Ford F-150 Lightning Reaches Its First Customers

Re:Ford F-150 Lightning Reaches Its First Customers by alistairSH on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @11:39AM (#31570802)

The Supercharger network is a selling point as well. Much of the US is well covered. The chargers seem more robust than competitor's set-ups (which are often broken when you arrive).

Trying to charge a non-Tesla during a trip can be a bit of a crap-shoot. Will the station be available? Will it be functional? Do I need to create yet another new account on yet another new app to access it?

This won't last. But until the competition makes their charging network better, it's a selling point for many buyers.

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Re:Ford F-150 Lightning Reaches Its First Customers by mbesto on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @11:51AM (#31570976)

> The Supercharger network is a selling point as well. Much of the US is well covered.

How many truck buyers are realistically driving their trucks cross country? The ideal truck EV owner is the ranch owners in Texas who drives to the local TSC, grabs his stuff and then is doing work somewhere on the 10 acres ranch. If it meant never driving to the gas station that's a huge time saver. F-150 is a great fit for that.

The people I know interested in the Tesla cybertruck are tech bros who have enough disposable income that buying a cybertruck is basically a solution in search of a problem. They'll end up using it to tow their boat or go camping.

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Re:Ford F-150 Lightning Reaches Its First Customers by alistairSH on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @02:25PM (#31573014)

The same number of buyers that take their ICE trucks cross country? Most truck owners don't need trucks, or need a truck very infrequently, but buy one anyways.

I'd consider a Lightning if my Honda Ridgeline wasn't only a year old. Except I'm not sure it has enough range to actually get me from DC to Canaan Valley and back without a long detour to charge on the way home. Using ABRP, it has 90 minutes of charging and another 30-45 minutes of extra driving to get to a charger. This is over what should be a 6 hour drive (3 each way), so pretty ridiculous.

Compared to a Tesla Model X (standard range), which needs 45 minutes of charging, but no extra distance because there's a Supercharger on the way (using Tesla's maps). The 45 minutes charging is still pretty silly, given an ICE can do the round trip on a single tank, but that's way better than the non-Tesla option.

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