slemke

Bronco sport is off to a strong start. Outsold Escape by a couple hundred units. October numbers for the Maverick will be more interesting. The f150 powerboost was only ~3500 units. I expected it to be higher than that. Lightning reservations over 150000 is a good sign.

E-series actually had a 4% increase. Seems in line or slightly better than the 40% drop expected due to chip shortage. Hopefully the chip situation will rapidly improve with the Renesas plant coming back online after the fire. According to Renesas’ press release full shipping capacity should have been reached in late July.

Tesla’s market valuation is/was equally nuts. At least Tesla is actually making a profit now.

C. 6.8L V8 when it becomes available

With the Aviator GT just under 500hp, I would expect a similar or better power number for the flagship Navigator. There was speculation about a high output 3.5L powerboost, but I haven’t seen anything on it lately.

If you want to move goal posts, sure a heavier truck with a larger frontal area will get worse mpg. That and the 6.2 is only available in 4wd. put the 6.2 in a lighter truck and it will get better mpg. The 6.6 doesn’t have cylinder deactivation. 6.6 might get better mpg in the heavier truck/suv as it wouldn’t have to work as hard. Wasn’t that part of the reason Ford went with the larger 7.3L Godzilla over the 6.8L v10? It wouldn’t work as hard under heavy loads and return better fuel efficiency for customers that towed and hauled. That was GMs philosophy for using the 350 in the large cars and performance cars instead of the 305 or 6 cylinder engines. The 350 and later 6.2 got some impressive mpg for the power it produced in the corvette. On the epa cycle, The 6.6 would likely fare worse than the 6.2 since the duty cycle is so light. Who knows, though…the 4.3 v6 gets the same 20 mpg in 4wd as the 6.2l. CAFE uses the old 1979 standard, not the adjusted and updated numbers shown on the window sticker. It is also a single combined mpg, not highway or city. It will be higher than the 70 mph cruising mpg. More like 55 or 60 mph. Need to factor in that gas is really E10 here and not the E0 used in cafe testing, the really slow speeds and lethargic acceleration of the test. The old epa estimates were really wild compared to what vehicles actually got and the window stickers and procedures subsequently revised to give a more realistic estimate. A 1983 F150 with a 300 I6 and 4 speed is epa listed at 23 mpg…that’s the cafe number. I would think a modern 6.8 with cylinder deactivation and a 10 speed could equal that if not surpass it. I read somewhere that the 6.2 ran the original test on only 4 cyl…might have been the corvette, though. Bottom line, a 6.8 will not help Ford’s CAFE numbers, but won’t be abysmal either. I wasn’t successful in finding Ford’s current cafe numbers for individual trucks to confirm.

Please explain how you arrived at your numbers. As a point of reference, the GM 2.7 I4 turbo gets 23 mpg hwy, and the 5.3 v8 with dynamic cylinder deactivation also achieves 23 mpg….24 with the fuel economy package. 4wd numbers are the same for both at 22mpg. The 5.3 is 2-3 mpg worse on the city cycle, though. The 6.8L is not quite 2x the displacement of the 3.5 EB just like the GM 5.3 and 2.7 turbo. Therefore, I would expect similar results for hwy mpg and probably 15% less in the city for the 6.8L vs the 3.5EB. Gear ratios, tires, and equipment levels will play a role in the final numbers. I don’t see Ford dropping the 3.5L ecoboost in favor of a 6.8L due to city mpg, but the difference seems manageable to offer it on select models and not kill the cafe numbers.

They could just call it a 429 and give Car and Driver something to write about. How many people do you think would actually do the math and figure it out? And if they did, even care? I thought the same thing on the 3.5 EB running no boost vs 6.8L running on 4 cyl. The fuel efficiency numbers are probably pretty close.

40-50k seems to be the sweet spot right now. Which limits the sales volume. Below that and the battery cost to total cost becomes too much and you don’t get much beyond the electric drivetrain. That’s the bolts issue….along with the battery fires. The hummer won’t sell in large numbers either. If it does take government action to force BEVs on the public, the profitability of those sales will be minimal and we will see a big shakeout of manufacturers. I think Akirbys 20-25% figure is about right, but even that might be on the high side. One thing I am sure of is Pete having a rant about how Ford did the wrong thing when it comes to EVs (spent to much developing them for a non existent market or didn’t develop enough of them).

Is it still rated on premium or was it retuned for regular and lost 10hp? It does seem strange that the output was reduced when the base 3.5 ecoboost increased power and torque on the F150. It could use a premium V8 of some sort. Maybe the 6.8L will be the answer.

Strip mining vs drilling have different impacts. We just shouldn’t forget that there are environmental costs associated with both. Electric vehicles aren’t the panache politicians portray them to be. Charging at night has an impact on the electric grid as more homes rely on heat pumps….and solar panels aren’t producing electricity. If your night time electricity comes a natural gas powered generator, why not just run the car on natural gas and cut out the middle man? Electric cars will only be more profitable if consumers are willing to pay the premium. Otherwise, the margins will be razor thin similar to compact economy cars.

Not just BEV, but electrification in general. A Maverick hybrid will help immensely with meeting cafe. The window sticker mpg isn’t even close to what is used to compute cafe. It uses the old 1979 standard and then there are extra credits for using certain technologies. I think it is something like a 30% adjustment. A 6.8 running on 4 cylinders may not be that much different than a 3.5l ecoboost running on no boost. The old epa cycle was designed for ‘79 vehicles. The 6.8 will likely run the cycle on 4 cylinders and have power to spare. The coyote made some impressive gains with cylinder deactivation. I would expect the 6.8l to be similar.

The 25 combined for the Awd version, matches the f150 powerboost, and is better than Ranger and the other mid sizers. Provided Ford can actually build them, it looks like it will be a hit.

Why not just use a Tesla model S if it is an ev equivalent? That seems to be the electric sedan performance standard and what it would be compared against. I’m guessing it’s to compare with the 6.8L. Possible Ford has several chargers, one with a 6.8L and another with the hellcat to compare apples to apples on engine performance.

More like a 4 door hatch. Hellcat Chargers seem to be popular around here. A 4 door mustang with a 6.8L would be right at home.

In order to charge a premium, the customer has to have perceived value of the added technologies. People are used to having all the technology and expect it. Ford would not be able to charge a premium over GM or Ram for a pushrod engine, but they are likely charging more of a premium for Coyotes and ecoboosts than what the additional costs to mfg are. Same with the aluminum body.

I would expect it to show up on the top trim levels (limited and maybe platinum) similar to how the 3.5L HO ecoboost ended up in the limited.

6.0L quad turbo V12 ecoboost. If does end up with an internal combustion engine, it will be some flavor of the 6.8L

I think the salespeople are the ones that have it the hardest. Dealer has parts and service to bring in revenue. With fewer vehicles available, people are likely to keep their vehicles longer and spend money fixing it up rather than trade it in on something they aren’t completely happy with whether that be new or used.

GT and heavy trucks are up about 20%…. We knew this was coming as Ford just didn’t have chips due to the plant fire. Production should start ramping up. It will be interesting to see how quickly sales recover. From the quarterly earnings report, it appears they are doing fairly well to make the best of the situation.

Mkt was no flex either. Those products showed the way to the differentiation we have today.

Or pick a site next to the person with an F150 powerboost.

Except for some the driver assistance features. Those use newer nodes. Many of the automotive chips, though are on old mature technology so the cycle times are much shorter. From semiengineering.com: Generally, the most common metric for cycle time in the fab is “days per mask layer.” On average, a fab takes 1 to 1.5 days to process a layer. The best fabs are down to 0.8 days, Leachman said. A 28nm device has 40 to 50 mask layers. In comparison, a 14nm/10nm device has 60 layers, with 7nm expected to jump to 80 to 85. 5nm could have 100 layers. So, using today’s lithographic techniques, the cycle times are increasing from roughly 40 days at 28nm, to 60 days at 14nm/10nm, to 80 to 85 days at 7nm. 5nm may extend to 100 days using today’s techniques, without extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. That’s just the wafer mfg. it still needs to be tested, diced, packaged and tested again before it is ready to ship.

I would think a Taycan would be a more apt comparison to a thunderbird ev. Maybe it’s for something that will house the 6.8L v8.

Considering how many folks business address matches their home address, Ford’s location in Dearborn should not be a big issue. All depends on whether management is content to let them work from wherever they want or require them to be local. Ford likely has a presence in all states so it is doable. We had someone move to SD without telling anyone since he was working from home. HR wasn’t too happy since the company didn’t have an office in the state and wasn’t properly withholding taxes. Otherwise, if we have an office in the state you are looking to live in, there is a good chance it will be approved. It is a nice perk.