People talking about converting vehicles are missing the point.
Ford wants to convert people. The people who would buy a pickup from them today, and aren't sure about this electric motor business -- they need to see something cool and reasonably aspirational.
They'll look at the F-100 at big car shows, and a few years later see e-crate conversions at the local car shows, and then when the price of an electric F-150 has dropped enough, that's what they'll be buying.
Isn’t the electric F-150 already comparable in price to regular F-150s (around $40k)? So these prospective F-150 buyers shouldn’t be waiting for a price drop right?
Not entirely correct, under F-150 (and Heavy Duty 250 etc) brand they sell essentially two different vehicles (or three, if you count Raptor), which differ in price more than twice. Non-luxury version is priced low, has no extras and oriented to price-sensitive work truck segment of the market. King Ranch/Platinum (and Limited nobody buys) are premium tiers with all the latest tech and amenities, which are priced like luxury cars. Although both are “F-150s” they are oriented at distinctly different market segments.
So, just to be clear, they call out F-150s over $50k, not all F-series.
That's right about the dividing line between work truck and luxury truck. <$50k buys a SuperCrew XLT 4x4 with the max tow package. Basically, it's the best "work truck" F-150 you can get.
Everything beyond that are luxury trim packages. Heck, you can't even get a 8' bed unless you go for the lower tier trims. Which points to the XL/XLTs being the work trims and the Platinum/Raptor/Tremor/King Ranch being luxury trims.
> People talking about converting vehicles are missing the point.
the point of a crate motor is literally converting vehicles though. That's what they're for.
> They'll look at the F-100 at big car shows, and a few years later see e-crate conversions at the local car shows, and then when the price of an electric F-150 has dropped enough, that's what they'll be buying.
The cars that people build with crates don't really go very far usually. The people that complain about road trips in an electric car aren't using the car they built. This could be their chance to play with electric to prove its good enough to ditch the ICE F150
More importantly, this niche market will be the people making YouTube videos and attending car shows. These people will have huge influence on more casual Ford pickups fans, and will help sway them to electric
One of the things we should be pushing for is standardizing engine mount geometries for the last generations of ICE vehicles, so that every vehicle built after say 2030 can have a COTS electric conversion kit that works for it.
What you want is economies of scale. You need to be able to design a drop-in replacement that works for millions of vehicles, not one-offs for 25,000 vehicles. An electric conversion will be made fairly early for the most popular vehicles and everything that uses the same engine (eg, Accord, Camry, Jetta). The Mazda rotary engines will not. They’ll end up being taxed to death, unless someone can make cheap adapters.
Engine swaps have been going on for decades. Swapping a GM LS into a compatible frame is quite common. The mount points are standardized on the engine block so you only need to weld the matching mounts to the auto frame.
I don't see much of a demand for conversions for Accords, Camrys and Jettas. These are popular, reliable, yet disposable cars. Those buyers would be better served buying a new EV. I do see a market for car people cars: MX-5, S2000, GTIs, 4Runner, and FJ40s.
I'm not so sure. If you have to swap out the engine, trans, brakes, there won't be much left of the classic car. It'll just be a modern car, but much less safe.
I regularly attend car shows (typically domestic, mostly 1950-70's) with my dad. The last few years there have been a few pseudo rat rods that have used scavenged drivetrains from either Priuses(ii?) or Nissan Leafs. They're typically just looked at as a novelty-- the crowd doesn't take them seriously just by looking at them. They don't make power, and even then, the HP/tq figures wouldn't really be a 1:1 comparison, given that the EV drivetrain has torque from 0rpm. The example I use is an s2000-- it has 240hp, which looks great on paper, but it needs revs to make it-- and torque has the same issue. Demonstrating the power band concept is what will make widespread adoption occur-- otherwise people won't be making an apples to apples comparison. A $4k (plus batteries, adapters, etc.) 300hp/300tq electric motor shouldn't be compared to a $4k Small Block Chevrolet crate engine when the area under the curve for HP/TQ more closely resembles a $8k+ 396 or 454 Big Block (yes, peaks will be higher on the ICE, but safe bet that 1/4 and 0-60 will be close). The value prop is that the EV drivetrain will be higher performance than a traditional ICE.
This ignores that many of the older cars just sound like they're powerful, but in reality would struggle to out-accelerate a modern day v6 commuter car. Plus nostalgia. Boomers who grew up won't suddenly want to put a motor where the engine should go-- no Saturday afternoon oil changes, $300 headers or custom exhausts. Gen X or younger will likely be the target customer here-- I know I have already mentioned the idea of one of these Eluminators to my dad as a swap into his 1965 Chevy C/10 when I first heard about them.
> 300hp/300tq electric motor shouldn't be compared to a $4k Small Block Chevrolet crate engine when the area under the curve
Eh, maybe. Area under the curve doesn't tell the whole story because ICEs have transmissions to keep them in the meat of the powerband past first gear, EVs don't (usually). With the exception of Telsas, EV drivetrains lose a lot of power in the upper rev band, so their highway acceleration is comparatively weak.
But an ICE can be kept in the powerband for as many gears as can be added. Ford's 10R80 keeps the GT between 6200-7500 RPMs between like 20MPH (depending on rear end ratio) and top speed. The average HP under that curve is like 450HP (out of 460hp peak).
Ford is bragging about how the Mach-E GT hits 60 in like 3.5 seconds (faster than any other Mustang, GT500 included), yet glosses over the fact that it traps 100mph in the quarter mile. Which is less than both the 2.3L ecoboost and the previous generation 3.7L V6 managed (around 103mph each) and is a far cry from what the 5.0L can do (115-120), or the GT500 (131).
They end up the reverse situation of the S2k: fast from a stop, slow from a roll. I haven't seen a roll race between a Mach E and a lesser Mustang, but I would bet starting at a 40mph roll, the Mach E would lose, despite being technically superior in power/torque.
Yep, if they're doing an LS swap with a T56, then the modern transmission will be a huge advantage. I was thinking in the sense of something like the more common 4L60E/TH350 (3/4 speed autos) that most people resort to when doing swaps in old cars (at least GM).
I will never buy an electric car until it’s feasible to drive across the country in it without the car dictating my schedule and route. It’s really that simple.
I have a diesel truck right now and I can drive 400 miles on a tank easily, then spend 5 minutes at any gas station off the highway and be right on my way for another 400 miles.
The truth is that they have to put all this crazy luxurious tech into these cars to lure people away from thinking about the things that their old car can do that their new car will be incapable of.
I see initial adoption targeting two car households. For example my spouse and I have a gas powered Honda CRV. It’s fairly new and we plan on keeping it for 10+ years. Just took it on a road trip across the country and it worked really well.
The other car is gas powered, but we could totally replace it with an electric vehicle. Most day to day driving is in a city, and we drive less than 20 miles a day total. So having a vehicle with a 200-300 mile range is ok for that.
However if you are single and only have one vehicle then yeah getting an EV right now is probably not feasible if you do long road trips. I suppose you could fly or get a rental car for those once in a while trips though.
Ford wants to convert people. The people who would buy a pickup from them today, and aren't sure about this electric motor business -- they need to see something cool and reasonably aspirational.
They'll look at the F-100 at big car shows, and a few years later see e-crate conversions at the local car shows, and then when the price of an electric F-150 has dropped enough, that's what they'll be buying.