Ford Mustang Mach E bumps Tesla Model 3 as CR Top Pick for EV

[twintornados]

https://www.consumerreports.org/hybrids-evs/ford-mustang-mach-e-replaces-tesla-model-3-as-cr-ev-top-pick-a6095541654/?EXTKEY=YSOCIAL_TW

 

Quote

Make no mistake, the Model 3 is still a great choice, and Consumer Reports recommends it. It shines with the latest technology, a long range, an impressive charging network, and a driving experience closer to a high-performance sports car than a sedan. But the Mustang Mach-E is also very sporty, plus it’s more practical and easier to live with. The Ford is also quieter and rides better.

 

Edited February 18, 2022 by twintornados

[akirby]

Did hell freeze over?

[rperez817]

No surprise. In November 2021, Consumer Reports released results of its 2021 automotive reliability survey and owner satisfaction survey. Mustang Mach-E rated above average for both. Combine that with a very good road test score, and Mustang Mach-E has one of the highest overall scores of any BEV from any manufacturer. 

 

Edited February 18, 2022 by rperez817

[jasonj80]

The MME is one of the best vehicle Ford has ever engineered in the history of the company; it shows if they put the finance people behind the designers and engineers they can create great product. The idea they are also improving it every model year is also a change in the development process where there are some pretty significant improvements that happen between not only model years but as running changes. 

 

 

[rperez817]

40 minutes ago, jasonj80 said:

The idea they are also improving it every model year is also a change in the development process where there are some pretty significant improvements that happen between not only model years but as running changes. 

 

Yes sir jasonj80, this is a good example of Ford adopting Tesla's approach. I think Mustang Mach-E has the most extensive OTA update capability of any current Ford vehicle.

[akirby]

37 minutes ago, jasonj80 said:

The MME is one of the best vehicle Ford has ever engineered in the history of the company; it shows if they put the finance people behind the designers and engineers they can create great product. The idea they are also improving it every model year is also a change in the development process where there are some pretty significant improvements that happen between not only model years but as running changes. 

And hopefully Farley extends this to all vehicles or at least most of them.  The continued cost cutting on F series is irritating given the margins.

[rperez817]

Complete list of Consumer Reports Best Cars of the Year 2022. Best Cars of the Year: 10 Top Picks of 2022 - Consumer Reports

• Small Car: Nissan Sentra
• Subcompact SUV: Nissan Rogue Sport
• Small SUV: Subaru Forester
• Midsize Sedan: Honda Accord
• Hybrid: Toyota Prius and Prius Prime
• Two-row SUV: Toyota RAV4 Prime
• Midsized three-row SUV: Kia Telluride
• Midsize pickup truck: Honda Ridgeline
• Electric vehicle: Ford Mustang Mach-E
• Luxury midsized SUV: Lexus RX

 

Edited February 18, 2022 by rperez817

[jasonj80]

41 minutes ago, akirby said:

 The continued cost cutting on F series is irritating given the margins.

That is just playing with Fire if you ask me. I can say I'd be giving a long look at the new Sierra Denali if something happened to my F-150, the little things they have deleted are getting to be not little things. 

[92merc]

I see Ford recently snagged a couple of Tesla employees.  I'm liking what I'm seeing so far with Ford and electrics.  MME is looking good.  Lightning looks promising.  Lets keep it up.

[HotRunrGuy]

2 hours ago, akirby said:

The continued cost cutting on F series is irritating given the margins.

 

Somebody has hacked akirby's account.

 

HRG

[FordBuyer]

Looks like Farley is intending to spin BEVs into a separate company from its ICE legacy business. Not sure how the Ford family feels about this. I would imagine Farley wants to emulate Tesla business model meaning not using Ford dealers to sell and service BEVs. 

[mackinaw]

52 minutes ago, FordBuyer said:

Looks like Farley is intending to spin BEVs into a separate company from its ICE legacy business. Not sure how the Ford family feels about this. I would imagine Farley wants to emulate Tesla business model meaning not using Ford dealers to sell and service BEVs. 

 

Remember that Farley answers to the Board of Directors, which includes three members of the Ford family. 

[rperez817]

1 hour ago, FordBuyer said:

Looks like Farley is intending to spin BEVs into a separate company from its ICE legacy business. Not sure how the Ford family feels about this. I would imagine Farley wants to emulate Tesla business model meaning not using Ford dealers to sell and service BEVs. 

 

That is great news FordBuyer, thank you for sharing this! The former senior auto analyst at First Boston/Credit Suisse recommended Ford and GM create an EV "newco" back in November 2021. Breaking up GM and Ford - DataTrek Research

 

Regular readers will know that I (Nick) spent the 1990s as the senior auto analyst at First Boston/Credit Suisse

Putting on that old hat for today’s note: if I were banking Ford or GM right now, I would be pushing hard for them to spin off their electric vehicle operations

The basic idea would be this:

• Create an EV “newco”. This would include all the parts of the business relevant to winning in an all-electric vehicle future: R&D, product design, parts sourcing, and assembly.
• Get an outside CEO and CFO – people from the tech world, but with experience in design and manufacturing. Staff the rest of the organization from the top-performing ranks of existing management.
• Recruit a strong, independent board and name an outside Chairperson. The individuals here should come from venture capital and technology, with preference given to people who have built disruptive businesses.
• Sell 19.9 percent of this company in an initial public offering for, say $10 billion. That’s a good-enough discount to the current comps and will assure strong aftermarket price action. Newco gets the $10 bn for general corporate purposes.

Now, here’s the punchline: GM and Ford will almost certainly NOT spin off their electric vehicle operations even though there is a compelling case to do so. Maybe we’re wrong on that. Maybe managements will rise to the challenge or be pushed to action by activist shareholders. It’s never happened before (remember Ross Perot and Kirk Kerkorian?), but you never know.

And that, in a nutshell, is why current equity valuations for Tesla, Rivian, et al are so amazingly high right now. The market is betting that GM and Ford will not break off their EV operations. This will leave them at such a disadvantage that they will eventually fail. Yes, this is a big leap of logic and yes, GM and Ford still have time left on the clock. But as for a dramatic corporate remake that reflects the existential challenges they face … We’re not holding our breath.

[paintguy]

1 hour ago, rperez817 said:

 

That is great news FordBuyer, thank you for sharing this! The former senior auto analyst at First Boston/Credit Suisse recommended Ford and GM create an EV "newco" back in November 2021. Breaking up GM and Ford - DataTrek Research. 

 

 

 

Interesting with the recent trend for GM and Ford to eliminate marque or brands. Some here may disagree on dealer elimination, having some dealer employees present. Not many Tesla owners on this page, but do wonder what experience they have when something goes wrong and service or repair is required. Low end lawn mowers and almost all electronics have entered the phase where a "dealer" is no longer needed. Have cars, BEV or otherwise entered this zone? 

[akirby]

13 minutes ago, paintguy said:

Interesting with the recent trend for GM and Ford to eliminate marque or brands. Some here may disagree on dealer elimination, having some dealer employees present. Not many Tesla owners on this page, but do wonder what experience they have when something goes wrong and service or repair is required. Low end lawn mowers and almost all electronics have entered the phase where a "dealer" is no longer needed. Have cars, BEV or otherwise entered this zone? 

Its a hell of a lot easier to sell and service 200k vehicles a year than 2.5M especially as the embedded base of vehicles gets larger and older and requires more service.  I can see changes in the ordering process but I don’t see Ford or GM or Toyota eliminating dealers.  It would cost them billions.

[FordBuyer]

1 hour ago, akirby said:

Its a hell of a lot easier to sell and service 200k vehicles a year than 2.5M especially as the embedded base of vehicles gets larger and older and requires more service.  I can see changes in the ordering process but I don’t see Ford or GM or Toyota eliminating dealers.  It would cost them billions.

 

It will be interesting to see how many Ford dealers will invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in selling and servicing BEVs, especially after the travails of the last 2 years and still continuing if not getting worse. The landscape is changing fast. 

[twintornados]

Isn't Brightdrop GM's experiment into spinning an EV into a separate "brand"

[rmc523]

5 hours ago, FordBuyer said:

Looks like Farley is intending to spin BEVs into a separate company from its ICE legacy business. Not sure how the Ford family feels about this. I would imagine Farley wants to emulate Tesla business model meaning not using Ford dealers to sell and service BEVs. 

 

I don't see the point of this.

[paintguy]

1 hour ago, akirby said:

Its a hell of a lot easier to sell and service 200k vehicles a year than 2.5M especially as the embedded base of vehicles gets larger and older and requires more service.  I can see changes in the ordering process but I don’t see Ford or GM or Toyota eliminating dealers.  It would cost them billions.

The BEV advocates seem to ignore that not all car issues are due to the powertrain. Most of my issues over the years have been suspension, brakes, electrical and trim, body hardware. The powertrain has been mostly PM, oil changes, air filters. The sophisticated electronics for the BEVs are going to get interesting after 10 years. 

[92merc]

If I had to guess, by separating the 2 companies, you're isolating them should one fail.  So if the EV wing goes to crap, the old company is still preserved.  If the ICE company disappears, it gives the BEV company a way to start fresh.  Almost like a bankruptcy.  But without all the Federal hassles.  Probably easier to write off big one time charges under a new company than doing it under the old.

But hey, I'm not a financial wizard.  So what do I know...

[Harley Lover]

2 hours ago, akirby said:

Its a hell of a lot easier to sell and service 200k vehicles a year than 2.5M especially as the embedded base of vehicles gets larger and older and requires more service.  I can see changes in the ordering process but I don’t see Ford or GM or Toyota eliminating dealers.  It would cost them billions.

 

Perhaps a better way to frame the question is 'would the dealer body be willing to forego the sales function and instead focus on service after the sale exclusively?" While consumers might bitch about not being able to buy direct and avoid the dealer games, consumers would also bitch to high heaven without dealers to service their vehicles after the sale. Dealers are both the OEM's ace in the hole and albatross. If the OEM's and dealers could agree to such a model, it might benefit all parties in the longer term.

[rmc523]

21 minutes ago, 92merc said:

If I had to guess, by separating the 2 companies, you're isolating them should one fail.  So if the EV wing goes to crap, the old company is still preserved.  If the ICE company disappears, it gives the BEV company a way to start fresh.  Almost like a bankruptcy.  But without all the Federal hassles.  Probably easier to write off big one time charges under a new company than doing it under the old.

But hey, I'm not a financial wizard.  So what do I know...

 

Except ICE sales are what's paying for the BEV development....

[rperez817]

2 hours ago, twintornados said:

Isn't Brightdrop GM's experiment into spinning an EV into a separate "brand"

 

Kind of. BrightDrop is a GM subsidiary that specializes in products and services for fleet customers, especially those in the logistics industry. They sell BEV vans, ePallets, and associated software & services. BrightDrop does not include any of GM's BEV for retail consumers though. The BEV van (eTransit) and software & services components of Ford Pro are similar in some respects to BrightDrop.

 

1 hour ago, 92merc said:

If I had to guess, by separating the 2 companies, you're isolating them should one fail.  So if the EV wing goes to crap, the old company is still preserved.  If the ICE company disappears, it gives the BEV company a way to start fresh. 

 

Good points 92merc sir. With the end of the ICE age looming, it's a foregone conclusion that Ford's ICE business will be little more than a provider of parts and maintenance in due time, and eventually wound down completely. 

 

Jim Hackett said a couple years ago that Ford "cannot straddle the old and new worlds forever...this company has to change". Jim Farley's spinoff plan is just what Ford needs to achieve Hackett's goal.

 

 

[slemke]

9 hours ago, FordBuyer said:

Looks like Farley is intending to spin BEVs into a separate company from its ICE legacy business. Not sure how the Ford family feels about this. I would imagine Farley wants to emulate Tesla business model meaning not using Ford dealers to sell and service BEVs. 

It might be a good way to raise capital for BEV development.  Look how much Rivian raised.

[mackinaw]

1 hour ago, slemke said:

It might be a good way to raise capital for BEV development.  Look how much Rivian raised.

 

Not going to happen.  It's behind a paywall, but the visible headline says it all:

 

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2022/02/18/ford-ev-ice-spinoff-no-plans/6844852001/?gnt-cfr=1