slemke

What is surprising is how well it has aged. Cadillac had a full model cycle to make a better Navigator, and it appears they came up a little short. The xt6 isn’t even close to the Aviator. Maybe the previous generation Explorer.

In fairness, NA was paying the bills and up until the VW fiasco, diesel was the popular choice in Europe, so Ford was giving them what they wanted. I doubt Ford predicted how quickly the EU would turn on diesel and mandate BEV. Ford will keep building diesel and petrol vehicles as long as there is demand or they are allowed to. No need to rush into BEV when you are already loosing money or making very little and demand is still there for traditional ice vehicles. Ford can always pull a GM and pull out of EU if the regulations get too strict. More difficult for the Euro centric makes.

Does it still have a spare or did the battery pack take that space?

Hopefully battery supply loosens up soon. With so many players coming online to make BEVs, hybrids, solar storage, etc. battery supplies could remain tight. I haven’t followed the industry close enough to know how much capacity is coming online. I would like to know where the battery is located on the new cmax also. It said 60 cell in the press release, so it could be quite small. No idea what regulations are in place for battery placement.

But aren’t special editions and one off upgrades what Ford does to keep interest in the last year(s) of a model run? If S650 is model year ‘23, I would expect something a little farther along than what we see here.

Depends on how badly Ford needs the CAFE credits will determine if their is an edge hybrid along with battery supply. To my knowledge there isn’t a glut of batteries looking for a product to put them in. Hybrids with small batteries ease the transition as battery supply ramps up. Nobody wants to be holding the keys to a $1billion+ investment and not have customers lined up.

That might alleviate supply constraints, but they would still need to license the IP and secure the raw materials to make the cells. Easier to second source the battery cells just like any other part. The dispute will get settled. They always do. If not Ford has 4 years to find a new supplier and by then they will probably want a different battery anyway. From the corporate documents SK published, it seemed like these batteries may be a step ahead of the LG batteries. LG is upset that their engineers went to a competitor to finish up the work started at LG. Whatever evidence of what the engineers brought with them sounds like it was destroyed. SK claims it was only general knowledge of what they were working on so that they could hire the right people from LG. Part of the blame needs to go on LG for not keeping the engineers and scientists happy at work and not looking for another job or at least make it very difficult for them to work at a competitor. Non compete clauses exist for a reason.

So this is about SK hiring LG’s engineers and researchers who then went on to develop SK’s battery technology. Happens all the time. As long as they didn’t bring their research papers with them, it shouldn’t be a problem like the google engineer did. Probably some cross licensing of patents and a promise to not hire directly from LG for some amount of time will be the settlement. Maybe some cash.

Just business. Money talks. There was no hurry for SK to just hand over money until now. It will be settled. Still need to question the business partners/suppliers over the years. Navistar, Takata, zotye, SK. Even GM with the 9 speed auto didn’t turn out so well.

Need to thin it out and make some nice furniture. I mean carbon containment devices. Any walnut?

But where are the raw materials coming from?

Some nice tree lined parkways would be nice. I haven’t heard a peep about trees or conservation. It’s all about electrification and solar. Wind barely gets a mention. Nuclear or tidal, crickets. Trees will start growing by themselves where glaciers once were.

In fairness, I doubt many are laying out their long term plans for vehicle development other than evs in order to appease investors. I really don’t see the bronco as one and done.

60 cell battery pack....that’s a couple or three weed whacker battery packs. Shouldn’t take up much space wherever it is put. Amazing they can get enough output out of it even with liquid cooling.

Observed fuel economy is low because they drive them like they stole them. From what I’ve seen on the F150 forums, the powerboost is doing better than that. Although some still manage to get 17mpg.

It is a single system. Instead of a conventional a/c unit with the coils in the air handler of the furnace, you have some extra valves to reverse the rolls of the evaporator and condenser. It was about $500 adder over a furnace with central air. it’s the 50 degree nights where it comes in handy and cloudy days. On sunny days, it doesn’t run at all. Houses in NC aren’t insulated as well as the NE or upper Midwest. My builder thought I was nuts putting as much insulation in my house as I did.

Depends on the heat pump, some are efficient down to 20 degrees or so, but 40 seems pretty common. I have a dual fuel system. Heat pump runs when the temp is above 45, gas below that or when a quick warm up is called for. The switchover point is programmable through the service menu. At my old house, I changed the switchover point based on the price of natural gas. Saved enough to pay for the system in a couple years.

It still requires infrastructure at the site. The couple hundred dollar charger is only that cheap if you have an outlet you can plug it into. Need to install one and the price goes up dramatically. We were quoted 10k to install a receptacle for a break room fridge at work. Large site may need a new service line from the power company. Not cheap. A transit has 67kwh of usable capacity. That would take 10 plus hours to charge on level 2. Bottom line, it will work for some that have the infrastructure. Those that need to invest in infrastructure may take a more cautious approach and see what the actual return is. Initial purchase price will be an issue. Electricity isn’t free. Road taxes will eventually apply to BEV. Life expectancy of the battery will play a role in the cost also. There will be early adopters, no doubt. If it works out well for them, more users will join in. Amazon just ordered/bought a fleet of cng trucks. Companies will hedge their bets and buy what works out best for them.

My apartments in Fargo had electric baseboard heat. Cheap to install and with the $0.04/kWh electric rate, not too bad to operate either. That was 20 some years ago, no idea what the winter rate is now. NSP had a special lower rate for electric heat. So switching over isn’t out of the question. Not likely, though. Government will also have a hard time convincing people to give up their gas cooktops, grills, fireplaces, patio heaters, etc. Previous administration un-outlawed incandescent bulbs. Surprisingly one of the types allowed were the vibration resistant variety, where LED durability is clearly superior. The garden variety 60w bulb was the first to go. CFL had many problems, including disposal since they contained mercury. Anyway, my point was there isn’t that much room for LED lighting to reduce usage. My power company is giving discounts on LED bulbs, but they use more power than the cfl and LED I already have. My family just thinks that since we have LED lights, we can just leave them on. So much for the big savings. Chargers have gotten better and are more efficient. But, I was thinking of all the smart switches, outlets, mesh WiFi, doorbells, cameras, etc. that are always using a tiny bit of electricity. It adds up.

That’s not saying much.

Those EV options need to be a better use of capital, though. A lot will depend on charging infrastructure and cost of electricity vs gas, diesel, cng, etc. My crystal ball says the future is uncertain. Too many variables and lots of puzzle pieces have to come together in a short time. It wasn’t that long ago the experts were predicting diesels would be a significant factor.

Having a unique hybrid wasn’t the problem, it was the execution of it. Granted looks are objective, but the Cmax just wasn’t an attractive vehicle. Ford needed/wanted something that could get closer to Prius mpg. Something owners could use to virtue signal their greenness. Couldn’t do that with a hybrid that looked like a regular compact suv. the fusion/Mkz did well until mpg gate struck.

Depends....homes with heat pumps and electric resistance heating will require more electricity in the winter evenings. Same with cloudy winter days. Incandescent bulbs were outlawed 3 administrations ago. Not many of them left that get used regularly. Add in all the electronics and smart devices that are always on. The big drop off in electricity in the evening and overnight came from commercial users. I could see power companies implementing more time of day and peak rate charges to get people to charge their cars when the grid has excess capacity...ie sunny spring and fall days or overnight in summer. May not be a good time to charge in the hottest parts of summer or coldest winter days...encouraging those that can wait to charge up to wait an extra couple days for better weather. More AI chips to manage it all.

What happened to Angus?

At any rate, whatever Farley is doing it is working. I haven’t seen this much good press about Ford in a long time.