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[–] 45 points 1 day ago (25 children)
  • [–] 20 points 1 day ago (23 children)

    And the following question is "Why?".

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  • [–] 24 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Originally the F-150 was a perfect vehicle for most of non-urban America. It was very inexpensive (not a joke), simple to fix (also not a joke), dependable (I swear I'm not trolling), and very utilitarian. Eventually it became an icon and the default purchase for many, even though the more popular models have lost all of the features that made it attractive to begin with.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    It also used to be a reasonable size. Larger than sedans, bit not by nearly as much.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    I don't think the article specifically addresses it, but I'd guess that their numbers account for fleet purchases, which are always going to skew the numbers a bit

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  • There are many lists of "most popular vehicles" out there. The F-150 tops some of those lists and doesn't even appear on others. There are a lot of games one can play with specificity to make something more prominent ("Ford F-series") or less prominent ("Ram 1500 Rumble Bee") in a list like that.

    But the point -- that we have more pickup trucks than can reasonably be justified -- stands.

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    [–] 26 points 1 day ago (18 children)

    And the dingleberry on top of the shit sundae is that Ford also killed off the EV version. Sure, the F-150 has a lot of problems simply based on its size. But, it is the most popular vehicle in the US and no amount of whining about it is going to change that fact. So, instead of pissing in the wind, the EV F-150 at least tried to meet people where they are. Unfortunately, sales weren't great and Ford gave up on the project. The only upshot is that the venn diagram of diesel F-150 owners whining about gas prices and Trump voters is a small circle fully inside a larger circle. So, the right people are feeling pain.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago* (6 children)

    Wait they're no longer selling the F-150 Lightning? WTF, Ford?!

    That's some VW "Oh we didn't make all the money instantly with BEV cars, so we'll scale down our fleet and effort because of all the poor shareholders"-shortsightedness (which in VW's case at least bit them in the arse properly, because right after they did that reversal BEVs got the upswing that everyone with 10+ braincells knew they'd get based on other countries, and now VW is falling behind)

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    Yup, it's a dead duck.
    Personally, I'm watching the Slate truck with some interest. As I would kinda like a better way to haul trash/yard debris; but, an F-150 (especially the newer, juiced up ones) seems like the type of overkill reserved for killing a fly with a tactical nuclear weapon. I'd be really happy to have one of the older ('90's era) small trucks with an EV drive train. But those were killed by the rule of unintended consequences.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    You might also be interested in the Ford Fathom.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago

    As I understand it, the F-150 Lightning was the rare beast that was overengineered in the best way. Ford killed it because they figured out that they made more money making batteries for the grid, so they retooled the facilities for that.

    If you bought a Lightning, don't sell it.

    I wonder if people will start to use AI to replace the code once Ford drops support.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    I would have loved one of the EV F150s, but I'm poor

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    I’m not poor and never would buy one at the current generation, was hoping for them to improve it a bit but here we are

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Ford isn't giving up on electric trucks. It expects to sell the EV Fathom for less than $30,000 next year, and that EV platform is intended to be the foundation of a wide variety of models, with lessons learned from the F-150 Lightning and the Mustang Mach E. One big one they've talked about is the advantages of designing an EV from the ground up with no intention of sharing a platform with an ICE powertrain, and minimizing weight from wiring and harnesses following inefficient paths.

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    [–] 17 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    It is interesting seeing Americans always complaining about gas prices(especially now) whilst also owning vehicles that use up fuel by just looking at them.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago

    Its interesting people outside the US assume in a country of 300 million people that the same people buying trucks are the same people complaining about gas.

    First figure I found was 725,000ish F150s sold in 2022. That only leaves 299,275,000 other people that must not complain about gas if all the complaining is done by the f150 owners.

    My money is on the sales being boosted by fleet purchases of F-150's cuz its tough to find a public works department in any village, town, subarb or even city that doesnt bulk purchase Ford trucks.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 day ago

    Part of it is the sheer diversity of options and trim levels that are all under the same make and model of the Ford F-150. Taking a look at the Ford F-150 trim levels, there are basically 4 gasoline engines, 2 flex fuel engines, 1 hybrid drivetrain, 1 diesel engine, and a now discontinued EV powertrain. There are about 5 body/cab options, and several suspension options.

    In contrast, take, for example, the GM BEV3 platform. It's the Chevy Equinox, Chevy Blazer, Cadillac Lyriq, Cadillac Optiq, Honda Prologue, and Acura ZDX. I've driven several of these and they're all basically the same with different options. There's less diversity in those models than there is for the Ford F-150.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago

    This really shows you the state of the average person in the US.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 day ago

    Small dick energy is strong with this one

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Piggybacking off the point some people made about fleet purchases of trucks boosting sales, even with that in mind, out of the top ten vehicles sold its split down the middle with 5 being trucks and only 1 that isnt a fleet targeted truck (the Tacoma being the one truck you dont see many fleets of in the US) and the other 5 are all gas saving sedans, wagon/mini suv like rav4, and 2 electric vehicles. You knock out fleet sales of trucks and id b3 willing to bet that top 10 list jumps to 8 gas conserving whips to 1 maybe 2 pickup trucks.

    https://www.edmunds.com/most-popular-cars/

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    I'm curious why they dont use the Tacoma more. Cheapest Tacoma is 10 grand cheaper that the cheapest f150.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 day ago (7 children)

    The two things you need to understand about America(ns)…. American is spread out. Like seriously large and open. This has lead to a lot of “super-sizing” in general. Not just their guts. Houses, cars, etc.

    The second aspect is people buy for the “5% chance”, not their 95% daily habits. What I mean by this is they might have to haul something once a year, or they might end up having to take a long road trip. Rather than renting for that one day, for that one specific purpose they want something that can do it all (incidentally this is also why EVs have had a tough time catching on).

    Those two points make the F150 perfectly slotted to be the most popular “car”.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 day ago*

    No, it's because the US government works for corporations and always has.

    Trucks have gotten bigger because of a concerted effort to manipulate the market by automakers for over 50 years. It started with the Chicken Tax.

    Not everyone that wants a truck is dumb enough to want a big one, even in the US.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago* (4 children)

    I don't buy the America-big explanation. For that matter, so is Russia. The original colonies weren't that big, just the Western states with hardly anybody in them. And this culture is on display even in geographically-constrained areas, like Manhattan, Los Angeles, Hawaii, and the like.

    The classics of racism and toxic individualism provide better explanations.

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  • I see it this way: Yes, a lot of our local rural and suburban infrastructure is spread-out and car-centric, but that was a result of our choices and policies. (Which does indeed include a big helping of cloaked racial segregation.) It's not the case that we were forced by geography to do this to ourselves.

    "America is just so spread out" can be read as "We just didn't plan this too well."

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    [–] 7 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    It's not a car, the things are the size of a semi cab. I needed an electric truck and mine is huge too. It's annoying, it doesn't fit anywhere and it's fucking dangerous to pedestrians. Make Trucks Small Again.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Isn't this has been #1 for like 25 or 30 years, except one year it was the Camry or something?

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    [–] 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    cause they don’t allow cooler cars in the US anymore

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago

    People don't realize how much of that is due to fleet sales.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago

    It depends on where you live

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