Gurgeh

Sure, the U.S. has vast reserves of many EV-related minerals and metals but, like silver (the U.S. has the 8th largest silver reserves in the world), will the environmentalist left allow those reserves to be mined? So far they are still being successful in impeding domestic mining operations.

U.S. lithium reserves are huge (as are our rare earth reserves). Yet we still only have a single domestic lithium mine (same with rare earth mining). While federal pro-EV folks talk a good game about having us exploit our abundant domestic reserves, they are timid about actually opening up federal lands for this purpose or making the necessary regulatory changes to allow them to be able to go forward in any reasonable time-frame or to be profitable. In the meantime, many environmental groups (yes, the same folks saying we need to almost immediately switch over to EVs) remain fiercely opposed to essentially any new mining activity, and they lobby just as fiercely to stop needed regulatory reform. And the thing is, they typically don't even need to be successful in their litigation against proposed new mines. They just need to keep them tied up in courts long enough that the projects no longer make economic sense.

Such a dramatic change from even one year ago, when both Lincoln and Ford rated above the industry average. Let's hope FMC can turn things around in a positive sense as quickly as they did toward the negative.

Why doesn't the government then limit the permissible size and overall energy use of houses? Or limit a household to only being able to own one vehicle, which must be BEV? Or limit the ability of successful businesses to expand and use more electricity? Or allocate a set amount of permissible use of electricity to every U.S. resident? I should probably just shut up; don't want to give the government any more ideas...

Going to ask what may be a silly question. As we move toward the world of EV transportation, shouldn't we just do away with EPA regulations? I know, I know, the famous quote, "there is nothing so permanent as a government program." But EPA CAFE standards only came in as a way to limit oil imports due to the first Arab oil boycott. It then continued to be justified to help control traditional tailpipe air pollution, and more recently to reduce greenhouse gas emissions due to climate concerns. But with an all-EV fleet, why should the EPA care if some folks wanted to buy relatively more or less efficient vehicles that use more or less electricity?

Huh, so if this is accurate and if you are like me and interested in a 2-row mid-sized Lincoln, there will soon be two options, both made in China. The ICE one comes without the V6 and the BEV one is based on Gen1 technology (even while Lincoln brings out another product with Gen2 technology), with no North American-built Gen2 2-row mid-sized BEVs on tap until around 2028, if then. This leaves someone like me with the following options: 1) order a 2023 Nautilus before they go away (I had wanted to wait for something new, as my 2019 Nautilus still works fine), 2) go BEV and 3-row (bigger than I want with a row I don't need) when the Gen2 product comes out in a couple or three years (I should be able to do overnight charging by then), 3) run the wheels off my 2019 Nautilus and wait to see what, if anything, comes with Gen2 2-row offerings in 2028 (I've never kept a vehicle that long, and would prefer not to, though the odds seem decent that the mid-sized 2-row Gen1 Mach E-based China product will then get swapped for a NA-built Gen2 product), or 4) look at other makes, including Ford's Mach-E, but more likely MB or Genesis -- or even, shudder, GM (I have no problem doing this, but had hoped to stay with Lincoln as I really like my local Lincoln-only dealer, and I would hate breaking the vow I made to myself to never buy another GM vehicle after my tax money went to bailing them out). Not ideal, but as others have noted leaving such a glaring gap in Lincoln's line-up for several years would be asking for trouble. And as others have also noted, many won't have a problem buying a China-made vehicle. I'm just not one of them.

They're working on that...

The question I have is why they should be treated differently at all? Environmentalists argue that EVs are inherently so efficient that even if the electricity comes from coal it is better for the environment than ICE. And as our power grid keeps getting cleaner (with baseload power shifting from coal to natural gas and with more renewable energy coming on line), why do things like 2wd/awd, height, footprint matter? I can see not spending my tax money to subsidize rich people, but differentiating between types of vehicles doesn't really make sense to me. On the other hand, remember when this was supposed to be a temporary government program? Do those things even exist anymore?

I owned a Y2K Passat AWD, which was basically an Audi in sheep's clothing (a lot of its parts even had the Audi stamp). It was one of the best, and best looking inside and out, cars I've ever owned. I used to see a lot of them around here. With the next redesign the vehicle, and its sales, started going downhill. Hardly see them at all anymore.

Huh? I own a good chunk of Ford stock bought in three batches from when it was running in the $7-$9 range three years ago. So with the stock currently priced at around $13, I'm sitting on some nice (unrealized) capital gains. Of course, my (unrealized) gains were even greater a year ago when the stock was priced over $20. As longer-term F holders here can confirm, yes large company stocks can get very cheap indeed, such as when F dropped below $4.50 a few years ago. I remain medium-term bullish on the stock and also look at it as a steady dividend earner of over 4.5%, which are very nice returns indeed.

Those dreaded words...

Sure, I expect it will grow at some point in the next few years. But there is no question that, at least for North America (which doesn't get the Zephyr or retain the Nautilus), it will be shrinking down to three vehicles before it starts to grow again round about MY2025. That will be a tough period for the Lincoln brand.

I know I've chimed in at this point before, being one of the few Lincoln guys around here. What you lay out makes perfect sense -- for Ford. But what's up with Lincoln? So far, at least, only the BEV Aviator has been confirmed, to come out alongside its Explorer cousin. But after this year, Lincoln in North America will shrink down to a sad state of affairs with just three vehicles: Corsair, Aviator and Navigator. So far, FMC hasn't brought over to Lincoln any product parallel to Bronco or the Mach E (which as you note do fit into the Edge space pretty well); we have heard nothing about how they plan to fill the space being vacated by the Nautilus or the arrival of any new product.

I really don't think that BOF wants to turn this into a climate science forum, though there is some relevance since government's hard push for EVs comes from climate change concerns, many of them legitimate. I only point out this chart because it is highly misleading. Yes, sea levels are rising. Yes they have been rising in the last 150 years since the industrial revolution really got going. But if you see the longer time-period chart below, sea levels have been rising in the 20,000 years since the peak low temperatures of the last glaciation period and especially in the last 12,000 years when we formally entered the current interglacial warm period. Note I didn't say last ice age, because the world is still in an ice age, which for the last million or two years has seen us moving between long glaciation deep freeze periods (when, for instance, Washington DC is under a mile thick ice cap -- see, it's not all bad) of 100,000 or more years and relatively brief interglacial warm periods of 10,000-20,000 or so years. Yes, a warming Earth (whether natural or human influenced -- and there is some human influence) presents the possibility of significant sea level rises, but only if we see a catastrophic collapse of the Greenland or Antarctica ice sheets. For the last 150 years shown we've see sea level rises, but at the same steady relatively slow pace we've seen in the last 8,000 years (and unlike the truly dramatic rises we saw in the 8,000 years before that). I don't mean to say we have nothing to worry about in continued global warming or that human's aren't influencing that warming, only that a sea level rise chart of the last 150 years seems to say something but it really doesn't. Here's the longer-term, more relavent chart: