fordmantpw

Good point. I was assuming obstacles suddenly appears such as walking out into the street.

Our Bronco does that to me ALL THE TIME! I drive with one hand, left arm resting on the door, with just fingertip pressure on the wheel. Like you mention, it tracks so well that I rarely have to give any input if it's on a straight stretch. It doesn't do that to my wife, but she drives with two hands, so I'm sure she is constantly applying a tiny bit of torque to the wheel in one direction or another. The Mach-E rarely tells me that, and I drive the same way. Weird. If I drive with my hand on top of the wheel in the Mach-E, it'll complain to keep my eyes on the road like @Flying68 mentioned.

I wouldn't mind having a Ford branded battery in my RV to store the solar energy when we add solar to our fifth wheel in a few years. Then I can put a "Powered by Ford" sticker on the side. 😄

Right, but 99% of people don't have that training. They just take a test, get their license, and off they go! Yes. Pretty easily, actually. I'm not a car automation programmer, but in my assumption, they're going to program the system to miss the person if at all possible. Again, it'll be able to determine the best course of action much better than the human mind can see, process, think, and react. Those numbers are theoretical numbers I made up to make a point, just knowing how computers and humans work and react.

Whatever is not the person, or the fewest number of people. I'm not worried about that scenario for several reasons: 1) Most people can't think that fast anyway. They think they can, but when in that position, they just can't. Period. 2) It's easy to distinguish a person with today's technology. Heck, my Ring cameras can determine when there's a person in my yard. It's not hard. 3) Machines are 1000x of times faster at making those decisions than people are. And they'll make them more reliably. 4) I don't trust 99% of drivers out there today to make a good decision in that position. They're probably staring at their phone anyway. 5) An autonomous car would likely pick the method to hurt the fewest number of people 99 times out of 100. An average human drivers is probably closer to 5-10 out of 100. It's the normal, everyday stuff where I worry about autonomous tech. Road construction, fog, new paved road with no lines, etc.

Yes and no. Each has it's pros and cons, but storing the energy in batteries is more efficient than converting it to mechanical energy and back to electricity. Plus, there's maintenance on pumps, equipment for moving weights, etc. I could be wrong too. 🤷‍♂️ I'm sure someone has crunched the numbers on this repeatedly.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to "drive" "eyes-off." We have BlueCruise in the Mach-E, and while it won't let you take your eyes off the road for more than a few seconds, I tried it. I tried closing my eyes (with my wife in the passenger seat watching, no traffic around, straight road) long enough for the "eyes on the road" warning to come on and I just couldn't do it. I just can't do it.

To make solar and wind power truly viable solutions, you need a way to store that energy for when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. This is an excellent solution to that problem. Whether it's cost effective, I don't know, but if there is low BEV demand, seems like it may be a reasonable option.

Sell vehicle outright, invest at 4.5%, buy at 0%. That's a big win if you're in the market.

My guess is there are other rebates on the 2024 models to clear them out.

Yes, but you're limited to 400 miles/month.

If enough people complain loud enough, they will bring those things back. Case in point, the keyless entry keypad on the Super Duty trucks. They made it a DIO on 2025. It came back from the factory in 2026 because they saw it was very important to the customers. They'll continue to get rid of "fluff" if it doesn't impact sales or doesn't get enough negative feedback from customers.

Agreed, but as someone who has used a Supercharger WITH an adapter, it's not a big deal.

It would be interesting to see if they are cash flow positive on their charging network. It's $0.45/kWh to charge at the nearest Tesla charging station and my electricity is just under $0.10/kWh. And I don't get the cheaper commercial rates.

Yes. That should change when OAC starts producing SD trucks next year, maybe freeing up a bit of space for Expegator production.

I'm sure that's a large part of it.

Having a digital rearview for towing a trailer is completely different than one 100% of the time on the vehicle. I get it for towing (and I welcome it), but that requires a camera to put on your trailer. If that is what you meant, then I agree. If you meant to just have on the vehicle itself, then I stand by what I said.

What's the point? I'm all for tech, but unless you are regularly carrying a load blocking that view, it's just something to add cost and potential problems. I love all things tech, but seriously, a digital rearview mirror when you can see out the back window 99.9% of the time is just pointless. Now, I do like the digital rearview that you can get on the GM trucks when towing a trailer. That is a useful tech and not just using technology just because you can.

We loved our Flex as well. 137k mostly trouble free miles. We were just discussing this weekend whether we would have bought another if they had updated it.

Bet those are uncomfortable! 😄

Yeah, adding transfer switches with the ability to feed power back to the grid affects much more than the homeowner. It affects the linemen out working on the lines, putting their lives in danger.

And this way they have both markets. The group that just wants the appearance gets it from the factory. If you want the "go" with the "show", just plop down $10k for the SC. Win/win!

You don't have to have the brake to the floor, just a bit more than a light pressure. Where it really agitates me is when I pull up to park. It shuts off. Put it in park, it starts back up. Then I have to shut it off again. Such a waste. So, if it shuts off, I just hit the start/stop button before putting it in park.

lol, yeah, it's not really that big of a deal. I try to anticipate when a light is going to turn green and ease up on the brake pedal and it is usually fired up and ready when the light changes. But, then again, only about 1% of my driving is stop lights.

Forscan lets you turn it off permanently? I didn't think it did. If so, I'll be doing that to the Bronco...my wife hates it. It doesn't bother me as much, but hey, it never hurts to score a few extra points with the boss!