FORD releases F-150 LIGHTNING mini-Me “Maverick”

John K

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Ford will be able to add this body to an electric power train in the near future. Yes some design is needed.
Sponsored

 

Ehninger1212

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81 is the last year of Gen X. 82 is the first year of Millennials.

People are always trying to trim more years out of Gen X, I swear!

-Crissa
That and people who often make fun of Millennials are in fact Millennials. I am a Millennial.
 


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rr6013

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I dunno, I'm not a rocket scientist like my buddy Elon, but as long as you're putting an electric motor in there, why not do away with the ICE and the transmission? It just seems hybrids are for companies who haven't quite figured out the BEV concept.
You live in a 1st world developed nation. You bring a 1st world perspective.

The rest of the 3rd world averages ~$12/da income. Electricity is unstable at best. I am currently in the developed nation of Panama and the grid goes down almost daily. Its a USD economy country and there are no Teslas. The infrastructure Internationally will depend on petrol. Diesel to be exact.

THUS Hybrid has the strongest proposition over BEV. Diesel will be important as refined gasoline is too expensive. Even in the USA BEV adoption is only 2%.

Its a long road to get off the oil addiction bind.
 

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You live in a 1st world developed nation. You bring a 1st world perspective.

The rest of the 3rd world averages ~$12/da income. Electricity is unstable at best. I am currently in the developed nation of Panama and the grid goes down almost daily. Its a USD economy country and there are no Teslas. The infrastructure Internationally will depend on petrol. Diesel to be exact.

THUS Hybrid has the strongest proposition over BEV. Diesel will be important as refined gasoline is too expensive. Even in the USA BEV adoption is only 2%.

Its a long road to get off the oil addiction bind.

Adoption in U.S. is only now 2% because ICE auto companies & fossil fuel companies has been suppressing the market for over 30 years. In 1999 with NiMH battery tech and 80mi range BEVs the U.S. adoption could have been 10%. It was not consumer demand that was the problem. The problem was lies & deceit of GM, other auto companies, and fossil fuel industry.

The reason everybody in U.S. is driving huge trucks & SUVs is because auto companies propagandize their use. For years there were less strict crash safety standards, less strict fuel economy standards, & less strict pollution controls for trucks & SUV which means more profit per vehicle for the ICE auto companies. Profit not what is best for society is what auto companies do. They do not care if we are choking in smog & millions are dying or disabled.

Unless your country has oil fields & refinery, solar (home/business rooftop solar & large grid solar) will be cheaper and your country will bleed less money to the foreign fossil fuel vultures. Keep more of your money in your local economy. Your government & people will be in more control of your future.

LiFePO4 batteries, solar & PHEVs (plug-in hybrid) / full 100% BEVs.
 
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Sirfun

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I dunno, I'm not a rocket scientist like my buddy Elon, but as long as you're putting an electric motor in there, why not do away with the ICE and the transmission? It just seems hybrids are for companies who haven't quite figured out the BEV concept.
I bought a PHEV Chrysler Pacifica in Nov. and have some answers to that question.
It is a way to ease people/my wife into EV ownership. She now sees how easy it is to plug in the car and unplug it just like a cellphone, to keep it charged. Getting an understanding of the benefit of having the car on and listening to music, running the AC without a V6 gas powered engine running. She's actually starting to enjoy how quiet it is. With the weight of the batteries down low this Pacific corners better than our Sienna did.
Also, there is no range anxiety at all. When the first 30 miles of EV driving ends, it seamlessly starts working as a hybrid, regenerating energy on downhills and braking and using that energy to supplement with electric motors at times to increase fuel mileage. In addition to range anxiety, there is the anxiety of having to stop and charge up for extended periods of time on road trips. With this Pacifica, we can drive 500 miles between fill ups and averaging about 30 MPG in a minivan. We can plug in at an AirBnB if we want overnight, or just drive as a hybrid for the whole trip.
Also, with this vehicle being a PHEV the brakes are mostly regen and the ICE engine doesn't get used that much and requires less maintenance per miles driven. Since Nov. our gas powered miles are about 1/4 of all miles driven. This will change dramatically if we take it on some road trips, but so far that's been our M.O.
Additionally with the Pacifica being a PHEV it qualified for the fed. $7500 credit (which I didn't get to use all of unfortunately) but also other credits too.
Don't get me wrong, I am really excited about getting a Cybertruck and having the simplicity of EV only. But, even after we get the CT, it will be hard to convince my wife to take it on long road trips and have to stop at superchargers along the way. (we're going off-roading dear) may get used.
 
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I bought a PHEV Chrysler Pacifica in Nov. and have some answers to that question.
It is a way to ease people/my wife into EV ownership. She now sees how easy it is to plug in the car and unplug it just like a cellphone, to keep it charged. Getting an understanding of the benefit of having the car on and listening to music, running the AC without a V6 gas powered engine running. She's actually starting to enjoy how quiet it is. With the weight of the batteries down low this Pacific corners better than our Sienna did.
Also, there is no range anxiety at all. When the first 30 miles of EV driving ends, it seamlessly starts working as a hybrid, regenerating energy on downhills and braking and using that energy to supplement with electric motors at times to increase fuel mileage. In addition to range anxiety, there is the anxiety of having to stop and charge up for extended periods of time on road trips. With this Pacifica, we can drive 500 miles between fill ups and averaging about 30 MPG in a minivan. We can plug in at an AirBnB if we want overnight, or just drive as a hybrid for the whole trip.
Also, with this vehicle being a PHEV the brakes are mostly regen and the ICE engine doesn't get used that much and requires less maintenance per miles driven. Since Nov. our gas powered miles are about 1/4 of all miles driven. This will change dramatically if we take it on some road trips, but so far that's been our M.O.
Don't get me wrong, I am really excited about getting a Cyber
truck and having the simplicity of EV only. But, even after we get the CT, it will be hard to convince my wife to take it on road trips and have to stop at superchargers along the way. (we're going off-roading dear) may get used.
I really have to wonder if this "breaking in period" is really necessary. Honestly, how long does it take to get used to a new vehicle paradigm? I get that if someone were to just suddenly get an EV that there would be a period of time for them to come to full realization of the benefits or to trust some of the differences.

But if everyone needs to own a hybrid for a while before they get adjusted enough to be able to then change over to a full EV, we as a species in serious trouble. As it is, we have millions of ICE vehicles that need to be retired. There will be a need for serious vehicle recycling, building out of infrastructure, etc in order to get us to the EV future. But if you insert an additional step of hybrids, then that is another world full of vehicles that have to be recycled and at a pretty wasteful and quick pace.

I get that some people are uncomfortable at the moment. Some are very tentative about going to BEV. But as a planet we don't have time to tip toe around that discomfort. We need to be moving over to EVs ASAP and probably even faster than we are even going to be able to make that move. Any delay of that goal is just going to end up causing extra mayhem, displacement, and death. Let the tentative be some of the last ones to switch over if need be. But as more and more of us move to a full electric future, those that are tentative will experience that future vicariously through us. We need to invite them over to see what a difference it is. To go on road trips with us and see that the EV is actually a better overall solution than ICE. We need to let people know how much of a savings we are getting by not having to do so much maintenance on our EVs. This exposure will have to be the transition period for the tentative.

And it is hard for me right now because I don't actually own an EV at the moment. My first EV with be my CT (baring some serious cash infusion suddenly allowing me to get another Tesla before that). So I don't actually have a way to let others experience the new future directly. But I can let them know I have a CT on order. That I am looking forward to my EV future. That I am still experiencing the pain of ICE life. One of these days my CT will arrive and then the serious game will be on.

Till then, I encourage you to keep working on those around you to get them to start seeing some light in the future that can be ours if we convert over to EVs. As a human being trying to save the species, that is part of everyone's duty (at least that's how I see it).
 


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rr6013

rr6013

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...Easier to come by than gasoline.

This 'buy cheap now buy be hooked on the oil tanker' is the loss-leader baked into the process.

-Crissa
1yr ago, I thought same. I thought whole world would BEV. I agree electricity is easy! BUT its nigh impossible at scale.

Now I see how brittle has Panama an electric grid, that it goes down at first breeze, every storm and crashes hard overnight. No Teslas here. Closest is D.R. go figure. Ditto all of Central America, Africa exc S.A., South America and eastern EU. That’s a BIG footprint.

Elon is begging Nickel anywhere. Russia is even a hole card. The copper mine here in Panama sells ore which includes copper, nickel and gold. BEV have boosted its national GDP from 6% to 8% on inflation alone. There is a supply crunch in the near term for battery. No fooling…these events hit BEV fast as Tesla passes thru price increases.

That Goromine in New Caledonia? Aussies own it now, they process lead and will upgrade Goromine to increase its efficiency. That nickel is years away.

There are 400 BEV car models vying for a small amount of battery. Not all can be successful. Lucky will be half who make it to year 2125. Canoo is dead before it started - Apple thinks its CEO can make Apple car. Lordstown? Next. Apple is in no hurry – for good reason.

We have to recognize that the mythical BEV future is problematic. Rich, developed, wealthy and electrified grid countries will be the early adopters on the backs of whom the infrastructure will be built-out for BEV.

The rest of the world will be have-nots, unable to support BEV, compete on price nor finance any kind of transition off petroleum. Have-nots are simply petro-capture markets. Have-nots are decades away from BEV.

Bottomline is that Elon could not afford to transistion a USD economy country like Panama, much less take on lesser developed economies. These countries are out-of-reach. They belong to Hybrid at best, and hybrid isn’t all bad.
 

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1yr ago, I thought same. I thought whole world would BEV. I agree electricity is easy! BUT its nigh impossible at scale.

Now I see how brittle has Panama an electric grid, that it goes down at first breeze, every storm and crashes hard overnight. No Teslas here. Closest is D.R. go figure. Ditto all of Central America, Africa exc S.A., South America and eastern EU. That’s a BIG footprint.

Elon is begging Nickel anywhere. Russia is even a hole card. The copper mine here in Panama sells ore which includes copper, nickel and gold. BEV have boosted its national GDP from 6% to 8% on inflation alone. There is a supply crunch in the near term for battery. No fooling…these events hit BEV fast as Tesla passes thru price increases.

That Goromine in New Caledonia? Aussies own it now, they process lead and will upgrade Goromine to increase its efficiency. That nickel is years away.

There are 400 BEV car models vying for a small amount of battery. Not all can be successful. Lucky will be half who make it to year 2125. Canoo is dead before it started - Apple thinks its CEO can make Apple car. Lordstown? Next. Apple is in no hurry – for good reason.

We have to recognize that the mythical BEV future is problematic. Rich, developed, wealthy and electrified grid countries will be the early adopters on the backs of whom the infrastructure will be built-out for BEV.

The rest of the world will be have-nots, unable to support BEV, compete on price nor finance any kind of transition off petroleum. Have-nots are simply petro-capture markets. Have-nots are decades away from BEV.

Bottomline is that Elon could not afford to transistion a USD economy country like Panama, much less take on lesser developed economies. These countries are out-of-reach. They belong to Hybrid at best, and hybrid isn’t all bad.
I can see how you would come to those conclusions. I'm not sure that they are entirely correct though. There are a couple mitigating factors that I think may be relevant. For one, electricity is currently very unreliable in the areas you mention because the old world power grids are being used to power areas that do not have enough infrastructure and that are at the mercy of big oil in many ways. My thought is that much like the adoption of cell phone networks instead of deploying land lines everywhere, the power grids in these areas may just leap frog all the unreliable infrastructure and jump to using mini-grids powered by solar/wind and backed up with batteries. You mentioned the limited supply of batteries but that is primarily for battery chemistries that work well for vehicles. There are a number of existing battery chemistries that might be more available and work just as well for stabilizing power grids (especially at a smaller scale). Additionally there are new battery chemistries (and battery alternatives like capacitors) being developed quickly. The costs of all these materials are dropping quickly and even now are not exactly cost prohibitive in many locations with unreliable power grids.

Once the electrical grid infrastructures are available there is just the need for affordable and reliable electrical vehicles. Here too, the costs are dropping rapidly (though it might not yet seem like it at first glance). And the availability is going up very dramatically (though the press and big oil funded think tanks are not ready to admit that yet). I agree with you that in the short term electric vehicles will primarily be in a few select countries. But many of those very countries are going to be very surprised at how few vehicles they actually need once AI has developed to the place where normal road driving has no need for human input. At that point, the costs of vehicles will drop dramatically again (lowered demand) and the large factories that will be pushing out millions of them (higher supply) will bring about availability in far reaching areas of the world where EVs currently are basically not practical. Plus, in areas where roads are sketchy at best, the need for human drivers will continue for quite a while past when AIs will primarily be driving the rest of the world.

Given this kind of scenario, I agree with you that in the short term hybrid vehicles are helpful for many areas of the world. And yes, I agree with you that most of my comments previously on this board have been coming from the perspective of someone living in a country with developed (though crumbling) infrastructure and enough currency to purchase EVs that have so far been out of reach for most of the world. But I do have hope for the planet as a whole. And I've traveled enough to know that the situation I live in currently is not in any way representative of the majority of the planet's population.
 

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You don't need an electrical grid for a BEV because the BEV has a battery.

It doesn't care when or what generates the electrons.

Have a solar array? Powers the car. Diesel generator? Powers the car. Natural gas generator? Powers the car. Hydropower? Wind? Grid goes out? Car still works.

-Crissa
 
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rr6013

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You don't need an electrical grid for a BEV because the BEV has a battery.

It doesn't care when or what generates the electrons.

Have a solar array? Powers the car. Diesel generator? Powers the car. Natural gas generator? Powers the car. Hydropower? Wind? Grid goes out? Car still works.

-Crissa
SteveJobs put it best. It is the only ever time that he came close to using a car analog.

You can’t build a product that depends upon weak bridges to your customer.
 

firsttruck

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------------------------------
SteveJobs put it best. It is the only ever time that he came close to using a car analog.

You can’t build a product that depends upon weak bridges to your customer.

Fossil fuel system & infrastructure is not like a bridge. If it was it would be a weak bridge that required maintenance every minute.

Fossil fuel system & infrastructure is more like a chain with many weak links.
A month ago the entire gasoline & diesel fuel supply was ended for over a week for several U.S. states due to actions of a few criminal computer hackers. pipelines break regularly. Huge oil tankers ground or break apart & leak. Oil platforms at sea sink & leak. Tanks at gas stations leak. Pipelines leak.

Fossil fuel infrastructure has always been weak. Oil/gasoline/diesel spills. Methane & natural gas leaks (active wells, abandoned wells, pipelines). Spills, leaks, burning kills millions of humans every year and 10s of millions of other species.

The reason we tolerated this was for over 100 years non-renewable type fossil fuels (coal, oil) were the only abundant & cheap source of energy available.

Well times change. Non-renewable type fossil fuels (coal, oil) is no longer the only option. It is not the best. Not the cheapest. Not the most reliable.


Today solar & wind are cheaper and will be more abundant once we complete building infrastructure. Costs less financially and much fewer deaths.
If we use distributed rooftop solar & wind we have a strong bridge that will deliver energy without risk of central choke points and no need to pay daily extortion tribute to fossil fuel cartel vultures.

One time investment in rooftop solar & LiFePO4 batteries gives very low maintenance energy for a decade or two. The prices are low enough that every country will save money on energy & have healthier people & environment.
Sponsored

 
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