“There are a lot more people out here living in abject poverty than what people like to think or admit to. You voted for this—and now we’re paying the price.”
Employees learned of the cuts on Monday in a video message from Michael Adams, CEO of BlueOval SK.
Adams announced the transition would mean “the end of all BlueOval SK positions in Kentucky.”
I think they overestimated their market. I think the Lightning was the perfect truck to spearhead the EV transition. It looks, drives, and feels like a normal (yet powerful) truck. Being the highest volume seller, electrifying the F150 made sense on paper.
But that’s where it really stops.
The kind of person that buys a 4x4 F150, is not the same demographic that wants to be seen in an EV. As childish as the mentality sounds, that’s the demographic.
Where they sell 70,000 F-series (150 through 550 I think super duty’s included until dump beds), they only sold ~1,500-2,000 lightnings a month. Which honestly isn’t that bad for such a niche product.
I think the move to give it a plug in hybrid style powertrain will help sales as our travel charging infrastructure is still garbage. But try and tell people that they can just charge at home with an L2 and they freak out. It’s also frustrating that most people who are against EV’s just don’t understand technology in general.
In contrast, Ford sells about 15,000 mavericks a month. More when it was newer, same with the Lightning.
I do agree with your points and that Ford isn’t happy, and they could have handled the whole situation a little better.
Why is it that electric cars have to be weird, ridiculously high performance, or both?
I don’t want strange controls, I don’t want virtual door handles, I don’t want a cab full of computer screens, I don’t want bizarre styling, and I honestly don’t want a 250mph 0-60 in 0.2 seconds hypercar. Give me a car that looks and acts normally but has an electric powertrain so that I can plug it in at home rather than having to go to a gas station all the time.
I agree. Finding a car that is front wheel drive and not 1000 hp is ridiculous.
I think it’s less about aversion to EVs and more about aversion to the $100,000 price tag.
If that thing is $50k, I think sales at least stay even, if not pick up.
Someone mentioned somewhere that the original creators of Tesla aimed for the high end market because there kind of wasn’t an industry around making EVs, so there wasn’t a way to do economy of scale with them, so an electric car was GOING to be a luxury item. It seems like nobody has tried to change that.
That’s the thing, most of these trucks were ~$50,000. But people see the ~220 mile range on the base truck and overdid it on range anxiety and blew the problem way out of proportion.
I also think that PHEVs are great for all the rurals. Especially if they keep the ICE fairly powerful. Just tell people "for your grocery run to town you don’t need any fuel, but to get to the next town over you can just hoon the ecoboost. Or fuck it, build a V8 diesel PHEV. Nothing stopping them from doing it, it’s not like F series buyers care about excess weight lmao
This is where manufacturers should have started years ago.
It’s annoying as ford has repeatedly stated they won’t being the plug in hybrid ranger that gets 30 miles on a charge to the US because it will cannibalize sales from the maverick and f150 lightning….
Remember when marketing departments existed and it just drones pushing noise into the social media streams?
There was a time when company’s would sell people on ideas to create the demand.
They should have a fully electric Maverick.
I think it’s in the pipeline, and we can only hope. And if ford doesn’t do it, hopefully the Slate Truck gains traction.