Dolphins don't sell for $10k outside of China. Dolphins in South/Central America are ~$22k. Even if there weren't tariffs on them I wouldn't expect to see them out the door for less than $25k in the US.

The historical track record of that kind of thing is terrible. You end up with a bloated, inefficient industry that produces bad products. Britain, pre-EU, did a lot of that. British Steel, British Rail, British Overseas Airways Corporation, British Petroleum, English Electric computers, etc. Then they needed bailouts. This resulted in what's called "lemon socialism" - the state owns all the dud industries.

A jobs subsidy program that focused on more productive industries would be better than subsidizing an auto industry that never aimed for international competitiveness.

We have exceptionally productive fields in the US tumor are the envy of the world. If we can't be productive in auto manufacturing, devoting a ton of our workforce too it is a misallocation of our limited resources.

If we are going to be subsidizing unprofitable industry fro national security purposes, we need to either 1) ruthlessly cut the least productive manufacturers from access to subsidies, or 2) nationalize it. Any other choices would be very inefficient.

Why is that better?

I've never seen a good number on this. Is it money losing per vehicle, or because of the amortized R&D included in the cost? The problem from my perspective is that it hasn't turned out as popular as they hoped -- truck buyers are a hard to convert bunch of people. Which is too bad, because my Lightning is my favorite of all the pickups I've owned over the years. It's a fantastic truck.

TBH, those tests are mostly marketing failures. EV trucks aren't really good at hauling trailers over large distances, as the aerodynamics produce a massive impact on range.

Multiple tests have shown this by showing 50% or more range reduction from pulling lightweight, non-aerodynamic loads.

The marketing failure is that the companies have allowed consumers to incorrectly extrapolate from this to thinking that heavy loads in the bed have the same issue. They actually don't as weight is a minimal impact on range.

Unfortunately, every thread about carrying sheetrock, rocks, mulch, etc shows how misinformed the average consumer has become in this space. It has to be a significant impact on sales, given that in the US these are the only heavy loads carried by >50% of the half ton pickups sold here.

I want an electric drive train with the engine that works like a generator at a fixed speed. Don't think anyone offers something like this.

It’s an intrinsic issue with hauling loads, combined with the relatively low range of F150L.

By comparison the the Chevy Silverado EV gets ~450mi of range unloaded and testing seems to have it able to tow ~250mi of range at 70mph, which seems plenty between stops: https://www.hotcars.com/chevrolet-silverado-ev-towing/

Highway towing range hit is largely an aerodynamic drag issue. Any EV truck (or any car really, even gas cars have a big range hit) is going to get a massive ding in its range towing anything increasing it's aero drag even if it's an empty box. It's just with a gas truck you're starting with 300+mi often for a well equipped truck so you lose 100mi of range you're still over 200mi per tank.

But an EV, on a long range road trip you're rarely charging to 100%, you're often going like 5%->80% because the charging speeds fall off a cliff after a certain percentage. So you start off with maybe 300mi, but not really because after the first leg you're only using 75% of it, but now you're also using like 25% more energy because of the massively increased drag. So what was 300mi on a full charge became maybe 150mi on a full charge once you're on that second leg. Coupled with the fact what used to be free energy (heating the cabin with waste engine heat) if you're towing in cold weather you're not even going to get that 150mi.

Probably both. It was a consumer review, so hard to say from an engineering perspective.

The Mach-E isn't a muscle car. The comment was specifically around the Mustang sedan, which they do not have an electric version of.

Honestly, it's befuddling to me. There's a lot of folks who could get talked into an electric muscle car, they just have to know how to sell it. I own a Charger Daytona and literally every car guy I show it to has interest; I genuinely think Dodge just doesn't know how to market and sell it. I'm 100% confident that the right marketing agency could sell 100k of these, but the cohort of "it'll never be a Mustang" is far louder than the "wow that thing rips" crowd.

It’s not though. Just borrowing the name as they said.

Long EV trips are possible amd convenient if there are enough chargers along the route. Sadly, this isn't the case on many routes in the US, at least. Europe is doing much better. I have no experience in other places.

Ah. I hadn't realised that modern petrol cars had gotten that efficient.

When I had a petrol car it was like at least 12 L/100 km, probably more. I remember 100 km drives (Stockholm-Uppsala and back) costing hundreds of Swedish crowns in petrol.