tbone

The Nautilis gives me hope that the explorer will get the Chinese interior. It doesn’t make sense to me not to make that available when it exists.

I am not typically a GX fan, but I must say I like it.

The grill is not as offensive as most of the Lexus grills, however, I’ll have to pass on this one. It doesn’t appeal to me at all.

It just goes to show you beauty is in the eye of the beholder, because I like the current arrangement.

Paying a little homage to the G Wagon I see. Nevertheless, it looks significantly better than the outgoing model. I don’t mind it. I think this will sell well.

I’m in the same camp. To me there are only some very modest cues, otherwise the designs look sufficiently different.

If this EV looks like that silver version, I will be very curious to see what its sales rate is, because it appears to be generating a lot of negative emotions on this forum. Of course a lot of people bought Priuses so it has that going for it.

I like the blue version, but the silver version is horrible.

That would be passed to the consumer. It’s not as if they are going to eat that cost, and I’m sure they weren’t passing that $.50 savings to the consumer. They like to delete a lot of things from their vehicles, but interestingly their vehicle prices seem to keep going up, not down.

That and the Prius were my first thought when I saw this profile. That is a hard pass for me. I would hate to be a passenger in the third row of this abomination.

I think it’s a combination of people waiting for the 2024, and Ford intentionally reducing production of the Ranger to catch up on Broncos.

I do fixate on the character line on the side profile of the vehicle because it’s a defining characteristic for what is a slab sided vehicle. That line will have been in place for neatly seven years by the time the 2025s roll off the line. If they don’t change that line or change the beltline of the vehicle it will continue to look the same to me. I do think additional changes could sell more of these vehicles. The price point of these vehicles is in the middle to high income earners that aren’t as impacted by economic conditions. If you want to sell more than GM you have to draw attention and be better. They may not catch them because they have such a head start but I want the to try. I would argue Ford did this to the Expedition in the past when they left them unchanged for long periods of time, and I don’t want them to do it again. I won’t repeatedly buy a vehicle if it doesn’t change because I get bored with them. Refreshes are one thing, but a new model has to be different in my eyes. I’ll let this rest now. BTW, the digital mirror wasn’t my deal.

It’s a failure with me, a potential buyer who buys two new vehicles approximately every three years. I will not consider it if it does not look completely new. We will be way past the mid cycle refresh date at that point. Will they sell them, of course, but I don’t believe they will challenge the market leader. They won’t continue to build off the successful relaunch of the Expedition, IMO. If they are content with the status quo sales wise, I suppose you could say that is a success for them. Im just not sure why you want to follow the likes of the Armada/QX market participants instead of the market leaders. If I recall correctly, you and I have debated this subject matter as related to the Fusion, so it is likely we will have to agree to disagree on this subject.

If they want to carry-on with the existing drivetrain and underpinnings, I understand, because they are well executed. But if they stick with that same crease, that is just below the beltline of the vehicle, it’s going to look like a 2018 with a new grill. As a potential buyer, that is a non-starter for me. If Ford wanted to pull a Toyota and throw a new top hat only, that may be an acceptable strategy, because the vehicle would at least look like a completely new model, yet it has good guts. This situation strikes me as the potential for another Fusion moment as others have mentioned. Hopefully these are just test models, and are not indicative of what is to come. GM seems to manage to come out with a completely new body style every five to six years, so I’m unclear why Ford cannot manage to do the same. GM has a dedicated plant to these SUVs because they sell the crap out of them. They keep them fresh and they are good looking vehicles, well maybe with the exception of the Escalade, and IMO, this is the reason they are #1 in this segment.

Sorry, throwing some 24’s, a new grill, and interior on the Expedition isn’t going to move the needle in this segment. Im a firm believer that all sheet metal has to change to get people’s attention.