The specs are wildly misleading IMO. They are all "independant" specs. 500 miles range........with no load and 1 passenger. 14k towing.......for 90miles. 0-60 in 2.6sec.........for the 3 pickup owners that give a crap about that.......It's purposefully setup to sound better than it is.
Honestly, I don't see any single spec there that makes it any better than any other 1500 class pickup. Maybe the tow rating, but IMO it's a little outlandish to tow that much with this sized vehicle anyway. A big maybe there IMO.
Because it's electric. The level of control you get with direct drive and no waiting for the revs to come up to have power is simply better than anything propelled by an engine, period.
And the price is pretty close to what a 1500 class pickup will cost in 3-4 years. I read somewhere that the current average full size pickup cost is $43k. Don't get me wrong, you will still pay a premium for a Tesla truck over a standard Silverado. But I have seen plenty of Cowboy Cadillacs around here that are into $70k.
A fair point. We have years of empirical data to lean on in this case with ICE and associated powertrains, not so much with electric. The bigger issue is that J.Q. Public doesn't understand energy. Nobody is talking about Joules per mile, which would level the playing field significantly. We're all tied to this larger "miles per gallon" idea. The EV's use far less energy per mile, but don't carry even a small fraction of energy onboard with them. So the EV manufacturers started listing "range", and everyone is confused on how the two compare. Truth be told, my truck probably only has a 300mile range while towing my 4,000lb boat, maybe even less. If ANY of the electric trucks hit that, it'll be a wash, and I'll have nothing to complain about. We just have nothing but words on a website at this point, and some largely annectdotal evidence from existing EV owners.
We need a better way to communicate efficiency of the power train, and energy capacity of the storage system.
It took people a long time to build "common knowledge" about gas/diesel vehicles. Everyone knows (well, they should know) that you have to do things like check the various fluids, put gas in it, etc. It was included in the info that your parents passed down to you about "how to live". In another generation, it will be the same with EVs. Except instead of "check the oil", it'll be "make sure you account for 20% range loss when it's 20F outside."
As for a way to communicate, that's what MPGe and the EPA range numbers are trying to show. It at least gives you a way to compare different models to figure out which is best for you.
And there's always confusion at the beginning of a big change. Heck, the recent few years of smaller turbo-charged motors have caused such fretting and gnashing of teeth. Endless questions on forums about whether they should get the ecoboost, V8, diesel, etc. It will take time but this will be another thing people will learn and adjust to. Some will jump in early, some in the middle, and some will not at all. Luckily we have a huge amount of choice in our vehicle market here.
I am REALLY surprised that the launch/reveal didn’t have more cool displays. Nothing about all the cool the truck has, cool compartments, more about the rolling cover, frunk cooler, electric attachments. I mean the list goes on and on with the cool things they could have boasted about but the reveal just ended abruptly it seemed like. They revealed the truck, but I think they came up way short on selling it. It’s almost as Tesla is letting social media do the heavy lifting for them.
Again, I can’t tell you how bad I wanted this truck but I’m just not there with the design. Oddly everyday it wears on me a little more though.
I know there’s so much more to this truck then what they showed us Thursday. I can’t wait to see one in person.
Wonder if Ford will take any bold design steps like Tesla did for their EV truck. I’m sure nothing like what Tesla did but it would be pretty boring if they just slapped a battery pack under a F150
I think there was more to the reveal, but after the window incident Elon wrapped it as fast as he could and bailed.
The design is actually growing on me as I think about how I will use the truck. It's a function over form thing that is moving in the right direction for me.
Based on the reaction here and elsewhere to the CT, Ford would sell plenty of F-150's with a battery pack slapped underneath. The more the merrier I say.
I started this thread and own a model x yet I’m still skeptical. How are they going to build this thing for 39,900. The $100 deposit is unheard of for them and that has to be for a reason. I would bet less than half that put the original $100 deposit down ever buy one of these but I’m still curious why Tesla did that as they have never done anything close to that before. For 39,900 I would buy one over a model 3 it has longer range seats more and hauls more so why only due 1/10th the deposit you required on the model 3 two years before it’s release.
As someone who gave Tesla thousands of dollars, years before Model S and Model 3, I think this was a wise move. I went into the reveal not going to put down a multi-thousand dollar deposit, no matter what the truck looked like. But at the end and the reservation form popped up w/ only $100, I said, what the heck, and reserved one.
I think they are acknowledging that this thing is over 3 years away from production. If they asked for huge sums, people would get cranky as the time dragged on. It also helps them bump up the reservation numbers that they report to Wall Street.
As for the pricing, they are betting on batteries becoming much cheaper in the next 3 years. Also, it should be pretty simple to manufacture. No paint, a few flat sheets of stainless steel with a couple bends in each one, etc.
We shall see!
