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points by conductr 1 day ago | 0 comments
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.

I also bought a new Chevy truck recently for less than $40k USD, mid tier trim. Other trucks can be very affordable. The trim and budget options are quite wide. Tesla was never going to get to that as it requires volume.

[–] dmix 1 day ago
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 higher 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.

[–] hedora 1 day ago
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 lightning has more bells and whistles, but the aesthetics of the slate are much better, and I like the idea of just buying an aftermarket radio that does not integrate in with the power train.

Of course, if we didn't need a truck, we'd get a Rivian R1S/T. They're great for camping, etc, and what most people want when they buy a pickup truck as a family car.

[–] conductr 1 day ago
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.