moved around 1100 lbs of concrete mix for a small job, and even though I could have fit them into a van in principle for loading/unloading and cleaning of all the nasty dust it's nice just to have a truck bed. Security is whatever here, and I don't think weather is actually much of an impact either since you can easily add a basic cover if you want (and then have it out of the way when unneeded). They're useful and at least in the past could be had pretty utilitarian and cheap. Small little things too, like just plain less volume for environmental control in a no-cab or half-cab vs a full or van, always seemed a little easier/faster to heat up or cool down. But this is all really personal, and as they've turned more and more into show vehicles the value has gotten worse for sure.

People buy them _because_ they are ginormous and hostile. It's part of the marketing. Ford could make a pedestrian safe work vehicle but they won't because selfish people love these. Especially when it becomes an arms race when half the population drive them. Oversized vehicles need to be taxed more and regulated properly.

> Why do you need a truck?

To haul dirt. To haul junk out to the dump. Etc.

Do people load their Transits with piles of dirt and mulch? I doubt it.

I live in the US and have a small house in the city, and I haul stuff like this all the time.

Yes, you can rent a pickup truck as needed from U-Haul, but that gets old real quick.

Yes, I would love it if there was a nice small or mid-sized truck with an extended bed available, because most trucks are overkill for my use case.

But this idea that no normal person needs a pickup truck a dozen times a year is just weird.

The Tacoma has an extended bed version that is on the smaller end of pickups.

> Do people load their Transits with piles of dirt and mulch? I doubt it.

I am from the UK but live in Canada. I only see three types of businesses using those Transit style vans here in North America: food delivery, parcel delivery and landscaping businesses. I assume the landscapers are carrying dirt at least some of the time.

I see carpenters and electricians who trick them out with a little workshop, but that's really it. Landscapers it makes sense because you're hauling equipment and storing it in the van, so you can probably both store more and protect from the elements

Point of order: dirt goes in your dump trailer, hauled of course by your truck.

How far are you going to haul that dirt?

Trucks think only trucks can tow.

I tow a 24 foot boat with an Audi Q7. Reasonably frequently, truck guys say something like "You tow that, with THAT?"

Uh, yeah. 7700 pound tow capacity (nearly as much as a base F150). Tows really well.

Landscapers have trucks here too, but they look like this https://iveco.dk/shopping-varktojer/kampagner/MY24-IVECO-Dai...

For personal use, like you mention, people use a small trailer. You own one or borrow it freely from many places, hitch it to your car, haul dirt, and then detach it. No need to drive a truck everywhere because you need to haul some stuff once a month.

> But this idea that no normal person needs a pickup truck a dozen times a year is just weird.

Yet the US is the only country where office workers own trucks. The only real use of a F150 style truck is offroad hauling, which is not something most people have to regularly do.

You borrow it freely in places where you don’t need it. In rural areas they aren’t available. And getting a trailer and towing it is t as convenient as just driving a truck.

Sure, trucks make sense on farms and elsewhere with bad roads. The issue in the US is that people use them in the city.

Let’s not oversimplify. For example, waste transfer station in my city forbids use of trailers of any kind.

The split for the rest of the world is: Transit-like van for almost everything in places with real roads, Hilux-sized truck in places without roads and contractors who mostly carry dirt, gravel etc. Only the US and Canada use F150-sized trucks.

I have heard great things about the Rivian trucks. They seem to have rabidly loyal customers, like the Teslas.

For $70-100K, I'd hope so.

From what I understand, many of these jacked-up compensator trucks cost a similar amount.

I remember when pickups were considerably cheaper than cars, but no more.

>I have heard great things about the Rivian trucks. They seem to have rabidly loyal customers, like the Teslas

Dead last...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/cars/research/2025/10/24/cons...

And have you seen the stories about fender benders?

https://www.thedrive.com/news/rivian-r1t-fender-bender-turns...

https://axleaddict.com/news/a-small-rivian-r1t-dent-just-cos...

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/7-months-later-an...

https://insideevs.com/features/669752/rich-rebuilds-rivian-r...

From your first fender-bender link: “So a $42,000 rear bumper replacement seems exorbitant, but Apfelstadt says he’s happy with his truck.”

Your linked article does say Rivian ranked first in satisfaction, which does support the GP’s “rabidly loyal.”

Nice catch thx!

The bed is only 4.5' long. The 5.5' short bed available on an F150 Lightning is too short for me, the ICE F150 with a 6.5' bed at least lets you have flat sheet goods with the tail gate down.

Yeah, there's really no reason why something like the Isuzu Elf couldn't be electrified for cheap.

Car manufacturers wanting to make EVs premium products is what I think hurts them the most. That along with tariffs keeping the price of Chinese batteries much higher then they should be.

Given what you need, you should look at a Telo.

https://www.telotrucks.com/

Not launched yet though.

All of these are "not launched yet."

I thought the Slate looked interesting. Then the price started creeping up.

I'll just buy a Ford Ranger or Maverick instead.

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