Ranger Lightning EV

[Slyder]

Hydrogen technology is making decent strides. There's a Hydrogen research test project going on, in the general area I live, with fill stations.

I don't know what it all encompasses testing wise, but we need more projects like this around the country. I grew up in a very rural part of South Dakota and the push back on the whole EV vehicle future is pretty strong in quite a few areas.

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[Ranger#5?]

Which doesn’t bother me but that’s also entirely dependent on state. I don’t see deep red states joining blue states for 20 years minimum. Many of the same arguments against electric are the same that were used against gas cars when they first came out. People and the world will adapt like we did then. Some places will take longer for infrastructure reasons and others will take longer because of obstinance.

It won't bother me either to switch to EV, IF/When they can prove to us, the wholesale replacement & transformation they are rushing us into can be done painlessly, cost effectively, and with robust redundancy so there are no interruptions to life as we know and expect it.

I find this a different case than buggies to autos. It was a huge improvement of personal freedom of movement and ability to travel across vast expanses of our huge country economically instead of relying on trains. So far what I see (I had decades long career in Technoloy, engineering, R&D, verification testing, etc.) is electric can't match or exceed what we currently have seamlessly so it's going backwards and restricting personal freedoms no matter the political environment. Let's let the technological maturity and infrastructure readiness drive this instead of artificial deadlines before we're ready?

 

[Ranger#5?]

Trends are shifting on evs. Every year more and more consider it and as it becomes less political it will shift more

the trends are highly concentrated (mostly in CA) for acceptance. When you look at OVERALL acceptance- it's going the opposite way.

More and More Americans Don't Want to Buy Electric Cars (businessinsider.com)

" The percentage of Americans who say they're "very unlikely" to buy an electric vehicle as their next car is growing, according to JD Power, which keeps close tabs on consumer sentiment around EVs. In JD Power's surveys, the EV-skeptic contingent has steadily grown from 17.8% to 21% of respondents between January and March. "

here's a couple links to articles from 2022. There was another in the last few weeks that now seems to be buried on search result lists. It was even more devastating for EV mass acceptance...

Top Reasons Why Americans Don't Want to Buy Electric Cars (jalopnik.com)

Study: Two-thirds of Americans don't want an EV yet, and half won't pay extra for electrified (greencarreports.com)

 

[Texasota]

Nobody would buy it in USA. Recent polling shows ~50% of Americans will NEVER consider buying an EV. Another ~24% are "unlikely" to consider an EV for their next vehicle purchase. No matter how much promotion, media cheerleading, and government carrots and sticks rolled out, there is simply no way EV anything can match or beat what we already have with ICE propulsion. Nationwide grid is on borrowed time and can never be expanded and upgraded to fulfil all the promises being relentlessly pushed. Show me a proof of concept like converting the post office fleet to EV and provide unbiased or edited data of results - good and bad. Then let us decide for ourselves if it's viable.

Also, the polling and surveys I gave numbers on are easily searchable. I was going from memory, know it isn't far off actual publication.

Nobody would buy it? The demand for the F-150 Lightning is huge. Ford has more orders than they can build and that is after greatly expanding their production capacity beyond their initial projections. Only speculation on my part, but I think demand for a Ranger Lightning would follow a similar path.

 

[Texasota]

Hydrogen makes more sense. We will see if the technology catches up.

Maybe some day. But there are not currently infrastructure or technology for creating hydrogen in mass quantities. Worse yet, there is not currently distribution infrastructure for it.

I also am more comfortable with the idea of a lithium ion battery in my garage as opposed to a little Hindenburg.

 

[ssjx7squall]

Maybe some day. But there are not currently infrastructure or technology for creating hydrogen in mass quantities. Worse yet, there is not currently distribution infrastructure for it.

I also am more comfortable with the idea of a lithium ion battery in my garage as opposed to a little Hindenburg.

Also hydrogen doesn’t make as much sense as people think and electric is far more easily accepted.

Numbers are low now but there is also political reasons why EVs are demonized in this market and right now politics is everything. The amount of bullshit spread about EVs in this current political climate is insane. The outright lies some people believe.

Also, people complain about range a lot when the reality they are more than capable of serving 90% of use cases. As for charging infrastructure again the reality here is 90% of people charge at home.

The stories of fires are dumb as they catch fire like .05% less than ICE cars.

Also people acting like there won’t be growing pains pains (on both sides) are also fooling themselves.

Also “you won’t have a choice in 10 years” is also bs because only one state has made any kind of legislation to that end, 2 more have it on the books and at least 2/3 of those have the infrastructure to support it. Meanwhile 20 over 20 states have anti ev legislation on their books and many more or levying anti ev taxes (Texas being the example I’m most familiar with right now). If the trend is blue state EV red state anti EV the fears of not having a choice are I’ll founded because red states out number blue (even if the amount of voters aren’t reflected in that).

 

[Goose]

Nobody would buy it in USA. Recent polling shows ~50% of Americans will NEVER consider buying an EV. Another ~24% are "unlikely" to consider an EV for their next vehicle purchase. No matter how much promotion, media cheerleading, and government carrots and sticks rolled out, there is simply no way EV anything can match or beat what we already have with ICE propulsion. Nationwide grid is on borrowed time and can never be expanded and upgraded to fulfil all the promises being relentlessly pushed. Show me a proof of concept like converting the post office fleet to EV and provide unbiased or edited data of results - good and bad. Then let us decide for ourselves if it's viable.

Also, the polling and surveys I gave numbers on are easily searchable. I was going from memory, know it isn't far off actual publication.

I just think the EV trucks are cool, nothing political. The Rivian R1T makes over 800HP and 900lbft of torque. Plus, I work from home so the ability to just charge at home has its interest.

 

[24'Ranger]

Personally, I would love a PHEV Ranger that prioritizes MPG over power. A truck being able to go across country and get 30-40MPG would be a game changer. Fleet managers would be gobbling them up instantly for the cost savings.

I have a 24 Ranger XLT 301A on order and would trade it in for the long bed and/or a PHEV Ranger.

 

[Scooter]

We will have to see what the pricing will be for a PHEV Ranger. Hopefully not Raptor money or more.

 

[Ranger#5?]

Nobody would buy it? The demand for the F-150 Lightning is huge. Ford has more orders than they can build and that is after greatly expanding their production capacity beyond their initial projections. Only speculation on my part, but I think demand for a Ranger Lightning would follow a similar path.

Lightning Demand is huge- compared to what? Maybe to people who already wanted an EV Full-size and can afford a new $70k vehicle, but certainly not the bulk of average Joe segment truck buyers. IIRC, Lightning ordering started, then closed when projected capacity reached for the $40k Pro only, then opened again & closed again, opened and closed again. F-150 is the cash cow in Ford's lineup and sells what average of ~1 million annually? Don't forget Silverado and RAM EV competition is there too. Ford doesn't have unlimited budgets and IMO isn't going to risk diluting the Ranger with too many variants of smallish quantities sold. Hey, I could be wrong I just don't see the excitement or demand in the general population for EV trucks. These enthusiast forums tend to blow things like this way out of proportion with people who WANT certain things more than people who don't and generally don't get on forums just to say they DON'T want something.

 

[Ranger#5?]

Also hydrogen doesn’t make as much sense as people think and electric is far more easily accepted.

Numbers are low now but there is also political reasons why EVs are demonized in this market and right now politics is everything. The amount of bullshit spread about EVs in this current political climate is insane. The outright lies some people believe.

Also, people complain about range a lot when the reality they are more than capable of serving 90% of use cases. As for charging infrastructure again the reality here is 90% of people charge at home.

The stories of fires are dumb as they catch fire like .05% less than ICE cars.

Also people acting like there won’t be growing pains pains (on both sides) are also fooling themselves.

Also “you won’t have a choice in 10 years” is also bs because only one state has made any kind of legislation to that end, 2 more have it on the books and at least 2/3 of those have the infrastructure to support it. Meanwhile 20 over 20 states have anti ev legislation on their books and many more or levying anti ev taxes (Texas being the example I’m most familiar with right now). If the trend is blue state EV red state anti EV the fears of not having a choice are I’ll founded because red states out number blue (even if the amount of voters aren’t reflected in that).

Porsche has the best solution and putting their $ where their mouth is. Synthetic fuel. We've had synthetic motor oil since Mobil1 came out and now everybody makes it and prices got more competitive. Too logical to simply refine synthetic fuels and not have to blow up existing infrastructure and start over with unproven ability to replace it. Anilines are starting to use Biofuels now too. There must be some other motivation beyond cleaner emissions and reducing Greenhouse gasses driving the whole EV replacement theory?

 

[ssjx7squall]

Porsche has the best solution and putting their $ where their mouth is. Synthetic fuel. We've had synthetic motor oil since Mobil1 came out and now everybody makes it and prices got more competitive. Too logical to simply refine synthetic fuels and not have to blow up existing infrastructure and start over with unproven ability to replace it. Anilines are starting to use Biofuels now too. There must be some other motivation beyond cleaner emissions and reducing Greenhouse gasses driving the whole EV replacement theory?

We have had electric cars since cars

 

[All Terrain Nation]

PHEV will never work for trucks. The range is very limited and if you plan to haul or tow it is about useless

 

[Texasota]

Lightning Demand is huge- compared to what? Maybe to people who already wanted an EV Full-size and can afford a new $70k vehicle, but certainly not the bulk of average Joe segment truck buyers. IIRC, Lightning ordering started, then closed when projected capacity reached for the $40k Pro only, then opened again & closed again, opened and closed again. F-150 is the cash cow in Ford's lineup and sells what average of ~1 million annually? Don't forget Silverado and RAM EV competition is there too. Ford doesn't have unlimited budgets and IMO isn't going to risk diluting the Ranger with too many variants of smallish quantities sold. Hey, I could be wrong I just don't see the excitement or demand in the general population for EV trucks. These enthusiast forums tend to blow things like this way out of proportion with people who WANT certain things more than people who don't and generally don't get on forums just to say they DON'T want something.

I was primarily responding to your over the top claim that nobody would buy a Ranger Lightning. F-150 lightning demand is huge compared to Ford’s current capacity to build them.

In regards to your larger claims about EV sales in general, Tesla sold 1,313,581 EVs globally in 2022 and sold 491,000 EVs in the USA in 2022. Ford sold 640,000 F Series trucks in 2022. Perhaps in the future EV sales will tank as you are suggesting, but so far the data doesn’t support those claims.

 

[Texasota]

PHEV will never work for trucks. The range is very limited and if you plan to haul or tow it is about useless

Do you understand what a PHEV is? It is not an all electric vehicle. The Ford-150 Powerboost is a HEV and it's only difference as compared to a PHEV is that the battery pack is smaller and the battery pack cannot be plugged in. The F-150 Powerboost can tow 12,700 lbs. It's range is as good (or better) than the regular F-150 because it also has the 3.5 Ecoboost just like the regular F-150.

A Ranger PHEV is reported to have have the 2.3 Ecoboost combined with an electric motor and battery pack that will give it 360 HP and 500 lb-ft of torque. The battery pack can be plugged in and charged at home or at a commercial charger. It will be excellent at towing with a range as good (or better) than the regular Ranger.

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