DeluxeStang

True, but it sounds like Ford is trying to break away from the commodity market, and chase after the enthusiasts market more heavily. We'll see how committed they actually are to that strategy and how far it goes. As you stated, enthusiasts notice this stuff a lot more than casual consumers do. Casual consumers might not care if a product is redesigned often, but enthusiasts will.

To clarify, the point I'm trying to make is if you want to charge a lot of money for your products, there's nothing wrong with that. But I want to be able to see a tangible benefit to said product that goes beyond "We're the only game in town so we can charge whatever we want". Inversely, if you're gonna pad out your product cycles, and offer products that are more outdated than a lot of rivals, I do believe you should offer lower prices so you have some sort of competitive advantage. But leaving products on the vine while your rivals constantly keep theirs fresh, while simultaneously trying to charge as much as your rivals is a losing strategy. Yes, you need to ask how can you generate a respectable profit margin in the moment. But you also need to consider how the sorts of products you sell, and the sorts of prices you're charging, are going to influence your public perception decades down the line. Yes, my stance is more consumer sided. But I also want Ford to be a respect brand 50 years from now. If you overcharge people now, you might be laughing all the way to the bank. But there's a good chance that'll end up biting you in the ass in the future if Ford becomes synonymous with overcharging it's consumers.

Because when you're charging the same price as a competitor that's constantly updating their models with significant refreshes, it does a lot of damage to your reputation as a company. Love it or hate it, Kia and Hyundai are coming out with new generations constantly, and often well executed ones at that. I'm not against companies charging a lot of money. I'm against companies charging a lot of money while simultaneously not investing said profits back into their product line. The s650 for instance. It's not a bad car. But it has the chassis of an s550, still looks pretty close to an s550, has the proportions of an s550, has carry over powertrains from the s550. Yet it's priced like it's an all new ground up design, just because Ford can get away with making it more expensive because they have no more rivals in the pony car segment. There needs to be a balance. Yes, it's important for a business to generate a substantial and sustainable profit, but you also have to think about the future, 5 years from now, 20 years from now. Sure, Ford might generate a shit ton of revenue off someone by selling them a loaded up f-150 today. But if that person feels like Ford took advantage of them after the fact, and that makes them buy from another brand with their next purchase, then Ford played itself trading long term stability for short term success. There's nothing wrong with charging a lot of money, but at least keep your products fresh. Waiting 10 years and then releasing a new gen that's so mild it practically qualifies as a refresh instead of a new gen while simultaneously charging people out the ass for it is gonna turn a lot of people against your brand over time because they feel like they're being taken advantage of.

These stretched product cycles are saving Ford money. They wouldn't bother me as much if Ford passed some of those savings onto consumers, or if the changes made to vehicles between generations were more substantial.

Subtle, but tasteful, really like those grill lights. Do you guys think Ford is trying to make these dual horizontal strip lighting elements widespread design features on their upcoming lineup? You see them on this, and past Ford concepts. Could be nothing, just a coincidence, but I couldn't mind seeing these style of lights on more Ford models even if it does look a bit genesis.

So I should start by saying that when it comes to our vision for what we want out of Ford, you and I differ in certain areas. It seems like you want Ford to lean even harder into the boxy, rugged off-road look, which given the success of the bronco and bronco sport, I understand. But seeing as they already offer multiple boxy, rugged utilities, I'd like to see an escape/edge replacement go another way to avoid cross model cannibalisation and redundant product strategy. Sporty, coupe style utilities are another sort of popular lifestyle SUV that Ford is mostly ignoring, all they have there is the mach-e, which being an EV, has limited appeal. I personally believe an escape replacement that was larger than the current escape, but slightly smaller than the edge paired with hybrid setups would be a captivating product. But where we differ is I'd like to see styling that was more crisp, and sporty. This is an evos sketch, but some of the styling fell flat on the finished product. Obviously things like the massive wheels are never gonna make it to production, but the more muscular sculpting might be able to. Basically version 2 of the evos making it even better looking and offering it in the states. I believe this would appeal to the crowd who likes the look of the mach-e, but doesn't want to go full ev yet. It would give buyers more choice as to what sort of styling they wanted as well. If they wanted a more boxy BS or bronco, it's there. If they want more sports car like styling, they can buy one of these or a mach-e. I just passionately believe that just like how choice of powertrains is important, having a wide array of styling to choose from is also important. I don't believe every utility ford makes should have the same boxy off-roader look it it.

The new rav 4 is a prime example of how you can take a commodity boring product and redesign it to be more aspirational, kinda like what Toyota did with the latest Gen Prius as well. The rav 4 and Prius, 2 ugly and slow boring products. What did Toyota do? Make them fun to drive and better looking. There's nothing stopping Ford from doing the same with the escape.

I'm going to. The truck is still under warranty, so the question is do I just eat the cost of buying a better aftermarket battery, and put it in myself, or so I take it in, have the battery replaced under warranty for free, but it's just the same crappy factory battery going into it. There was apparently a recall for the Ecoboost mavericks where Ford replaced the original batteries with higher quality AGM batteries, but apparently this doesn't apply to hybrids for whatever reason, which is super annoying because both powertrains are having this issue. There are rumors Ford's gonna extend this recall to the hybrids, and some people told me their escape hybrids had AGM batteries swapped in at the dealer when the originals failed. But I can't verify this. My dealership is being kinda difficult as well, my truck has a lot of the symptoms of the battery going out, battery saver mode on phone, interior lights and gauges not coming on unless you put the key in, etc, but my dealership keeps claiming they're checking it and it's fine. Don't want to be difficult or anything but it's almost like they want to do anything but change the battery.

Yeah, loving our maverick close to 3 years in. The only issue I've had really is the factory 12V isn't great, so it's constantly going into battery saver mode lol. I'm probably gonna swap a AGM battery in and hope that resolves the issue. But it's a really solid package overall, especially for the price we paid.

What if Ford made some sort of interesting small car based on CE1? It would need unique software and suspension tuning, but who's to say it couldn't share the battery pack, electric motors, and other hardware components with higher volume CE1 models? If it was an EV, wouldn't meeting CAFE standards be a non issue or close to it? But I do agree with some of your points. The stricter emissions standards surrounding smaller cars is why we'll never see the small, affordable, but V8 powered mustang enthusiasts are asking for.

Par Perhaps I should say things weren't cheap, or affordable, but they were more affordable than they were now is a more accurate assessment. I just believe we're due for a correction with a lot of consumer goods, cars and homes being the most obvious ones. My folks bought a 7 bedroom three story home in the suburbs outside of Salt Lake for 390 in 2012. Today, that house is worth about 750, at its peak it was over 900 because everyone is moving to Utah, why someone would want to move to Utah, I have no idea lol. But things have just increased so much in value that I don't believe it's sustainable long term. My grandparents purchased a home in Seattle back in the 60s for about 20k. They recently sold that home for 1.4 million. Off the top of my head, I want to say adjusting for inflation, they paid the equivalent of about 250-300 grand for it. It's a nice house, but no way should it be worth 1.4 million even if it's in a nice area.

That's true, but maybe Ford is to blame here to a degree by not providing the right sort of products. I won't deny most Ford sedan buyers aren't passionate enthusiasts, but that could be because the products themselves didn't evoke a ton of passion. It's kinda like how decades ago, small trucks gradually lost their appeal. For years and years, all we heard was how there was no business case for the return of small affordable trucks, and how they'd fail if they made a return. But the maverick has proved all those people wrong. I'd argue it's because the maverick isn't just some half baked POS, it's actually a good vehicle with real effort put into it. It brought unique ideas to the table, like offering a hybrid powertrain so it could equal and surpass the fuel economy of most small cars. The small affordable truck segment was even more dead in the states than sedans are, yet with the right product, the right sort of differentiation, and the right timing, they made a comeback. I understand what you and Akirby are saying, but I'm a firm believer that nothing is forever in the automotive world, and with the right product, and the right approach, past ideas can be revived in a way that helps a company thrive.

I think young people are still interested in driving, and passionate about cars, heck, I'm one of them. But there's not a lot out here for us. I mean, what did young people in the 60s, or the 90s have? A ton of relatively affordable enthusiasts cars to buy. What do younger car enthusiasts really have today? A bunch of white jelly bean crossovers. Sure, you have the mustang Ecoboost, but most dealers I've seen option those into the 40s. Not to mention there's negative stereotypes surrounding the ecoboost that hurts its appeal. People don't want to buy a mustang and constantly have to defend it from people asking why they didn't buy a V8. You have the Miata, and gr86, two cars that are the size of a shoebox, and I believe those cars are two seater only, meaning insurance is gonna be pretty hefty for young buyers. Not to mention the gr86 seems to have a lot of reliability issues. There aren't a ton of fun affordable enthusiasts products on the market, and most of the ones you'll find are horrifically compromised in one way or another. I firmly believe the affordable, fun, reliable new car segment is horrifically underserved at the moment. There's an argument to be had that maverick and bronco sport are the best models currently in the market when it comes to serving this need, though I've heard the BS reliability is a little iffy. I don't believe Ford should stop at maverick and BS. They have lightning in a bottle with these fun, affordable, compact cars, and I want to see them keep pushing the idea, and see what other sorts of products it leads to. That's why I'm so passionate about c2 and CE1, because if executed well, they lay the foundation for a whole lineup of fun affordable cars making a return, something we haven't seen in decades. I firmly believe Ford could dominate the affordable aspirational vehicle market if they act swiftly.

Valid points, but I don't think it's a monolith. As is the case with most other product segments, I believe there are sedan buyers who are very passionate, sedan buyers who couldn't care less and will just buy the cheapest product, and most people who fall somewhere in-between. We often talk about the shortcomings of Ford sedans. But they were never really anything special, the fusion and Tarus had some bright spots for sure, but as a whole package, they never really had that extra spice that turned them into must have products. Even the Tarus sho and high performance fusions, yeah they were fast, but beyond that, in terms of design, in terms of tech, they didn't do much to stand out from the run of the mill variants of those cars. We know now most people who want fun cars for instance want those cars to look interesting. Most buyers don't want sleepers. It's a pretty comparable issue to what the Chevy ss had where the performance was solid, but it looked like a bland, generic sedan, and that was a turn off for a lot of people.

Respectfully, while the maverick is a low cost vehicle like the focus and fusion were, I don't see it as a direct replacement for those vehicles. Some of those owners transitioned into a maverick for sure, but many of them are looking at other brands now because they want a sedan body style.