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.
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.
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.
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)