Living where I do (Detroit area), I see a reasonable number of pre-production vehicles driving around, and they are almost always a group of 3 vehicles, likely in case of a breakdown. They are also always dazzle painted (probably vinyl wraps).
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Not a fan of hybrids, personally. If I’m going to pay the extra expense for the EV components, I want to get rid of the ICE maintenance in the trade. I’d also absolutely love for someone to come out with a functional, simple EV pickup that can haul a full sheet of plywood without being massively oversized so the owner can pretend they’re not driving a minivan. But nobody wants to sell that.
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Full sheet of plywood and not oversized seem at odds with each other.
Hauling plywood isn’t in my future anyway. It’s not something most people do on the regular.
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Not really, the old compact pickups like the S-10 and the Ranger in the 80s/90s did it just fine in about the same space as a Corolla. They just didn’t have massive crew cabs and weren’t overbuilt to hell to look tough. And yeah, I get that I’m in the minority in my use case, but if you’re not hauling bulky stuff around you don’t need a pickup.
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But I’m looking for more seating and not worried about hauling plywood.
A small pickup is great for towing an rv. Which is what I would want to do.
If all you’re doing is hauling plywood once or twice a year - you don’t need a pickup. Get a Zipcar membership, rent or borrow a friend’s.
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… but more people might like them if they didn’t cost the same as that pickup truck 
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Or rent a pickup from the Big Box or Uhaul. 
I went for the hybrid again because my nearest relative is 8 hours away, and I really don’t care to turn that into 10 at this time (Chicagoland left out of this calculation for illustrative purposes). But it’s a plug in, so my around-town drives can be electric. I’m buying gas about as frequently as I did with the Prius and only plugging in once-ish a week. And if I fold the seats down, I can haul a full sheet of plywood. It is an SUV, though, so it’s got that going against it. I guess.
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An ev or plug-in plugin has some problems for us center city apartment dwellers. No ability to charge it from where you park it. Certainly can’t run an extension cord from the 9th floor. 
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For sure! And not every city is trying to get ahead of this. All the publicly owned parking garages have charging spaces they don’t charge you extra for, new developments that have parking have been required to include EV spaces for several years and private entities have been installing stations in commercial parking lots. Still, it’s tough trying to shoehorn in this new infrastructure in a city as old as Philly.
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There’s a parking garage under the building- a rare amenity in center city. I think the building is about 60-70 years old. I own a spot - snagged it for next to nothing years back- but you don’t park yourself. And it’s open to the public too - so it helps with the building costs. A coop.
I imagine they’ll get around to putting a charger in at some point.
My place is tiny - but it’s got a lot going for it!
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I don’t know the details of this particular jurisdiction, but perhaps “finders, keepers” applies?
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….and the Honda Ridgeline does it today. The moment they offer an EV version of that, they will have to shut up and take my money. I drive the ICE version today and eagerly awaiting an EV of it or a similar vehicle.
I live in a rural area and need a truck regularly, but the Lightning won’t fit in my garage, so I wait. Obviously the Cyber”truck” was never even on the list for consideration. It’s totally useless for actual truck tasks. I can’t figure out who that fucking thing is for.
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Thank you!
I’ve had a mental itch for a while, wondering what that bloody cybertruck reminds me of.
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They’re not that much, but yes they expensive. In another thread recently, Sam Vimes Boot Theory came up, and this is a solid example. They aren’t cheap. And if you can afford one, they save a lot of money.
We bought our cargo bike new for $3k AUD. Its justification was “instead of a second car”. On that basis, when you add up insurance, registration, maintenance, fuel etc. you’re further ahead after 18 months if you compare it to a free car. I’ve had it for 10 years, so it’s paid for itself many times over.
It’s also been great with small kids. When we go somewhere by car, it’s a struggle getting them out the door. On the bike, we struggle to keep up with the kids, who usually end up hounding us to get going. They like it very much.
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Elon’s ego. I don’t think it’s for anyone but him.
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Off topic, but one of my fondest memories is watching a guy trying to get some particle board, maybe 1.5 x 1.5 m, and himself, into his 9111) in the local DIY barn’s parking lot.
1) Not a convertible or the Targa version.
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Interestingly enough, as @FGD135 said, you see Erlkönige quite regularly in Germany, but I have only ever seen them on their own, never with support vehicles.
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Toyota, Ford, GM and whatever Chrysler calls itself this week all do this.
Other manufacturers have R & D labs, but not full-on development facilities here like the Big-3 and Toyota do.
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For a truck maybe, but many minivans can haul full sheets of plywood including the Pacifica plug-in hybrid. I’ve personally done a lot of home projects that involved hauling lumber or other bulky objects and never owned a truck. In my experience many people overestimate just how much truck they need, or try to come up with rational-sounding justifications to buy the type of vehicle that they wanted anyway.
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