jpd80

With respect, you’re over complicating this. Consider what the Mach Es owe Ford - the production cost minus what is recovered by leasing Additionally, factor in a small profit on the disposal price after the original lease is completed. Normally, that’s how manufacturers get a failed or slow selling vehicle off their books..

While the decline in BEV sales may have its own reasons, ICE vehicle sales have also declined in recent months as well. Two things could be happening at the same time but I wonder if most of the early BEV adopters now have their vehicles and the market now sees true level of interest that’s subject to higher interest rates and other increased financial pressure. It feels like green politicians think they have more community support than is actually the case and while most people want power generation and vehicles to evolve to much greener versions, asking everyone to shoulder that pain of cost immediately (right now) is political suicide. Somewhere along the line, the green train switched from encouraging the many to follow sensible evolving legislation to targets that industry is saying are not possible in the expected time frame. To me, more benefits would be had from changing the power generation to solar-wind-batteries than pushing so hard with BEVs when the distribution grid is just not ready for mass public charging. So relying on green consumerism to get BEV sales going is not really a thing beyond small sales, people buying efficient gasoline or hybrid have far less issues to contend with, a lot of people still see electric vehicles as unnecessary complication away from a simpler lower cost solution with much less initial outlay……who wants to pay more for BEVs on the promise of future savings and that’s without considering the inevitable collapse in future resale value of todays BEVs.

At this point, I doubt that Ford knows exactly who wants to buy BEVs and what they want….. Once interest rates started going up and up, it seems like a lot of buyers lost interest…..

If you don’t like Ford’s plans, just wait a couple of months, you’re bound to find one you like…

It’s hard to judge knowing that todays battery technology is really a get through to the eventual solid state version that promises higher density and reduced weight and size. Today, we suffer the consequences of needing large heavy batteries to guarantee sufficient range, so a lot of the vehicle size and form is linked to that plus people seem to prefer the more square, rugged style of utility, some prefer rounded dart shape but I think those will become “commodities” only because they will be cheapest, easiest form to guarantee efficiency with least amount of battery.

Precisely and I think this underscores the value of projects like the skunkworks at Irvine developing compact BEVs. Major projects often get bogged down on product envelopes but I feel like that’s of less importance when you’re not try to build something for everyone. There are certain valuable niche vehicles/segments that Ford should go after and back itself. I do wonder if some of the delays with future BEVs has to do with Ford continually discovering better more efficient ways to design and develop products. Maybe done with fewer impediments exactly because it isn’t trying to chain itself with how it currently builds and uses parts suppliers. Maybe it’s also an evolution process that Ford explains to itself why many of its current staff may not be required in the near future…

Yeah about that, nobody has actually started recycling those massive car batteries yet and I remain unconvinced that any manufacturer is really engaged in anything more than just basic good will propaganda…

Absolutely but the only way out of shifting so many 2023 Mach E is to subvent the whole issue by shoving them into 1) internal fleets, 2) dealer courtesy vehicles and 3) killer leases for retail buyers. I smile at the irony of this situation and the absolute hubris of Ford a year or so ago when it was planning to cut out dealers for the online ordering process, sure they might want to be like Tesla but the truth is that Ford cannot and will not deal directly with customers and their ordering issues.

The crazy part is that’s the way most vehicles should be developed for scales of efficiency but so much bullshit goes on inside Ford because of the inherent culture and bureaucracy. Fast forward to now and you’re right, where did all that fast thinking go? Ford doesn’t learn anything, they’re still searching around for basic vehicle combinations to bring to market, omce they look at vehicles other than trucks, they seem to be all at sea making any kind of good decisions.

As I see it, the big design and styling issue was that the E-Max was based on the C-Max “minivan” instead of using the Escape. The reason that misstep was due entirely because it was using out of date data. When Hackett and Farley rose to power after Field’s removal, the C-Max is cancelled because the market had already shifted to utilities like Escape, so more $$$$ were spent doubling down on the project tinkering with proportions that fortunately resulted in a more attractive vehicle but as it turns out few buyers want the Mach E these days….. A lot of Ford’s missteps can be traced back to its long product cycles and equally long product development times, evolution of the electric Focus was tortured by using C-Max instead choosing a Focus & Escape combo like Ford is developing at Cologne albeit with VW MEB toolkit. It all gets back to a totally disfunctional Ford and it inability to quickly design and deliver important products, the one exception is the Maverick, an example of what can be achieved by a smaller more efficient team. I shudder to think of what the total development costs were by the time Ford launched the Mach E

This could be just me but I think that the last thing BEV buyers would want is to be stuck with long finance deals, the rate that technology improvements coming will mean many BEV buyers will be looking for vehicles with better batteries and greater overall efficiency. Ford needs to be offering killer two year and three year leases with those low rates and guaranteed buy back price. That would be the best method for moving on all the 2023s that Ford is now stuck with, gotta entice people….

The difference I see with the 2.0 EB hybrid is the combined 310 hp is more in line with the previous 2.7 EB and in that respect, much better fuel economy 30/31mpg vs 19/25 mpg while keeping most of the horsepower. I imagine that an extra 55 horsepower over the Toyota hybrid thingy is a bit impressive… We’ll see if Lincoln buyers actually want this or if it becomes forgotten like Aviator hybrid because base power levels are sufficient…. On the 2.5 Atkinson, It’s not about marketing, Chinese Nautilus was developed with only a couple of ECU calibrations, a 2.0 EB Auto and a 2.0 EB hybrid so a 2.5 hybrid was never really considered and to do one now would add a lot of cost in design, development and field reliability testing that’s probably unrecoverable.

I would argue that the added weight of big batteries acts more against range than aerodynamics which come into play at highway speeds but probably a blend of the two acts against most BEVs.

Internally, there’s a strong competition going on between traditional project development of BEVs versus a more start up oriented Tesla style clean sheet approach. Love it or hate it, I think the smaller more efficient development teams are going to win out over Ford’s internal desire to keep reusing already developed modules and systems. What Ford needs is a watershed moment where it throws out 75% of the crap it thinks is needed to develop vehicles and just goes with a more minimalist approach that isnt clogged up by Ford’s big book of rules aka the book says you can’t do it that way… The biggest thing holding back Ford is its slavish devotion to multi-level bureaucracy.

Wow, high inventory levels are forcing Ford to encourage sales any way it can but resale values are gonna take a big hit, maybe leasing is safer for those who really want one…

Ford in its own statement about the skunkworks platform said that it is developing multiple vehicles. If the release date is 2027 then it no wonder why For would be unwilling to discuss which vehicles are in development apart from vague descriptions. Cannot signal too much to competitors.

Has Borg mixed up which 3-Rows are delayed, could that be the T3 SUVs delayed until 2027? There’s a lot of misinformation out there, maybe Ford is trying to find leaks? If Borg is correct, this will be the second time the Oakville 3-Rows have been delayed. Originally, these supposed to arrive in 2023, right when buyers walked away from BEVs.

From what I’ve read on some forums, the Mavericks with failed CVs get a distinctive hop or shudder in the front end under power. If you’re not experiencing those issues, you’re probably still OK. Maverick powertrain warranty is 5 years/60,000 miles, if you have any concern talk to your service department, they may have a TSB on this issue as it may never become a recall.

All I know is that the two vehicles for LAP are internally coded as a Ford branded off-road utility and pickup. Sorry if I mislead anyone here as it appears that Ford has parallel projects and it’s getting confusing when some of my source material is “deliberately vague” in order to hold back important details I now know that CE1 is a small platform with a battery chassis (skateboard). It's the platform being developed by the skunkworks for the past two years and completely unrelated to any other Ford platform. The program is being headed up by an ex Tesla engineer out in Irvine. BEVs to use the Marshall plant LFP batteries. I’m not sure what exactly the BEV Maverick and Bronco projects are that the OP article mentions but Ford clearly had intentions of having multiple BEVs arriving in that 2026-2028 timeline. Now it seems these are being spread out….

I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, BEV Maverick and Bronco Sport to Cuautitlan, maybe a little too soon for that….

By the sound of it, there was an undisclosed issue that caused the quality checks to take longer than expected. I’m guessing that this turned out to be a non-issue but the time taken made people think there was something more sinister to it. Strange that Lightning began shipments in January but then had the same stop-sale order. But yes, absolutely nothing to do with incomplete vehicle builds.

But there’s the thing, the reason that Ford is/was going gangbusters with developing BOC and the associated battery plants is exactly because it badly misjudged the projected ramp up after getting excited over those 200k reservation that eventually evaporated into thin air.. Farley made a concerted decision to set up Model E s a separate business unit not only to insulate it from Ford bureaucracy but also to track all costs and infrastructure asset development. If you think about that $4 billion loss (financed), is it more a paper loss to claim tax deductions? We all know that it will be decades before Ford’s BEVs are able to self fund and pay for all that infrastructure, the financial heavy lifting must be carried by the other two profitable divisions making ICE retail, commercial and fleet vehicles. When you’re a CEO, “let’s just wait and see” does not play well in front of the board but I don’t see Farley having any other choice but to slow the pace of BEV manufacturing plants and battery plant capacity - maybe limit to an expandable stage 1 while Ford revisits profitable vehicles in the now. It’s easy to be dismissive of the two Hyundai battery cases but it highlights an underlying strategy, a level of added cost that has not been factored into insurance of electric vehicles and how the wider community of insured vehicles will see their premiums go up to cover this nonsense. Suppliers have worked out that it’s not in their best interest to have too many of these parts lying around. As with other parts, more profit can be had by squeezing vehicle owners nuts a bit harder…..

Not directly attacking your point as there’s a lot of truth in that but, Farley redirected $11 billion in ICE programs to help fund Electric Vehicle development, that amount of funding is way more than just cancelling a few sedans and hatchbacks. I tend to think that he cut too deep on programs like hybrid/PHEV development and more comprehensive refreshes to products that are now needed to “carry the load”. Prhaps the current pause probably give Farley reason to revisit and dust off some of those better possibilities and strategies that were ash canned a few years ago..

Correct, the two plants already in Kentucky are unionised, Louisville and Kentucky Truck Plant. Pretty sure that Blue Oval Center is heading that way too. Mexico offers significant cost advantage and let’s not Forget that Cuautitlan used to be a Super Duty plant before converted to making Fiestas and now Mach E…..not suggesting that Ford immediately move some SD production back to Mexico but it would be a possible option to hedge against any future UAW action