The “WOLF STREET F-150 XLT & Camry LE Price Index” for the 2024 Model Year is here. Ford’s price increases are grotesque, for third year in a row.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Every fall, when the new model-year vehicles arrive, I get to update the proprietary “WOLF STREET F-150 XLT and Camry LE Price Index.” Now the 2024 model-years are here – well, we’re still waiting for Ford; the trucks won’t show up on dealer lots until early next year, months behind their normal arrival dates, but we ran out of patience.
We use the base F-150 XLT and the base Camry LE for two reasons: One, because both go back beyond 1990; and two, because both have been bestsellers in their categories, true mass-market vehicles. Other models, such as the Corvette or the Mustang, go back even further, but they have never been mass-market vehicles.
For the 2024 F-150 XLT, in the two-door rear-wheel-drive base-everything configuration, the MSRP before “destination and delivery charges” is $47,620 per Ford’s website today. The “destination and delivery charges” of $1,995 give the truck a total MSRP of $49,615.
The average transaction price for all new vehicles sold is about $46,000, according to J.D. Power. A fully decked-out high-end F-series 4×4 Crew Cab can be well over $100,000.
For the 2024 Camry LE, the MSRP before “delivery, processing and handling charges” is $26,420 per Toyota’s website today. The “delivery, processing and handling charges” of $1,095 give it a total MSRP of $27,515.
For our index, we use MSRP without the destination and delivery charges, and without any other add-ons: so $47,620 for the F-150 and $26,420 the Camry.
The chart shows the MSRP for each model year of the F-150 XLT (red), and the Camry LE (purple). In the 1990s, the Camry LE was more expensive than the F-150 XLT, but by the 2024 model year, the F-150 was almost twice as expensive! Astounding…
Just how nuts are Ford’s price increases?
Year-over-Year, change of MSRP:
- F-150 XLT: +10.9% (+$4,680)
- Camry LE: +1.8% (+$475)
- CPI New vehicles: +2.3%
From 2020, change of MSRP:
- F-150 XLT: +39.4% (+$13,460)
- Camry LE: +5.8% (+$1,450)
- CPI New Vehicles: +21.7%
Since 1990, change of MSRP:
- MSRP of F-150 XLT: +267%
- MSRP of Camry LE: +77%
CPI for new vehicles v. Camry v. F-150.
Turns out, since 2010, the CPI for new vehicles has risen by 28.7%, outrunning the price increases of the Camry LE (+20.6%), but it got crushed by the price grotesque spikes of the F-150 (+81.4%). Folks, just say no to this sort of thing:
Obviously, MSRP is not the price everyone actually pays.
In 2021 and in 2022, during the time of the shortages, dealers sold trucks with odious addendum stickers on top of MSRP. People should have walked out and wait a couple of years before buying. And some did. But others didn’t, and they paid $10,000 or $15,000 or more over MSRP at many dealerships.
But in 2019, when there was an overabundance of inventory, new trucks were sold with big incentives from Ford Motor Company and discounts from dealers, and people bought for a lot less than MSRP.
Now truck inventories are ample, and many 2023 models come with discounts off MSRP.
So we use MSRP as a common thread in the index over the three decades, even if people paid more or less for their vehicles.
The pickup truck Oligopoly gets Tesla.
There have been only four automakers that sell successfully a high volume of full-size pickup trucks in the US: GM, Ford, Stellantis, and Toyota. Nissan’s Titan will be discontinued after the 2024 model year due to low sales. We’re now getting two new entrants, Rivian and Tesla, but they’re just ramping up production and are not yet a factor.
So we have four companies that sell full-sized trucks in volume, and they’re all charging an arm and a leg for their trucks, and their trucks are selling in the same price range, with obscene price increases year after year, and grotesque profit margins.
Clearly, they have not been competing on price as if there were a tacit agreement not to, in order to not end the immensely profitable gravy train. Instead, they’ve been competing based on other factors, such as image, brand, brag-factors, some technologies, some aspects of performance, etc.
The red lines (F-150) in the charts above are Exhibit A of oligopolistic pricing behavior. It involves just four companies, and Americans are paying those prices and are willingly getting ripped off.
Tesla – the disruptive price-cutter as we were surprised to find out last year and this year – is now entering this market. Tesla is very profitable despite the price cuts, has $20 billion in cash, isn’t burdened by tens of billions of dollars of debt, doesn’t waste billions of dollars on share buybacks, unlike Ford and GM, doesn’t have an unwieldy and costly dealer network to get in its way, and doesn’t need to spend vast sums on truck ads: During the Q3 earnings call, Musk confirmed that there were over 1 million preorders for the Cybertruck, and Tesla never even spent any money advertising it.
Tesla is going to mess up the party of the truck oligopoly once it’s able to produce trucks in large numbers, including its base versions, because its primary goal is to become #1 – and its Model Y is already the #2 bestselling vehicle in the US, behind the F-series trucks. So that will get interesting. But some patience is required.
The infinite wisdom of the US legacy automakers never ceases to astound. And so I rant: It’s Like Ford, GM, FCA Got Run Over by a Tesla on Autopilot
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If you can’t afford a car, you can’t drive around freely, and you have to stay in your 15 minute city. Preferably in your housing cubicle watching government and social media approved news narratives and advertising.
That said, I see an awful lot of brand new cars driving around. So maybe the plan is not working.
Cars and trucks are part of the American culture. Used vehicles work fine and are a better deal.
yes they are and wait there are some great deals coming.
After paying off sons loan 3 years ago for 2015 f150
I used said vehicle as DOWN PAYMENT on investment property
got $30k for it + cash
then I bought back my 2001 f250 diesel from son
he remarked tonight that he loved that truck(and borrows it routinely)
had to buy it back for $7,500 – 2001 F250 diesel with 275k miles
lots of extras I did but don’t mean squat to others
If a person wants even half a chance of becoming wealthy, “Never take on debt for something you don’t need”.
There are more than plenty good used vehicles on the market, always.
Friends in the past have bought expensive cars that got them into friend circles that opened up lucrative opportunities. The closer you are to money better chances of making more?
@Ethan
College yes, country club maybe, house possibly, fancy car, no
Moreover the Rich men…Thief, Doctors, Lawyers and some Chiefs discovered the joy of the IRS code that allows 100% depreciation of vehicles over 6k lbs. How many wives of same do their hauling with soccer gear and the only off-roading they do is taking a right hand turn too soon and drive over the curb. Hell a friend of mine was killed by the extended mirror of a truck hit her in the bike lane in Ft. Lauderdale. Demographics of buyers have changed in the last 25 years and the oligopoly knows it.
Tankster,
“… the joy of the IRS code that allows 100% depreciation of vehicles over 6k lbs. How many wives of same do their hauling with soccer gear….”
Careful here!!! You’re advising people to get themselves into trouble. Following this kind of internet meme is very risky.
Obviously, when you do your taxes, you can do anything. The problem arises when you get audited. So, this is of course the farthest thing from tax advice:
1. The vehicle must be used PRIMARILY for BUSINESS PURPOSES, and when you get audited, you have to prove it. Writing off a vehicle is a well-known audit trigger. If you get caught, it’s clearly not an “oversight,” like forgetting to account for a couple of payments you received, but could be construed as tax fraud. So be careful.
So that means you cannot be a salaried employee. But if you’re self-employed, or own your own business, etc., and use the vehicle primarily for business purposes, you can deduct it up to the limits. And your spouse can drive it too.
2. The write-off – even if for business purposes and thus allowed – is limited to $28,900 for 2023. The bonus depreciation is limited to 80%.
The IRS doesn’t allow luxury vehicles to be deducted. To deduct a vehicle, it has to be non-luxury. What “section 179” does it makes an exception for luxury vehicles if they’re over 6,000 pounds (and if you use it primarily for business purposes, and only up to the limit of $28,900 in 2023).
Soccer gear is past generation. Now the wives are hauling boxed wine … for the office. Perfectly legit.
Sorry Sensei, I didn’t see that the law was changed post 2022. Prior to that it was much higher as you know. I worked in an auto junk yard my father bought in 1975, and learned my junkyard dog Spanglish there. My hands are softer now. I guess the US Big 3 didn’t have enough money to buy Congress when this “reform” was passed. I read Testosterone Pit and Big Like, FWIW. Should have put YMMV at the end of my post as the rest of it is true, lol.
so sorry wolf but I know of MANY in my city who have taken advantage of this
they drive $80,000 vehicles (ie wives)
but IRS has to PROVE IT
they have lots more to hide
What if you’re multi-employed? I.e. you have full time (W-2) employment, as well as a side hussle, and use your vehicle for the side hussle. Some of the gigs are thru another employer (1099) and the rest are self-employmed.
My side gigs aren’t the majority of my income, but I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills w/o it…
Not literally asking for tax advice here but I’ve been curious about this myself.
MM,
The main thing is that you must have business revenues and file a Schedule C for that business, and that the vehicle is primarily used by this business. It doesn’t really matter if you have a fulltime W-2 job also. For example a teacher who drives for Uber on weekends can write off the vehicle against the Uber revenues. The teacher would do a normal tax return but with a Schedule C. He then can write off stuff on that Schedule C, such as a cellphone, maybe a laptop, etc., that he needs for driving for Uber.
It can bet pretty complicated, and it’s not suitable for discussion in the comments. You can use tax preparation software to walk you through it step by step. Make sure the software can handle a Schedule C.
Can’t wait to see the price increases due to the recent UAW contracts. The next four updates should be doozies.
My dad just bought a Ford Maverick hybrid. He’s getting 43 MPG and 550+ miles on a tank of gas. I’d love to own a hybrid ranger that get’s 34 MPG. That would be sweet!!!
Lost opportunity for Ford & GM.
Labor is 6% the price of a vehicle. What are you talking about?
Not if you live in a place like Upstate NY where cars and trucks rust out quickly due to road salt.
So what do you do? Drive 20 mins away to watch the rebel news?
weird.
😂
It’s silly to believe that you get your news and worldview from different sources because you drive a pickup truck and live out the city. That’s the image that the car manufacturers push in their commercials. It’s about as real as the Brooklyn hipsters who think they are manly because they dress like lumberjacks.
Uhmm……..excuse me Roddy, but those people you are referring to have a name. They are called Lumbersexuals. Many even have tattoos of trees on their arms, that’s very outdoorsy.
I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK
I sleep all night, I work all day
I know. I have a nephew who is a hipster and lives in Brooklyn.
The uniform includes a Stormy Kromer hat, I hope…
Toyota Tundra and Ford F 150 seem relatively comparable in price and fairly similar vehicles. Perhaps just lots of money to be made with full size trucks without a packed market with limited choices. Not unlike diapers where there are two companies making almost all of them so they can set prices high as not too there advantage to compete. In my days long ago at Intel they were happy to have AMD because then it couldn’t be proven to be price fixing but of course fixed costs of a plant are so expensive you need to sell significant volume.
The pacific northwest has the poorest rich people i’ve ever met…
LoL
Well said.. 🍻
If their plan is mess up the truck market by turning out millions of pickups I don’t think the. Cybertruck is the vehicle to do it with. The 6mm thick stainless skin is exciting to the fan boys but not practical in high production. It can’t be stamped and must be bent on press brakes, which even if automated, are slow. Stainless panels scratch easily and handling of each of them will be time consuming and finicky. Unlike regular body work there is no coat of paint to cover up all the little blemishes and imperfections.
They will also learn the hard way that Stainless is not the wonder material they think ( especially the hobo of stainless grades 301) , It will discolor around salt water and road salt, as well as any number of chemicals on the city streets.
I went to college with a girl who’s dad supplied Delorean with all of its stainless and so John D himself gave her a new Delorean. She drove it around Ithaca NY, and after a couple of years of Road Salt it looked kinda chalky, yellow and dingy.
I think the cybertruck will be a novelty item produced in small quantities and Tesla will have to move on to something more conventional if they are going to disrupt the Pickup truck market.
Hmm, maybe the wear will be an issue, maybe not. I don’t get why people pay for ripped jeans off the shelf. I don’t understand the attachment to dented, rough, pine floors with years old polyurethane but have my scatched-to-hell leather jacket that I wear everywhere and work in.
Perhaps people will shoot their cybertrucks to age them as long as they work reliably and rack up hundreds of thousands of miles. I do wonder about the true cost of operation and environmental friendliness since the amount of energy to push around 6800 pounds is not chump change, especially if you’re paying 15+ cents/Kwh.
“amount of energy to push around 6800 pounds is not c…”
The top end Ford F-250 4×4 crew cab with a diesel — and the Cybertruck will still blow it away — comes in at 7,200 pounds. These high-powered 4×4 crew cabs with big powerful engines and all the extras are all big heavy trucks and weigh between 6,500 and 7,500 pounds, all of them, Ram, F-series, Silverado, Tesla. We’re talking about some real equipment here.
Blow it away? People buying f 250 diesel aren’t going to the track. Their towing 20,000 pounds through the rockies.
LOL, that always comes up, the 0.01% of the truck owners that tow 20,000 pounds across the Rockies. I drive a lot on I-80 across Donner Pass, and I guarantee you, pickups towing 20,000-pound trailers are a rarity. But I see a lot of high-end F-250 crew cabs, diesel and gasoline, just driving around for daily life. That’s what people are buying these $80,000-plus luxo-trucks for, and they have no intention of ever towing anything across the Rockies.
Wolf is right I run the roads in “tough guy cattle country” and the vast majority of giant pick up tricks doing anything other than sitting on mirror polished rims with low pro mud tires is miniscule.
The very few pickup trucks hauling much of anything are geriatric tourists pulling big camper trailers and promptly getting blown over by the Chinooks or are hot shots pulling gooseneck trailers on a stripped 1 ton dually with no bed.
I’ve worked with blue collar rather low paid guys who won’t put a bag of garbage in the bed of their truck that cost them 50+k dollars when they’re making 20 bucks an hour.
Trucks are impractical gas guzzlers and at today’s prices financial suicide for the working class. I recently disposed of my 40 year old truck as I no longer have a use for it since I went to a pellet stove and sold my motorcycle. Bought a ~150k mile Honda crossover for a few thousand. Blows my old truck out of the water in the snow. Can’t haul much weight but I don’t anymore anyways and has all kinds of creature comforts. While getting 26-30mpg instead of 8mpg.
No point in having a truck whatsoever unless you’re using it at least a few times a month as a truck.
My used, pre-pandemic Tundra 4×4 Crew Cab is 6500 lbs and gets 15 mpg. It also rides like a Cadillac, has the power of a muscle car, and can chase a mountain goat up a cliff in the snow. I’ll be a buyer for an electric truck once the tech matures and I can buy a used one. The cybertruck is a little too conspicuous for me though.
If Tesla is able to build and sell enough CTs, after 3-5 years, they’ll be everywhere, and everyone will have gotten used to them, and no one will be paying attention to them anymore, and maybe other automakers will have come out with similar designs, etc., and you’ll be just run-of-the-mill with a CT? Weirder things have happened.
Right now, it would stick out like a sore thumb though. I still haven’t seen one in the wild. And if and when I see one, I’m going to stare at it long and hard for sure. But after I’ve seen about 50 of them, I guess I’d lose interest and stop looking. And then it’ll be just another truck.
15¢ per kWh???? If they’re in So Cal, try 50-87¢. Seems like with so much adoption of solar that the burden has been lifted off the utilities, who should be able to supply cheaper. Uh, no. Rates have risen faster than ever.
Rates rose because the price of natural gas exploded last year, and utilities have long-term supply contracts and hedges, and they may have to get regulatory approval for rate hikes, so it takes a while for higher gas prices to make their way into the bills.
And then there are the wildfires that trigger huge expenses and costs and settlements for these utilities, and they pass those on to ratepayers of course.
The fuel for solar has remained free though.
“I think the cybertruck will be a novelty item produced in small quantities…”
Over a million people have put in preorders… by some estimates as many as 1.9 million. That shows you how much interest there is in this truck.
I have not yet seen one in the wild, but if I do, I’ll report my impressions here.
Two major changes. The price and the range. Musk asks now for more committing rereservations. Will show the actual interest.
yep. I put my cybertruck downpayment in early, but now I dont want one: just too expensive. So, I am totally rebuilding BOTH my very capable current diesel pickups for half what a new cybertruck will cost. Diesels can be made to run a long time. Its comes down to dollars and cents, not vanity.
With the amount of Rivians exploding here in Bend, I can only imagine we’ll be seeing many Cybertrucks as well. Really might depend on which one looks better next to the $150k Sprinter Van, and Porsche in the driveway.
An unknown number of people have globally put in over 600k reservations. That is the only number Tesla confirmed.
Many people put in multiple reservations to flip it or what ever since it was only a 100 bucks. Many people reserved in countries the cybertruck will never sell.
But the difficult thing won’t be to try to sell it but to produce it. Musk claimed the design is for cheaper manufacturing but it is not cheaper nor simpler. Thus they will only compete with thinner margins.
“An unknown number of people have globally put in over 600k reservations. That is the only number Tesla confirmed.”
Elon Musk, on Q3 earnings call, transcript linked below:
“So, I just want to temper expectations for Cybertruck. It’s a great product, but financially it will take, I don’t know, a year to 18 months before it is a significant positive cash flow contributor. I wish there was some way for that to be different, but that’s my best guess. The demand is off the charts. We have over 1 million people who’ve reserved the car. So it’s not a demand issue, but we have to make it and we need to make it at a price that people can afford, insanely difficult things.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4641696-tesla-inc-tsla-q3-2023-earnings-call-transcript
I have seen a Cybertruck in Silicon Valley on Highway 85. Like seeing Bigfoot in the wild, the Cybertruck looks exactly as the prototypes and pictures you have seen in the news. Up close, this truck looks like it belongs in a Mad Max movie. Nothing like it on the road. You will definitely stick out in a crowd with this beast.
Most people want something to get them from point A to point B that does not break the bank and is reliable.
Maybe the Cybertruck is a new class of vehicle. Just like when the Jeep Cherokee came out and started the SUV craze. Maybe call Cybertruck a PUV. The Pickup Utility Vehicle. Today’s pickup is very efficient for its purposes. It took 60 years of small innovations to get where it is today. I use my pickup mostly when i am working on my rental properties. The cybertruck will not work for me for what i do. I need flat sides of the pickup as i have to lift items over the side all the time. I throw things out of the truck over the sides a lot. I shovel dirt , rocks, and gravel over the sides. plus i have heavy things lifted and dropped into the truck from the sides by other machines. I use my truck in this fashion 20 to 30 times a year.
Tesla innovation was the EV power train and EV ecosystem but the Tesla cars still looked mostly like all other cars. Four wheels, 4 doors, seats 5 people, front windows , back windows, side windows. I still really cannot tell a model 3 from other vehicles if i am directly behind it or in front of it.
But the cybertruck could replace many suburban trucks. The suburban truck owner mostly wants a truck for the size and the three or four times a year they buy a piece of furniture or need to go get mulch. I can see many suburban people giving up todays truck or an SUV for a cybertruck PUV.
The vehicle I am wanting is the EV RamCharger truck but it does not come out until 2025. 690 mile range. 660 HP. 4.4 sec to get to 60 mph.
Honda and Hyundai plus a couple of others have already made petrol pickup utility vehicles but I believe they classify them as trucks.
Does anyone really believe Tesla has 1,000,000 orders for that truck???
This is up there with Elon’s funding secured drivel.
He will do anything to promote Tesla stock and keep the game going………..
No he has a million + RESERVATIONS. This does not translate into a million orders but it is still a significant indicator of interest. People are not putting down $100 on a vehicle they have no interest in. I expect that 20% of that number will translate into orders over the next 18 months. This means AT LEAST 200k units which would be a huge success for any new vehicle.
BTW the funding may not have been officially secured and he should not have made the tweet. Having said that there is 0% risk that he could not have arranged the funding at that time at $420 per share if he chose to.
All you have to is wait a little and see if Tesla can sell its production of Cybertrucks, of if they’re sitting around on big lots after they ramp up production, waiting for buyers. ICE trucks are now sitting around on big lots waiting for buyers. Once Tesla can produce them at scale, that will be the test for the Cybertruck.
Interesting how “stainless steel” isn’t actually “stainless”.
Another advantage Tesla has over Ford, et al.: no unions (for now at least).
It will be interesting to see how the ruckus between Tesla and the unions will end in Sweden. The unions try to force Tesla’s workforce to unionize and are trying to totally embargo Tesla’s operations, even preventing Tesla from recieving licenceplates. Interesting is that Swedish authorities seem to side with the unions. And the ruckus is spreading to Denmark and Finland, too, the Finnish teamsters union is siding with the Swedish unions.
I can’t wrap my head around why they went for such a futuristic design for their truck debut. If they had reined it in a little it would seem like there would be a wider audience. Full size truck does seem ripe for disruption given the margins.
I’m not too sure about their truck styling either, a lot of people who buy trucks are actually pretty particular about design. I’m curious to see what happens though, it sounds like they wouldn’t be able to meet higher demand for now anyway, by the time they can these trucks will already have been on the road for a while and sometimes that can influence people’s taste, other times an ugly vehicle is just an ugly vehicle. Just have to wait to find out
Tesla apparently hired the designer of the Pontiac Aztek…..
LOL EK,,, now, You2 becoming part of the ”old folks” commenting on Wolf’s Wonder!!
Welcome to the club, and just missing ”Old School” and a couple others now apparently gone…
RE pick up trucks: First drove employers old ones in the early ’60s as apprentice, manual 3 on the column, and had to have the journey level supervisor take it out of a couple of places where it was stuck, sometimes deep,,, he laughed and showed me how to do it,,, and the boss, a very good guy, laughed and kept me driving it.
Hope ALL the young folks can get this same level of ”mentoring” or ”femtoring” these days, and I, far damn shore had TONs of mentoring AND femtoring from all the ethnic groups with whom I was blessed to have worked from ’51 to ’19.
Hoping all on here have a Happy and Healthy and VERY Merry Holy Days season.
Tesla has over 1 million preorders — by some estimates as many as 1.9 million — for this truck. This is a HUGE show of interest for this truck. No other vehicle ever attracted that kind of interest.
It’s not the same-old same-old, that’s for sure.
Yes there appears to be wild amounts of interest for a funky looking car. Whether that’s sustainable demand or just irrational early enthusiasts scratching their need to be first remains to be seen. What is indisputable is that Ford and Chevy dodged a massive bullet. If Tesla had designed the CT to look even halfway like a Silverado or F-150, the pre-order number would probably be more like 5 million. Time will tell.
The PT Cruiser had millions of orders too. The hummer ev, Ford lightning and rivian had massive pre-orders. Both are already discounted. This idea that the cyber truck is going to disrupt the truck industry is quite entertaining. As Ford learned, demand is for hybrids which they can’t build enough of while cutting back on electric truck production.
I don’t remember preorders for the PT Cruiser and the Hummer. But Ford’s Lightning only had about 100,000 preorders.
The Ford F150 Lightning had 200000 orders before the window for reservations was closed.
Let’s keep in mind that those pre-orders are $100 refundable deposits that were placed based on old prices and specs. They were option bets people were placing to try to lock in the announced pricing.
At a minimum it shows that a large number of people did not think the truck was too ugly to own. $100 is not definitive but it’s not nothing. People are not putting $100 down on a truck they have no interest in. The pricing is only where it is because they Tesla knows they can get it while supply is constrained. Once production is ramped this will likely come down. The prices of other Tesla models are down double digits year over year. Personally I think about 20% of reservations will convert to sales over the next 18 months. This conservative estimate yields AT LEAST 200,000 sold. Even with zero additional interest it would make the CT launch a huge success
I can’t understand this demand for trucks. Wasn’t the President of GM fired several years ago for making “trucks” that supposedly no one wanted?
Yes, that happened. Trucks seem to be a status symbol first and a utility accessory second. The public still has enough money to chase status.
Futuristic design? It looks like a high school body shop slapped it together.
Think of the Cybertruck in shape as a pyramid scheme with 4 wheels.
XC – my friend, your ability to make me hold off taking a sip of coffee upon seeing your handle is confirmed!
may we all find a better day.
Reminds me of the Aztek. That was a flop.
When the Model Y came out, we had lots of disparaging comments here about its looks, and now it’s the #2 bestselling model in the US, after the F-series truck, and it’s catching up with the F-series rapidly. So tastes differ.
The Atari arcade game Battlezone
If it had 6 wheels and looked a little different it could be William’s arcade game Moon Patrol I guess.
I was joking to some friends that it looks like the truck versions of the 1970 Lancia Stratos that I drew as a ten year old boy (that I thought was even cooler than the Lamborghini Countach prototype a year later).
Apartment – …and, as I recall, the World Rally Stratos’ were pretty good on dirt roads, ‘swoopy’ styling and all…
may we all find a better day.
It’s Tesla’s MO. Hype, hype, hype. The model Y is vastly successful and has earned its spot as the #2 top selling vehicle in the usa for now. Tesla’s Cybertruck is a disaster and a drain on the other real products. It’s not a real truck, it is a novelty.
I can’t wait to get my 2 motor AWD novelty.
4.1 seconds to 60, 340 mile range, 6×4 ft cargo bed with power cover, 48 volt, 4 wheel steering, steer by wire, underbed storage, large frunk storage, 18.5″ command screen in front, and 9.4″ screen in back.
2500 lbs payload, 11000 lbs towing
MSRP 79,990
Let us know when you have it. Is there already an ETA for it?
The best information I have is January, based on my position being roughly 8000th in line. Reports are coming in from various people who are getting a request to finalize their orders. I haven’t received that notification yet.
I won’t be getting the Foundation and/or 3 motor configuration. The AWD 2 motor seems to fit me (and my budget) the best.
No he has a million + RESERVATIONS. This does not translate into a million orders but it is still a significant indicator of interest. People are not putting down $100 on a vehicle they have no interest in. I expect that 20% of that number will translate into orders over the next 18 months. This means AT LEAST 200k units which would be a huge success for any new vehicle.
Looks aside, what precisely makes the Cybertruck a disaster? And please don’t say towing, that represents small percent of truck use. It compares very favorably with competing EV products and even with most ICE equivalents. So I ask again, OTHER THAN THE LOOK what makes it a disaster.
BTW ANY new model, factory, product starts out as a drain on the company. Remember production hell? or when Austin or Berlin were all cost and no revenue? CT is no different
The design of the Tesla truck is no ‘futuristic’ at all, but looks like an old Delorean that got crushed in an out-of-control compactor.
🤣😍
Sorry, didn’t mean to say January, but January through March. And I would lean towards March. I don’t mind them building a few thousand before I get mine.
1000% right!!!!
It has to do with the limited molding options for 6mm stainless steel. The DeLorean was boxy like that too for the same reason. They probably should have gone aluminum like the F150 or galvanized like the Porsche 924/944 but I guess they wanted “bullet resistant” in the feature list. No point having bullet resistant glass and aluminum body panels.
There was simple things to impress the girl at the bar – pack of cigarettes, some alcohol, funny stupid talks. Now it’s complicated, expensive trucks, real estate investments, crypto, EFTs, how can I explain all the shit I own while being funny and attractive?
The Internet already has an answer for this.
“Reject women, aquire currency.”
I absolutely hate my life as a truck driver and would love to get out of it. But good God it brings in the money. Everything with even the slightest bit of manual labor is paying 30+ dollars an hour now. And in the trucking world, good luck finding a job that runs less than 55-60 hours a week.
Here in WA, no income tax and mandatory OT after 40 hours. Lots of union gigs too. I’m renting an old barn out in the woods for a few hundred bucks a month. Sleeping in my car at my new job during the week. Sold off a ton of crap, spending money on basically nothing. Went to a doc, got a prescription for Zoloft, Temazepam, and Sertraline, nothing annoys me, don’t need nothing can work an infinite amount in a bored trance like state. Just rake in the money, shovel it into the stock market, and live on the fringes of society.
Got my license at 16, pulling 5 axle 80,000 pounds. Today in this area, GVW’s are 110-140,000 pound Super-B’s, Quads and Buggies.
$100/hour isn’t enough to drive a truck with the A-holes on the road, parking lot traffic and the Foreigners brought in to suppress wages.
I used to drive a couple of times a year, but I down-sized about 90% since the Government gifted $12million to one of my competitors during the “Too Big to Exist/Fail” scam and I personally don’t give a dam_ if things don’t get produced and product doesn’t get moved.
I admire Truck Drivers. Glad to hear you are doing well.
Honestly sounds like he’ll…
I’m assuming you meant hell and yes it is. Half of it was smarmy sarcasm. Mostly the part about the prescription pills. I don’t need them to spend life in a bored trance like state. Trucking sucks but you make a middle class wage and don’t need anything really special to do it. Other than perhaps an iron willpower.
“while being funny and attractive?”
Nvestor,
If you have a large, well stuffed…wallet, you do not need to be funny or attractive.
…a well-stuffed wallet tends to make you attractive, funnily enough, in almost any crowd…
may we all find a better day.
Isn’t this exactly what I’ve been saying?
It’s greed, excessive greed as I’ve mentioned several times.
And excessive greed should be punished.
Now that demand is crashing they’ve stopped charging ‘market’ adjustments and are actually giving discounts.
Marketadjustments really are disgusting levels of greed.
I really hope these trucks will rot on their lots, unless being offered at high discounts to hard-working people.
And apparently the quality of Ford hasn’t improved in sync with the increase in price, so there’s that too. 70k 100k trucks. Absolute insane.
Corporate greed is real and it was most visible during supplychain disruptions. That’s still not an excuse for extorting consumers.
Any dealership that overcharged deserves a bad year or two.
Preferrably there will be sub 25k cars on dealership lots again. You know, a simple means of transportation that the lower workingclass can afford.
Or is there something more sinister behind these insane prices?
Perhaps to discourage carownership, 15 minute citizens, an elite that makes no secret of applauding depopulation?
Is it greed? Or is is a society flush with cash that wants to own pickups?
What do you recommend the manufacturers do, reduce the price so that they sell way more pickups than they can produce? Then just have a big backlog of orders to fill once they can ramp up supply to meet demand, and leave folks on a lengthy wait-list in the meantime?
I would tell you what I would do if I owned a car company. I would sell my vehicles at the maximum price the market would allow….such that I could run my factories at full capacity and yet still sell all the vehicles I produce at a healthy rate. Then, if people stopped buying them and I began to build excessive inventory, I would offer incentives to increase my sales.
Some call it greed, but it’s really supply and demand at work…. and a whole lot of money sitting in bank accounts.
Yes people are flush with cash and want these, prices be damned. Yes to oligopolistic behavior on the part of the sellers. Don’t forget the RVing boom at the dawn of Covid – how are you gonna tow your 7,000 lb camper?
It’s frustrating because I live in a rural place over 200 miles away from any sizeable city. And there are so many pickup trucks and there are a lot of retirement and work from home folks in my small community, which has become nouveau chique since Covid. Everyone here seems to “need” a pickup truck even though they are just about all empty and not towing anything. They have a rural lifestyle image to uphold. The frustrating part is this mental behavior on the part of consumers has made replacement costs for people that really need trucks out of reach.
I scratch my head because a I’m a tradesman that has needed a basic pickup for several decades (always 8′ bed in regular or extended cab variety). My trucks haul things, push things (snow) and pull things and have never seen more than 3,000 miles per year (I don’t leave this small community for work because I don’t need to). When I don’t need the truck I drive a small station wagon (that one sees 18,000 miles per year). This always made the most sense – trucks are very expensive to own and maintain (if you really use them for work) and with my mileage and needs the total costs of ownership (including depreciation, replacement costs) is less to run two vehicles than one typical family pickup that has more room for people than cargo. But I’m a frugal yankee, clearly a dying breed. My 3/4 ton is no status symbol – regular cab, smallest OEM steel wheels (why pay more for tires?) manual locks and windows and lots of dents.
In New Hampshire and Maine there are still plenty of frugal Yankees. Maybe fewer than before but still holding onto the faith.
I have a 95 diesel 3/4 ton that I work extra hard to keep alive. Not easy in the rust belt. Rebuilt engine myself, trans myself, etc. I’ve got so many hours into it now Im too invested to sell. Works good to take off road, tow trailers, etc. it lacks some technology but does what it needs to. I don’t see a new 3/4 ton having 10x the value but they sure are 10x the price. I think that’s why a lot of us who need our trucks to use as trucks will just hold onto our old ones, because it’s not a status thing. I have to imagine eventually this market will change and this fad will end, but hard to say, as it’s been going for a long long time. Until then, I will just keep the old girl on the road!
I am also a truck owner, not for work, but for play. I have a 2002 Tacoma access cab, 6 foot bed, 4WD SR, basically the basic model, 188K miles, dead reliable, not the greatest mileage but small and practical for both urban and off road use. I carry a small pop up camper in the bed for a couple of weeks a year, Moab in spring and fall, the mountains of CO and WY in the summer and fall, high quality camping and beats sleeping on the ground. Most of the people I know who drive trucks are doing so because they have a camper, boat, or RV trailer to tow, there are millions of such people and more common away from the coasts. In the mountain west small towns, there seem to be very few people who don’t have at least one of the following: RV, boat, trailer, snowmobile, or OHV. All of which necessitate a truck.
The thinking nowadays is the most profit, less volume. You can see it happening increasingly in fast food for example. Just a few controlling corporations can achieve this together. The old days of small companies are gone where there was competition to outsell the other guys. High volume and lower prices were the methodology. Adios to the old days.
There were massive efforts to form monopolies well over 100 years ago if not further back, That is what prompted anti-trust laws that are mostly ignored anyway. Tesla is an example of a modern company that primarily aims to win by delivering superior value rather than by impeding competition. Many modern businesses compete on promotion or brand image rather than product performance/value. Put another way current consumers value brand image over quality/performance.
The perception of “affordability” was driven by near zero interest rates and long term car loans of 72+ months. This is how modest income buyers could “afford” a $60k+ pickup or luxury car over the last many years but that has ended, at least for now
obviously a bot
Where are you guys getting this 15 minute thing I have seen twice? What’s the angle?
What conspiracy is at play?
Don’t worry about it.
The 15-minute thing refers to the classic cities before cars and mass transit (during the hafta-walk age), when everything had to be within a 15-minute walk from the home: the baker, the barber, work, the produce vendor, the cobbler, the pub, the general store, etc.
City planning is trying to create walkable cities where daycare is 15 minutes on foot, as are stores etc. I live in one of those cities, but it’s always been that way, and it works great, I love it, I walk everywhere I go, and I stay fit that way, and it saves time because I don’t have to fight congestion and parking, and walking is free.
But the 15-minute is kind of a misnomer — lots of places I walk to are 2-4 miles, one way, and that’s a lot longer than 15 minutes of powerwalk. I might still beat driving and parking though, and I get the free exercise on top of it.
Now some rightwingers (not conservatives!) have hijacked this classic concept and come up with some conspiracy theories about it to throw around. I might delete this BS if it gets too noisy.
Yes please delete these idiotic comments. Especially because this is one of the few places to come to avoid partisan conspiracy-minded drivel. When conversations turn to these moronic talking points picked up from propaganda sources, the slilpery slide into an awful comment section has begun.
I’m glad you have started bringing EV news back into the fold again after the commenting ban on the topic. EV articles really do bring out the stupidity but ignoring this huge change in propulsion method is doing a huge disservice to the economics of the auto industry.
Well stated, sir!
I would suggest that you research the prices of replacement batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and you will find they last between 100,000 to 150,000 miles and cost $15,000 to $20,000 then to replace them.
I’m a conservative. I love walking, including the 2-4 mile distances you mentioned. However, I think there is a level of political groupthink that occurs when people are packed in with their neighbors.
Being out hiking in the open country tends to change people’s perspectives.
I’m conservative on many topics: personal responsibility, willingness to work, respect for traditions and institutions, and quite liberal on others: pro-choice, medicare for all, environmentalism. I’m not sure why folks feel the need to pick a team and adopt the team’s beliefs.
Kent – …it might depend on one’s definition of ‘the establishment’, and which ‘dominant paradigm’ it’s subverting…
may we all find a better day.
I think political group think co especially more from where one gets their information than it does where they live.
@JimL
Not so. People are tribal and tribes depend on where you live and who you associate with. The least tolerant people used to be rural but in my experience are now Ivy league students and urban elites, complete change from the 70s and 80s when urbanites actually were tolerant of people who had different views and the academy stood for free speech.
I was in SF for a course a few years ago and ran 8km most mornings, washing my clothes in the hotel sink let me see how black the water was that was getting rinsed out. I kept thinking how horrible it was for my lungs.
I’ve heard that a lot of it is soot from older diesels and brake dust, so I guess that people switching to EV’s will help that, but I’m still getting flashbacks to that black water when you talk about walking everywhere
I heard that cars-and-brake-pads story too. Apparently it has been going around for decades.
But the soot is from bunker fuel burned by the container ships and tankers and bulk carriers coming into and going out of San Francisco Bay, less than a mile from our place, and about a quarter to half a mile from where I swim. They’re docking at the container terminals at the Port of Oakland, they’re docking at the bulk terminals there, they’re docking at the refineries around Richmond and Vallejo (tankers bring in crude and go out with gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel headed to Latin America). Big shipping channel also in the Pacific, not far offshore, and the wind nearly always comes from the West blowing this stuff over SF. And they all burn bunker, the worst fuel out there. One of those 16,000 hp engines burning bunker pollutes more than a gazillion modern ICE cars (which are pretty clean these days).
If you click on the “Wolf Richter” tab and scroll down, there is picture that I took from our place direction of Alcatraz, with the Queen Mary II going by; that’s one of the shipping channels. There’s another shipping channel on the other side of Alcatraz. Alcatraz is a mile and a quarter from SF. You see how close they are. During Fleet Week, we sometimes get an aircraft carrier group going by.
EVs aren’t going to solve that problem, but LNG engines for ships will (at least mostly), and that’s starting to happen.
We also get much worse pollution periodically from the wildfires. And that can get really bad. EVs aren’t going to solve that problem either.
When I was living in Tulsa, in a high rise just uphill from the river, the fumes from the old refineries across the river blew directly at my condo when the wind came from the west, which it did often. You could smell this stuff. That wasn’t so much particulates as gases. And that was bad.
When I lived in San Francisco in the 80’s I took the California St. bus to my apartment after work in the Financial District. The buses were diesel, before they were converted to electric. Often the older buses couldn’t make it up Nob Hill and they would stop, exit the passengers, who would trudge uphill to the top while the buses powered up the top of the hill billowing out black diesel smoke choking us as we walked along side. The good old days.
Wolf, California regulations require ocean-going ships to burn low-sulfur marine diesel within state coastal waters (24 miles).
Big marine diesels might still be plenty dirty, but any vessel in SF Bay cannot legally burn bunker fuel.
SF generally has the cleanest air of any large city, the prevailing winds are from ocean, and they very steady, and there is no basin as in LA or interior west cities to trap pollutants. Check out particulates and ozone and you will see by comparison the other large cities are much worse.
Happy – true, but the South Valley and Bakersfield wind up breathing a lot of Bay Area-additive used air…
may we all find a better day.
@Wolf there is a difference between the crazy right wing/nutjobs that think the WEF is going to take away their pickups (and guns) and force everyone into “15 minute cities” and political moderates/realists like myself who make fun of our left of center/utopian friends knowing that while I have been riding a bike and walking long distances almost every week since I was five years old less and less people seem interested in walking and riding (or gardening) every year I have been alive so if we make more bike lanes (and community gardens) we will not get millions of people to give up driving (or buying produce at the store). P.S. I think it is important to note that the typical Ford 150 has (like the Land Rover Defender 110) changed more in the last 30 years than the Toyota Camry. A typical new Ford F150 today is nicer (with more options) than a typical Lincoln in the early 90’s and while a $39K ’93 D110 was more of a “truck” than a ’93 F150 the new fancy D110 is nicer (and does more) than a 90’s Rolls Royce (Land Rover Redwood City is asking $127K for a new one on their web site).
In terms of improvements, I don’t know whether the F-150 or the Camry comes out ahead. The Camry has improved a lot too.
And yes, those improvements are why hedonic quality adjustments make sense for CPI calculations — because these vehicles today are not the same vehicles that were 20 years ago.
But in my worthless opinion, the Camry has the problem that the front-end is hideous (Darth Vader grill), while the F-150 is a good-looking truck. But that shouldn’t impact price.
I said this before: in my worthless opinion, Toyota should fire its entire exterior-design team and start over.
All the add-ons are more repairs in the future, all of which with have less than half the life of a typical power train.
My son and I have nearly identical Dodge Ram Diesels. Mine runs everyday, sans add-ons. His has some finicky component failing at least weekly.
Mine is just shy of 300,000 miles, his is barely over 100,000.
GOOD for you WR to make this SO clear anyone can understand IF they will…
Remember going to Danz and Sons in SF for my first prosthetic eye, and Ted Danz, R.I.P. said, to comfort me,,, ”There are none so blind as those who WILL NOT SEE.”
Did not have a car, nor needed one, for several years in SF Bay Area in late ’60s-early ’70s, until work required too many tools and materials than could be carried without.
Great then, and I was at least hoping to retire to Cuba where it is clearly workable now, at least for older folks that the revolution had enable to live without cars.
Probably still possible in SF, NYC, maybe others, eh??
Cuba, that paradise where the “revolution enabled people to live without cars “, this is more accurately stated “impoverished everyone so they can’t afford meat”, or “jailed everyone who spoke up in public”.
The wolf who cried wolf
As interest rates dropped sales guys kept payments the same then rolled over the negative equity. Then after say 4-5 new vehicles the last one is a base model and the loan is 2x the vehicles actual value. Then the buyers vehicle “gets stolen”, “swerves for a deer and hit a tree” or “just lets the bank take it back” In all three scenarios the negative equity goes poof for the consumer! Debt destruction!
Craigslist is full of those people trying to sell their 3 year old used luxury trim diesel pickups with 50k miles for $80,000. It’s hilarious. There are no buyers.
They can always bring them to Carmax and get $40K for them and pay off the balance of their loan with their gifted Covid funds! LOL!
6 year loans on 3 year vehicles?
Same business as Tony Soprano’s No Payment Home Equity Loans for Senior Citizens.
1. Family history of Cancer
2. No relatives that lived past 75.
3. You’re a chain smoker and get winded when you sit down.
Have I got a deal for you.
No conspiracy.
I live in a 3 minute city. Bar..general store…post office.
Of course 90+% of America can live here.
Wolfs 15 minute city….not so much.
Like Digger Dave, I use my truck for work.
It was just prior to the GFC when I purchased my last new
work truck. No plans to buy a new electric, diesel, or gas
truck. Just watch the used market.
GOOGLE 15 MINUTE CITY .There are lot of horror ytube videos about ’15 minute cities” in china whereyou have to have face scan to enter . entry+exit is locked . This is a dystopian horror. happening is USA is remote.
Yes China under a Totalitarian system has what people on the Right fear but that’s not what is being proposed here at least in my neck of the wood in Canada. Mostly like Wolf says having everything within 15min walking or mass transit, better internet connectivity, remote work, etc
That is what you get when you use poor sources of information.
Most truck buyers don’t NEED a truck they just want one for various reasons. Status? In other countries I just don’t see commuters and shoppers buying trucks for every day use.
At the prices charged I rank US pickups with that of designer handbags.
It would be instructive, perhaps to subdivide the US pickup category into “utilitarian” and “luxury.” Maybe impossible and too arbitrary, though.
Which will the EV manufacturers go after, I wonder
Is an EV El Camino on anyone’s design board (or did I just miss it in the news)?
What’s funny is even the most of the “luxury” trims have hard plastic door panels, interiors and thin pleather seats. You’ve been “had,” people.
Gotta love “simulated wood!”
To my eye the Cybertruck is as close to an El Camino as it is to a traditional pickup. Maybe they should have called it a CyberCamino although those were never great sellers
Nobody sells “utilitarian” in the USA. Dealers don’t stock them. Cars or trucks. Try buying a base model for work and you’ll have to special order and wait.
And why are all the current vehicles so downright ugly? EVs should be able to put anything together in body shape but we get more boring cars.
How is that any ‘status’ is driving a common ugly truck thingie?
SCBD – many years before the self-propelled vehicle appeared, the story of the unclothed emperor was rolling along…
(…as to ‘utility’, always get a smile when parking our dusty&ranch-battered, usually-laden, 200k mi. ’03 Sonoma next to a shiny, giant, running-empty ‘Limited Edition’ pickup…).
may we all find a better day.
It is interesting that with such high margins that other manufacturers have not gotten into the truck market and the second tier (Toyota, Nissan) have not ramped up production to compete more in this market. And why has Toyota and Nissan ever moved up to heavy duty trucks? The is market prime for competition. The profits are there. American consumers have shown a willingness to buy other than the big 3. Why no Toyota dually?
The Japanese brands have struggled to enter the full size truck market with much authority. Likely because they are just not that good at it, yet. It’s not their bread and butter and they are new to the game. The big 3 have been doing this forever, they have trucks figured out…..because it’s where they’ve been making all of their money. Toyota and Nissan are great at making fuel efficient cars and small pickups, but full size hasn’t been their market. I think they’re figuring it out, but people don’t love what they offer yet. I think we should only expect the same type of thing should they enter the HD market. Say what you want about the big 3, but most would agree they make good full size trucks. If consumers didn’t feel that way, they’d quit spending so much money on them. Furthermore, I don’t know that the Japanese alternatives offer substantial savings over the big 3, in terms of pricing. If they did, that may change the game.
Wait…The Koreans have plans to enter the lg truck business….
The running gear of heavier duty, full-sized class 2 and 3 trucks is what is important, versus their class 1 counterparts, particularly the class 3.
The Japanese brands have never delved into this arena. Think full-floating rear axles with 11+ inch ring gears, massive brakes and heavy duty spring packs powered by massive diesel engines – trucks made to work hard all day, every day, while hauling and towing.
But the newer diesel trucks and their owners are hamstrung by a plethora of overengineered electronic gizmos and difficult and ridiculously expensive diagnostic and repair issues.
I have made the decision to forego one last brand new diesel work truck (the prices make no sense anymore) and to instead buy a much older but clean backup (I’m always looking), then will have 2 to carry me for another 10 years and then I’m done with them for good.
I’ll buy a hybrid smaller truck for transportation and to carry light hand tools. And NOT from “the big 3.”
I do not know the Asia market, but for Europe I guess legislation is an important bit. In EU and most other European countries on a basic car driving license you can drive cars with a maximum gross weight of 3500kg. With a trailer in tow the same 3500 gross limit weight applies to the car – trailer combo.
Get an extension, that is new training and driving exam, and the limits is raised to 3500kg car gross wight with a maximum of 3500kg trailer.
Next step is a light lorry driving license that allow you to drive a lorry up to 7500. And an extension is needed if you want to tow a trailer. This license also ned to be renewed every fift year or so.
Manufacturers then design their cars accoringly. A van/truck in the 3500kg class is then optimized for max payload within the weight limit. No overweight engines or axles as this lower the payload.
Rear wheel drive vans/trucks in the 3500kg class may have fyll floating axles. The Ford Transid RWD have some sort of Dana 60 rear axle.
Usually US pick up trucks have less payload capacity than European trucks with the same gross weight. Ford Ranger is interesting, on the European market it have a 3500kg gross weight more than 1000kg load capacity and a max trailer weight of 3500kg. Not so in the US I think.
Frank & Blake – even considering that the Japanese maintain North American design offices and factories, the sheer size difference in national physical geography and transportation network is also at play, here in terms of truck design philosophy and market attack/acceptance of same (one does occasionally see Hino or Isuzu box trucks, as well as Iveco or Volvo from the other side of the pond. Scanias, etc., not-so-much in the bigger segments, though i would defer to Trucker Guy (and Wolf, of course) for a better-informed view of this…).
may we all find a better day.
I don’t have all the details, but licensing/vehicle taxes in Japan is expensive for even a Camry – hence micro cars. IIRC, it has to do with size, track (width), weight, etc.. Small trucks, therefore, fit the bill plus they’re easier to maneuver in a land starved country.
I think the chicken tax has something to do with Japanese vehicles and diesel engines. Also emissions requirements for diesel engines probably plays a big part. International nearly folded if I remember correctly due to their horrific attempts at a DEF drinking diesel truck. CAT got out of highway diesels a while back as well I think.
Volvos really only having a standing here stateside because of how many foreigners we having running trucks. American born and raised truckers, (myself included) almost all universally hate Volvo’s. They’re just arbitrarily different from American trucks in their layout and control and they’re also cheap junk. Not that modern American trucks are much better.
Typically with most trucking company’s they run a truck for 3 years and send it to an auction. 250-300k miles is all you get out of modern trucks before emissions, computers, and just general quality of life stuff starts to fail. The days of trucks going 1 million miles with just normal maintenance is gone. My last job I had a newer truck. It was a 2020. When I left it was nearing 400k miles. In the last year I ran it, it left me sitting on the side of the road about 6-7 times. Spent probably 2 months down total. And had about 95k dollars put into it in repairs. Granted, a lot of that is dealerships scamming and price gouging but it still stands. This was a freight shaker.
We had a few volvos all around 400-600k miles. Absolute junk. They all had 50% or greater down time. Each truck cost the company at least 50k dollars a year or more in repairs like a habit. Sometimes far more. Dealership network absolutely sucked. Insanely slow to fix. Work was even worse than the Freightliner dealerships. At least at Freightliner they’d only break 1-2 new things during a repair. Volvo mechanics might total a truck. Or not even do the repair and charge for it anyways.
The Freightliner after 400k hard, hard, abusive miles still could be cleaned up and detailed to look somewhat decent provided you put a new seat in it. The Volvos were just trashed. Even when taken care of.
I don’t think Japan will be coming to the class 7 and 8 market in the US for a ton of reasons. Emissions tech, dealership networks, trucking companies, and their shenanigans, the EV push to phase out diesels, and the various types of trucking that North America sees that Japan likely doesn’t have experience with.
It’s a whole different ball game running a truck in Alaska pulling 150k lbs of machinery in -50 degree temps on solid ice up a mountain and then having to make a product that’ll grind out 500k miles of team driving from LA to Miami in 2 years time where the truck gets turned off a couple times a week. All for a market that is locked down by legacy makes who’ve been there down that for 50+ years.
Also, the American market absolutely despises cab over trucks. Forgot to add that. I don’t know if scania makes a conventional tractor.
Trucker Guy,
“Also, the American market absolutely despises cab over trucks.”
That is perfectly clear. But I always wondered why. Does the shorter wheelbase and sitting on top of the front axle — and essentially on top of the motor — make it less comfortable for the driver? Are they less stable? Are there other reasons? Or is is just preference based on looks?
If you have any insights into “why,” I’d love to hear them.
In most countries cab-over trucks are practically required because the total length of the tractor plus trailer is strictly regulated. This also used to be the case in the US, until the laws were changed in the late 80’s. The total length of tractor plus trailer is now much more generous on US roads so you can use a long-nose ( conventional) tractor and still haul about any length trailer that you want.
Conventional tractors are preferred over cab-overs by U.S. truck drivers and trucking companies for several reasons;
Maintenance and repairs are easier because you don’t have to tilt a giant cab to get access to the engine.
Noise and heat are better because you are not sitting on top of the engine.
The ride is much better because you are sitting between the axles and not on top of the front axles.
The driver fares much better in an accident in a conventional for obvious reasons.
And one of the biggest ones for the trucking companies is the drivers don’t have to climb a long length of little vertical footholds and steps to get in to the cab. In the past falls involving this long climb in to the cab was the source of a lot of workers comp claims for drivers, and only got worse as trucking companies had to rely on more older drivers to keep their fleets moving.
Thanks!!
Basically everything hubberts curve said is spot on. They ride terrible, limited on space, heat soak from sitting on top of the engine, being the first to the scene of a crash, length laws not requiring them anymore, etc.
Also, I don’t know how euro companies run but here in the states the industry standard for long haul OTR drivers is 1 day off per week with a minimum of 3 or 4 weeks out at a time and a max of 4 days off in one stretch.
Given the European attitude of working to live rather than living to work, I’d imagine most European truckers aren’t spending a full month in a truck to only have 3 days off. A cab over has a lot less living space usually compared to a conventional truck “condo.” Being trapped in a cab over with the bed against the drivers seat would be even worse than the walk in closet we normally have. But the US does have lightweight trucks where living space is even more dramatically curtailed.
The Isuzu diesel engine is one of the very best made. It has a solid history of 25,000 hours. Ordinarily 50-100% better than the competition.
I can’t talk as to the major differences in truck design, but I have some experience with the differences in driving trucks in USA vs. EU. In Germany (for example) trucks are strictly speed limited, and they do hand out tickets even for 2-3kph violations. Speed cameras are a fact of life. Also, trucks are not allowed on the road after 2200 or before 0600. Also no driving on Sunday or holidays. You can apply for an exception, but it’s really expensive and must be done ahead of time.
But the roads are different also. If the USA told truckers they couldn’t drive on a road unless they could stay in their lane of traffic (including in cities) those long tractors would go away. But that’s a requirement in EU. Try making a 90 degree turn in your own lane on a city street in a “normal” USA rig with trailer. Other than the main “freeway/autobahn” highways most roads in Europe go through towns and cities with space issues Americans just don’t have to deal with.
Tools get refined for the jobs they do.
That’s idiotic. Driving at night is exactly what truckers should be doing, for safety and efficiency reasons. Obviously, they need to have enough sleep, but that’s true irrespective of when they’re driving.
Truckers can drive on the highways at night just fine in Germany, and if you ever go there, you will see them on the autobahn mostly going in single file, one after the other. What is limited is driving in residential areas at night due to noise pollution, including big streets or highways that go through residential areas.
Tariffs on trucks are the real reason Japanese and Korean companies do not really compete in the full size truck market.
Free Market* at work.
*void for full size trucks
And safety and mileage restrictions on cars that don’t apply to trucks is why the Big 3 sell more trucks. Cheaper to build + marketing = more profits.
I wouldn’t call the Toyota Tundra a “struggling” vehicle, in CO I see as many of these as the F150.
The Nissan Titan never really caught on and is being discontinued.
I personally think a heavy duty Tundra would sell very very well. 1st gen and 2nd gen Tundra are legendary vehicles for reliability. I wouldn’t be shocked if Toyota builds an HD vehicle long run.
I personally believe that Toyota has decided that it is wise to stay the #2 auto brand in the US. Any time they “accidentally” pass GM, they make their cars slightly more expensive, and take the profits to the bank while surrendering market share. Don’t forget that globally, Toyota sells 75% more vehicles than GM and is the #1 global brand (as of 2022).
Nissan is ending production of its truck (Titan) this year due to very low interest by any buyers.
25 % duty on imported full- size trucks.
I think the Cybertruck was a huge, huge Tesla mistake. Had they made a more conventional EV truck maybe like Rivian, it would have been in production 3 years ago when no one else had anything at all to compete. Trucks are hugely popular and Tesla could have completely owned the market. I fail to see the benefits of the Cybertruck’s odd design, and everyone who has gone with a stainless body has bombed. Similar to the model X which was a mistake because of gull wing doors. Another flashy item that always causes issues.
A good EV pickup could have been Tesla’s easy bread and butter like it has been for domestic makers. At the very least Musk should have had two programs with the Cybertruck and an easier to make alternate truck.
I thought the same, but after watching the Munro videos about their manufacturing process, it’s pretty clear they can go to a more conventional body shape quite easily from what they have. The use of the big structural castings means the body panels really just hang off the interior structure on which all the important stuff is fitted.
It will take a while to build up their line to meet cybertruck demand, so they’ve got some time to see if it’s going to be popular, and pivot if they want. Personally I think it’s a bit ugly but also pretty cool.
The workability issues of the 3mm (10 ga) stainless steel dictates the simplistic body shape.
So any less planar design will require a different face shell material.
Transition in style will mean conventional sheet sheet metal and plastic components.
The delay then and slow roll now for CT is mostly about not having enough of the 4680 batteries and the fact that those batteries have not yet achieved the energy density they were planning on rather than production difficulties with the CT design. This is also why the CT range is lower than projected. Future iterations of the 4680 will likely boost the CT range. Recent improvements in 4680 capacity is what made the CT launch even possible. Last qrt they said they had a 40% quarter over quarter improvement in battery output. They are also building a second line now that they worked out some of the initial production issues
A few years back I saw an interview with the head of Ford’s truck division. For the first time the average sales price of a Ford truck was $50k. The guy seemed amazed by that. He said something like we make lots of different models and the expensive ones sale easier. I don’t know how much Americans will pay for a truck, but I guess we’ll keep edging up market and find out. It was obvious they were making more and more profit this way. Your charts show they pursued this and haven’t topped out yet. They are simply following the market.
While I prefer smaller trucks for a time they disappeared. There is some return to it now. However I saw a detailed report on sales of small trucks the last years there were any. Again, Ford and Chevy just followed the market. Ford and Chevy’s small truck was selling in tiny numbers and the last year of production actually didn’t fully sell for two years in the case of Chevy. While huge far more expensive trucks were almost a case of them not being able to make enough to keep up.
Drunken Sailors …. They just want to spend😂
“I don’t know how much Americans will pay for a truck, but I guess we’ll keep edging up market and find out.”
They’re not “paying,” they’re borrowing. And the weaker hands are getting flushed right now. This is going to take quite some time to sort out due to the ridiculous money-printing/credit bubble we are currently still in.
I have never received an answer as to when, how and why the banks began doing 175% loan to value on new vehicles, but that had a huge hand in running up prices.
I remember it was about 2 1/2 years ago or so when I started to see people bragging in comments sections about overpaying for vehicles and having massive monthly payments, like it was something to be proud of. Bizarre.
The high LTV’s are usually hocked by the captive finance companies, not “the banks”. Dealers send the credit buyer a bottle of booze at Christmas and said buyer figures out a way to make the deal pencil. Since they often use the line “we buy the customer, not the deal”, the buyer can justify it if the customer has a good payment history, particularly if he/she/it was a prior borrower from them.
The dealer pushes these loans because their finance reserve on them is huuuge and the credit company makes bank as long as the sucker continues to pay. Since the credit buyer is playing with OPM, he don’t care. The dealer loves it because he not only knocks the cover off the ball on the new vehicle sale, he gets all the funny money (below the line invoice money you, as a customer, never know about), plus the big reserve – which can be more than the front end gross.
Well borrowing does not mean they are not paying. It actually means they are willing to pay even more as borrowing increases the cost to purchase something. It is not wise, but it shows the demand for a fancy pickup truck even at high pricing.
I wonder what a pickup truck is anymore? They used to be for ‘picking stuff up’. They were low to the ground. An average worker could lift a 50 lb sack over the side. A 4’/8′ sheet of plywood would slide flat into the bed.
Now, they are tall and most aren’t well suited for picking things up.
Many can haul large loads. Many can go over rough ground. They have changed a lot.
Cyber Truck appears to be another change and even less suited to picking things up.
I wonder if an old fashioned low to the ground lighter weight pickup truck would be welcomed by construction guys or would it just be to low?
Nope. Not too low at all. I’m just waiting for Harbor Freight to come out with one.
I was wondering just that.
Where can you get a Spartan pickup truck that is just for doing work?
The monsters we see these days are more for luxury and bragging than anything else.
Would love a lower riding truck.
Lighter weight? I had a lighter single cab, long bed 3/4 ton.
Not sure it is suited for the novice to start out hauling with todays
drivers on the road. Have to make sure that load is centered & trailer
breaks set correctly. To many drivers with little attention to the road.
My best PU experience was a 1990 Nissan 4 cylinder. Never had a maintenance issue and I could carry an occasional sheet of plywood, tilted on it’s side. It was cheap, decent mpg and no frills. I wish they were still available.
Saw a Nissan “King Cab” that someone loaded a few too many 2x6x10’s into the “long bed”. Sat that puppy down right on the bumper with the front wheels in the air. Kinda funny (and predictable) in retrospect.
Had the same experience in ’68, when the boss sent me to the batch plant in his ’64 International 3/4 ton to pick up 1.5 cubic yards of wet mix…
(approximately 6600 pounds)
Going back straight up Marin, as instructed so the wet mix wouldn’t set before I got back to the project, whenever I hit the accelerator just a tiny tiny bit too much, the front end lifted off the pavement!
Totally agree. I had one of those too. Perfect size for the type of truck I needed. I wish they would bring those back too.
Adding a thought. Maybe Tesla should build the ‘Work Truck’ next. Something really low, heavy, strong, and stainless steel where it could really be useful in rough worksite conditions. Batteries and the drive train can be flat and low with no engine sticking up so it could be low to the ground. There is always electricity on worksites for charging though work trucks aren’t driven too many miles most days. Tires could be large and knobby for mud.
The big monster trucks that legacy manufacturers build these days aren’t much good for work and as Wolf says, they are way too expensive.
Other than the starting price which will probably come down, that is what they have built. The Cybertruck has an adjustable suspension that will lower for loading and will fit sheet goods flat with the tailgate down as well as everything else you would want in a work truck other than long range towing capacity. Plus on board power, locking frunk for tools, etc.
TC – I’ve often wondered if part of the tall-pickup trend goes back not only to the ‘status’ issue being discussed, here, but also a perception of being visually ‘above’ the surrounding, (formerly and predominantly) sedan-based traffic in a big, and therefore ‘safe’ vehicle (I am referring, quite unfairly i’m sure, to the distaff side of this market. High ground clearance to give an air of ‘rugged off-road’ capability applying to the male side probably enters here, as well…).
Ah, marketing, undoubtedly the best pickpocket to ever work a crowd…
may we all find a better day.
US automakers leaned into the bigger footprint vehicles as well because CAFE standards gave credits for companies making larger vehicles. I don’t know the specifics but basically if your vehicles weighed and had a size over certain thresholds you could get away with lower MPG ratings on that vehicles or something along those lines. This also applied to emissions standards for a while too. A vehicle over like 9000lbs GVWR didn’t need certain emissions devices during the 80s and 90s.
That’s part of why a 1 ton pickup from 1980 is pretty close in size of a 2023 Toyota Tacoma and why the Toyota Tacoma went from the 1980s Toyota pickup with the 22r peashooter engine and a curb weight of a modern Mazda Miata (2500lb) to a 4500lb tank. That and safety ratings. God forbid you ever get hit today while driving one of those old 1980s Japanese beer cans.
Depends on the crowd but when I used to run heavy equipment everyone had the biggest lifted truck they could pour their measley checks into. You’d need to climb on the tires or bumpers to do or get anything. It was obnoxious to say the least. I’ve noticed this is far less common with Hispanic and black crews in construction. Usually the Hispanic crowd runs vans anyways and pull an enclosed trailer. I think that’s the best of all worlds. A 1 ton van and some kind of trailer behind it.
Usually the only guys I see running old trucks that aren’t lifted are the old guys who don’t want to pick something up to eye level to load into their truck. The brodozer crowd, they just pull a cheap tractor supply trailer if they want to haul anything.
The price has nothing what so ever to do with greed – you just don’t know the meaning of the word so use it wrongly. No one runs a business to sell their product at the lowest price – a recipe for failure. I sell my product for what my customers think it’s worth – not what I think it’s worth. Obviously, pickup truck owners feel they are getting value for their dollar or they wouldn’t pay it. As far as I know, there is no coercion to buy any high-priced product – other than peer pressure. The fact that you can’t afford one is based on supply and demand, not your misuse of words.
Are there no fleet buyers in the USA? In Europe the eqivalent to the picup truck for work is the panel van. In sizes from smaller than the Ford Transit Connect to the Mercedes Sprinter.
The base models are reasonable cheap as a lot go to fleet buyers where some bean counter is to buy dozens of vehicles. And those fleet buyers care about the economy, not the status nor the looks. They aint going to drive or be seen in those vans.
The new fleet buyers are college universities. lol
I read Utah University NIL collective is leasing a $61k Ram truck for every scholarship football player. Then a short time later they decided to give the men and women basketball, gymnast , and volleyball members a free lease but they get to pick between the Ram pickup or a jeep.
Who in the right mind is leasing these new vehicles to college kids. I can only imagine what the insurance cost will be. But correct me if i am wrong but rental car companies do not rent to under 21 year olds for a reason.
Back in 1985 I purchased a Mitsubishi pickup and it lasted almost fifteen years and was junked in 1998 with a quarter-million miles on the odometer. It was a practical vehicle, great on gas and hauled just about everything.
In 2003 I purchased what was to become the last year of production of the Chevrolet S-10. It was good on gas and also hauled pretty much everything. The winters in the northeast finally got the better of its frame, so was sold in 2018 to a neighbor kid for $500. It had 150 miles on the odometer.
Both trucks were inexpensive and considered by myself as necessary tools for living in a rural environment.
Full-sized pickups never interested me, primarily because of poor gas mileage and high repair costs. And many of the guys I worked with never used their trucks in a practical manner. Humorously, many waxed the bed of their trucks.
Typo: the S-10 had 150K miles on the odometer.
Most vehicles are priced at specific targets years salary… It’s been like that along time… As wages go up , so will vehicles…One years gross equals MSRP target vehicle price…
Where did you come up with this theory? Worked in the industry (manufacturer level) for 30+ years and never recalled considering the average yearly salary of the masses as a basis for retail pricing. Income ranges were a part of the demographic consideration for locating a dealership, yes. Also the “cardboard cutout” of the customer for a specific vehicle….. but vehicles are traditionally designed/marketed to a lifestyle, not income as one begets the other.
The rise is pickup prices is a predictable (and indeed intended) result of tightening government fuel economy standards. Since the production of gas guzzling pickups must be balanced by sales of higher gas mileage smaller cars, it should surprise no one that this constraint on the supply of gas guzzling trucks results in higher prices.
That would be true if there was an actual constraint in supply. Looking at my local dealers, they have trucks out the wazoo. Our local Ram dealer has a football field sized lot covered in trucks and a sign that say “$5000 off MSRP”. Still not moving the merchandise.
Putting up ‘Take One for Free’ signs might help significantly!
I’m waiting for the Ram “buy one, get one free” sale!
Coming soon to a dealer lot near you!
When they add a zero I might be interested
CAFE standards are different (lower) for light duty trucks than passenger vehicles (aka cars). The big bombers (heavy duty) are even lower.
You make the faulty assumption that a super efficient car that exceeds its higher standard cannot offset a light truck that fails to meet its lower standard.
The difference is between practicality and the fragility of the male ego. The charts are eye popping, but it tracks with the marketing efforts and the increasingly fractured state of mental stability in American males. Men that don’t need a truck for work still need a truck to compensate for their insecurity and to have a place to paste their moronic MAGAT stickers. They’ll spend anything to show how tuff they are.
I see them all over the place. Makes no sense.
If women suddenly preferred men who wore ballet slippers, you’d see a shift ub demand to those shoes. I wouldn’t blame the problem on male egos. Women are as much to blame as men. If it weren’t for eggs, there’d be no chickens, or maybe it’s the other way around.
My son calls them “Emotional Support Vehicles”.
In the trades there is a saying; “The bigger the truck, the smaller the d…” Guess anyone can figure it out.
Tiny hands gripping a big wheel?
WellInever,
Ridiculous…I have a Ram 3500 Dually with a screaming Cummins Diesel with a hydraulic dump bed. The fact that I have a small d… is just a coincidence.
While the North American automakers can be accused of many mistakes over the year, charging big dollars for flashy pickups doesn’t seem like one of them. If people will pay big bucks for them, even people who don’t need a pickup, then they are the silly ones. The profits from those trucks are keeping the automakers alive. Hardly a silly decision.
I thought the cybertruck design was just made to get attention. Then I learned two things:
It’s the first vehicle with an EXOSKELETON! Yep, the stainless shell is thick because it takes place of the frame. They developed a new stainless alloy for it called 30X.
It is the most aerodynamic designed truck with a drag coefficient of .335 which is better than many race cars!
It’s really a paradigm shift. Once I learned this, the looks became less objectionable.
I put a deposit in and wish I had done so earlier
So the Cyber truck is an invertebrate, like an insect? Well insects are strong…
I’ve been on the waiting list for more than two years. I have a love/hate relationship with the Cybertruck. Half of the time I like what I see in terms of what the vehicle offers… and the other half I am put off by the appearance and the spartan interior. But we’ve owned a Model S for more than six years, so we don’t have the big “jump to an EV” paradigm shift to deal with – we know what owning an EV is all about. I’m not sure who the “average pickup owner” is, but I am not a tradesman. Rather just someone looking for an AWD EV that I can take into muddy locations with mountain bikes and muddy dogs and car camping. I agree with the earlier comments about Tesla missing an opportunity to bring a “traditional” EV pickup to market several years ago. But rumors of the Cybertruck’s demise are greatly exaggerated :) As far as I’m concerned, it is coming down to operations and Tesla’s ability to produce the vehicle at scale. One thing’s for certain – it is the one vehicle people have been talking most about for the last couple of years :)
Exoskeleton-not so much–it’s a unibody construction with some door frame components on it that could stiffen against impact. Exoskeleton is still talked about by Musk, but it really isn’t.
It could have been an exoskeleton if there was a complex set of ribbing behind the slab-sided panels, coupled with very unusual side panel connections, but there is no sign of these.
My impression is that the flat surfaces were easier to form and design for and the 10 gauge thickness was to ensure no oil-canning…
..But while Tesla’s proprietary 30X-alloy stainless skin may endow Cybertruck with industry-leading dent resistance, the material spec and the exoskeleton design force tradeoffs. “Cold rolling makes this material very strong but sacrifices ductility and formability. That means a minimum subsequent metal forming is possible and dictates mostly flat panels and straight character lines”….Tesla has engineered a material and manufacturing solution that requires minimal forming operations, enabling huge potential savings in presses, dies and related operations for its radical new pickup.
It neither has an exosceleton nor is it the most aeodynamic truck. Far from it.
My F150 needed a new engine at 65k miles and again at 140K. But I felt “cool” driving it. Never used it for construction or hauling. Mostly 10 mpg. So dumb on my part. I know better now. Just calc the cost per mile for whatever you drive. Human behavior makes no sense regarding pickups. Cheers.
C.mon, it makes perfect sense if you like country music.
Play country music backwards and you get your dog back, you get your wife back, and you get your truck back.
OutW – and play New Age music backwards and get…New Age Music.
may we all find better day.
That chart truly is astounding. But I think what is more astounding is that people are willing to pay that amount which they obviously are since it is still the #1 registered new car. Blows my mind.
What amazes me most is that so many people are willing to pay that much for a truck, 90% of which will never have a 2 x 4 or even a bag of groceries put in the bed.
I think the pick ups are the men’s equivalent of women’s expensive makeup. It’s all for show.
Yes, and it’s pathetic.
Am I the only one that gets the impression over the last decade that people now just ‘cosplay’ roles that people genuinely lived in the not so distant past. We’ve got people cosplaying as bikers, lumberjacks, ranchers, hobos, carpenters, prospectors, game trackers, outlaws.
Many of these character roles people are pursuing and projecting are based on real roles people had that were based on material and economic conditions and demands.
But I see this in our own economy today. Much of it seems artificial. There is obviously the shift from goods to services. Is it worth sounding critical of if people’s material needs are met though, I should maybe ask myself. That people have to pretend to be something they are not likely means that their psychological and personal fulfillment needs are not being met though. We are what we are and changes come with the passage of time. I can’t buy manhood, and a female can’t buy womanhood, but it won’t stop people from trying to do that and making others think so.
I also see this in some “business owners.” It seems some people buy a small business because it allows them to buy an identity related to the business, and so people will even if the business does not generate much money and costs them a lot of time. It’s funny how smart and busy some people can look if they spend a lot of money to do so. Then, on the large scale, we have the Corporate CEO’s and Financial Class who take it to a whole other level with their costumes where they pretend to work, be men, genius business managers, and self made. Our nation has become adept at inventing new ‘financial products’ but somehow we seem to have an inverse correlation with inventing new technological products compared to our country’s past and it’s industrial history. Fiat can permeate a society over time to a level where everything has a number associated with it in relation to something else and eventually you will find that people become easier to buy and sell than they were when slavery was legal and fiat currency wasn’t as pervasive, although now at least you can rent the cow for four hours instead of buying it for the life of the cow.
We used to say in Oklahoma about some wannabe, “He’s all hat and no cow.” It pretty much sums up America these days.
The saying is “all hat, no cattle,” not “cow.”
Nope! That may be YOUR saying but that’s not what was said by authentic Oklahoma cowboys. I know because I lived and worked among them. Try again.
Oklahoma educational system at work LOL
Fascinating. Many are rich enough now to play more at other realities.
I think it all makes sense, in a way. Maybe if I could coin a phrase to explain it I would say “competition relativizes”. You have sexual competition – “differential reproductive success”, much of which is measured by status competition, like with the conspicuous consumption of these trucks. Looked at from the outside it’s wasteful and irrational, but from the inside it kind of makes sense because that “differential” has to be measured by *something*, no matter how small it is by any absolute measure.
Same situation with our economic system; it’s design uses competition as the force for getting people to participate in it. In more of an egalitarian system the value of something would at least partly be determined by it’s absolute value to society – how much anyone actually needs it. In our current competition-driven system it’s only the relative value that counts. Any absolute value created is nice – I’d like to say that it could even theoretically give you a competitive advantage, but then I think of all the jobs and work that goes on that we would all really be better off without. You have to sell your time doing *something* to participate at all; you have to create some kind of relative “value”, even if or as the absolute value created approaches zero. I think that’s most clearly visible with financialization and what’s been called the “toll-booth economy”.
By the way when I try to type “financialization” my phone autocorrects it to “fictionalization”, and for once I’m like, no that’s actually right.
BRW/MB – interesting observation, thank you!
may we all find a better day.
You’re not wrong. There are actually guys who are wearing logger boots and workwear as fashion these days, but they’re tapping keys on a keyboard. It’s almost creepy.
The first thing I do is take off my work boots and clothes as soon as I’m done working.
I’m always amused by country western celebs who wear 10 gallon hats while being interviewed in a television studio.
In the Uk at least I’ve heard lots of anecdotal suggestions that RRP have gone up to protect residuals of used values, which due to financing (essentially owner pays for guesstimated depreciation for 3yrs then hands it back) , are largely liabilities on the books of manufacturers to the ~ 3yr point or whatever.
Combined with pandemic money, lower factory output, this was sustainable.
Now it’s just another even bigger debt balloon house of cards?
We tried playing residual roulette on exactly one vehicle. It was a bloodbath never to occur again.
That’s why manufacturers put together the “Certified Pre-Owned” programs. Gave them a market to retail their way out of their residual mistakes or capitalize on the gigantic profits that could be had – as happened during Covid.
Howdy Folks. I thought the FED said something else the other day?? HEE HEE. So, youngins, are we learning yet? Still a very long way to go. This inflation thingy could be longer than the 70s 80s inflation, spending thingy nonsense….
PS. New Vehicles are great and well worth the investment. I only had to purchase 2 in my lifetime and each lasted about 25 years……………….
Well one comment says that the stainless panels just hang on the frame. Another says that that it’s an exoskeleton with no frame. Wonder which it is. Towing capacity isn’t just horsepower. It may be an adequate tow vehicle, but there’s no cargo area to speak of. That doesn’t matter if you aren’t buying it to haul tools and materials around, and as noted most trucks do the heavy looking-on and carry mostly egos. Is there a matching stainless pipe rack available, or side bins? Standard utility add-ons won’t fit this. Seems like an interesting vehicle if you don’t do serious construction or farming. Construction and service vehicles in Europe and elsewhere are predominantly vans and other closed vehicles. Pickup beds are neither dry or safe from theft. This will probably outperform a standard pickup in snow and ice in terms of traction. A laudable pioneering achievement, absolutely. We’ll see how it sells after a couple of years, and in the used market.
Let’s cheer the oligopoly for fleecing all those who buy pickup trucks not for practical, but for fashion or image statements.
It is ludicrous to think that at the supermarket loading dock of a “burb”, the semi that delivered 26 pallets of groceries generates about same horsepower, although more torque, than the fashionista family pickup truck picking up few containers of tofu, yogurt, soy burgers, etc.
Far more important than the HP or TQ is the breaking. Too many sunset quarry commercials of steal beams getting dropped into a Dodge dually has made people think physics ain’t what it used to be.
Tail wagging the dog comes to mind. 40′ camper trailer next to a 53′ reefer ain’t so different on ice or in the wind. But the horse leading the carriage ain’t no working mule. It’s a cocker spaniel with a loud bark.
Re: people don’t really need a truck.
1. People really do need a truck – definitely not all the time, but they aren’t paying these prices for fun. A large proportion of trucks are fleet vehicles, then agriculture, construction. I tow an RV, and owning a truck is the most cost effective option (believe me, I run the numbers).
2. Sedans and SUV’s only have the driver in them the majority of their time too. You buy the vehicle for your max need, not the minimum.
3. Other countries do have trucks – they just enclose the bed and call it a van. Same chassis, smaller engines. No Boulevard Princes driving those.
4. The prices are outrageous, but we saw similar increases in the RV industry, and now sales have cratered and they’re shuttering factories.
Ultimately it’s buyers who decide these things. I’d love Tesla and other entrants to disrupt the market, but truck owners are loyal – not because of brand, but because proven reliability to complete the task has value. Not fun for your vehicle to crap itself on I70 in Colorado.
Howdy V111 You are not supposed to purchase what you want.
Based on my experience, you are not the rule, but the rare exception. If you tow an RV, a boat, or anything else on a semi-regular basis, then yes, a truck makes sense. If you use the bed once a year to move a couch, then no, the numbers don’t work, and you’re better off renting a truck from Home Depot for that day.
Einhal, you’re right that the numbers don’t make sense at these prices, but it does make sense to pay *some* premium to have your own truck at home, so you don’t need to drive separately to a rental place (possibly booking multiple days in advance), learn new controls and handling, etc.
Another thing to consider is that if you need your truck once a year, and so does your son in law, and your brother, etc., etc., then your family can get a fair bit of value in total even if none of you individually would consider it worthwhile to own one. Though presumably you’re not charging your family to borrow your truck, so it’s only you who has to pay the price :).
Personally I’m with the set of commenters who wishes they had an old Japanese “beer can” again. Maybe Rivian or somebody will make an EV version, with batteries to add some weight, and with crumple zones and airbags. For Tesla I don’t think it’d fit their brand, as cool as it would be to have e.g. a bed that was just a single folded piece of 6mm steel.
Andrew, sure, but the fact is, most people who buy them are doing so because they think they look cool, and don’t really care that they’re spending a lot of money unnecessarily (and in many cases, money they don’t have).
That’s their right, but let’s not buy their BS about moving stuff a few times a year.
I decided to stick with my 2010 Lincoln MKZ.
I’m able to do so because I perform maintenance on a regular basis. Changings Oil and coolant are of primary importance.
An engineer from Tokyo (in charge of maintenance at Tokyo Disneyland) taught me the importance of performing regular maintenance. I am grateful.
Since there is a slight slope from my driveway to the alley, when I change oil on my vehicles, I position the drain plug to be “perfectly set” at the lowest level to completely drain all the used oil from the pan. But before putting the plug, with a new crush washer back in, a small amount of fresh oil is added to the engine and allowed to run out into the drain pan too.
Crazy? Maybe. But if you let a couple of drops of the oil that’s exiting after the second step land on your fingertips, it will make you a believer.
Sorry, have to disagree. A visual test of oil means nothing. It could be black as night but perfectly fine. Modern day oils are designed to suspend particulates and last a long time, and the only way to determine if oil is “bad” is to send a sample in to a company like Blackstone Labs, etc., which I do periodically to check the health of my Cummins diesel engine in my work truck.
The sample will be checked for wear metals like aluminum (piston wear), copper, chromium and lead, the additive packages will be looked at to see there is plenty of life left in the oil itself and it will also include things like silicon (dirt entry past air filter) and sodium (coolant in case of internal head gasket leak, etc.), and fuel and water.
Further, my injection pump holds a quart of oil which will never drain out so that used oil will always mix with the additional 11 quarts of fresh oil that are put in during the change. Not a problem.
These engines have B50 expected service life of 350k miles, meaning half will die or need a major teardown before then, and another half will still be going strong beyond 350k. When taken care of, barring some fluke like a dropped valve, 750k and beyond is commonplace.
That small amount of used oil you’re talking about is 100% irrelevant insofar as your engine health and service life are concerned, but more about you catering to your OCD or whatever has caused you to become concerned about it.
Yeah, probably just makes me feel like I’m giving it a final rinse to get it as clean as possible.
Don’t get me wrong, I love buying used vehicles from people like you. I appreciate the overkill maintenance.
Nissan makes a full-size truck called the Titan, so there are five manufacturers in the U.S. making full-size trucks.
The manufacturers didn’t just jack up the prices of their full-size trucks. They also starved the market of small trucks for years and only now are beginning to make small trucks, such as the Ford Maverick, again. Ford, for example, did not redesign its old Ranger between 1998 and when they discontinued it in 2011, so, by 2011, it was vastly obsolete and sold poorly as a result. I believe Ford did this intentionally to steer customers to the more expensive F-150.
The manufacturers are also discontinuing their regular cab standard bed (RCSB) trucks; Ford is the last manufacturer that makes one, and only in XL trim. Clean, low-mileage RCSB trucks older than two or three years are very difficult to find, and the few for sale are very expensive. Most used RCSB trucks are high-mileage, beat-up ex-fleet.
Nissan… yes. But it never was a factor because of minuscule sales, and Nissan announced that it will discontinue it after the 2024 model year due to low sales.
YTD through Q3, Nissan sold just 15,000 units, compared to Ford’s 573,000 F-series.
Mercedes-Benz also tried with its X-class truck, but it too failed and was discontinued in 2020.
Actually, the Mercedes X class was a Nissan Navara. At least in Europe. And Nissan shut down manufacturing at the Barcelona plant in 2021 due to declinining sales in Europe.
Here the chassis was from Nissan, the powertrain and other stuff — a lot of the tech stuff — was from MB. But why would MB partner with Nissan to put a truck together? It showed total lack of commitment. They didn’t want to develop their own truck, they were just dabbling, and everyone knew it would fail in the US.
Yeah, “trucks”
Drove a company truck for decades, Fords in the last decade.
Never a Ford again over repeat blowouts of their plastic oil drain plug and pan. In my younger years I drove cars with a persistent leak–just add oil every week or two. With the Ford truck plastic plug and pan, there is nothing more sobering than coming off a 1500 mile trip and the next morning finding a gigantic oil puddle under the truck–most of the oil on the ground–what if that had happened in the middle of a long drive day.
(Note that the “low oil” light had been reduced in sensitivity by Ford because a propensity to use oil–sometime 2-1/2 or 3 quarts between oil changes (Ford dealer-“oh, don’t worry, the V8’s are just like that it’ll be fine) This was on a truck 2-1/2 years old)
After 2 more leaks, I said no more new Ford trucks
When I was looking for a tow vehicle for my short-term travel trailer, I didn’t want to put out the overage for a truck and bought an older Lincoln Navigator that had a tow rating of 9000 pounds. Works great, I know, a Ford, but no damn plastic oil drain plug and pan.
But hey, with the Tesla truck, the best part is, you really have a good idea of the type of person they are when they pull next to you.
I’m wondering what genius (obviously not from the north) puts the charging port right on the rear wheel well, the buttons on top of the box wall for operating the box door and cover, and one gigantic floppy wiper on the worlds largest windshield to keep clean and defrost. Snow and ice, anyone? And really, I hate the reflections and light from such a long-sloping windshield
If you ask the companies the reason for the price increase is their labor cost…….the truth……bad management
Productivity increases in the auto industry over the past 50 years have been healthy.
fred f. – how often do we see it discussed here, the wages of not letting firms captained by poor management, fail, and fail hard?
may we all find a better day.
BrakeForIt: These Are the Worst Pickup Trucks of All Time
Pickup trucks are the kings of the road in the United States. After the miles-per-gallon scare at the turn of the century ended, the popularity of these mighty beasts came back in a big way. That doesn’t mean every truck produced is good though. The truth is, the more popular a product becomes, the faster the automakers will look to push out similar products to make a quick buck. Throughout history, this has made buying a pickup truck a high-risk, high-reward endeavor. Here are the worst of the worst pickup trucks that you will absolutely want to avoid at all costs.
The link you provided was mostly about vehicles that came out decades ago and can no longer be bought, except maybe at a classic car auction. There was nothing on this list from the last five years. 2018 was the latest entry (Mercedes Benz X Class), and it was discontinued in 2020.
When the rest of the automakers started producing EVs, Tesla reduced their prices and now we see EV inventory rising at Ford and GM dealerships.
If the profit margin on the F-150s is so high, it would seem Ford could do the same to Tesla and reduce their MRSPs to make the Cyber Trucks less attractive to the pocket book.
Perhaps this is stupid thinking….
Ford is completely dependent on the high profit margins and volume of its trucks. If Ford loses even part of that business, or say half of the profit margins, it would throw Ford into an existential crisis. F-series account for 38% of its total unit sales.
The cybertruck is the ugliest truck that I have ever seen, it looks like it escaped from the backlot of Judge Dredd. I wonder how owners will feel after the new wears off and people are still making fun of how ugly it is?
I happen to agree – I would never in a million years own, let alone buy, that thing. However, plenty of people seem to want it so clearly one size does not fit all.
I’ve never rode in a Tesla, but I’m sure they’re great cars. I just can’t believe that Tesla has gone so long without introducing a small, economical car. The CyberTruck seems to be more profiteering than anything and NOT a step in the right direction which is widespread BEV adoption.
Midsize pickup trucks are where it is at. They are cool. Like cool like sports cars and both don’t sell in larger numbers.
Wolf are you hungry for a Taco?
The excessive price increases wouldn’t be happening if the government hadn’t made it a practice of printing money.
Impose a chart of the Fed’s balance sheet next to the F150 price and it appears you’ll see a high correlation.
The Fed should stay out of the money printing and inflation business!!! All else equal, when you increase money supply, you increases prices for everything, including wages. Basic economics 101.
Companies that jump out to raise prices are simply following the monetary incentives and forecasting the inevitable result of money printing. If you don’t grab your share of the newly printed money with price increases, your competitors will. Talk of price gouging isn’t recognizing economic reality.
The 2020-2022 stimulus went largely into consumers pockets rather quickly in different forms (i.e., PPP handouts, cash payments, scam unemployment insurance payments, etc.). Nobody had to wait for wages to increase. If you are a small business owner and you get a $200,000 PPP handout you didn’t need, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Answer: Buy a new truck.
To clarify, I think oligopoly behavior is a factor as well, so I suggest money printing and oligopolies are problems.
The FTC hit pieces that have come out lately are very interesting. The oligopolies and their well paid CEO’s don’t like anybody putting restrictions on them. They’d rather succeed by buying other companies and startups that threaten the status quo. Organic growth is much more difficult.
Trucks have come a long way. For long distance trips over 1,000 miles we now use our 2022 Ram 1500 Laramie vs our 2013 S550.
Surprisingly, the truck is more comfortable and just as quiet and smooth as the Benz. The upright seating position in the truck might have something to do with this. Highway fuel economy is OK at 23mpg for such a big and heavy vehicle. Self-deploying air dams and automatic grill shutters seem to help wind resistance at speed. We also tow our RV and boat on occasion. The truck ends up being a good all-around vehicle except in the city. That is where the Model 3 shines. Will probably get rid of the S550 although it only has 18,000 miles.
David Stockman:
“As we said, the above mendacity is window dressing. Wall Street wants another run at surging stock prices, and the only way to make that happen in the context of an economy that is dead in the water is through yet another cycle of PE expansion.
And when it comes to PE expansion, in turn, the Pavolovian traders and robo-machines of Wall Street have already surpassed AI learning by a country mile:
Lower the rate.
Buy the stock.
Bank the gains.
Done!
Rinse!!
Repeat!!!
The above is the one and only justification for lowering interest rates early next year, late next year or any other time in the period immediately ahead.”
He’s 100% right.
Pigmen gonna pig.
Buying used trucks in Canada and shipping them to the USA is a lucrative business. I know of one company that moves about 500/month. He’s able to sell them for roughly what he pays, sometimes more, never less, so his profit margin at minimum is the exchange rate, 25-30% minus shipping costs.
He’s a nice enough guy, donating to a number of local charities to help bring his taxes down so it’s all good.
Canada also supplies the most oil to the USA, and helps keep those older vehicles filled up . Maybe it’s another conspiracy, lol
In the fifties the boys I played with with a competitive interest in autos used to recite the catchy phrase; ‘If you can’t afford a Dodge, dodge a Ford’ It would appear this sentiment is long gone judging by the prices people are happy to fork out for a Ford
When is someone going to bring back something like the Ford Courier to kill all these ridiculous high prices? Unfortunately, the world has turned into a oligopoly, where there are only a few producers of any given product category. The world needs to bring back real Capitalism which is marked by unbridled competition, where lower prices equals higher market share, putting dinosaurs out of business.
I love my 2000 tundra with 167k on it. I use it as a truck as it was meant to be. I laugh at the big shiney 100k trucks that will never know dirt. My Tundra only a half ton and about the size of a Tacoma is now. But I love my rough and tumble dirtied , scraped up black beast. Paid 8500 for it 10’years ago and still worth about that Turned down offers , no way I am selling er.
My Dad is looking for a used Tacoma to replace his 2000 Chevy Silverado… and is SHOCKED by how much the Tacoma’s are going for. Granted that overall inflation is a part of it but there is HUGE demand for smaller trucks due to the prices of the big ones now.
1) Four major shipping co bypass the Gulf of Aden and sail around Cape
of Good Hope, S. Africa. Inflation might grow.
2) The cheapest and the fastest way is Biden/Modi silk road through Saudi
Arabia, where oil is cheapest, bypassing the Suez canal. It’s op already in low vol.
3) Demand for trucks and heavy trucks might grow.
4) The Houthies hurt China.
1. Laff. More like Shekels.
2. Laff x 2. 10 years and 1 trillion dollars too late, BRI.
3. I like the Toyota Stout and Toyota IMV 0.
4. Houthies and the Blowfish? Iran so far, Iran so far away. See? I can be geopolitically cryptic and musically entertaining.
1) Maybe China go forward with the Nicuragua canal.
2) From China the Nort-West passage may be shorter to Europe.
3) Nissan and Mitsubishi have for the time beeing left the European picup truck market due to falling demand. Outside USA a heavy truck is a lorry.
4) Long term?
“Tesla is going to mess up the party of the truck oligopoly once it’s able to produce trucks in large numbers”
Not until they change the styling of their future trucks. That current design is one of the ugliest vehicles I’ve ever seen. The faceted, flat panel design saves money on tooling, but the F-117 design style they went after looks far better on the fighter.
Like Wolf I’m not a big fan of the “Darth Vader” look of the new Camry but if you really want to see the “Darth Vader Look” Google “2023 Cadillac Escalade black” or “2023 Lexus LS 600 black”.
Hanging around “car guys” my entire life there is always a higher percentage of “old guys” that like the look of the older cars (my pushing 90 Uncle has a ’62 Corvette for decades and thinks Chevy blew it with the “aero” design in ’63 and really hates the look of the newer (even more aero Vettes)…
Tesla’s Cybertruck strategy is the right one: appeal to the premium spenders first.
Then, instead of buybacks, funnel the profits back into the mass-market model, like the Model Y. Maybe the “work truck” mentioned above.
By the time Ford figures out what happened, it’ll be parceling out its balance sheet to the highest bidder (which will include Tesla).
DM: Huge crowds descend on bargain bin stores across US to snap up Amazon and Walmart RETURNS, including $15 ‘mystery bags’ – with many then selling them on for a profit
A sub-culture of so-called ‘Dumpster Divers’ is emerging as shoppers flock to stores which offer goods from Amazon and Walmart for as little as $1.
DM: Investor predicts ‘trophy’ real estate will soon be available to everyday U.S citizens – as market sees ‘EPIC’ pricing correction
With soaring house prices and mortgage costs, the housing market poses significant problems for sellers and buyers alike. But real estate investor, Grant Cardone, said that’s all about to change.
DM: Greyhound bus network used by 60M people is in crisis as scores of stations shut across the country – forcing passengers to wait on street corners in the cold and dark
Greyhound has closed scores of its central bus stations across the US, either cutting services, or moving to far out parking lots or curbsides as a cost-saving measure. Houston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Tampa, Louisville, Charlottesville, Portland and Oregon bus depots have all shuttered in recent years while Chicago and Dallas are set to close.
Homeless people sleep in Greyhound terminals, risking customers.
1) Every day the Suez canal generates $25M/$30M revenue, for a total of
$9.4B/y, ending June 30 2023, not Shekel.
2) Twenty six thousand ships crossed it. 12% of the global traffic and 30%
of the global containers goes through the Suez canal.
3) The Hootie “event” isn’t a Laffing matter. The”Ever Given” container ship, stuck like a bone in the neck, cost billions to the global economy.
4) The decline of the Suez canal might be a systemic change.
1. You are concerned more about the entry versus the exit at the Red Sea. All the finest of company are waltzing around there, like a big coming of age party. This is called escalation management. I really do not know if Palestine is the real reason, but they are not letting a crisis go without gaining something. And Israel is in big trouble. Hence, shekels.
2. BRI, SCO, BRICS 11, and Iran and SA are kissing cousins again. Syria, China, and Russia are invited to the party also. Waltzing Matilda.
3. Ever watch the movie Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome? This is the big point. There were characters who controlled the energy supply (methane from pig crap) called Master Blaster. They could embargo and turn off power to Bartertown. Master is Iran and Blaster is Houthies (Yemen). Master commanded Blaster to kick ass, so he did. Iran is saying they control Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf, so let’s party. Poor Israel in the middle.
4. Look at the big brains on Michael! (name the movie with John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson).
5. Name my most famous song. Ask your mom if she is over 70 and she will know.
EH – …so, if I understand you, you’re saying we’re entering a ‘Winter World of Love’? (…and looking forward to future point/counterpoint, if Wolf deems cogent, between you and ME…)…
may we all find a better day.
I’m late, but the vast majority of truck owners would be better served by owning a mini van. Toyota and Chrysler both make AWD versions with moderately nice trim. Aftermarket lift-kits are available as well.
MSRP for the top-line Toyota Sienna is $52,650 in my area. 36/36 MPG, 2.5L 4cyl (towing capacity takes a bit of a hit).
MSRP for the top-line Chrysler Pacifica is $57,800 in my area. 19/28 MPG with 3.6L 6cyl.
Collapsible/removable rear seats offer as much space as a conventional long-bed truck. No truck cover needed. Far more fuel efficient, far more seating when needed. It’s a way more practical vehicle for virtually all purposes one would use to justify the purchase of a truck. But it lacks one simple factor that nobody will admit to in one’s decision to purchase a truck: image. Country singers don’t wax poetic about the reliability and convenience of a minivan.
Many of the truck owners I know tell me they don’t want a minivan or SUV since they want to keep the dead ducks, dead deer (and wet muddy dogs) “outside” of their vehicle…
You forgot about the greasy auto parts, load of landscaping materials, and smelly garbage too…
Couple of old flannels on the back seat for the muddy dog.
And the deer strapped down on top of the ford escort.
Now we need to own a truck to hide the dead critters & a go vegan sticker on the bumper.
I think the Tesla Cyber truck is going to be one of the biggest corporate experiments in a long time.
For one, it is an impractical vehicle, especially as far as real working trucks go. Fortunately for Tesla, that might not matter. Most trucks are not working trucks. They are testosterone filled statements (dreams).
I am pretty sure that the Cyber truck is going to fail in the “working truck” space, however since so much if the truck market isn’t about the working truck space but instead about appearances, it might do very well among those who are looking for the appearance of owning a truck. When it comes to speed and pulling power, it is top notch. Obviously the other hand, much of the truck “appearance” market is based off of having such superior characteristics.
However…..
Much of the “appearance” market is based off of images of the actual “work truck” market. If the Cybertruck fails in the work truck market can it succeed in the appearance market which closely follows the work truck market?
It will be interesting to see.
Secondly, from a manufacturing and aging standpoint, the Cybertruck is a wildcard. The design of the Cybertruck has resulted in some tradeoffs that might make it very hard to mass manufacture and might make it look terrible for owners 5 years down the line.
There is a reason the normally optimistic Musk is hesitant about the ramp up off the Cybertruck. Mass manufacturing of it is going to be hard. Really hard. Also, it is going to be seen how an unpainted stainless steel truck ages. Stainless steel is hard to scratch, but when those scratches happen, they are going to be horrible for the surface. Plus, the design of the body makes it really hard to replace a quarterpanel or such.
I am very curious to see how the Cybertruck is received. I can see a very wide range. Huge. I can see it being a DeLorean type vehicle that brings down the company, to a mass market success to the appearance market.
Ultimately, if I had to bet, I would think it ends up somewhere in the middle. Maybe I slightly more popular Hummer.
The future is exciting about this vehicle.
JL – have wondered if villainous mischievits will exult in not needing a key to disfigure the finish on a CT when simple finger/handprints might do…
may we all find a better day.