That’s a hard comparison point though when the ICE F-150 was the perfect substitute it was competing against. To me, that mostly proves that people didn’t want to go electric or pay the premium for it. The F150 design itself, does fit the bill as a truck doing what a truck needs to do.

There's also the dynamic of how many people buy pickup trucks who don't actually need full trucks. I'm not sure how much better Cybertruck would have sold if it actually performed better as one given the price (or more so if the Youtube reviewers gave it more appeal as a real truck to people who dont need one).

There's also a big market for luxury SUVs. But you could buy a nice BMW SUV for nearly half the price. So it was really just competing with some highest end SUVs.

Which is why I believe it was mostly a price issue, not that there isn't a market for such a hybrid (half SUV / pretend truck) concept.

We have a lightning specifically because we need a full sized truck. Our RAM ICE's cargo capacity was barely over 1000 lbs (BMW i3: 800 lbs). The Ford EV's capacity is 2250lbs.

Also, the RAM's transmission overheated on gentle slopes.

The slate looks great (more cargo weight capacity than our full sized RAM ICE truck; half the price, much lower fuel costs, much more convenient to own).

If their second model is 250 class, we'd probably buy it. The Lightning can only tow 10,000lbs, so it's not great at hauling rock, etc -- it can do it, but only ~2.5 tons per load when you add in the weight of the trailer. This means we have to keep paying $100's to delivery services.

It'd be nice if that hypothetical 250 slate seated 5-6 people too. That'd let it be a backup kid hauler, like the lightning is.

The slate isn’t even comparable to a 150 class. Their whole thing was filling the small duty void in the US market, so I think it’d be a long time before they put out an 250 class.

I think a lot of the F-150s failure comes down to dealers. You can read myriad stories in the EV subreddits of dealers putting "market adjustments" on the Lightning and Mach-E of tens of thousands of dollars. It was if they didn't want them to sell, and I think we all know why (lower revenue from regular maintenance like oil changes and other fluids).

I have a buddy that has worked for corporate auto companies for 20 years. In most cities, dealerships make little to no money on the initial sale as competition has driven them down to dealer pricing. They make all their money on add ons (undercoating, paint protection), financing kick backs, warranties, and ongoing maintenance (this being the largest chunk). So there's probably a lot of truth to what you are saying.

Couple that with the fact that these were sold at a $20-$30k premium over a regular ICE truck and the fact that you not only couldn't get these at MSRP, but you had to spend an extra $10k on top and.. yeah...

I think F150 was the right vehicle but the wrong price point.

I don't know, seems like there was a lot of demand for the Lightning, still not sure why Ford canned it.

If:

Fuel economy regulations had not been suspended and the electric vehicle credits hadn't expired I'll bet there would still be a Lightning.

Unlike the CyberTrash. The question (to me) is did Ford make a semi-rational short-term financial decision at the expense of its future competitiveness?

The Lightning didn't really fail. It was the best selling EV pickup in the US by a large margin.

I think it was killed for political reasons: They repurposed the plant for AI datacenter batteries. I predict we'll have EV pickup trucks again if the 2028 election looks like the 2026 election.

Anyway, my next full sized pickup will also be a pure EV. If I can't get a Ford, then I'll get something else. (The lightning is far better at truck stuff than our late model GMC and Ram trucks were. Maybe I can get a truck from China + register in Mexico? Is that a thing?)

The new Lightning has a useless serial hybrid setup and gets 700 miles of range (who needs that?). I suspect it'll end up being like other serial hybrids, and an option to omit the gas engine will be available, and also substantially lower the price (or enable a larger battery). In the meantime, they'll tell Trump that he managed to kill EV pickup trucks.

No idea why it "failed" or was discontinued. From what i remember there was a huge waitlist to get one. I know lots of people that wanted on. It looked amazing IMO. I dont think it was a demand issue that caused it to be canceled

To be fair, if the waitlist length was to be believed, they were made when the vehicle was advertised with substantially better capabilities at substantially lower costs. A lot of people cancelled reservations when the actual specs were announced.

The initial hype is easy to get caught up in. I jump on the list with Slate on day one and ultimately decided I didn’t want it. That’s after years of wanting basically exactly what they’re building. I mostly decided the range was insufficient and it was too underpowered for towing (specs were not originally announced IIRC).