Gurgeh

I feel the same way about adjusting climate up or down, turning on and adjusting heated seats, and turning on and off the heated steering wheel. Though the last control has long ago moved to the screen, unfortunately (in my not-so-humble opinion). I get that for cost reasons all automakers are moving almost all controls to the screen these days, but I lament much of the movement.

What, was "Poindexter" taken?

The transplants will just do what the latest UAW contract will lead the domestics to do more of. More auto plants in Mexico.

If service costs include fixing up a car that was in a crash then I can see Tesla coming in more expensive. Lots of articles have been written about how hugely more expensive the latest EVs are (compared to traditional ICE vehicles) to fix up after a crash, leaving lots of them totaled for fairly minor encounters due to the number of expensive sensors are embedded in the body. Of course, even high-end ICE vehicles are trending that direction now as well, but overall I expect there remains a large discrepancy.

So far most of the folks who own EVs are the well-off with garages outfitted for overnight charging. So the big need has been charging stations on highways and interstates to support road trips, plus some in town for folks who reach their destinations on said trips and for local folks who like to top up when at work or out shopping. But if EVs are really going to replace ICE vehicles in the relative near future, a heck of a lot more in-town charging is going to be needed for the huge number of folks who have to make do with street parking or who live in apartments and condos that lack the ability to do overnight charging. Over time, of course, the transition will happen and will be successful. Battery technology will improve, allowing for longer range and faster charging. More apartment and condo parking spots will gain EV-charging capabilities. Many gas station sites will be converted over to (increasingly quick) charging stations. The vast amount of needed new baseload electricity generating (and delivery from the plant to the home) capacity will be built, and hopefully will not get mired by the kind of political fights we too often see. The government will support rather than impede the development of new domestic (and friendly-sourced) metal and mineral mining capacity needed for EV and battery production. EVs will become less expensive (and hopefully electricity prices will come down instead of continuing on their current path of rapid price increases), allowing ownership to break out of its initial ghetto of the well-off. And overall, the vehicles and support structure will give folks with only one car the peace of mind they need to make it an electric. But while the transition will happen, it will get complicated at times and won't be as quick as some hope.

One thing escapeman mentioned has also baffled me. We are now well past Job 1 date and production Nautiluses (Nautili?) have been featured around the country at dealerships for folks to look at and maybe even sit in. When I wonder will the first drive reviews be out? My guess is that Lincoln wants to time those for closer to their being available for sale at dealerships in North America, so probably around the end of the year. Would be nice to know, though.

I can't answer, but there's progress. I just got today an email from Lincoln saying that my 2024 Nautilus has been scheduled for production the week of Nov. 13. It gives me an order tracking link with 6 steps. First was when I got my order confirmation last April. Second was today, when I got my scheduled-to-be-built date. Third will be when it is in production. Fourth is when it has been built. Fifth is when it is being shipped. And sixth is when it has arrived at the dealership and is in final prep. Other than the long wait between the first and second stage, fifth is going to be the longest of the remaining steps. Transit is likely to take some number of weeks getting it to the port, getting it across the ocean, and then getting it delivered to the dealer. Here's what I got: ------------------ Your Lincoln vehicle is scheduled for production. Hello [my name], We’re happy to inform you that your 2024 Nautilus® Black Label has been scheduled for production. In your Built Order Status email, we will provide an estimated delivery window indicating when your vehicle will arrive at East West Lincoln. While you wait, you can check the status of your vehicle at any time by clicking below.

...and now under the new contract, with the union's ability to strike over plant closings, it looks like Chicago today, Chicago tomorrow, Chicago forever.

...and yet, I'll bet that in the urban setting, with so many folks living in apartments and condos that aren't amenable to overnight charging, you'll find a higher percentage of the population that can't really consider getting into an EV right now. EVs really are the future. But the present is going to last a little longer than many have been expecting.

I noticed this in particular: "Among those hand-wringing is GM's Mary Barra, historically one of the automotive industry's most bullish CEOs on the future of electric vehicles. GM has been an early-mover in the electric car market, selling the Chevrolet Bolt for seven years and making bold claims about a fully electric future for the company long before its competitors got on board." Looks to me that the challenge facing GM is particularly tough. Wasn't it just a year or two ago that Barra announced the company had ended all investment into traditionally-powered vehicles (including hybrids), and was going full speed ahead into developing an all-electric product line? For the record, I'm convinced EV's remain the future. It doesn't look, however, that it's a future that will be arriving as quickly as many, especially in Washington, expected.

Agree. It is important in this discussion to better understand the differing motivations behind interest in hybrids. There's obviously the traditional econo hybrid, where fuel efficiency is everything. Then there is the increasing use of hybrid configurations in luxury and higher-performing vehicles. Those hybrid configurations are all about improving power and performance, as it is with the 2024 Nautilus hybrid I have on order. The hybrid version adds the battery and electric motor to (I believe) a slightly revised version of the base turbo 2.0 to get hp up above 300 and to give a big boost to torque. That's why I ordered it. It might get slightly better MPG, but I really wouldn't care much if it didn't. It is the new engine upgrade option that replaces the outgoing 2.7 twin scroll V6. Similarly, the hybrid configuration of the Lincoln Aviator has always been about increased power and performance.

If that's the case, then I really fear for Ford's future. Not just declining competitiveness due to having a much greater labor cost than Tesla and the transplants, but the danger of, as I had suggested earlier, an increasingly radicalized and disgruntled workforce, turning all UAW plants into a version of Chicago, with its dysfunction, corruption, and poor build quality.

When I put in my order last spring, initially I cared -- I wanted it to be built in the U.S. but I really liked the new design (compared to all the competitors) and decided that all things considered it was the best option for a luxury mid-sized two-row crossover. Now, a month into the strike I find that I now care even more than I did initially, but in the opposite direction. I'm glad that the 2024 Nautilus I ordered isn't going to be facing potentially long delays and won't be built by a radicalized, disgruntled workforce.

I remember a decade or so ago when VW, due to pressure by the union reps on the VW Board (it's a thing in Germany), tried to force unionization on its American plants. The workers overwhelmingly rejected the effort.

I suspect that even if the UAW accepts Ford's best and final offer, it is such a rich offer that there may well still be consequences in terms of moving more production out of the United States.

For the remainder of this century, many countries will face demographic challenges both with still-rapidly growing populations (in South Asia and Africa) and declining, aging populations (pretty much everywhere else). But for countries in the latter category, there's everywhere else and then there's China. I strongly urge you to click on this link and look at the first moving graph that shows population projections over the course of the next 75 years, a period of time in which China's population is cut in half. Something like that has never occurred in the course of human history except in the face of catastrophic wars, famines or disease. Now, the thing to remember is that these are projections, not predictions. Demography typically surprises one way or another, because it is based on the most personal decisions of individuals on whether to grow a family, whether to emigrate, whether people in other countries want to immigrate (and are permitted to do so), and of course whether unforeseen events pop up like, well, wars, famines or disease. One thing written in stone, however, is a country's current demographic pyramid -- that is, how many people are in what age and sex groups -- and China's is unlike any other, having been influenced by the country's previous one-child policy that has ballooned the portion of the population now beyond child-bearing age and has skewed the population toward men (who don't have kids) thanks to female infanticide and the use of abortion for sex selection. https://chinapower.csis.org/china-demographics-challenges/

They will just have to make do, then, with enhanced power, torque, and performance. Not the same experience as using hard-learned skills needed for getting maximum performance out of traditional sports cars, but some might actually prefer it.

Prius as virtue-signaling has become passe. Tesla is the new "aren't I grand!?" car.

You had me at Prius.

I think with those brands many are buying the status as much as the vehicles themselves. Status buyers are, I think, particularly vulnerable to the allure of the logo that Tesla offers.

It is the emblem that makes people think luxury, not the actual vehicle. Tesla has done a great job of branding so when people see a car ahead of them with that logo attached they think luxury, whether that particular vehicle really qualifies or not. Granted, the top line Teslas are legitimate luxury vehicles. But Model 3 and Y? Not really. Their interiors contain few luxury materials and are austere and cold, unlike Lincoln which in recent years (despite its other problems) has arguably been designing some of the most luxurious interiors on the market. And to me the 3/Y exteriors are boring and frankly kind of ugly (though exterior style is of course personal and subjective). You do make a good point about technology, but that is mainly due to Tesla being an EV and that much of its EV technology remains ahead of other automakers who have more recently entered the market.

Do a build and price on the Navigator. It is pretty much impossible to build one below $100,000, unless you go with a base model with no-to-few options. The Reserve and Reserve L start just under (and any options at all plus tax will push you over), and the two Black Label versions both start above that level. One of them well above.

Interesting conversation. Something to remember in the discussion over whether FMC can make money on low-margin sedans either added into the production mix at Flat Rock or imported from Ford plants in China. Going forward, the company is going to have to be even more careful about product profitability. Lower profit sedans would be even harder to make financially viable using UAW labor under the new contract. If Ford had extra production capacity in Mexico that might be a more feasible option for North American production. And remember, importing from China still faces a head wind of 25% import duties. I'm not sure how much Ford expects to make from the 2024 Nautilus imports. My guess is that bringing over the Nautilus from China is more about preserving Lincoln -- which, without it, would have dropped to only 3 products -- than about improving overall corporate profits.

It's like that in the federal workforce as well. Non-performers, and there are a lot of them, can theoretically get fired, but the process takes too long and is insanely complicated. So the poor workers tend to get shunted into jobs that don't do much or "promoted" into new jobs where they become someone else's problem. Hard working government workers, and there are a good number of them, then just find more and more work piled on their shoulders until they collapse. As a federal manager (in the Treasury Department) I actually initiated the firing process on a University of Virginia PhD economist who spent his entire day playing solitaire on the computer. After about a year of working laboriously through the firing process we finally convinced him to just retire. It might have taken a second year to bring the process to its conclusion.