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Ford-Rivian Partnership Is ‘Going Great,’ Ford Model Still On Track


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1 hour ago, Gurgeh said:

Hmm... So it won't be a Lincoln, not the BEV F-150, but it will be pricy, as a Rivian product -- at least at this point -- can't come cheap...

I understand why the Lincoln halo model was cancelled (or hopefully shelved) but I wish they went through with it. Lincoln needs a Halo vehicle. I could see the Ford model being a bronco Excursion or something.

Edited by JTL2017
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Don't mean to be negative here but given how many times Ford has changed plans in the past few years,

maybe Ford is not sure what exact types of BEVs it wants to build. I can imagine a situation where Ford

scopes a product envelope and develops the chassis, motor and drive, battery modules while leaving the 

top hat structure as generic modules until a decision is made. 

Edited by jpd80
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2 minutes ago, Harley Lover said:

 

There is supposed to be a Ford/Lincoln BEV crossover coming in about 2 years (I *think*) on a new skateboard chassis. There is differing news about whether they will be build in Ohio or OAC.

OAC is 100% confirmed for multiple EV "models"

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18 hours ago, jpd80 said:

That's after 2025.

The Mid sized Ford and Lincoln BEVs are supposed to be coming from Avon Lake inside two years

Ford's $1.8B pledge to Oakville could transform Canada's auto industry

Investment could be 'the catalyst' for Ontario emerging as an EV producer

John Irwin

EDITOR’S NOTE: In part one of a three-part series Electrifying Oakville, Automotive News Canada takes a closer look at the pledge Ford. Motor Co. has made to electric vehicles and its only assembly plant in Ontario, and how that could affect the Canadian auto industry as a whole.

Ford Motor Co.’s planned $1.8-billion investment in its Oakville, Ont., plant to build five electric vehicles by 2027 has the potential to transform both the company’s Canadian operations and the country’s supply chain, according to industry executives and experts.

“It’s encouraging for the future of the sector,” said Brian Kingston, CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, which represents the Canadian operations of Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. “Auto assembly has a massive supply chain, and when an investment like this is made, it has a huge spinoff benefit that helps companies of all sizes across the province and across Canada.”

The investment commitment, set to take place in 2024 with $590 million in combined financial assistance from the federal and Ontario governments — announced Oct. 8 — is the centrepiece of a new contract between Unifor and Ford. The three-year deal was ratified by 81 per cent of union members in late September. Under the plan, Ford would begin producing battery-electric vehicles at the Oakville plant in 2026, with five models being built there by 2027. It would be the first factory in Canada dedicated to EV production.

INVESTMENT AN ‘ANCHOR’ 

Industry stakeholders who spoke to Automotive News Canada were bullish about the plans.

Brendan Sweeney, managing director for the Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing in London, Ont., said Ford’s massive expenditure could serve as an “anchor” in attracting further EV production investments in the future. The Trillium Network is a nonprofit organization based at Western University in London, Ont., that advocates for advanced manufacturing in the province.

“This could very well serve as the catalyst” for Ontario emerging as a major EV producer, Sweeney said.

Navdeep Bains, the federal minister of innovation, science and industry, said the Oakville plan will spark investments throughout the supply chain. He said Ottawa would work with Canada’s mining industry to “better connect”

it with the auto sector, potentially spurring battery production.

“We want Canada to be a world leader when it comes to the production of batteries and zero-emission vehicles in Canada,” he said.

Rob Wildeboer, executive chairman of Martinrea International Inc., said barring another global crisis, Ford’s plan for Oakville speaks positively about Canada’s ability to expand its auto-manufacturing footprint under the new North American trade pact.

“There always could be something [negative] happening in 2030, but people are always going to buy cars. It’s important to be competitive, and I think we’ve done some good things” as a country, he said.

TIMING IS UNUSUAL 

The plans offer some clarity over the future of Ford’s sole assembly plant in Canada, which will continue to build the Edge and the Lincoln Nautilus crossover until 2023, when the company’s new contract with Unifor expires.

The timing of the Oakville retooling is unusual, however. Investments announced during labour negotiations are typically undertaken during the life of a new agreement, not a year after the contract is scheduled to expire. Assuming Unifor and Ford stick with three-year contracts, the union will have negotiated with Ford two more times by the time all five EVs are supposed to be rolling off the assembly line in 2027.

The plant will employ fewer people come 2027 than it does today, according to Ford and Unifor. About 3,000 workers would be employed at the Oakville plant by then, down from around 3,400 today, a figure that was already reduced following rounds of job cuts over the last year or so. The union expects the reduction in head count to be accounted for entirely through retirements.

Despite the lengthy timeline for the Ford investment, the Oakville plant appears to be on solid ground, said Kristin Dziczek, vice-president of industry, labour and economics at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. The new-vehicle market will likely be on an upswing by 2024, making Ford’s investment viable.

“This is amazingly good news, and the fact that the government is up to bat for the industry and for this investment is very strong,” she said.

FUTURE ‘LOCKED IN’ 

Unifor President Jerry Dias contrasted the Oakville plans favorably to the deal his union negotiated with General Motors in 2016. That contract included an investment in GM’s Oshawa, Ont., assembly facility for final assembly on pickup bodies shipped from the United States.

At the time, union leaders hailed the plans as a lifesaver for the storied plant. But after two years of pickup production, vehicle assembly ended in December 2019. The Oshawa factory is now used for a much smaller aftermarket-parts operation.

“We negotiated a product that was a shuttle” in Oshawa in 2016, Dias said. “This is not a shuttle [in Oakville]. This is not just one vehicle. It’s five [EV] models . ...We’ve locked in the future in this agreement.”

Dziczek cited a letter from Ford to Unifor detailing its plans for Oakville, noting it does not include language stipulating that such an investment would be “contingent on business and market case,” as contracts sometimes do if a planned investment is not a surefire thing. Instead, Ford only stipulated the need for government support and “competitive operational practices,” which the company feels it received in the contract.

A request for comment from Ford Canada CEO Dean Stoneley was declined, but in a statement issued after the union’s ratification vote, he said that by introducing battery-electric vehicle production in Oakville, “we are cementing our Canadian operations as a leader in advanced automotive manufacturing.”

WHAT EVS, THOUGH? 

Dias said at least one of the models in Oakville would be a crossover and that there were plans for two-door and four-door vehicles, though details were not disclosed. Dias said he expected about 200,000 vehicles a year to be built in Oakville by 2027.

Sam Fiorani, an analyst at U.S.-based AutoForecast Solutions LLC, said those EVs could be similar in size to the midsize Edge. He also said it would make sense if two of the five models were Lincoln-branded variations of a Ford EV built there, and a higher-end Lincoln specialty vehicle also was possible.

“If you’re going to build it in Canada, you’re going to want it to be higher end and a little more expensive than the ones you’re building in Mexico, especially when EVs are not making money at the moment.”

Still, worldwide, Ford is investing heavily in electric vehicles, planning to invest $14.6 billion by 2022 to electrify its lineup, including rolling out 16 EVs.

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Rivian is building 3 vehicles off its skateboard chassis: pickup, SUV, and van. Ford is also making its own EV pickup, SUV, and van. If you don't see a problem here, you haven't worked inside a big company with internal politics.

 

I think there is a degree of bickering inside Ford right now about how to incorporate Rivian into its product plans for the future. If you are a vehicle engineer or program manager, you don't want your vehicle to be designated "Rivian based" for obvious reasons. You going to fight tooth and nail to have your vehicle based on the Ford chassis. 

 

I believe Hackett and Farley thought Rivian will be a shortcut to getting more EV to market faster. But once the projects get down to the details, you have to have answers to a lot of questions and this leads to conflicts and delays. 

 

Until Ford and Rivian's relationship becomes more clear (who wears the pants in this relationship), I don't believe there will be any mainstream market targeted Rivian based Ford vehicles. Lots of practical questions needs to be answered before the rank and file will fall in line. For example, will Rivian vehicles use Ford designed steering rack or seats? That may seem trivial to some people but it is a huge part of vehicle development because they have major impact on crash test safety protection and teams of people spent their careers working on integrating those things to different vehicles. 

Edited by bzcat
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4 minutes ago, Willwll313wll said:

Wait we were told earlier this month or last month that the Lincoln EV was canceled right? 

 

It was put on indefinite hold so pretty much canceled at this point.

 

The large Lincoln EV will now be build at Oakville as part of the UNIFOR contract agreement. 

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15 minutes ago, bzcat said:

Rivian is building 3 vehicles off its skateboard chassis: pickup, SUV, and van. Ford is also making its own EV pickup, SUV, and van. If you don't see a problem here, you haven't worked inside a big company with internal politics.

 

I think there is a degree of bickering inside Ford right now about how to incorporate Rivian into its product plans for the future. If you are a vehicle engineer or program manager, you don't want your vehicle to be designated "Rivian based" for obvious reasons. You going to fight tooth and nail to have your vehicle based on the Ford chassis. 

 

I believe Hackett and Farley thought Rivian will be a shortcut to getting more EV to market faster. But once the projects get down to the details, you have to have answers to a lot of questions and this leads to conflicts and delays. 

 

Good post, thank you bzcat sir for this info. "Not invented here" syndrome has been a major problem at Ford for a long time. The article in the first post suggests that Ford may be getting past this and may be in a good position to take advantage of the fresh ideas, strategies, and approaches that Rivian can provide.

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1 hour ago, rperez817 said:

 

Good post, thank you bzcat sir for this info. "Not invented here" syndrome has been a major problem at Ford for a long time. The article in the first post suggests that Ford may be getting past this and may be in a good position to take advantage of the fresh ideas, strategies, and approaches that Rivian can provide.

The reason it's taking Ford years and years to get BEVs done is because Ford keeps changing the plan.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Ford doesn't really know what BEVs it should be building and I'm

wondering if this constant reassessing Ford does is actually undoing confidence and continuity.

 

bzcat is spot on with his assessment of Ford's buy in with Rivian, that was supposed to be a short cut,

a leap frog of where its own developments were but I wonder if it's just added distraction and confusion.

Ford talks a good game with MME, BEV F150, BEV Transit and the Mid sized BEV Utilities but beyond that,

Oakville BEVs are at least another two years beyond 2023 so Ford is stretching this out........

Edited by jpd80
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5 hours ago, bzcat said:

 

It was put on indefinite hold so pretty much canceled at this point.

 

The large Lincoln EV will now be build at Oakville as part of the UNIFOR contract agreement. 

...which has the effect of delaying it coming to market for 2-3 years, as Oakville isn't getting restructured as a BEV plant until 2024, IIRC. The Rivian-based, Lincoln-designed big flagship BEV SUV could have started rolling off the assembly line as early as late next year.

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6 hours ago, rperez817 said:

 

Good post, thank you bzcat sir for this info. "Not invented here" syndrome has been a major problem at Ford for a long time. The article in the first post suggests that Ford may be getting past this and may be in a good position to take advantage of the fresh ideas, strategies, and approaches that Rivian can provide.

 

But why are they going to threaten their own products they have with Rivian based ones?

 

Unless they plan on coming out with an Edsel again LOL

 

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