this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face
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This is also partly Ford's fault. The F150 Lightning is very heavy and very expensive. It's capabilities as a truck aren't that great for the pricetag. They needed to be making more smaller, affordable EVs than shooting for the moon.
They're still making the Mustang Mach-E, and that CUV sells better than the actual Mustang.
The guys that founded Tesla (not Elon) actually did a great market analysis. They said EVs are expensive, so you don't start at the budget end. You actually start at the expensive luxury end. With trucks though it's hard because the buyers think they need a towing truck and the aerodynamics and thus range are awful.
The problem is everyone else followed that.
That strategy worked great for Tesla. It’s seems valid for lucid, although too early to tell. It seems to be working for Rivian but 2026 is what will determine that. These are all early adopters who were able to make a compelling high end vehicle.
But it hasn’t been an effective strategy for legacy manufacturers, those who are late to the party, who are producing same old vehicles with different power train. They don’t seem to notice that too many of their attempts just aren’t compelling
But more importantly the market conditions have changed. There already are compelling high end EVs. They’re not going into an empty market, they are late. EVs have found a niche and companies are supplying it. But what hasn’t happened (at least in the us) is that breakout to mass acceptance. What about the rest of us?
If I want a $100k EV, I have choices so why would I buy some legacy manufacturers half asses first attempt?. If I want a $50k EV I have choices, including those which have already been refined through a couple generations. Cars are slowly working their way into the general market. But if I can only afford a $30k car, where are my choices? Why isn’t ford looking at that market? The market has changed: they need to do their own research and should have gone where the opportunity is rather than copy those before
While I guess I have to applaud the Lightning as an attempt to break open a new market segment, they should have known going in that these are your most conservative customers. They want what they got last time, they’re not trying anything new, and they’re not compromising even in features they never use. It was always going to be tough
You have this all mixed up. New features are always expensive. So new feautes always start at the top end and work their way down. Then as you get the design nailed down, the supply chain flowing, and economies of scale working the price comes down. Manufacturers don't get to say "I want it cheap" and poof it's cheap.
Sure but you can’t follow someone else’s strategy when you’re not them and the market has changed.
Look at Slate as a possible alternative. Instead of blindly following teslas strategy starting withbhigh end vehicles and working your way down, they did their own market research. They identified an unserved market segment and designed a compelling product to serve it. We’ll see in a couple years whether it pans out for them
Or look at the plethora of Chinese manufacturers. They’re competing on both price and features. They went all in and went from starting later than legacy us manufacturers should have and quickly zoomed ahead.
Speaking of which, IDK why anyone would want a Mach-E. Sat in one and it was mind-blowing just how Spartan the interior of those cars are. Even the real Mustangs have have nicer interiors, and sports cars aren't exactly known for their luxury. But the Mustang might as well be a Bugatti by comparison to the Mach-E.
Noticed that trend in a lot of EVs lately, actually. They all seem to have the same bare-bones, Tesla-like interiors: all you get is just a steering wheel, somefake leather seats, some vents, and a giant screen that covers half the dashboard. And they expect people to pay $100K for these econo-boxes.
What do you mean? The Mach E actually has physical buttons for basically anything you need to do, which isn't the case with many other EVs. You also have a dashboard behind the wheel that shows actual important stuff like your speed, battery, etc. I've driven it a couple times and I have never felt that I need to do anything with that iPad while I'm driving.
What market are you in where it costs over $100k? It's not even that much in Sweden, where cars are usually much more expensive than the US.
Tesla somehow successfully rebranded minimalism as luxury, and that was spectacular for their bottom line while trying to sell electric vehicles to people for as cheaply as possible, which they absolutely needed to do because widespread adoption was going to be the only thing that would justify the proliferation of charging stations (where the real money is made).
Everybody else who tried to follow Tesla in the EV market (after sitting on their hands for years like idiots) thought the secret sauce was minimalism, when really it was just people compromising on features to have the ability to charge their car for a lot less money than it would have cost to fill it up with gasoline.
I bought a Mach-e back in April, yeah sure, the interior is pretty sparse, but I don't mind, you can pick them up for $30,000 CAD at this point. Biggest plus in the back of my mind is I never have to pay for gas again, I've already saved so much money.
To be fair, the F-Series trucks make up almost 39% of all vehicles fold by Ford in the USA (2024), plus . Americans overwhelming want big trucks from Ford, they're listening to their customers, their customers are just wrong though lol.
Ford Brand Total - 1,974,009
Ford Trucks Total - 1,158 964
F-Series - 765,649