Leaderboard

My explorer was recalled to replace the clips on the roof rack covers. Meanwhile, Honda is in the corner whistling while civic engine blocks crack in half, and transmissions give out.

Cadillac Sollei is a striking electric convertible. It's also just a concept for now - Autoblog The Sollei is basically a convertible version of the Celestiq, a $340,000 limited-run sedan built on General Motors’ historic Tech Center Campus north of Detroit. They have the same length, wheelbase and electric propulsion system. “Today it is a design exploration,” Cadillac vice president John Roth said. GM’s head of design Michael Simcoe said: “This is a concept. Anything is possible, but at the moment this is just a concept.” He added it would be an “easy change” as an “expression” of the Celestiq’s architecture.

I had a recall for my Bronco that consisted of adding some plastic clips on the seatbelt to keep the attachment point higher up on the pillar to make it more convenient to grab. Not saying all of Ford's recalls are like that, but it can't be ignored that some percentage of them are for minor things like that.

2025 Ford Maverick Will Be Revealed On August 1st (fordauthority.com) Ford Authority is reporting that Maverick will be "shown" on August 1.

Anything that takes the ugly, abysmal rear away from the sedan is an improvement.

if you showed the new one to 1000 people 999 would see the new front and rear and say it’s new. 1 would complain about the side profile being the same.

This is a neat little detail. Huge improvement over the Celestiq styling wise.

Love the car! Hate the name. Call it an Eldorado as it is the spiritual successor to it.

I agree that Ford doesn't have much to choose from at present. I found a couple of 24 Edge's but there isn't much if any markdown. This is an outdated, discontinued design for sale at MSRP. Why would I buy one when the competition offers updated models at a similar or better price? It seems like Ford is falling behind the competition.

I like the taillight treatment better on this than the other iq models.

I've been saying for some time that Evos would make a good indirect Fusion replacement (because of the hatch). It seems as though all US brands are having difficulty in China, though Lincoln and Buick I think are doing well?

Gorgeous. Reminds me of the Genesis concept from a few years ago. Makes more sense than the Celestiq if you ask me.

I think most of the issues stem to them tightening the screws too hard on suppliers, which affected part quality, and therefore vehicle quality.

So finally got some time to take a look at Ford C2 sales in China and all it does is raise more questions in my mind about business choices there. The most recent entry I could find was 2022, which is useful because it includes the new products that came out: 60K Mondeo 26K Edge 15K Nautilus 10K Lincoln Z 6.8K Evos So roughly 118K in product spilt between 2 major top hats with an additional 2-3 changes per top hat-the Mondeo and Z are pretty much the same product with different bits of plastic, while the Evos, Edge and Nautilus have significant changes Meanwhile in the NA market-the Edge and Nautilus outsold the whole lot in 2023 (2022 production was limited by COVID issues) with a combined total of 130K units. I get the EV thing, but at the same time with some minor sheet metal changes you could have a new Edge and sell the Evos as a Subaru competitor for additional volume. Just looking at Ford's Chinese sales numbers, it makes me wonder why they stay there, but I guess their JVs sell much better then they do alone.

Guess some people need primers on the various electrification scenarios. BEV - Battery Electric Vehicle - Propulsion from electric motor, energy storage through a large capacity batter. Plug in charging only. FCEV - Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle - Propulsion from electric motor, energy storage in a hydrogen cylinder, fuel cell reacts H2 with O2 to produce electricity. Refuel at a hydrogen station. HEV - Hybrid Electric Vehicle - Propulsion from both a electric motor and ice either in series or parallel through a transmission or split front and back, energy storage in gasoline/diesel tank and small battery to capture regenerative braking and provide energy to electric motor. ICE charges the battery. Vehicle can operate off either ICE or EM or both at the same time. PHEV - Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle - Same as HEV, but with a larger battery that can be charged through a plug-in. EREV - Extended Range Electric Vehicle - A BEV with an onboard generator. All propulsion comes from the EM and battery. ICE generator runs to provided charge to slow depletion of the batter. Can be plugged in to charge and small gasoline / diesel tank filled to operate the generator. DEL - Diesel Electric Locomotive - Large gas turbines or piston engines (diesels) drive large generators to power electric traction motors. No battery, generators directly provided the power required on demand. When it comes to super duty pickups, the best technology right now would be (P)HEV or EREV. Medium duty and HD semi's could go the route of DEL (smaller, optimized generator that can generate constant horsepower while the electric motor provides the big torque) or FCEV (need hydrogen depots at freight centers or truck stops). Full BEV is available but the use case is more limited right now.

Something's wrong allright. Management is focused on things other than the manufacture of vehicles, poor quality vendor supplied parts, goofy engineering. Can't lay this on the assembly line people. Maybe the situation is improving? Hopefully. Check back next year. Until then no new Fords for me. Not buying any stock either. Who do you think is sabotaging the company? Farley?

Can't wait for GMI folks to talk about how Lincoln "copied" Cadillac's full width display.

New color is Avalanche, and possible another. The Limited trim is gone, and re-branded as Platinum Plus. The new PP interior color is Smoked Truffle. A light to medium tan. Huge improvement over that cheap blue interior color IMO.