7Mary3

It was a very good move, and a great time for Ford to get out. Rivian and their ilk may be clobbered in the coming BEV price war.

Not yet anyway! But, I do expect significant cuts to the ICE side of the business. While certain Ford Blue product lines are without a doubt the major source of revenue, there are others that are likely costing money. While streamlining the ICE side of the business has been a part of the plan for some time, I think those moves will be accelerated.

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2022/06/24/ford-recalls-warranty-costs/7708704001/ Yes, looks like they are down last quarter.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-06/ford-has-25-more-engineers-doing-same-work-as-rivals-ceo-says And yet Ford's warranty costs continue to climb ever higher. Bill Ford's patience must be wearing thin.....

Meanwhile, across town: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/investing/gm-earnings/index.html Wouldn't imagine Farley is at all satisfied. I would like to see what Ford's warranty costs were last year for starters......

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-15/ford-says-mustang-mach-e-profit-wiped-out-by-commodity-costs?leadSource=uverify wall But I agree, the price cuts shouldn't hurt Ford much overall longer term, particularly if truck and SUV sales offset losses on other specific products. There is however the problem of what to do for all the customers that recently paid more for the same product that is now discounted. Not to mention resale. At least Tesla will face the same issues.

I don't know that GM is making a mistake not cutting prices. Tesla is cutting prices at least in part to head off competition as more and more new BEV's hit the market, a particularly concerning situation for Tesla considering their aging product line. Also many of these upcoming BEV's are trucks and SUV's, areas where Tesla is particularly weak (I don't expect the Cyber Truck to be much of a success). I didn't hear that Ford had any plans to cut the price on the Lightning (and I hope they don't) but they seem compelled to cut the price on the Mach E as it's priced close to the Tesla 3. The Chevy Bolt is quite a bit less expensive than either of those cars and I expect the 2024 Equinox EV (a dark horse) will be very competitively priced so I think GM will have the lower end of the BEV market well covered. In any event, I think if Tesla starts a price war it will not hurt GM or Ford in the long term, but it may well wipe out all the startups.

I wonder the same thing about Bronco's and Mavericks.......

I missed this, seems that LG is working on 4680 cells as well: https://insideevs.com/news/591700/lges-4680type-battery-cells-korea/

Hummer, Silverado EV, Sierra EV, Corvette E-Ray, Cadillac Lyriq and Celestiq, Chevy Bolt, Bolt EUV, Equinox and Blazer EV's, and BrightDrop. Maybe not a flood yet but the tide is rising for sure.

Wouldn't say Ultium is falling apart, more like they are searching for the best technology going forward. Very interested to see where they go with Ultium Home Energy and SunPower.

More BEV battery news: https://www.electrive.com/2023/01/26/gm-to-switch-from-pouch-to-round-battery-cells/ This may explain why GM is not doing a 4th. plant with LG. The Mach-E (and I assume the Lightning) currently use pouch cell batteries. CATL makes prismatic cell batteries, is that the direction Ford is going?

No doubt a factor. However, BYD would be coming in at a better position than Ford, i.e. Ford was going to close this plant, were are saving it but give us too much trouble and we are gone. I now see that BYD may be eyeing that plant to built large commercial BEV's, if so it would not be competing with Ford. Maybe Otosan though.

That's what I am thinking....

https://www.autoblog.com/2023/01/24/ford-could-sell-saarlouis-germany-plant-to-china-byd/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGYYSKqLrb9Pk5GPorKdT5NdbkcaaP2Ng7EI6aw26E2wXhPrge0tadXfSpPBeVWm9mq94avHt1SIFeFhQ4vimvlOxFGaRcKfqmfBeeUkTbPKz4uOMbGFTiWF47U5HXGBe_1kp1c8dhtUGgPksSzeIzSV3jS8Gv2ERsULgfkYSI9P