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Perhaps the American manufacturers shouldn’t have allowed their technology transfer when they originally entered the Chinese market and partnered with Chinese companies as required by the Chinese government in order to do so. Much easier to focus on developing one aspect of a vehicle, when you don’t have to focus on developing any other aspect of it, because you stole the rest of the technology. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

I don’t want to say any more beyond I’ve heard rumors. The only reason I mentioned the flat rock thing to begin with was because it’s publicly available information that was shared in the 2023 UAW agreement. If/when the company is ready to announce something I’ll comment further.

Dropping the hemi probably hurt Ram more than anything.

Here are September results (figures in the above post/Ford's release are for the quarter): Comparison charts for major truck players and Ford/GM EV trucks and vans for Q3:

You guys are overlooking one important thing - the market. No matter how interesting you make a compact or mid sized family sedan (and I would argue the 2013 Fusion is still the best looking one) price is still king of that market. It’s like trying to sell hot dogs off a food cart with 8 other food carts. You might be able to upsell a few unique items but the bulk of sales are plain old hot dogs and nobody is paying a premium for yours when they can get it cheaper 100 feet away. Yes you can still make a little money that way but you must keep costs super low. Amortize the hell out of your platforms and powertrains with minimal changes over decades and sell globally for volume. Ford mismanaged their global platforms for decades so they don’t have that luxury today, although C2 is a big step in that direction. And maybe CE1 will do that on the EV side. Ford’s wheelhouse is F series, Transit, Explorer, Mustang, Bronco and Expedition. And those are uniquely NA/Australian products that won’t sell in any volume in Europe, Asia or South America. They found a niche with Maverick and Bronco Sport and those could go global at some point. It would be stupid for Ford to cut resources to those programs to heavily invest in cars globally or invest in smaller vehicles for Europe at this point. Had the EV market not demanded such big investment then they could put more resources towards global vehicles but that’s a done deal at this point.

Then there are all the people in North Fla and South Georgia who may be without power for weeks. You can fill up 5 gallon cans and transport gasoline from surrounding areas. Or get gas stations up and running on generators.

They have a perfectly good plant in Canada. That already built it. Not that long ago.

The Coyote part doesn’t really make much sense to me, especially when they have the 6.8 available. The Coyote is a big package and it’s more complex than the baby Godzilla, plus the 6.8 is already in the Super Duties, so you wouldn’t be adding more logistical complexity. Also, the 5.0 doesn’t really come alive until it’s up in the revs, and you’d think you’d want something that’s happier at lower revs, like a big ol’ pushrod V8.

Nice to see that they're recognizing that Lincoln is making a great product. I just wish they'd give Lincoln the same attention in the US that they are in the Chinese market (via more thorough refreshes)

Sad to see it go the way of Left Lane News.....

And I don’t want to hear how cheap entry level cars creates brand loyalty. It doesn’t. Those buyers will buy whatever is on sale at the time regardless of brand.

Well duh it takes time to put all new vehicles and processes into production. But considering there are apple, Tesla and Rivian alumni all working together there is no reason to think they won’t have some great new ideas and innovations.

This is an underappreciated opinion. https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/buying-a-car/people-spending-more-on-new-cars-but-prices-not-necessarily-rising-a3134608893/

Building and selling an affordable EV is one thing. Making a decent profit while doing it is something else entirely and this is where I think the skunkworks team will pay off big for Ford.

Yes. It's called don't get this package. lol

That was sarcasm because that’s not what Ford is doing.

the power console seems incredibly unnecessary

Thats fine as long as the playing field is level. But nobody should trust China to play fair with the U.S. and that’s the problem.

This move has to be viewed in context of what it was meant to do.... Ford was behind on EV tech, with looming regulations in Europe. This move allowed them to "quickly" (in automotive terms) get some Euro EV products out the door when they were behind. IMO, it was always meant as a stopgap plan until Ford could get its own (better) in-house products up and running, and that's what it seems like is happening.

2025 Ram HD Lineup Shows Beefy Grille And Split Headlights In First Official Photos | Carscoops

I seriously question those statistics. How do you determine that a particular fatal crash was survivable if the vehicle sizes were the same? In a lot of accidents size is irrelevant and the person would have died anyway. Way too many assumptions required to get that statistic.

The solution is to fix flatrock or open up Cuauatitlan for C2 production.

I totally agree with you on all of the above. I support this ban even though I’m a Canadian. Then again, America takes the lead and big little Canada follows!

Well, when you routinely discontinue or are working to discontinue vehicles and replace them with vehicles that there isn’t certainty that people want to buy, you likely end up with a lot of extra capacity. This rule is one of the few that I agree with regarding this administration. Never give a foreign adversary the potential to surreptitiously insert potential intelligence gathering tools or systems that can be utilized as weapons into your country. The exploding pager/communication device operation carried out recently is an example of how connected systems can be employed kinetically by an adversary.

And... this is why Farley is planning to restart vehicle production in India.

Current Diesel Electric locomotives are diesel generator direct to electric motors, there is no battery buffer. They run the diesels to whatever power level is required to power the motors. Union Pacific is testing a hybrid setup where one locomotive would be a standard diesel electric and the second would be a battery bank that could be recharged either by the diesel motor or the grid at a depot. The standard diesel electric is more efficient than a mechanical drive because of the complex transmissions that would be required to power all the trucks, plus you can power multiple locomotives with only 1 engine running. 150kW is 201 Hp. As can be seen in the link below, the industrial 6.8 V10 produces 201 Hp at 3200 rpm, which is probably its most efficient point. For charging you would want to run at peak fuel efficiency, for direct power generation you would want to run at the power required. A coyote has a peak fuel efficiency around the 150 Hp mark. A small engine would have peak fuel efficiency less than 100. Don't confuse maximum power with constant operational efficiency power.

If they nail the quality/reliability on this thing, it's gonna be one of the best offerings in the segment. The older Nautilus was already a good vehicle, and this thing improved it in every way for this generation.

Left lane news, man I had forgotten about that website. That along with autoblog were my go to websites back in the day. I still liked autoblog, but they seemed to be a step behind all the other websites.

When I saw Ford’s renewed interest in India as a manufacturing export Center, I began to think that maybe a lightbulb moment had occurred in Dearborn. Like Mexico and China, India is a low cost manufacturing location, idea, for Exporting tons of vehicles to Europe, ROW and North America. What really floors me is how inept Ford was at seizing the moment in India and China, it failed twice in India and struggles in China because the focus is entirely on the local market and always pretended that was more important than providing global exports.

Again for those not paying attention- it doesn’t mean they’ll implement it. It means they could do it but also if someone else wants to do it they have to pay Ford. Large companies do just in case patents all the time.

But the maverick is a conquest champion. The most common vehicle traded in for a maverick is a Honda civic.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2024/10/08/michigan-central-station-ford-moves-model-e-software-teams/75481779007/

If you really want to punish your eyes, check out the new Ram heavy duty front end. I won't share a photo of it here, because that would be cruel and uncalled for punishment.

Double edged sword with Lincoln - they seemingly don't want to make a bigger investment to grow sales, but sales won't grow (significantly) without a bigger investment.

My initial thoughts: 1) The front is fine, minus perhaps the orange fog lights pockets on the Tremor. 2) I don't know what they were thinking with the liftgate. I like that the shape mimics the front, but they should've connected the lower part of the taillights with a light panel all the way across (I know it's a Lincoln thing, but it'd make this design more cohesive). The lights in the upper liftgate panel look as if they came off another model - they don't tie in with anything at all and are just there for some reason. They could've at least put a graphic in the taillight that tied it in. I think the blackout panel should be trim specific (i.e. black on sporty trims, body color on regular). 3) Interior wise - the interior is fine minus the look of a last minute change to remove half the upper screen. If they had flattened out the passenger side so it looked less like a piece missing, it'd look far better, IMO. 4) It's strange that the drive mode selector is where the headlight controls have basically always been. I'll watch some of the above videos soon and post other thoughts as/if I have them.

Motor Trend speculates that during normal driving the generator will essentially be running the entire time, which means the battery pack can provide the extra power for faster cruising and mountain grades. The downside I see is that estimated fuel economy in case of this motorhome (similar to Super Duty towing) is not improved. However, if instead of a motorhome it was a Super Duty pickup, it implies that a similar powertrain would not improve fuel economy while towing, but could operate strictly as a BEV when empty and close to home. For owners who tow often, a SD EREV probably doesn’t make too much sense, but for those who rarely tow, it makes more sense by comparison, IMO.

I give it a C- effort, almost a D. There’s no excuse for the black tailgate section as it looks ridiculous on any color other than black. It makes the tailgate look unfinished just like the small screen on the wide dash. If you didn’t want to do Costa to Coast, at least you could’ve put another separate screen on the passenger side to take up some of the unused space. This quite possibly is the most disappointing new Ford product for me since the last Fusion redesign. There’s literally nothing compelling me to buy this vehicle. I can’t see how this vehicle exceeds any of its competitors in any way. Perhaps they could’ve saved the money by skipping the tailgate and put it into more interesting design and features. Talk about squandering the progress made with the introduction of the 2018 model. This was disgraceful product management. I would be embarrassed if I was the program manager for the Expedition.

That's the thing, Ford designs that are not icon/retro tend to be boring, but it doesn't have to be that way. Here's an example of a B-segment subcompact crossover, I don't think it's boring. Here are C-segment crossovers/SUVs, I don't think they're boring either. The segment isn't boring; modern small Ford cars/CUVs just happen to be boring like this blob called Escape.

I agree that products like BS and Maverick seem like they'd be perfect fits for a variety of global markets. This is where "adjacent" products come into play - like a 4-door Mustang, for example - it fills a segment, but it's adjacent to the regular market in that it can command higher prices that Ford wants. I saw a lot of Pumas in the UK - I think this is another good example of a product in a "boring" segment, but it's a good looking vehicle.

So you think it’s ok that the Chinese govt subsidizes their automakers and uses slave labor allowing them to build and sell vehicles here below what it costs US automakers? How is that fair or good for our economy? Might as well close up shop - you can’t compete with that. Not sure how you keep a level playing field and protect US jobs without tariffs or bans.

https://www.cardesignnews.com/cars/exclusive-ford-team-goes-rogue-to-celebrate-rs200-anniversary/46132.article Article from yesterday about the Ford designers who created a new RS 200 behind the scenes for the RS 200 40th anniversary. I love how this thing looks. But I know Ford won't build it (probably). Most of the article is locked behind a paywall, but I just know at some point in that article, Ford talks about how they have no intention to actually make it, that's how these sort of things always go. Ford trademarked the name recently, but likely won't actually use it. But could you imagine that design with some normal doors and windows? Throw in a 2.3 Ecoboost AWD hybrid system or something with a starting price of 60-70 grand to compete with things like the cayman, entry level lotus, and the new upcoming MR2? I'd buy one, I know a lot of young people who would. It's not gonna happen, but we can dream. The coolest looking official Ford design project in 5 years, and they'll just throw it away.

Not to mention, modern diesels are VERY complex with EGR, particulate filters, after treatment etc. This is a much much simpler solution.

I don't think it's illuminated...

Twice, actually. It was supposed to be a complete rebuild from what I heard.

Forget all the other lists you see online about vehicle expenses. Here's the answer for so many consumers!

I don't think the 2.3L would be up to the task of supplying enough power for towing 12-15k lbs. if the battery is depleted. Not to mention, the turbo engines are less efficient than their NA counterparts when running under load

I feel like the Autoblog decline began around the time that the AutoblogGreen sister website was launched. The quality of journalism started to decline as older staff members left, and then they filled space with "partner website" articles. Autoblog was my go-to for many years, but the last few years I tended to prefer Motor1, although I still went to Autoblog for the comments section (which is now gone in the new iteration). I'll have to try Autopian, since they have a much more active comment section than Motor1.

Cat exited the on-road engine market in 2010 before the 2011 emissions hit. I'm not saying them building their own pickup isn't possible, but I'd give it about 0.0001% chance of actually happening. And to say they have a price range nailed down but they don't even have mockups of the truck? Seems kinda fishy to me.