akirby

I believe I called that one. And now they’re discussing removing their tariffs and restrictions. All it took was motivation. I’m super happy considering my boxster is sitting on a boat in the German harbor as we speak.

This will sell on looks alone. But I don’t understand why they didn’t give it more power using the Focus ST 2.3L.

So two vastly different F150 Lightnings?

The Internet and social media have rendered auto show inroductions useless. You get far more publicity from a standalone dedicated reveal either live and/or on social media when nothing else is going on.

Have you checked tire pressure?

To be fair we don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes or what data was used to make those decisions. Sometimes a good decision 2 years ago goes bad because things change unexpectedly. Sometimes a decision makes no sense in isolation but starts to make sense when you factor in other decisions. E.g. You would think that expanding Ranger sales is a great thing until you realize that it reduces more profitable Broncos sales resulting in less revenue and lower margins. I remember wanting to add a new feature to our application, but in order to do that we had to upgrade the database software. To do that we had to upgrade the OS. But upgrading the OS required new hardware. So what was a 1 month $20k software change turned into a 12 month $3M project. What I do blame Farley for 100% is not having adequate backup plans and taking too much risk.

You have to get their attention somehow. If it’s painful for China (and this would be very painful) then they’ll negotiate. Otherwise what incentive do they have?

They must have other plans for BOC otherwise it just doesn’t make sense.

Because it became cheaper to manufacture overseas and import, especially after unions artificially inflated labor rates through legalized extortion. The first task is to get equal and fair trade removing tariffs and other barriers on U.S. products. If those were in place Mach-E could have been built here instead of Mexico. Some foreign auto mfrs have already committed to more U.S. production. If he gets commitments then you don’t need the tariffs any more provided they follow through with the commitment within a certain timeframe. From a business standpoint the threat that a big tariff could be imposed at any time in the future should be sufficient to justify more U.S. production. These tariffs are really just a warning shot to get their attention. Most will go away once concessions are achieved some of which seem to already be happening with Israel and Europe.

So we pay higher prices until the tariff is lifted or we get an American manufacturer. It’s a tariff not an embargo.

The problem is Farley does not do adequate risk assessment (or ignores it) when evaluating major changes such as Oakville. They misread the market, government regulations and by all accounts totally whiffed on design. I’m sure there was a big upside had they been right on all 3. But I don’t think they adequately considered the downside if they were wrong or the likelihood of that happening in full or in part. Ive done these types of assessments. You have the high risk high reward scenario. The do nothing scenario. And the in between scenario (in this case updating Oakville to C2 edge and Nautilus hybrids and less/lower volume EVs). Then you assign probabilities to each one. I think a good manager would have said doing nothing is not an option and high risk high reward is simply too risky because it burns too many bridges and wastes too many resources if you’re wrong. Ford has never had a problem being second to a party. Let others be the pioneers and if it pans out then commit the resources. The in between has no downside to speak of other than missing out on some revenue if EVs ramped up exponentially. Hybrid edge and nautilus would bring in good revenue and still turn a profit and you could potentially add other c2 products. The plant would not be out of commission for over a year and you can still build the EVs somewhere else. I wonder if Farley just said screw it Im swinging for the fences anyway or if his direct reports lied to him like they used to do before Mulally.

Tariffs are used to rectify an inequity of some sort and to protect or encourage domestic manufacturing. Trump sees them as a means to an end - to get concessions from other countries and to encourage more domestic manufacturing which is already happening. I would prefer to see incentives for manufacturers to build here but I don’t think these tariffs will last long.

But is it really that bad? Get a grip people.

I still say they’ll end up being a battery/technology supplier and get out of the auto manufacturing business.

That’s been the case ever since Ford went balls to the wall on EVs. Gotta cut something.

Confirmed. I worked at a furniture store in college. We bought some cheap wingback chairs and marked them at $99. Nothing. Raised them to $300 and sold both in 3 days.

I don’t see these lasting very long. Get some concessions and move on.

An appearance package for the Raptor would sell better here. Very small market for that much capacity and overlap with F150.

Yep. At least they were back in 2008. If you lose your job or you’re worried about losing your job or losing significant income then you don’t make big unnecessary purchases period. If your income is secure then it’s business as usual. There was no spike in Midsize truck sales when F series dropped by 30%.

There isn’t enough Nav/Expy volume to justify a huge investment beyond what they already have. Plus the factory is still constrained by Super Duty. GM has bigger volume to protect so it invests more. I don’t believe the objective differences are a big issue for most buyers.

So what exactly are they missing?

In a recession they don’t switch to buying cheaper vehicles. They put off buying new vehicles altogether. In 2008-ish the SAAR dropped from 17M to 11M.

It melted.

Mostly for water crossings but might help a little on dusty roads.