> It's a shame the Lightning got discontinued.
> As an EV owner, it sucks that the main thing holding the technology back is misconceptions and misunderstanding, rather than actual practical matters.
The F150 Lighting (and the Cybertruck) are failing precisely because it was impractical. It was expensive, has limited range when doing actual "pickup truck" work, like hauling tons of construction materials. It was built for the very niche market of buyers at the intersection of luxury pickups and EVs.
People who buy huge luxury pickups tend not to want EVs, and people who buy EVs tend not to want huge luxury pickup trucks.
A practical work truck needs to be smaller, less luxurious, and less expensive, electric or not. If Ford follows through and releases a plugin-hybrid Maverick with 150ish miles of EV range plus the onboard generator, that would be ideal.
A pure EV drivetrain on the other hand is incredibly practical for daily commuter and even long distance travel - assuming you have home charging - but not for hauling tons of stuff long distances.
The lighting is fine for towing, especially the type that people usually do. You can tow up to 10,000lbs and the truck has ridiculous power to pull it.
What you can't do it tow it long distances (>90mi, worst case) without 40 minute stops every 1.5 hours. That sucks.
But the truth is very few truck owners are towing huge loads long distances.
However, if you are pulling your lawn care trailer around town, you will not have a problem, because every day you start with a full charge.
As an aside, the main killer of range for a trailer is a function of speed and drag. Low drag trailers driven at highway speeds (60-65) have marginal impacts on range, regardless of weight.
Again, the whole thing is ridden with misconceptions and misunderstandings. The majority of people who tow stuff, can still tow stuff while reaping cheaper operating costs.
> But the truth is very few truck owners are towing huge loads long distances.
This pattern also applies more broadly. Most people don't actually need to drive 400 miles without stopping, don't actually need an SUV, and in some cases don't actually need a truck. For a huge swath of the population some variation on a hybrid/electric hatchback/wagon or minivan is actually the best match for their needs, but practicality is rarely the prevailing factor in vehicle purchase decisions.
The reason I'm holding out for a 400 mile range vehicle is many fold.
1: Sometimes I actually do drive 400 miles in a single sitting, and I want to be able to keep doing that.
2: The last 10% of charge seems to take the longest. If I can safely fast charge in 20 minutes from 30 to 300 miles range, then I would have no range anxiety even when I'm on a long road trip.
3: I know the tech is coming, and I can wait until it gets here. I don't have an "only" option when it comes to vehicles.
The word "can" in your sentence is making some bold assumptions about my vehicle budget. The R1T Dual with Max battery (the combo that gets an estimated 400+ mile range) is $95,000.
That would be about a $1,300/month loan for 6 years.
I would either need to add $30,000 annual pre-tax to my income or to pay off every debt other than my house to even begin to consider that as an option, and there are so many other things I could spend $1,300/month on.
I will keep an eye on the used market though. I'm sure some deals will come up eventually.
oh sure yeah, they're expensive (although used are getting cheaper!). I didn't read "holding out for a 400m range" as "holding out for a 400m range less than $X". But yes, all the long range EVs, rivian, lucid, are expensive today. I think it will take another year or two for more affordable long range options to come out in the rest of the world, and some unknown years after that for them to hit the US due to protectionism and tariffs.
All that said, the average new car price in the US topped $50k in 2025, which is pretty wild in of itself. These expensive EVs are actually cheaper than some of the optioned up trucks that sell in huge numbers. It all seems crazy over-extended debt to me but, is what it is.
I wouldn't mind so much if all I had to worry about was making car payments, but having an entire life to support and car payments puts some brakes on my purchasing power.
I could swing $600/m if I needed to, but $1,300/m is a cheap mortgage or rent, not a car payment imho.
> However, if you are pulling your lawn care trailer around town, you will not have a problem,
I live in a high CoL area, but I still can't imagine a lawn care business affording an $80k truck. Most of them seem to drive used Tacomas and Mavericks.
> The majority of people who tow stuff, can still tow stuff while reaping cheaper operating costs.
People who are paying $80 to $90k for a luxury pickup truck aren't particularly worried about operating costs.
With perhaps the exception of a few climate-change believers who happen to also run construction companies or farms/ranches (they do exist!), what F150/Cybertruck owners are worried about is signaling to others that they paid $80 to $90k for a luxury pickup truck.
To this day, I've seen 1 Lightning loaded with construction gear.
I've never seen a Cybertruck doing heavy work - they are usually rolling squeaky clean around ritzy parts of town, or getting stuck in snowdrifts in the mountains.
The EVs I see doing work: Ford Electric transit vans.
I don't think that market is a niche at all. From what I can tell, most pickup owners don't use them as a pickup. They use them as a more masculine pavement SUV. So, you'd think, the F150 L and Cyber truck would be perfect.
If you just use it as a pick up a few times a year, it could be worth it. I have furniture that I want to get rid of, and if I had a pick up I would have done it already.
This is Seattle, anything that involves people is expensive. Also You’ll see furniture left on the corner and it will just stay there forever, it’s not like Austin where all the junk is combed though ever morning.
In Seattle, it costs $30 per large furniture item to make it go away using official methods. How much do you have? (And how does that compare to the price of buying and keeping a pickup truck?)
Ya, thats actually quite reasonable. And no, I'm not thinking about buying and keeping a pickup, just because I have nowhere to park it :). But maybe one of those kei trucks that are so popular recently might be worth it, if I can just get used to the steering wheel being on the left.
There's a couple of Honda (I think?) Kei trucks around me. 4WD, low bed, fold-down rails. I don't know about taking them on the highway with a load of furniture, but they're the most versatile-looking 'round-town vehicle I've ever seen.
I really wish we could have something like that, that's less than 25 years old.
Lots of people do exactly that. You can load it all the way past GVWR and it has little effect on the range. It's towing that hurts. Many people use these for business with great success.
> The niche market that does exist wants a Rivian.
Ford's sales for the Lightning were outpacing Rivian, too.
> For EV trucks priced and appointed for everyone else, I'm looking forward to what Slate and Telos make.
I do hear that fairly often. It reminds me a lot of the brown diesel wagon phenomenon. Lots of online interest, very little follow through. I guess time will tell.
I think both Slate and Telos will be failures. They will be too expensive to make economic sense for people, as opposed to businesses, to buy over a more conventional full-size half ton pickup.
In some ways the massive online interest is proof, because most people outside of pickup truck forums who would talk it up have neither experience nor use for pickups. They are simply never going to buy any pickup truck-shaped vehicle and so are irrelevant to commercial success.
> A pure EV drivetrain on the other hand is incredibly practical for daily commuter and even long distance travel - assuming you have home charging - but not for hauling tons of stuff long distances.
You know that electric trains are very practical, not ?
Also, what about these EV trucks and EV vans ?
The F150 Lighting (and the Cybertruck) are failing precisely because it was impractical. It was expensive, has limited range when doing actual "pickup truck" work, like hauling tons of construction materials. It was built for the very niche market of buyers at the intersection of luxury pickups and EVs.
People who buy huge luxury pickups tend not to want EVs, and people who buy EVs tend not to want huge luxury pickup trucks.
A practical work truck needs to be smaller, less luxurious, and less expensive, electric or not. If Ford follows through and releases a plugin-hybrid Maverick with 150ish miles of EV range plus the onboard generator, that would be ideal.
A pure EV drivetrain on the other hand is incredibly practical for daily commuter and even long distance travel - assuming you have home charging - but not for hauling tons of stuff long distances.