Just received phone call for next wave, wave 4?

[Roy2001]

I ordered 8pm PST on 5/19, in California, to be more accurate, Sacramento area Folsom Lake Ford. Did not expect to order this year due to high EV demand in California. But I just received email (missed the phone call due to meeting).

Wave 4? Can not decide if I should order it. Below is the email from dealer.

Great news! You're reservation number is going to be in the next wave of invites from Ford to submit your order. You should receive your invite in the next few days to a week. Please give me a call if you have any questions.

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[ninjaybot]

You will likely be in wave 4. Ordering us up to you man. Pros are gone.

 

[wheelz2000]

Betting that pros will be gone pretty quick once the '23 orders open up given the amount of interest in it.

 

[RavenYZF-R6]

Betting that pros will be gone pretty quick once the '23 orders open up given the amount of interest in it.

With production increasing so much I bet they relax the restrictions on trim levels a lot. I’d bet most who want one are able to snag one next year, just might not be all be the first 2023 off the assembly line.

 

[wheelz2000]

Will be interesting to see what the difference in production output will be by then. We are still in a chip shortage so I'm kinda surprised that won't affect the timeliness of production forecasts.

 

[KevinC]

I agree the ratio of Pros will be better for MY2023. Ford definitely wants to make money, which they can do best on higher trims, but they also want to saturate the market before GM and Tesla get fully up and running. They want the lightning to be synonymous with electric truck.
While next MY prices could go up, I'm hopeful Ford will throw a bone to people with reservations and reward them with near similar pricing(or better pricing on XLT+). My understanding is they threw in some perks to mach E orders who had to wait longer than expected.

 

[CoyoteJim]

I ordered 8pm PST on 5/19, in California, to be more accurate, Sacramento area Folsom Lake Ford. Did not expect to order this year due to high EV demand in California. But I just received email (missed the phone call due to meeting).

Wave 4? Can not decide if I should order it. Below is the email from dealer.

Great news! You're reservation number is going to be in the next wave of invites from Ford to submit your order. You should receive your invite in the next few days to a week. Please give me a call if you have any questions.

I was in wave 2 at Folsom Lake Ford, wanted a Pro but since they were sold out ordered an XLT SR. It’s going to replace a ‘96 F250 Diesel. I’m going to miss the long bed and the 3200lb hauling capacity but I think it’s worth it for the convenience of going electric…plus Sacramento’s air quality is bad enough, I don’t need to contribute.

 

[Roy2001]

I was in wave 2 at Folsom Lake Ford, wanted a Pro but since they were sold out ordered an XLT SR. It’s going to replace a ‘96 F250 Diesel. I’m going to miss the long bed and the 3200lb hauling capacity but I think it’s worth it for the convenience of going electric…plus Sacramento’s air quality is bad enough, I don’t need to contribute.

Good move! Whenever there is a disiel pickup truck around, I will turn off incoming airflow immediately. I just cannot breathe.

 

[Diabolical!]

With production increasing so much I bet they relax the restrictions on trim levels a lot. I’d bet most who want one are able to snag one next year, just might not be all be the first 2023 off the assembly line.

...and I'd bet my salary that the $39,974 price tag is out the window for MY 2023.

 

[metroshot]

Um, diesel engines nowadays are far more cleaner than gasoline engines due to advanced emissions treatment.

When I drove 2 generations of diesel BMWs, they emitted so little that the state originally did not include emissions testing....

Even the old pre-DEF diesel engines had soot as it's main exhaust which visibly looked terrible, but was better for the air due to large sized particle emissions.

I still think gas engines are the worst polluters....

 

[RavenYZF-R6]

...and I'd bet my salary that the $39,974 price tag is out the window for MY 2023.

Possibly, but if memory serves I read somewhere that they kept broncos price the same into the second year.

 

[Tell It Right]

IMHO if we're truly worried about air pollution and cars/trucks, we need to produce our own power individually if possible. If I get an EV (I have a reservation for a F-150L) I'll almost certainly upgrade my solar system to offset the increased power consumption.

The earlier poster referred to Sacramento, and I know California recently started charging large monthly fees to solar producers. For years we've had the same problem in Alabama. That's why I got a solar inverter with a zero output (sometimes called "no report") option. Basically, I don't put power back onto the grid even when I have excess power. Thus I don't participate in my utility's power buyback program, therefore I'm not charged the large monthly fee. Therefore my solar system will have paid for itself in about 10 years (assuming just a 3% inflation rate on energy costs, which, let's be honest, will probably be a lot more).

 

[RavenYZF-R6]

IMHO if we're truly worried about air pollution and cars/trucks, we need to produce our own power individually if possible. If I get an EV (I have a reservation for a F-150L) I'll almost certainly upgrade my solar system to offset the increased power consumption.

The earlier poster referred to Sacramento, and I know California recently started charging large monthly fees to solar producers. For years we've had the same problem in Alabama. That's why I got a solar inverter with a zero output (sometimes called "no report") option. Basically, I don't put power back onto the grid even when I have excess power. Thus I don't participate in my utility's power buyback program, therefore I'm not charged the large monthly fee. Therefore my solar system will have paid for itself in about 10 years (assuming just a 3% inflation rate on energy costs, which, let's be honest, will probably be a lot more).

I did some math on solar where I am and it would take 16 years for me to break even on the loan and what I’ll have to pay the electric company on top of what it produces. I just can’t make that investment not knowing if I’ll be in my home for that long before moving. And some solar companies I got quotes from only have a 10 year warranty on work!

 

[CoyoteJim]

The Sacramento area is a little better off than the rest of the state because the local utility is a not-for-profit (SMUD). They have recently reduced what they pay for energy sent back to the grid but I had solar put in at the end of last year so it was just in time to get grandfathered in to the old rates for 10 years.

The rest of the state is facing a new net energy metering proposal (R2008020) written by the for-profits (PG&E, SCE, SDGE) that are facing big judgements after being found at fault for deaths from fires and gas explosions. Disguised as "modernization" and "equity" changes, the proposal drastically cuts what they have to pay solar customers for power back to the grid and establishes a "solar tax" of $8 per kW of solar panels per month. For a typical house with 10kw of solar that's $80/month minimum...for nothing. Not surprisingly if passed this would kill new solar installations. There has been a lot of public opposition to this so hopefully it doesn't pass as is.

As for my F250 Powerstroke, it's old so the diesel tech is not great, contributing to ground level ozone and particulates in the air which the Central Valley has a big problem with anyway during fire season. For a while I was running it on straight vegetable oil and later joined a biodiesel co-op. Back then my exhaust smelled like French fries. But lately I just fill up with regular diesel and avoid driving except to pick up loads of dirt/rocks/lumber/etc. I'm expecting to use the Lightning a lot more, hopefully replace our second car.

EDIT: The good news is the recent ruling against Salt River Project in AZ sets up legal precedent for suing corporations over charging solar customer excessively.
https://electrek.co/2022/02/01/an-a...rt-for-price-gouging-rooftop-solar-customers/

 

[Tell It Right]

I did some math on solar where I am and it would take 16 years for me to break even on the loan and what I’ll have to pay the electric company on top of what it produces. I just can’t make that investment not knowing if I’ll be in my home for that long before moving. And some solar companies I got quotes from only have a 10 year warranty on work!

By "what I'll have to pay the electric company" are you talking about the normal charges for a lower power consumption (because you produced some of your own power), or are you including the "solar fee" a lot of power companies charge people who have solar? For example, for me the extra for the monthly solar fee would be $5.41 per kW system which is $5.41 X 12 which is $64.92 per month, which is on top of the $15.86 base charge I and everybody else pays (at least here) even if you consume no power. Like I said, you can avoid that $64.92 monthly fee (or whatever it is in your state) by having a no report inverter and not participating at all in their buyback program.

Then there's also calculating your true power rate. My utility says it's 10.6 cents per kWh. That's a lie. Throughout the past year it's been as low as 12.78 cents per kWh to as high as 13.54 cents per kWh. I derive that by analyzing my power bill (total bill - $15.86 base charge = total usage charge, divide that by # of kWh my statement says I bought = true rate per kWh). Once I realized my power rate was really around 13 cents per kWh instead of 10.6 cents I realized that getting solar would pay for itself sooner than I originally thought (every kWh I save is multiplied by 13 cents instead of 10.6 cents). Then I assumed a 3% inflation rate for future years (actually looking back the past few years both power and natural gas increased a lot more than 3%) and realized it'll pay for itself sooner (the higher the rate of the power I'm avoiding = the more I save each year by not having to buy that much from the power company). Only after that did I do the research on things like peak solar hours per day in my area at different months in the year, optimum pitch of roof for solar, bonus points if it faces south, etc.

But as you said for you it's a moot point if you're not planning to live there long enough for it to pay for itself. The only other way around that is if you installed a large enough solar system to substantially lower your power bills. (I read a small 5kW or so system adds virtually no resale value to your house if you sell it. But a system that reduces your utility costs by $2,000 or more per year adds a value that's 15 to 20 times the annual amount saved.) My existing system saved me $2,222 last year (not that I did the math or anything), but that includes me converting my two gas appliances to electric and now having no gas bill, as well as a lower power bill even though I consume more power (to offset what I used to consume in natural gas) because over 50% of my power consumed is produced on my roof. So 15 times that would add $33K or so to my home value if I sold it now. That's a hair more than I paid for the solar system now (in other words selling now would be at a "loss" solar costs-wise). But at about the 4th year of owning the system, the HELOC I took out to buy the solar system and replace my gas appliances will have a $33K balance, which is about the value increase my solar system would give me if I sold and moved by then. So with the threat of moving soon (if I was in your situation), year 4 would be my breakeven point, at least with my system. With staying virtually forever (my situation), year 10 is the breakeven point. I'm not telling you to get solar, I'm just putting the math and analysis on here for anybody else since EV lovers tend to be the kind of folks interested in solar.

But all of that isn't as nice as this one very important thing: my monthly budget doesn't fluctuate nearly as much as it used to when government boneheads poke around at our energy costs. As I soon head into retirement, one less thing I lose sleep over is sky high home energy inflation eating up my retirement investments.

That's the #1 reason I'm in the market for an EV. I want a hedge against sky high gasoline inflation like I already have a hedge against sky high power and natural gas inflation. The up-front cost for an EV is substantial, but it's easy to determine the exact cost. However, gas prices over the next 10 to 20 years is a great unknown with much potential to go a lot higher.

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