bzcat

It's a very good article. Long on facts and short on hyperbole. It also basically tracks with what I've been saying for a while on BOF: The grid is fine overall but needs more storage capacity. EV demand is not a spike but a graduate build. We have lots of time to add the necessary generating and storage capacity into the grid. Even with the mandate on new car sales, it will take 30+ years to phase out all the ICE EV uses very little electricity (the article says 0.4% of the generating capacity at peak now and up to 4% by 2035). In comparison, crypto currency already uses about 2% of our electricity. So anyone out there saying EV is going to collapse the grid is living in a parallel universe. EV is parked 23 hours a day so charging is pretty spread out during low demand period. EV demand is strong. California is probably 5 years ahead of the rest of the US in terms of EV penetration and it is at 16% of new cars sales and is projected to hit 20% end of this year or early next year. As the grid adds more renewable and phases out coal or gas, the EV CO2 footprint will get smaller over its lifetime.

I guess I'm doing it wrong by having mulch delivered to my house. I should have bought a pickup truck.

The extra camera with tailgate down is pretty cool feature.

How did we survive our youth? ?

This is a 3 years old article... Cities should be installing chargers when they replace existing utilities. And they will generate revenue for the city/utility. It's not rocket science. https://electrek.co/2019/11/13/la-adds-hundreds-of-ev-chargers-to-streetlights-giving-renters-a-place-to-plug-in/

Many multi-unit buidlings are being retrofitted with charges where I live so market forces will drive that. Smart landlords know they won't be able to charge market rent soon if they don't provide charger. Just like units with air conditioner or in-unit laundry can charge more rent - so would units with access to chargers. It seems strange to me that you don't want the tax payer to pay for charger yet you have no faith in the free market and the invisbile hand. Pick a side ? Zoning regulation is a local matter. You don't see any action where you live because your local Govt is failing at planning for the future. Here is California, any new builds require 220V outlets in parking areas and rooft top solar; and utilities have to offer net-metering. Yes, it costs money, but so does indoor plummbing and insulation which are code requirements in every state, county, city and town. You have to remove the politicized view on EV to see this is just the function of Govt - to set necessary regulations and minimium standards.

You are right. It's why the hybrid production lags demand so much... no use setting up new shift if they can't get enough battery or motors.

I wonder when will Ford decide to add another shift to Hermosillo... clearly both BS and Maverick can use more volume.

I'm pretty sure even in rural Arkansas or backwood of West Virginia, there is electricity. EV "infrastructure" is not what you think it is. Most EV are plugged in overnight. You have to stop thinking in the ICE mindset, that's not how EV work. Majority of EV owners visits public charger 2 or 3 times a year. It's not that essential.

But not all Class 3 or above trucks do long distances or tow, which is the whole point... The majority of medium duty trucks do not ever go very far. UPS's dispatch target is 80 miles a day for urban and suburban delivery vans. Meaning they should never venture more than 40 miles from their depot on average. Some do of course... but on average, that's what their dispatch center try to hit when they map out the delivery routes. The long distance truck will continue to have ICE (Tesla's semi is going to end up doing mostly short haul - I have no doubt). If you want to see what meduim duty truck market will look like in 10 years, just look at the municipal bus market is like today. Virtually all the new orders are for electric - yes, many orders are subsidized but so was the diesel and CNG buses before. The operating cost of EV on fixed route or short haul is so low compare to diesel or CNG once you get past the initial setup cost, it is kind of a no brainer. And once the OEM starts selling from the groud up EV trucks (instead of conversions), the market is going to swing overnight to electric. There will always be a subset of medium duty that will require more distance or more capability and PHEV will solve some of the need. CARB's rules allow PHEV since most of them will behave like EV during in-town or urban operation where people live.

Interesting that Ford choose Mustang as the first US model to adopt the new wall-o-screen design that is already the standard in China. I do wonder what this mean for RHD Mustang since the screen is not flat as @ANTAUS pointed out... it is canted/curved towards the driver so RHD Mustang probably needs its own unique screen. I wonder if there is enough volume to justify it...

I don't know if GM is going to turn a profit on $30k Equinox but they are going to really disrupt the market with that kind of pricing. If Ultimum allows GM to spread the costs then it is good news for consumers. It looks like a properly executed product with good consumer appeal.

Hydrogen cheerleaders generally fall into 3 camps: 1. Fossil fuel shills: Since the only semi-efficient way to make hydrogen is with natural gas/methane (CH4), it locks in dependency on fossil fuel. Fracking companies are especially fond of hydrogen because it ensures continue demand for natural gas and reliance on gas pipelines.They are the new version of the "clean coal" backer. Most people on TV talking about a hydrogen future falls in this camp. 2. Charge time obsessives: People who hand wrings needlessly about how long it takes to fully charge a BEV but totally ignores real life experience of BEV owners who rarely if ever fully charge their EVs. Most EV on the market will get meaningful range if you plug it into level 2 charger for 10-15 minutes or so and this will get better/faster overtime. This camp is basically stuck in the gas station frame of mind... they think it is essential to refuel your vehicle in a minute or less so they want hydrogen. Nevermind that the average car sits parked for 22 hours a day where it can charge. But they also generally do not understand the infrastructure investment required to make that happen vs. electricity which is already available in every home and business. Toyota's misguided backing for hydrogen falls in this camp. 3. Science illiterates: This includes most of the politicians that advocates for hydrogen and keyboard warriors on the internet. This camp likes to blather about a magical alternative reality where hydrogen molecules are not somehow tightly bonded to other elements and takes enormous amount of energy to seperate it from carbon or oxygen, the two most common sources. We shouldn't miss the forest for the tree... the reason we are trying to decarbonize our transportation system is because all the carbon. Hydrogen production doesn't reduce carbon emission in a significant way because the inherent inefficiency - in fact, given the same amount of energy requirement, hydrogen is one of the least efficient storage medium. Let me try an analogy... let say you need pay $5 for a cup of coffee at Starbucks and you have a $100 bill. Instead of using that $100 bill to pay for $5 cup of coffee, you shred the $100 bill so you can sell the waste paper to recycler for $5 and use that $5 to pay for coffee. That's what producing hydrogen from another energy source is like in concept. As I have mentioned before many times on this forum, hydrogen makes a lot of sense in some settings. For localized or closed loop network that require zero emission, hydrogen is a plausible alternative. You'll need to be located close to the source of hydrogen production and/or storage to minimize the transportation costs. But no matter how you make hydrogen, it is alway more efficient to use the raw source as the fuel. Burning the natural gas uses less carbon than converting it hydrogen. Using nuclear power to charge BEV is more efficient than using that power to make hydrogen. The basic physics cannot be changed.

Or basic chemsitry. You can't make Hydrogen without consuming more energy than the resulting output. It's a fools errant. Hydrogen will have limited application but it will never be widely deployed for vehicle transportation. Anyone that thinks otherwise needs to retake 10th grade physics and chemistry classes.

FCA went from EV wilderness to EV relevance under Stellantis very quickly... I wonder how long Recon and WagoneerS have been under development. I guess Recon and WagoneerS are also probably the reasons FCA/Stellantis decided to not update Compass and Cherokee.

There is almost no chance Ford will close LAP but it's normal for Ford to say no product planned until the contract negotiation time with UAW. I think it is reasonable to assume Ford will probably move ICE to a single plant (Hermosilo?) so Escape to Mexico is not that farfetched. Corsair going to Oakville makes sense because it is going to be EV only. We don't have any info on new models Ford plans to launch after 2025 - we only know about existing models that will be getting next gen (i.e. Explorer/Aviator and MACH E). Ford will have to launch more CUVs to keep up with market demand and competition.

Demand for Mustang will disappear if Ford doesn't make it relevant. And what will be relevant in 10 years is not ICE V8 doing burnouts. That a small subset of people that currently buy Mustangs or Challenger. The majority of the buyer just want a sporty looking 2 door and they are attracted by the heritage of the model and/or the design asethetic of the car. Porsche is only about a year away from unveiling the fully electric 718 Cayman... we'll see how the market reacts. I suspect the performance will be so overwhelming that most people wouldn't care. Just like when the flat 4 turbo replaced the flat 6 naturally aspirated engine on the Cayman, some people cried bloody murder but most buyers saw that it performed better, was more efficient and cheaper to run/maintain, and sales certainly haven't collapsed.

I don't think it was even possible to spend $1,700 on accessories from the Fusion catalog.

I think once the decision to abandon CD6, the hybrid idea became increasingly difficult to justify. The platform just wasn't engineered for it and the whole point of S650 was the keep cost to a minimum so it was axed. But I expect Ford to really borrow Porsche's playbook and bring out one limited production version after another for the next 5 years to milk this ICE sacred cow pony.

Demand for V8 never went away in the 1980s. There was a temporary dip in demand the late 1970s when Ford and other OEMs just couldn't get it to work good enough with catalytic converter and other emission equipment and output became anemic. The buying public responded with thanks but no thanks. But the appetite for performance was always there. What's different now is V8 is not the only game in town as far as performance is concerned and in fact, it is often the inferior option. So demand is going to tapper off. And I haven't even mentioned regulatory limitations. I type this as an owner of a V8... I love the noise it makes and the power but I also know that its replacement when the time comes will probably be electric.

I'm sure production shifted towards Maverick so there are fewer deliveries.

The high loyalty rating for Tesla is reflective of two things: 1. Early EV adopter are largely satisfied 2. First time luxury brand buyers tends to be more loyal than repeat luxury brand buyers - this makes sense if you think about the investment, both monetary and emotional that people out into buying their first premium car. And Tesla has a lot of first time luxury brand buyers upgrading from mainstream brands. Both of these groups are likely to purchase another Tesla. But it is transitory... eventually when Tesla's owner base consist of repeat EV and repeat luxury brand owners, the loyalty number will drop. But the question for other car companies is when will that happen? Because in order for Tesla's owner base to be full of repeat luxury brand buyers, it means they have to lose a bunch more customers to Tesla first. Chicken and egg... ?

Farley has to be pleased... his strategy is starting to the results that we all thought was possible with proper execution. The decision to push icnonic brands to the front of the EV development is obviously the right call in retrospct. Can you imagine if Mustang Mach E was called C-Max and Lightning had no association with F-150? They probably would be forgotten already. And you really have to wonder why some people thought the decision to end car sales and put all the resources into getting utitilities right was controversial. The data was already telling us cars was done in the US but some people just refused to believe it. I have no doubt that Ford is making more money on the 48k Maverick it sold than the 150k Fiesta and Focus it sold the last year they were both offered. Same with the 70k Bronco Sport vs. the 125k Fusion. BTW, some of us wrote Escpae's arbituary too early... Ford has managed to make enough tweaks to keep the model selling and the mid cycle update is looking quite promosing. It is still massacred by RAV4 and CR-V but things are looking ok now. Ford has stablized the freefall and I'm sure Farley has taken charge of the mid cycle refresh applying lessons from Bronco Sport and Maverick.

I can attest that Porsche's PCM is really horrible piece of hot garbage. But the cars are still awesome. ? Getting the tech experience right in cars is not easy for traditional OEM because they are not thinking like software companies. That's what Farley means in that article. The user interface is as important, if not more than the drivetrain or exterior design. Traditional OEM treats the user interface software as an add on funtion for the most part but that is actually how most people interact and experience their cars. On the other hand, Taycan now outsells Model S - Tesla cannot escape the gravity of market forces. Even if Tesla has the best tech expereicne, it can still get spanked by a brand with the worst tech experience. Leaving a car unchanged for 10+ years despite powertrain and software update is not going to cut it when the traditional OEM starts building competitive EV in volume.

Hatchback AND manual only. It's a miracle Ford sold as many as it did.