Trader 10

Those buying these first gen Mach-Es and Lightnings are going to get their heads handed to them when it comes to trade in time.

Mach-E sales are down 10% year over year.

I’m talking about an affordable truck not an 80k version. 450 to 500 hp is plenty.

Nothing against the 5.0 - it’s a great engine, but I don’t know why an aluminum 6.8 wouldn’t be lighter than the 5.0 with excellent performance potential. The small block Chevy motor has been successfully used for everything from family cars to light trucks to Corvettes for more than half a century. A performance tuned 6.8 would surely be cheaper to build than the 5.0.

I don’t think TE1 will be out before 2026 either.

I’ve had no problems running 10% ethanol in any small motors. A gallon of ethanol has about 30% less energy than a gallon of gasoline, so blended fuel will likely result in worse fuel mileage.

https://ethanolrfa.org/ethanol-101/why-is-ethanol-important A Cleaner, Greener Fuel Ethanol reduces carbon emissions, removing the carbon equivalent of 12 million cars from the road each year. At the same time, the environmental impacts of producing ethanol have been greatly reduced. Natural gas and electricity use at dry mill ethanol plants has fallen nearly 40 percent since 1995, while consumptive water use has been cut in half. This has occurred while the amount of ethanol produced from a bushel has increased. Producers are getting 15 percent more ethanol from a bushel of corn than 20 years ago. The result? A smaller carbon footprint and an increase in energy efficiency. Ethanol use reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 44-52 percent compared to gasoline–even when hypothetical land-use change emissions are included. By displacing hydrocarbon substances like aromatics in gasoline, ethanol also helps reduce emissions of air toxics, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides, and exhaust hydrocarbons.

This article is outdated and incorrectly infers that the “ethanol subsidy” ( blenders credit) is still in effect. In fact, it ended several years ago. There aren’t any current subsidies being paid to corn growers, ethanol producers, or blenders of ethanol. I believe there are some subsidies in effect for advanced biofuels but that doesn’t include ethanol from corn.

What subsidies are you referring to?

It almost assuredly will be more than the Mach E. I don’t consider that “affordable”.

Yes that’s what I was thinking - since Ranger is new, figured it would get the new 2.3. I don’t think there will be any FWD vehicles getting anything larger than the 2.0 eco, outside of the 2.5 hybrids. Maybe Ford switches both Ranger and Bronco over to the new motor at the same time in another year or two.

I’m surprised Ford will build 2 completely different 2.3 ecoboost I-4 engines.It will be interesting to see which one goes into the refreshed 24 Explorer.

https://www.autoblog.com/2023/05/01/some-ford-bronco-buyers-unable-to-redeem-ford-vouchers-for-changing-orders/

You’re suggesting leaded to unleaded gas and carburetors to fuel injection are comparable changes to gasoline to electric?

A Focus replacement that starts at $48,500 is an abject failure.

I imagine GM decided that there would be no need for the NG small block and the I-6 which likely would have had similiar output and fuel economy numbers. Plus the turbo I-6 would likely be more expensive to build. I doubt the rumored I-6 would have been an all new engine. It probably would have shared bore spacing and maybe tooling from GM’s I-5 and I-6 family of 15 years or so ago.

I didn’t suggest anything was a resounding success in that post, but I don’t know how you couldn’t call the small Block Chevy a huge success over the years. It puts out as much power as the way bigger and more complicated OHC V-8s that you know have to be much more expensive to build. Ford would have been much better off developing its OHV V8s rather than replace them with the modular V8 30 years ago. My point was GM is investing nearly a billion dollars in a new version of its V-8. It recognizes that demand for V8 engines will be strong for another 10 to 15 years or more.

Apparently GM doesn’t think it’s “stupid” to spend money on ICE. https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a42746723/why-gm-is-launching-a-new-small-block-v8/ When ICE sells many multiples compared to BEV and makes all your profits (and will for years) it is smart not to let your products wither on the vine.

We really don’t export that much corn. This crop year (Sept 1 - Aug 31) exports are just 14% of corn production. 38% will be used in ethanol production and about half of total corn production will be used for animal feed, seed, and other industrial uses. 5.3 billion bushels of corn will be used for ethanol. (A bushel is 56 pounds). It’s true ethanol can be made from lots of different plant matter, but there’s nothing else currently available that could provide anywhere near the amount of ethanol feedstocks that corn does.

“Both have unique disadvantages” can be substituted for “Both have unique benefits”.

I’m most unhappy that Ford is partnering with the Chinese. They’ve proven time and time again that they can’t be trusted.

Thanks for posting your thoughts on future engines and models. The I-6 is intriguing. I’m a bit surprised Ford didn’t drop the 5.0 now that the 6.8 is ready as it has to be cheaper to build and should be able to make big horsepower numbers and better torque than the 5.0.

I think it’s actually 100% of the profit as Ford has stated that It’s BEVs aren’t profitable.

That makes sense - only premium buyers are able to afford Teslas.

It may be small but almost certainly not low cost. Maybe a premium small Lincoln?