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@RichardJensen is back?!??! It's a Festivus miracle!!!

Hi. I'm back. Got married between my last appearance & now. Me and Mrs. Jensen went to see the movie last night. And you know what? I never thought I'd find myself defending Lee Iacocca, but that movie just did *not* do him justice. Or Leo Beebe. I mean, criminy, one of the advantages all the Ford factory teams had at Le Mans was that all of them had Holman-Moody trained pit crews. And that was a Ford corporate (i.e. Leo Beebe) decision. But I have to say, the main reason why I went to see it was Christian Bale as Ken Miles. That was an absolutely inspired bit of casting. Little details were great. They nailed Enzo Ferrari--honestly, I think he was more spot on than Hank the Deuce. Sets were fantastic. Loved the lit up Esso "Oil Drop Man" south of the main grandstands. Because of all that attention to detail, it was a bit jarring when they used doctored up GT-40s for the J-Car and Mark IV, because I'd have to think that, as cheap as a fiberglass mockup would be for cars that didn't have to do much actual driving, they could've gone the extra mile. But you're talking what? One out of a thousand movie viewers that are going to catch that? It was also weird that they recreated Miles' Daytona GT-40 with an absolutely impressive attention to detail, yet Hansgen's car was way off. I mean, I can kind of understand why they'd do that. The whole point of the scene seems to be suggesting that Leo Beebe got Holman-Moody involved because he didn't trust Shelby, so it helps 'tell' that story if the GT-40s look very different. But during the actual race, Hansgen's GT-40 looked just like Miles'. In fact, I'm about 99.99% positive that the red stripes on Miles' car, the green stripes on Hansgen's, and Gurney's blue stripes (as well as the large circles applied to other cars) were done before the race because the cars were numbered sequentially in the 90s, were otherwise identical, and the bright colored patches would make them easier to identify. The colors were only applied on the infield sides of the cars. Of course, showing mostly identical cars would make it harder to believe that HM & Shelby were at odds with each other. It would almost look like HM & Shelby were part of a coordinated factory effort..... ? I was not expecting much from Matt Damon as Shelby--I figured he was too much of a real-life character for Hollywood, that they would've turned him into a caricature, but Damon's actually pretty restrained. And that scene where Carroll sells the same Cobra three times---I mean that, in a nutshell, was ol' Shel. He bit off more than he could chew with the Le Mans efforts, but there's no way on Earth Ford would have won at Le Mans without him. Ken Miles' death hit him hard too. Robert Lane met Shelby once, with a friend of his. Robert told his friend not to make a fool out of himself, and they had barely started talking when his friend said, 'What happened to Ken Miles?' and Shelby said, "The goddamn car just broke up on him" and turned around and walked away. Thoroughly enjoyed most of the movie. They went to such lengths to get certain things right, so I found the deliberate mischaracterizations (and outright bungling of facts, like Ken Miles being kept back from Le Mans in '65) jarring--kind of takes you out of the moment.

Quote from a friend of mine: cybertruck: 90% more angles than the competition i mean, this bitch is practically made of angles

WTF!!!??? It looks like a bunch of refrigerator parts welded together by blindfolded people!

You're missing the point as usual. If he's undercutting the competition by $10K because he can afford to keep losing money, it's going to take sales and profit from all the other companies actually trying to stay in business. They'll either close up shop (Rivian) or stop selling BEVs. And that should concern any BEV fan.

You like how that thing looks? I'd have no problem reserving or ordering a product I haven't driven. But I'm not signing the dotted line without driving it first.

Meanwhile, over at Rivian:

This is the problem with Tesla. He doesn't need to make a profit. Or he hasn't up until now. I'm sure that's for the lowest range but it's still probably losing money. I think he's got another year to 18 months before the house of cards comes crashing down.

RJ!! Welcome back! I hope you are here to stay...we've missed you! Congrats on the marriage, BTW!

What???? You think you can go away like that and just waltz back into our lives like you never left and expect us to just pretend you never left? Of course you can! Welcome back! BTW - loved your Unix piece! They obviously took some liberties with some of the characters - especially Beebe. But the movie was so well done and so entertaining it can be overlooked in the name of hollywood. Listening to the folks that had to create and manage the cars, they had to do a lot of things on the spot including swapping cars, etc. There is no evidence that Shelby drove a Porsche but that was the only cars they had available that day that were reliable enough to film. So a lot of that may not have been planned but done out of necessity. I think Bale deserves an Oscar nomination. It was that good. I wonder how many Americans know that's his normal accent?

This thing looks horrid - like some offcast "future concept" from the early 90s. Like a dustbuster. Its amazing that a company that produced the Model S is going to make this hideous thing. I just don't know who looks at that and thinks - YES - let's go with that.

Unless it's a Bronco I don't believe that for a second.

15000 reservations (out of a total of 50000 available) in 4 days for a car that you can't drive and won't be available for quite a while? That's pretty impressive in my book.

Deafsoundguy, you are so right , a lot of crazy drivers in Albq. I'm about 4 hours southwest but I drive through Rio Rancho on my way to Salt Lake City. I plan my trips to avoid "rush hour" up there.

I’ve been seeing reports of 15k also. Another thing to keep in mind is the way Tesla and the way Ford does business is completely different-Ford has an actual dealer network and I bet a lot of people are waiting to do an actual test drive first.

Remember the year that Ford decided to kill its formerly top-selling car, the Taurus, with a redesign they were proud to say was all ovals and lacked a single straight line? This is ten times worse than that.

I think we're going to see a fairly major correction in the auto market in the next 18 to 24 months. Stagnant wages and increasing new car costs are leading to ballooning loan terms and household debt. It isn't sustainable. Broader lineups of CUVs and SUVs are due to come online just as prices top out and an expected sales decline hits, meaning fiercer competition with more models and fewer buyers. Rinse, repeat.

The Cybertruck looks like pickups that I drew when I was in 3rd grade. Yikes.

Subaru xt6 owners be like: “we love it!l

That presentation was horrible, BTW. He made Jim Hackett look like an Oscar winner and the Mach E reveal look like a blockbuster.

Yeah, Shelby has never been used on a non Mustang coupe before.

Saw it last night.. really like the movie. And yes, the audio at the end of the gt40 driving away on the track was awesome.

You should really open your eyes first.

I'll believe it when I see it. Not even ICE cars have that kind of range. Hybrids maybe if you stay off the freeway.

I'm not used to the market, but the Cybertruck price does not sound bad...

Just a note: Tesla just announced it's new 2020 roadster will have a go 600 range.........

I still believe that in a few years, with no entry level cars or sedans, auto companies will have to price cut and discount their way into market share and even the price padding you have today will disappear on CUVs just due to the cut throat nature of competition in this industry.

I haven't heard anything about the Bronco name being attached the C Truck and CUV The positioning of these products are going to be interesting-I'm assuming they are going to have the TC longer wheelbase, which makes sense, but the CUV variant would be larger then an Escape due to wheelbase and it being presumably a 3 row vehicle, which would make it more expensive then the Escape. The Fusion crossover also would be a more expensive product also...so who knows what the deal is with an entry level product is for NA and SA.

I want to know what a Minnesota farmer thinks about this "thing"...

This vehicle is having a strange lifecycle in my head. It went from horror, to laughing, to schadenfreude, to hmmm, to maybe, to I kinda get it, to maybe I should order it, to nope it's stupid design passed off as innovation. It basically looks like a one-off hand-built concept. I think we are a long way from a final product regardless. BTW, the blindspots in this vehicle re STUPID bad, the forward view is largely obstructed by enormous pillars and a tall cowl.

It just gets better/worse

FTFY

Thanks to Elon Musk for, in a single moment, making the Mustang Mach-E look positively gorgeous...and making the F-150 EV the obvious choice, sight unseen.

The CyberTruck is a CyberYuck! Watching the reveal right now, it's hideous! Unless Elon says "Gotcha" Rivian has nothing to worry about. It looks like a vehicle from the first Total Recall movie. Can't wait to hear the sheeple try to spin this thing.

People who don't care about cars tend to buy Teslas and their limited understanding of the industry is a constant frustration to me. I'm actually a Tesla fan, but I recognize the fandom as extremely off-putting to the point it's like a religious or political ideology, completely imbalanced and irrational. Ford certainly has the biggest reputation shift to make and the Mach E seems to have started it. Unfortunately, Ford does NOT have a good reputation for smooth launches anymore than Tesla does, but you expect better from Ford as an experienced "legacy" automaker. There is so much new tech here that Ford has never shown great competency in before (software UX and OTA updating, autonomous tech, BEV tech). The Mach E is still an experiment, it's going to take Ford much longer to figure this out than Day 1 of Mach E. So at this point I would certainly trust the Model Y more than Mach E. Personally I would still recommend the Model Y over the Mach E for at least the first 2 years. There are just way more unknown quantities with the Ford at this stage, but we already know what we're getting with Model Y. Ford has a huge struggle ahead of them, if they don't deliver on all these promises, it's going to be a huge problem.

I walked into the building today to a bulletin that said just that

Found it. Looks a lot like a F150.....

Now jest SETTLE DOWN a dang minute,ever last one of ya!. GM has already set dates to accept the buyout offer,I read around, Dec.14 and dates for leaving ,I read around mid- March.Seniority will determine who goes first as far as GM hitting their target number.Ford has said that the company is still working on the details of its buyout/retirement incentive offers and threw in that Romeo Engine has up to 4 years to close.The company usually has manpower requirements or, a number of employees in mind that they want to see leave.Also the company has to figure out when it wants to absorb the costs of the buyouts on their financial statement they release to Wall Street.The contract Highlights read "retire as determined under the normal and early retirement provisions of this agreement".I dont see a lot of wiggle room there but I am no lawyer.Seems to me that if you are production or one of the "up to" 200 trades {make me laugh} selected and you are eligible for a normal retirement,meaning 30 + years then you get the bonus?Its like an addition to your retirement and you should be able to collect it when you want?Wait----"provisions of the agreement" is in there.I guess,here we go again,brace yourself for whatever happens and get ready to hear your union say "Yes,they can do that" .

Also note they combined cars and trucks so half of the 2020 10 best are trucks/utilities which is probably why Mustang didn't make the list.

Smaller than Escape, slightly larger than EcoSport. (Blazer is the Edge sized one...TrailBlazer is the small one)

Really.... trade the lump? That bad , why not just take a leave of absence (psychological leaves are handed out everyday here in paradise...) or do the FMLA dance till your lottery number is pulled. Sorry to say ididntdoit, CAP will be on the bottom of the list for any retirement incentives or any other members getting out of jail free passes. Remember...... it is CAP we be talkin bout

Wait a minute.... what does knowing shit have to do with an effective or when it be`s goin to`s be`s applin it... date? Or does knowing shit make a person not have to ask questions on a collective bargaining process? Hmmm you would lend yourself to the group you labeled as not knowing shit, with your continued questions and referring to knowing shit.....

I assume fuel economy would be the same as Escape Hybrid (give or take) when battery power is depleted. Might be slightly better with charged battery. And you have the option of full EV mode for 25 miles. Personally I would have preferred the 2.0LEB or 2.3LEB but as far as I know Ford has not used anything larger than a 2.5NA with their E-CVT hybrids so maybe there is a torque limitation.

That's because Detroit based automakers' mentality with small cars in the U.S. market over the past 40 years has always been about regulatory compliance, specifically CAFE. Not about product excellence or customer satisfaction. The losses that those automakers incurred selling mediocre or poor quality small cars were balanced by those cars' contribution to higher average fleet fuel economy ratings. That allowed the companies to avoid fines for not meeting CAFE targets. Now the two Detroit based automakers that remain (GM and Ford) don't need small ICE powered cars to meet CAFE targets. They negotiated with the Obama administration to adjust CAFE in ways that favor larger SUV/CUV and pickup trucks, using vehicle footprint to determine fuel economy targets. And both companies are investing heavily in electrification.

Goodbye Ford. Hino Trucks Unveils New Class 4-7 Models | Transport Topics