F-150 Lighting Impressions from Sandy Munro

[Trekkie]

Your biggest concern is…youtubists not having unfettered access?

The lack of press cars. This close to delivery they should be press cars everywhere.

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[Temerarius]

I know Ford is keeping a tight grip on their story and the talking points, even going so far as to remove "range" indicators from their trucks (unless you dog around apparently).

That being said, the fact that Rivian isn't doing pressers yet, does seem a bit odd, but, then again, look at Tesla, most of the press didn't get to touch, look at, play with a Plaid until owners themselves were getting them.

Outside of that, I do enjoy Munro tear downs. The MachE teardown has been informative and one of the reasons I won't buy a MachE or a VW ID (right now). They are stuck in the past still (the over reliance on legacy bin parts and mindset with things like the cooling systems and over all electrical architecture is painfully evident). It's one of the biggest issues the Lightening is my second choice to the Rivian (the others being the heinous 150KW charging rate cap, no selectable air ride, and (by far) the idea of having to deal with the grubby dealers and their "markups"... I'd rather smash my fingers with a ballpeen hammer than have to deal with those blood suckers). Now, maybe by the time the Lightening comes out, Ford will progress enough from designs of the MachE to close that gap with Tesla-esc engineering, but I doubt it.

 

[crashmtb]

I’d guess press cars will be available around september when they start their demo program.

 

[Attesan997]

The lack of press cars. This close to delivery they should be press cars everywhere.

This is surely by design. They certainly have the vehicles based on the test mule spy shots to hand out to YouTubers. My bet is they're focused on execution and getting their product into customer hands, handing them out to Youtubers would piss off the passionate pre-order fanbase. I'd rather them behave like they are now than Lucid who has an IPO, plenty of Youtube videos, but no car on the road.

 

[crashmtb]

This is surely by design. They certainly have the vehicles based on the test mule spy shots to hand out to YouTubers. My bet is they're focused on execution and getting their product into customer hands, handing them out to Youtubers would piss off the passionate pre-order fanbase. I'd rather them behave like they are now than Lucid who has an IPO, plenty of Youtube videos, but no car on the road.

There’s no way they’d give evalustion/test program cars to youtubists, rather than waiting until there are final production cars.

They also don’t need reviews to drum up orders, since there’s thousands of preorders. Definitely they’re prioritizing getting the finish product to people who’ve put down deposits.

 

[gorwell]

There’s no way they’d give evalustion/test program cars to youtubists, rather than waiting until there are final production cars.

But, this is basically what Ford and GM did -- they didn't let them drive them, but they got ridealongs, and they let them do a an indepth walkaround....

Rivian looks almost like the are hiding something when they've effectively been close to a production car for 2+ years by now. Long Way up started filming in September 2019, and the Truck drove 13K miles and worked exceptionally well considering it was basically their first prototype build (it had infotainment that looks to match what they are using now, but most physical buttons were just a addon cluster).

Go back to Dec. 2018:

That R1T is practically 95% what they will be delivering. It doesn't look like it's added anything, but things have been removed.

Rivian doesn't need the marketing to fill demand (given their limited production capacities), that is correct. But F150 had more info. day 1 than Rivian had released over 2+ years.

F150 likely had more reservations over the first week than Rivian built up over it's lifetime. That's mostly because it's an F150, but also b/c they actually showed the Truck to the media.

I am one of likely many who jumped ship to the F150 and partly that is b/c Rivian has been way too quiet and I lost most of my interest for a truck that is $70K. I won't cancel my reservation until I'm sure I'm getting an F150, but I'm like 95% sure.

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