US opens probe into nearly 1.3 million Ford F-150 trucks over unexpected gear shift
(Reuters) - The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Monday it has opened a probe into nearly 1.3 million Ford F-150 pickup trucks over reports of an unexpected gear downshift accompanied by a temporary rear wheel lock-up.
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Forbes
11 hours ago
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Speculation Swirls Around Mystery Tesla Model
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2 days ago
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Column: Full-size electric pickups are failed product planning experiment and industry disaster
There is a statistic in my colleague Laurence Iliff's story on the failure of full-size electric pickups that, pardon the pun, shocked me. The combustion and hybrid Toyota Tundra had more new-vehicle registrations during the first quarter than the entire industry's collection of full-size electric pickups — by a lot. That statistic is in no way a brag on the Tundra, which remains a distant No. 5 in what is now a five-horse segment since the death of the even slower-selling Nissan Titan. According to S&P Global Mobility, the Tundra recorded a meager 36,895 new registrations in the U.S. in the first quarter, while the Ford F-150 Lightning, Tesla Cybertruck, Chevrolet Silverado EV, GMC Hummer, Rivian R1T and GMC Sierra EV collectively posted about 22,000 registrations. By comparison, combustion-powered pickups from Ford, Chevrolet, GMC and Ram reached 478,823 registrations in the first quarter, S&P said. Were it not for investments and expectations that rival the size of the immense front fascias on virtually all of the aforementioned full-size behemoths, this failed experiment would already be over. The score: Newtonian Physics ∞, Hype & Hope 0. Sign up for Automotive Views, Automotive News' weekly showcase of opinions, insights, ideas and thought leadership. I can't begin to fathom how many tens of billions of dollars were spent by automakers and their suppliers developing and building those full-size electric pickups over the last decade. You can, however, get some sense of how bad the miss was when you look at the sales/production volumes auto executives anticipated, including Elon Musk's quarter- to half-million annual sales estimate for the Cybertruck, or Ford's initial F-150 Lightning estimate of up to 150,000 sales annually. So why did full-size electric pickups fail so badly? I would argue that it wasn't just physics — though the need for a bigger, more expensive battery to push these bigger vehicles farther as long as they are not towing anything shouldn't be minimized. But I think a share of the responsibility for this collective flop also lies with the companies' product planning departments. While all vehicles are compromised in some form or fashion by the time they reach consumers, full-size electric pickups lack a fundamental quality that has made their combustion-powered counterparts the U.S. sales champs for decades: Uncompromised utility. The legacy pickups are renowned for accomplishing whatever task their owners set them to. That unstoppable capability is what gave rise to the 'lifestyle' pickup in the first place, as consumers desired at least a taste of that confidence, even if they rarely, if ever, actually needed that power. Product planners and their auto executive bosses failed to account in their sales projections for just how much compromise an electric-pickup owner would face in everyday life. Sure, the trucks have some excellent features, including loads and loads of torque, but so do their combustion counterparts. And while it may cost extra fuel to tow a trailer with those combustion-powered vehicles, a heavy trailer sucks up a battery pack's juice quickly — and recharging is not nearly as quick and convenient as a gas station fill-up. It's the same reason that battery-electric semis are probably doomed to failure: It's just the wrong technology for that use case. Sorry. In a world ruled by logic and not emotion, society would consign new technologies to the areas where they have the greatest advantage. Battery-electric powertrains make the greatest sense in vehicles with limited mass and with limited demands, while hydrogen (and diesel) is more efficient in larger, demand-dependent vehicles where towing capability is paramount. We don't live in that world, unfortunately, which is why full-size electric pickups are failing. Have an opinion about this story? Tell us about it and we may publish it in print. Click here to submit a letter to the editor. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
