Recent content by WXman

I don't think they have a choice. Ford and Ram leadership have both stated that COST of vehicles is their main priority over the next 3 years. They want more affordable options on the table. I don't see how a start-up like Scout can come in at the high end of the pricing spectrum and expect...

Well, first of all these batteries don't degrade that fast. F-150 Lightning owners at 4 years and 150,000 miles have reported battery health above 90%. Secondly the entire purpose of the onboard engine is to keep the battery pack charged. So you won't be charging the truck manually often at...

Yeah no radio, no power windows, nothing. They thought about not even putting A/C in it. Does it have power steering? It does at least have disc brakes. 1,000 lbs. of towing means you can't even pull a 5x8 utility trailer with a lawn mower on it. When Jay Leno got in and closed the driver's...

They lost me at "two wheel drive". A two wheel drive truck is as useless as tits on a bullfrog. I wouldn't even try to launch a small boat with a two wheel drive truck.

Yeah, for decades we've had heavy, high torque HD pickups and those get 60k to 80k miles on a set of tires. So these EV trucks have no excuse. And yes on the depreciation. It's nuts. My Lightning had a $72k sticker and 4 months after I drove it home they're telling me market value is $45k...

It's unreal how oblivious the top brass at car companies are. The guy didn't know that U.S. buyers prefer gasoline? Is he serious? If they had a third option: full ICE, you would see 90% of orders for THAT version, 8% EREV, and 2% EV.

Apparently you've never needed a truck to tow a trailer more than 200 miles, and you've never had to find a charge station that is laid out in a way that you can get the truck with trailer close enough for the cord to reach without pissing off the rest of the general public. And you've never...

I think I made it explicity clear from the beginning that COST is what I am talking about. COST is what people care about. Nobody gives a rip how "efficient" a truck is. What everybody wants to know is "how much is this going to COST me?" Cost cost cost.

.....and if it were more efficient it wouldn't need as much electricity, so it's not a separate issue at all.

Well, at 202,000 miles my 2020 Grand Cherokee had seen ONE repair, a water pump. So the tow truck drivers are going to starve to death if they're waiting on a call from a Jeep owner. I've had dozens of Jeeps, driving a new one right now, and little to zero issues with them. Can't say that for...

Maybe that'll be the way to go. Some states have laws against direct-to-consumer sales I guess, because CA and CO have filed lawsuits already from what I read in Automotive News.

I don't follow what you're saying. COST is ultimately what matters to people. What I ended up doing is I made a simple Excel spreadsheet to compare mi/kWh to MPG solely in terms of cost. I also divided it up by charging at home vs. charging on the road. Charging on the road is a more fair...

Yet, when I tow my 26' enclosed trailer with a gasoline truck I get 10 MPG. And when I tow the same trailer with the Lightning I get 0.6 mi/kWh which at current energy prices is equivalent to around 3.5 MPG. So, charge speed is half of the problem. Efficiency is the other half. True. When...

Exactly. They committed to building junk engines for the Tundra that are still being recalled, and junk transmissions for the Tacoma that are failing left and right, but at least they did avoid the EV drama.

What is interesting is that roughly two weeks prior to yesterday’s announcement, I got a survey about the F-150 Lightning that I assume most owners also received and it came from a third party who was clearly contracted by Ford to gather data on owners’ opinions of the truck. The survey asked...