Nevertheless, the all the domestic car companies seem to be focused on creating huge, extravagant, long range, luxury vehicles that just cost too much!
Electric watch makers also made expensive watches, but they blasted the mechanical watch makers out of business with the volume of their cheaper models.
“Everyman” would be interested in the cheaper, less frills auto that can carry them around town to work, doctor, or grocery store and be charged up on household current alone at night.
I have an EV with a 300 mile battery pack. Of which I use less than 10% a day. Where are the smaller, lighter, cheaper EV’s with 75 to 100 mile batteries?
I would like to trade-in my watt guzzler for such a car.
How about a Nissan Leaf subcompact? The website says the prices start at $29,900 or so, and the battery is 75 kWh. The first Leaf models in 2011 had batteries that were more like 25 kWh with a range of about 75 miles.
One person who posts on LinkedIn says he is still using his early model Leaf with a now 70-mile range. His office is 4.5 miles from home. He has a second car and uses it for longer trips.
This sounds very expensive. The EV version of the lightning was expensive as well, and now they are turning the drive train into the same as a train locomotive (generator over electrical), along with a battery? Did my eyes deceive me? Who do they think is going to buy this truck?
I get the idea behind the fossil-fuel driven generator... it resolves the complaints of those EV truck holders that tow trailers. It also resolves distance issues during the wintertime use when away from your home charger.
I just don't think there will be that large a market for them. What is this? A $100k baseline model? Its got to be pricey.
The coverage I can find about the EREV version of the F150 says it is for model year 2027 and pricing has not been mentioned by Ford. The coverage about the EREV Lightning says Ford is out to address sales objections for the existing Lightning. The high sales price was a main objection, to state it mildly.
The locomotive-like configuration is becoming the standard way to electrify larger vehicles in China, and Ford is planning to use it for a version of the 2027 Escape and possibly other vehicles. The factory for the EREVs is the Rouge EV Center in Dearborn, Michigan.
Jim Farley made an announcement on August 11, 2025 saying that a plant in Louisville, Kentucky is being converted to make the Universal EV Platform, using the Universal EV Production System some people are calling an Assembly Tree as opposed to an Assembly Line. I think the Universal EV Platform will be too small for an F150 anyway.
In doing some searching for this comment I discovered a quote in Autoweek from last February saying the money-making division at Ford is their commercial vehicle business, which sells vehicles and information subscriptions. From Autoweek, Feb 6, 2025:
"Split into its three business units, Ford Blue (Mustang, Explorer, the Lincoln brand and other consumer ICE models) posted a $5.3-billion EBIT while Model e lost $5.1 billion (versus a $4.7 billion loss in 2023). Blue’s sales volume fell 2% last year “due to discontinued low-margin products.”
The Pro commercial vehicle business was again the ever-growing moneymaker for Ford, posting a $9 billion EBIT.
Ford says Pro software subscriptions were up 27% to nearly 650,000 subscribers in 2024, and telematics nearly doubled."
Nevertheless, the all the domestic car companies seem to be focused on creating huge, extravagant, long range, luxury vehicles that just cost too much!
Electric watch makers also made expensive watches, but they blasted the mechanical watch makers out of business with the volume of their cheaper models.
“Everyman” would be interested in the cheaper, less frills auto that can carry them around town to work, doctor, or grocery store and be charged up on household current alone at night.
I have an EV with a 300 mile battery pack. Of which I use less than 10% a day. Where are the smaller, lighter, cheaper EV’s with 75 to 100 mile batteries?
I would like to trade-in my watt guzzler for such a car.
How about a Nissan Leaf subcompact? The website says the prices start at $29,900 or so, and the battery is 75 kWh. The first Leaf models in 2011 had batteries that were more like 25 kWh with a range of about 75 miles.
One person who posts on LinkedIn says he is still using his early model Leaf with a now 70-mile range. His office is 4.5 miles from home. He has a second car and uses it for longer trips.
“Watt-guzzler” is a term I have not seen before.
This sounds very expensive. The EV version of the lightning was expensive as well, and now they are turning the drive train into the same as a train locomotive (generator over electrical), along with a battery? Did my eyes deceive me? Who do they think is going to buy this truck?
I get the idea behind the fossil-fuel driven generator... it resolves the complaints of those EV truck holders that tow trailers. It also resolves distance issues during the wintertime use when away from your home charger.
I just don't think there will be that large a market for them. What is this? A $100k baseline model? Its got to be pricey.
The coverage I can find about the EREV version of the F150 says it is for model year 2027 and pricing has not been mentioned by Ford. The coverage about the EREV Lightning says Ford is out to address sales objections for the existing Lightning. The high sales price was a main objection, to state it mildly.
The locomotive-like configuration is becoming the standard way to electrify larger vehicles in China, and Ford is planning to use it for a version of the 2027 Escape and possibly other vehicles. The factory for the EREVs is the Rouge EV Center in Dearborn, Michigan.
Jim Farley made an announcement on August 11, 2025 saying that a plant in Louisville, Kentucky is being converted to make the Universal EV Platform, using the Universal EV Production System some people are calling an Assembly Tree as opposed to an Assembly Line. I think the Universal EV Platform will be too small for an F150 anyway.
In doing some searching for this comment I discovered a quote in Autoweek from last February saying the money-making division at Ford is their commercial vehicle business, which sells vehicles and information subscriptions. From Autoweek, Feb 6, 2025:
"Split into its three business units, Ford Blue (Mustang, Explorer, the Lincoln brand and other consumer ICE models) posted a $5.3-billion EBIT while Model e lost $5.1 billion (versus a $4.7 billion loss in 2023). Blue’s sales volume fell 2% last year “due to discontinued low-margin products.”
The Pro commercial vehicle business was again the ever-growing moneymaker for Ford, posting a $9 billion EBIT.
Ford says Pro software subscriptions were up 27% to nearly 650,000 subscribers in 2024, and telematics nearly doubled."