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Eh, they won't be in trouble - GM has such and entrenched following, they won't be in trouble anytime soon. BUT, Ford can slowly chip away at their lead over time with consistently great product in the segment, and over time can take over the segment, or at least gain parity with the triplets (sales wise).

Pinto . . . ?

By then, people will be comfortable with BEVs, battery tech will be more advanced and costs lowered. This is the decade when oil companies feel the branch crack beneath them and realise that the end is much closer than they ever imagined. Many people are not ready to accept the new reality but the change is coming or actually starting to happen now.

I think he's talking about the Flux Capacitor option.

There is a story in the Freep today about a new F150 Powerboost owner in Texas powering his whole house during the TX blackout.

When you sell under 100k vehicles a year it is easy to hit 2.5% and have it mean nothing.

Is this Farley publicly reprimanding the North America product planning team? ? Just about everyone have observed that Puma is a much more appropriate car for the US market than EcoSport (or Fiesta for that matter). If Kia can sell 100k Soul a year in the US, I'm sure Ford can figure out there is a market for Puma.

Mustang Mach-E SPORT!!!!

Picked up January 2021. Ecoboost 101A package and auto. 2nd one we've had. First one was a 2004 GT Premium bought new in 2003. Drove that year round until 2015. Snow tires and bags of salt in the trunk in the winter. It was a long 5 years with out a Mustang around, so happy to have one again!

I don't see any reason why that might not happen, but I'd expect at least 80% of CUVs that Ford sells in the US to be BEVs by the start of the next decade.

Power outage in Texas: Man uses F-150 generator to heat home (freep.com)

Some grids are not affected - specifically those serving hospitals or other vital services. My co-worker hasn't lost power at all but he's near the hospital.

My sister lives in a suburb of Ft Worth. Since this has started, she lost power for ONE 25-minute period. It's not the entire freakin' state. HRG

There's very small chance that Ford and VW become one by the end of the decade, however that will depend on the political fallout as well as the talk of raising corporate taxes. If they do that I could see it happening (as well as with many U.S. corporations again being "bought" by foreign companies) as the new company would be headquartered in Europe to avoid those significantly higher taxes. Part of that would allow the UAW to organize the VW plants they do not represent and open markets. Few Americans actually care as been shown a European company owning FCA for the past 10+ years which was sold to another European company. They still sell tons of RAM's and Jeeps. Ford and VW always had a interesting relationship up until the early/mid 90's and were doing okay but as Piech came on scene and gained more power VW became nasty to Ford and Ford Engineering. Ford could have owned VW after WWII but didn't take the offer as they thought it wasn't worth anything. It is also why VW ownership and governance works the way it does; The Works Council retains so much board power and the German State of Lower Saxony owns 20%. It is also why preservation of jobs in Wolfsburg is a major part in every decision made.

“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” Thomas Jefferson 200 plus years later and still trying to prevent the government from saying they`ll take care of the sheepies .....

I’m not sure the BEVs are for all customers yet. I’m not sure all customers will want BEVs in 2030. The electric infrastructures are not well developed yet in Europe. And about the rest of the world, I think the situation is not better... But we have nine years ahead.

I’m one of those escapees from MN/ND. You can drive on ice, been there done that. Needed my dad to chisel the ice off my door so I could get out of my car. I wouldn’t advise it, though. Need to maintain the correct speed...too fast and you don’t make the turn at all...too slow and you slide down the banking. Stopping? Who needs to stop...just look for something soft to slide into. Much more difficult than driving on snow. You are correct about the trees and power lines and now wind turbines. For some reason, there seems to be more widespread damage in the south from ice, though. Probably a combination of greater ice accumulation, different tree species that aren’t as tough, maintenance of power line right of ways, etc.

No, that's not it

There's 1 thing I'm surprised nobody has noticed yet

Mach E-Fluent?

Lack of clarity on EcoSport replacement certainly is a bad sign for Craiova. But they still have Puma which is probably going to overtake Focus as the #2 seller for Ford in Europe soon, after Fiesta. But assuming Cologne switches to Fiesta EV in 2023, maybe Ford will move the old ICE Fiesta to Craiova for a couple more years. They've done something like this before when they moved Kuga from Saarlouis and Mondeo/S-Max from Genk to Valencia.

I know a lot of folks who have generators, some with NG-plumbed whole-house units and some with little gas-powered units that'll just run the fridge/freezer and maybe the furnace. In town, power lines are normally buried, but in the rural areas, they're normally only buried from the power pole to the house or barn. Even with that, it's usually the bigger transmission lines that get got; our electric coop is diligent about keeping up with maintenance and ruthless about keeping trees away from the overhead lines, but there's not much you can do about ice buildup on lines during a storm or the high winds that frequently accompany them, and we've had no luck at all in getting the tornados broken of the habit of going wherever they dang well please.

That's assuming customers can find a Mitsubishi dealer

The Bronco's design - in any form - has a striking on-road presence. The Warthog variant? Exponentially more so.

Hmmm what party is governing Indiana? What former governor is now the president of Purdue university? What former governor has reduced cost per hour for each credit hour at the GREATEST University? (not biased...much) What former governor has lowered the tuition and housing fees in general for Purdue University? Something about the ideology of education shouldn’t cost more at an East Coast or West Coast University just because of the Ivy on the walls....? Not only has that former governor lowered costs but there are three or four schools of discipline that are producing world acclaimed diplomas. Acceptance testing has not been lowered in anyway shape or form. Graduation and degree accomplishments are continuing to increase on a yearly basis. I wonder what kind of ideology would put that type of situation in place????

here in south Florida they’ve been burying a lot of the lines for some time now. Obviously helps with hurricanes but also looks better.

I was about to say - hurricanes and tornados are the most likely to knock out power around here followed by ice storms. We contemplated adding a generator to the new house but a lot of the power here is underground so less susceptible to tree damage. We also have a lot of pine trees here and those are the most susceptible to ice storms and those are the ones likely to take out power lines. And we have no snow removal equipment - just a few salt and sand trucks. The real issue is we get a lot of days where it goes from above freezing in the day to below freezing at night and that's when the snow melts and turns into black ice. Very dangerous.

Great Plains, areas with little to no trees was the joke, not the trips. I always enjoy road trips through less populated areas.

Probably not Mountain Ash, but White Ash or Green Ash, because of the invasive insect, the Emerald Ash Borer which made it's way to SE Michigan in 2002. It's pretty much eliminated Ash trees in Michigan. BTW, Mountain Ash trees (Genus: Sorbus) aren't really part of the Ash family (Genus: Fraxinus). Excuse the dendrology lesson, I did this stuff for 34 years.

Rendering of the first MEB CUV

And I bet they get freezing rain every now and then also. Trees, power lines, and heavy ice don't mix very well.

Full range commercial vehicles zero emission capable by 2024, and 2/3 EV or PHEV by 2030. That means 2023 Ranger will launch with a PHEV version for sure. But "capable" just means it will be an option. Full range passenger vehicles EV or PHEV by 2026, and 100% EV by 2030. No wheasel words here like "capable". So that means Ford will only launch new EV and PHEV in Europe from this point on. Just to elaborate some more on timing... you can see why Ford is putting out the 2024, 2026, and 2030 dates. Ford Europe's entire van and pickup line up are due for refresh in 2021-22 time frame so they all launch with optional PHEV or EV by 2024. Fiesta, Focus, Kuga, Puma, and Explorer are due for replacement by 2026 so they will go EV-only by that time. Mondeo and Mustang are launching with PHEV in 2021-23 timeframe and the following generation will be EV only which will launch by 2030. These are the Ford vehicles for sale in Europe now and their life cycle: Commercial Transit Courier - launched in 2014, due for replacement soon (probably B2 with PHEV option?) Transit Connect - launched in 2013, due for replacement soon (MQB VW Caddy clone with PHEV option) Transit Custom - launched in 2012, due for replacement soon (existing platform with PHEV and EV upgrade) Transit - launched in 2013, due for replacement soon (existing platform with PHEV and EV upgrade) Ranger - launched in 2011, due for replacement in 2022 (T6 with PHEV and EV upgrade) Passenger Fiesta - launched in 2017, due for replacement in 2024 (MEB) Focus - launched in 2018, due for replacement in 2025 (MEB) Mondeo - launched in 2013 (but really 2006), due for replacement in 2021 (C2 PHEV), and all-new EV only by 2028~29 Mustang - launched in 2015, due for replacement in 2023 (S650 PHEV), and all-new EV only by 2029~30 EcoSport - launched in 2012, due for replacement yesterday but probably will not be replaced at all Puma - launched in 2020, due for replacement in 2026 or 27 (MEB?) Kuga - launched in 2019, due for replacement in 2026 (probably MEB) MACH E - launched in 2021, due for replacement in 2028 (next gen Ford EV platform) Explorer - launched in 2019, due for replacement in 2026 (probably next gen Ford EV platform) S-Max - launched in 2015, probably won't be replaced Galaxy - launched in 2015 probably won't be replaced

Upper Midwest U.S. is a great testing area for both renewable energy systems such as wind power as well as EV for extreme conditions. The range of ambient temperatures must be the widest anywhere in the world. North Dakota for example has recorded temperatures as low as −60 °F in the winter and as high as 120 °F in the summer.

Ford Europe actually got a lot of regional products approved under Mullally: B-Max, C-Max, S-Max and Galaxy were all Europe only, at least initially. The problem was Ford Europe bet wrong on MPV instead of CUV. They had a head start on Fusion but gave that up to do the B-Max which was a disaster. And instead of doing another C-Max tall hatch, they should have done what Peugeot did with 3008 and made it a CUV.

https://www.windpowerengineering.com/the-cold-hard-truth-about-ice-on-turbine-blades/

Heat protection for windmill blades and control systems cost money. I'd pay the cost in the upper midwest. In Texas, not so much. May be some recalculation going on right now. Difficulty with renewable is you can't choose to turn on the sun or wind. You can choose to run a gas turbine or coal plant, with contingency for breakdowns. I have difficulty conceiving a complete renewable grid without much cheaper storage. Add electric cars/transportation and heating to the mix, require twice the generating capacity.

I'd been searching for over two months for an Aviator for my wife. She had an X-Plan PIN and specific demands for color and equipment. We were almost ready to order when I found one on the dealer's website as an "inbound" vehicle and began email negotiations with the sales manager that sold us her last Lincoln. Starting at X-Plan, we still tried to negotiate a lower price. He said the lowest he would go was X-Plan (plus a $1K factory incentive) for two reasons: first, Aviators are their best-selling vehicle and new units are either sold right after arriving or even before as with our purchase; and second, given the chip situation, they probably weren't going to get as many more as they could sell. The day we went in to pick it up, he told us that he already had two parties interested in buying it if we didn't. It is a sweet vehicle; and, unlike my Expedition, the hands-free lift gate actually works like its supposed to! Happy wife...

Agreed!, if the CEO is tweeting this then I think that’s a good indicator that it will replace the stale Ecosport.

Source (Not Fox News): https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/14/historic-winter-storm-freezes-texas-wind-turbines-hampering-electric-generation/4483230001/

Yes sir jpd80. Ford has its hands full just trying to figure out how to launch an all new or redesigned model without its own shit storm of delays, quality issues, and cost overruns. Hopefully the SK Innovation case will convince Ford executives to do battery manufacturing in-house with a different JV partner ASAP. Jim Farley said he was open to that possibility back in November. Now that Ford is "all-in" with BEV, there's no reason to hesitate any further. Ford CEO says carmaker now eyes making own EV batteries | Reuters

Ah yes, back when people owned a pair of gloves, rather than demanding heated steering wheels,,,,,, HRG

In the meantime, for you old guys a trip back to '66 and what a Super Duty was...Ask most Ford sales guys the origin of the name and they would be clueless.....

I imagine from all the diesel gen sets that will be constructed to handle peak period situations when the sun doesn't shine, or the wind doesn't blow, or the temperature is very low and the pipeline system that delivers nat gas can't keep up with supply needs that the remaining nat gas fueled generators must have.? Or who knows, maybe the idea will grow along the lines of....."Sure, but at a measured pace". But that probably won't happen as long as the taxpayers are forced to subsidize the electric conversion.

Again, I ask...where is all this electricity going to come from? Infrastructure is one thing; supply is a total different set of problems.

That might alleviate supply constraints, but they would still need to license the IP and secure the raw materials to make the cells. Easier to second source the battery cells just like any other part. The dispute will get settled. They always do. If not Ford has 4 years to find a new supplier and by then they will probably want a different battery anyway. From the corporate documents SK published, it seemed like these batteries may be a step ahead of the LG batteries. LG is upset that their engineers went to a competitor to finish up the work started at LG. Whatever evidence of what the engineers brought with them sounds like it was destroyed. SK claims it was only general knowledge of what they were working on so that they could hire the right people from LG. Part of the blame needs to go on LG for not keeping the engineers and scientists happy at work and not looking for another job or at least make it very difficult for them to work at a competitor. Non compete clauses exist for a reason.

Those EV options need to be a better use of capital, though. A lot will depend on charging infrastructure and cost of electricity vs gas, diesel, cng, etc. My crystal ball says the future is uncertain. Too many variables and lots of puzzle pieces have to come together in a short time. It wasn’t that long ago the experts were predicting diesels would be a significant factor.