mackinaw

Morgan Stanley figures the Cybertruck to be a niche vehicle, selling perhaps 50,000 units/year. https://insideevs.com/news/656606/morgan-stanley-cybertruck-low-volume-prediction/

Currently $3.09/gallon in Gaylord, Michigan.

And yet CR considered Blue Cruise better than Super Cruise. https://www.thedrive.com/news/battle-of-the-bots-consumer-reports-favors-ford-bluecruise-over-gm-super-cruise

I like all of the dead bugs splattered over the front. Gives the "grille" some personality.

My local power utility (live in a rural area, so I have a co-op, not an electric company) is actively encouraging us to use more electricity during the night, especially in the summer with all of the household AC units on. Ditto for those few who own BEV's, they're encouraged to plug-in at night.

From a Stanford University study. I think it's a bunch of malarky, but draw your own conclusions. https://biz.crast.net/stanford-study-warns-against-charging-electric-cars-at-home-overnight/

You can use the front for storage. The local Ford Dealer had a Lightning parked outside at our summer festival last year. The Frunk was a big hit.

Somebody else (not you) made the statement that the reason Ford has quality problems is because Farley has no experience in manufacturing. My Musk comparison is valid. He's CEO of Space-X and has absolutely no knowledge or experience designing or manufacturing rockets, yet Space-X is wildly successful. Musk did what anybody who goes to management school is taught to do, hire competent people, give them the resources they need, and let them do their jobs. Ford has quality problems, no doubt about that. But over the past several months they've hired two new quality people, Jim Baumbick and Josh Halliburton, with Halliburton coming over from JD Powers. And now they hired John Dion as Chief Transformation Officer. My own personal opinion is that Ford's quality problems stem from flawed engineering processes and not-the-best supplier relations. I'm hoping that all of these new people can change how Ford does things on the ICE side. I think the BEV side (with all of the people Ford has poached from tech companies) will be just fine.

Seems to me you answered your own question. Apparently the Ford bench is shallow, so Farley went outside the company and cherry-picked some highly regarded people. None of these people had to quit their (well paying) jobs to join Ford, but they did. And we forget that Mulally came from Boeing, and had no experience at all in the auto industry, but is now regarded as being Ford's savior. For that matter, Elon Musk is not a rocket scientist, but Space-X seems to be very successful.

Really? These are the people that Ford (Farley) has poached from other companies recently to be part of his team: "Ford has hired a couple of former Apple employees in recent months, including Jennifer Waldo, its new chief people and employee experiences officer, and Doug Field to be its new chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer. Additionally, the automaker has also poached Rebecca Pagani from Amazon and made her its new chief privacy officer, Alan Clarke from Tesla for advanced EV development, Martin Sander from Volkswagen as its general manager, passenger vehicles, Ford of Europe, and chair of the management board of Ford-Werke GmbH, and Mike Amend from Lowe’s to be its chief digital and information officer."

Well, very few CEOs come from a manufacturing background. Mulally was an engineer, Carlos Tavares (Stellantis) was in Product Development. Takahiro Hachigo (Honda) was in Powertrains. Mary Barra is the only CEO I'm aware of that has a manufacturing background. Farley is doing what they teach you in management school, hire a person to do a job, and let them do it. No surprise here.

I had the same impression. Never drove one, but had the chance to sit in one a few years back. It was physically hard for my old man body to squeeze into that interior, and once in, I felt like i was sitting in a bathtub. They were fast, I'll give you that, but not a good daily driver.

The Reuters poll is hardly a ringing endorsement for EV's. You could just as easily stress the negative, e.g. "74% or Republicans, and 73% of independents said they would not consider an EV."

And then there was one (Mustang). Goodbye Camaro. Maybe a BEV version in the works. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2023/03/22/gm-to-stop-making-the-camaro-but-a-successor-may-be-in-works/70038314007/

This just popped up a few days back. A Ford survey comparing how F-150 Lightning owners use their trucks compared to an ICE F-150 owners. The results surprised me. https://insideevs.com/news/656075/ford-lightning-buyers-use-truck-bed-way-more-than-ice-f150-owners/

I assume you're talking about Rivian. Investors figured that Rivian would be the next Tesla, so they bought in hoping to make the big $$$$. When it became clear that Rivian has many, many problems that would take time (and more money to solve), the investors bailed. Jury's out whether Rivian will survive the mess they are in.

Everything you need to know can be summed up in this quote: "GM out-earned its rival last year on slightly less revenue and fewer workers. Ford has about 173,000 workers globally, compared with GM’s 167,000, according to regulatory filings. GM also sold more vehicles last year—about 5.9 million, compared with Ford’s 4.2 million." https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/ford-ceo-jim-farley-grapples-problems-auto-makers-past

After the original flathead Ford V8, the small-block Chevy is probably the most important American V8 ever made. Millions upon millions made. The basic architecture is 70 years old and counting. Pretty damn impressive.

I agree with you, people don't like change, but I admit to be very surprised at what the Michigan poll found. You have to realize how car-centric Michigan is. I'd venture that everybody living in the three county Detroit metro area (about four million people) knows somebody who works in the auto industry (OEM or supplier). They're well aware of the ICE/BEV transformation and are still very skeptical as to its implementation. To me, all this points out is that BEV advocates have their work cut out for them. When 1/3rd of the population "strongly opposes" BEV's and 60% won't consider them as their next vehicle.....any manufacturer would consider these numbers troubling. The road to 100% BEV world will be long and difficult one.

If that. The results of this poll surprised me. Lot of resistance to BEV's in Michigan. From the Detroit News: Poll: Michigan voters skeptical of electric vehicle transition. Michigan voters are split on the auto industry's transition to electric vehicles, according to statewide survey results released Thursday by the Detroit Regional Chamber and polling firm Glengariff Group. Around 46% of likely Michigan voters support the industry's shift, while around 44% oppose it. A third of overall respondents said they "strongly oppose" the change. Around 34% said they would consider buying an EV for their next vehicle, while more than 60% said they would not. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2023/03/02/poll-michigan-voters-skeptical-of-electric-vehicle-transition-detroit-regional-chamber-survey/69962616007/

Auto Forecast Solutions says the new Ranger begins production in July. Go to the 5:55 mark of the Autoline Daily report; http://www.autoline.tv/journal/?p=86266

Very true. This is from a Forbes 2014 article on patents, "Of today’s 2.1 million active patents, 95 percent fail to be licensed or commercialized." https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2014/06/18/13633/?sh=746070586f1c

Interesting discussion. Even though I haven't lived in SE Michigan since the mid-70's, I still follow what's going on down there. The Moroun family seems to be the one constant over the past 50 years.

That's 17 years ago! Who in the hell even cares.

Supposedly it's all cleaned up. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2021/11/23/20-million-cleanup-done-former-mclouth-steel-site/8744653002/