madgonad: neaorin: The R1T looks like a nice vehicle but it's also a pretty small truck which is starting at $70k. The bed is a foot shorter than the shortest F-150 bed. If the Lightning is the truck all the early reviews suggest it is, it will wipe the floor with the R1T in terms of sales.

Lightning is going to sell as fast as they can make them - which will lead to dealerships being dicks by adding FU markup.

If you were in the market for a half ton to tow your 6-7k pound trailer or boat you were likely looking at spending around $40k already. Moving up to the Lightning and including the trailer-tow package will push that price up about $48k. That extra $8k will mostly get covered by the $7500 tax credit, but you also get much lower 'fuel' costs, a home backup battery, much lower maintenance costs, and an actual free 'generator' anywhere you go. Oh yeah, I'm sure that frunk will come in handy too.

/the Lightning is EXACTLY what America needs to embrace the electric vehicle

So the quote would work for Bill Ford?  I don't really see any competition, but if they are willing to make enough E-150s they will own the US e-truck market.  Good luck building enough.  Tesla's truck will sell, but will be a niche thing for tech bros and those who want functional truck without the cultural baggage.  Don't think that will ever be to big (or maybe there really are that many single nerds who want to stay single).

I'm less sure about Ford production.  In other news, the one "internet friend" I know who has a e-mustang had it in the shop for 50 days, and Ford coughed up $8.5k to make the lawsuit go away (attorney costs were mentioned).  How much the reimbursed the dealer for the repair is unknown, but it couldn't have been cheap.

On the other hand, Ford is really showing they are serious about electric cars and getting good at them.  The industry has maybe one more generation of primarily ICE sales*, after which ICE becomes a niche.  And most of the industry is doing *anything* to avoid thinking about it.  Mostly because the last thing their customers want (i.e. the dealers, thanks to stealership lobbying direct sales are largely verboten) are electric cars whose maintenance largely consists of inflating and replacing tires.

/* battery prices have dropped by a factor of 10 in the last decade.
// expect a similar drop in the next decade (plenty of research in the pipeline), probably not one big "breakthroug"
/// but you drop the price of batteries anything like that, and there's almost no reason not to buy electric