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this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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I have. A lot of pickup trucks, for example, are built out of F450s. Old F450s.
The F-150 line is almost entirely vanity vehicles, though, and I have never seen a Lightning on the road but am sure I do not exclude it from my judgment.
The Lightnings actually have a reasonable use case as short range delivery fleet trucks. They're not going to go very far but they will move materials across town super cheaply and relatively eco-friendly - provided you have the startup capital to buy a fleet of Lightnings and the charger hookups.
I would not buy one as a consumer daily driver though.
You could buy a delivery van for considerably less money and it is significantly more practical.
They are REALLY big and heavy for a short-range delivery vehicle.
Very much hoping someone like Pickman or AYRO is successful enough to eat up that entire market at a third the price.
The transits are a much better platform/form factor for that use case, and probably would have been easier to modify into an EV.
The current iteration has too many compromises as a “consumer” vehicle while still pandering to the idea of being a working truck. A “man’s truck”, if you will. Let’s be honest here, they’re not advertising it to companies. They’re advertising it to men- the kind of men that need to remind the world that they’re men. kind of like how they used to pitch SUVs, at least until suvs became the go-to family car,
They're already doing an electric Transit in Europe. For most work related use cases it's an altogether better vehicle.
The Euro Transit vans are impressive. I had a guy come out to fix a flat tire on my rental car in Scotland. He made it down a singletrack dirt driveway to where I had parked and basically had an entire tire shop in his van. Ended up replacing the tire rather than patching it and it was still NBD.
I penciled out a business plan to use the lightning to run pallets and recyclable materials from several businesses to a nearby recycler, as a side gig. If the truck weren't so dang expensive it would work. I could even run a small commercial cardboard baler off the truck.
even the gas versions, the Dodge ProMaster, Ford Transits and Nissan NV's outperform. their fuel efficient, they have lower-to-the-ground beds allowing less lifting to get stuff in the bed size is larger- and lockable. and they cost less than their pick up counter parts
hell, I know a guy that delver's pallets of printed...things... in a prius, and would sniff at a pickup.
The thing that would make it work for me is free charging at work, which would also be one of the customers whose junk I'd be disposing. $0 fuel costs.
But the cost of the truck is just too much
If you could get through a day without needing to use a fast charger, it might still work. Overnight charging on a slow level 2 is cheap. Needing to do a 20 minute top-up at a fast charger gets expensive in a hurry.
Yeah it's got a 300+ mile range, which is more than enough for me, even hauling. I don't commute super long distances.
They are good for towing a boat or fifth wheel.
Fifth wheel trailer hauling is the only use case that makes a big truck worthwhile, imo. The toy he weight on the hitch is…. Not that impressive and usually the limiting factor. Keep in mind I’m not talking about recreational/consumer usage- talking about actual work-usage (ie a contractor, or plumber or something)