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Ford CEO Jim Farley Indirectly Says Ford Escape Facing Cancellation


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3 hours ago, Harley Lover said:

 

As DeluxeStang wrote: 

 

The current Escape simply cannot represent Ford's best effort in styling, can it? I hope not. As I wrote above, it has good bones, but Ford seems to have phoned in the styling and the interior design. It certainly reeks of cost cutting inside. Jay Mays once said it doesn't cost any more to design a good looking vehicle than a poorly styled vehicle. Ford just simply tried to design this product to the lowest common denominator and it shows. I have hopes for the refresh - I intend to buy a plug in!

While I don't think the escape will ever rival something like a ford gt or mustang for style, I do think it could be improved quite a bit. Would like to see something more radical looking, for Ford to do what Hyundai did with the Tucson and just go nuts with the styling. The current escape isn't bad looking in the slightest, it's just generic and uninspired. The refresh does appear to adopt a more distinct and sporty front end from what we can see, so that's a plus. Regarding the interior, I think they should take the maverick approach. As in, if they can't afford to used a ton of nicer materials, they should at least use some interesting colors and textures to make it look more appealing.

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20 minutes ago, ExplorerDude said:

Current Escape runs until MY2027. There is no next generation ICE planned. It will be replaced by a BEV. Hopefully the Escape name will continue on the BEV.

 

That is my argument.....keep the Escape and Edge nameplate and supply it to BEV if Ford can deliver on battery supplies. Ford will need an Equinox EV fighter, and Escape DNA fits the bill. BS has the off the road vibe, and not everyone cares about that ability. And as of now full electrics have that aero, sleek

look, and BS is stubby and boxy. Escape is sleeker with smooth, curvy lines and gets better fuel mileage no matter what the power train.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, ExplorerDude said:

Current Escape runs until MY2027. There is no next generation ICE planned. It will be replaced by a BEV. Hopefully the Escape name will continue on the BEV.

Makes sense, hopefully ford learns for their mistake and makes whatever replaces the escape more exciting.

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2 hours ago, FordBuyer said:

 

That is my argument.....keep the Escape and Edge nameplate and supply it to BEV if Ford can deliver on battery supplies. Ford will need an Equinox EV fighter, and Escape DNA fits the bill. BS has the off the road vibe, and not everyone cares about that ability. And as of now full electrics have that aero, sleek

look, and BS is stubby and boxy. Escape is sleeker with smooth, curvy lines and gets better fuel mileage no matter what the power train.

 

 

 

 

But if Ford can get another $500 per vehicle calling it Explorer Sport instead of Escape, why should they stick with the Escape name? You are assuming Ford is exiting the market but that's not the case. They are still going to sell a compact SUV and a midsize SUV. Whether they are called Explorer Sport or Escape, Mustang Mach E or Edge is not as important as getting the product right.

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4 hours ago, bzcat said:

 

But if Ford can get another $500 per vehicle calling it Explorer Sport instead of Escape, why should they stick with the Escape name? You are assuming Ford is exiting the market but that's not the case. They are still going to sell a compact SUV and a midsize SUV. Whether they are called Explorer Sport or Escape, Mustang Mach E or Edge is not as important as getting the product right.

That GE2 Explorer Sport could also have a chunkier SUV body to differentiate it from the Mach E and then perhaps the Lincoln’s all fall into line….there’s gotta be a way for all of this to work…

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9 hours ago, jpd80 said:

But Farley just said that Ford is not doing that…..

By saying that Ford Blue (the ICE team) will not build Escapes in the future?  How do you make the wild assumption from that that no EV Escape will come out of Model e?

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23 minutes ago, j2sys said:

By saying that Ford Blue (the ICE team) will not build Escapes in the future?  How do you make the wild assumption from that that no EV Escape will come out of Model e?

 

When Ford can show that it can build and sell 300,000 Mach E's/month, then maybe it can replace Escape/Edge sales. Even then, the back seat of Mach E is on the tight side and cargo space is less than Escape and Edge. And Escape has a lot of powertrains to choose from. 

 

Lots of talk on here about 2 row Explorer, but I have not seen anything concrete from Ford on that other than possible Fusion Active to compete against Outback. Seems to me Farley has decided to go full bore into EVs so that every Ford ICE vehicle is a dead man walking. Big risk unless solid state batteries can scale up big time. 

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31 minutes ago, FordBuyer said:

. Seems to me Farley has decided to go full bore into EVs so that every Ford ICE vehicle is a dead man walking.


Seems to me you can’t read or comprehend what is published or what others keep telling you, so why don’t you take a month off and work on that.

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24 minutes ago, FordBuyer said:

 

When Ford can show that it can build and sell 300,000 Mach E's/month, then maybe it can replace Escape/Edge sales. Even then, the back seat of Mach E is on the tight side and cargo space is less than Escape and Edge. And Escape has a lot of powertrains to choose from. 

 

Lots of talk on here about 2 row Explorer, but I have not seen anything concrete from Ford on that other than possible Fusion Active to compete against Outback. Seems to me Farley has decided to go full bore into EVs so that every Ford ICE vehicle is a dead man walking. Big risk unless solid state batteries can scale up big time. 

 

You have the risk inverted. The big risk is not moving fast enough to EV and have the customers abandon you. Ford can keep building ICE no matter what happens. But the real risk here is if it doesn't have a full range of EV by 2030 when most industry analysts think EV sales will reach 1/3 of the market. This doesn't even account for Europe and China, Ford's other two main markets where EV will account for 2/3 and 80% of the market by 2030, respectively.

 

 

 

 

US-EVs-BEV-PHEV-Sales-Sales-Share-Forecast-2021-2030.png

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22 minutes ago, bzcat said:

You have the risk inverted. The big risk is not moving fast enough to EV and have the customers abandon you. Ford can keep building ICE no matter what happens. But the real risk here is if it doesn't have a full range of EV by 2030 when most industry analysts think EV sales will reach 1/3 of the market. This doesn't even account for Europe and China, Ford's other two main markets where EV will account for 2/3 and 80% of the market by 2030, respectively.

 

Good info bzcat. Fortunately, Jim Farley recognizes that big risk and is doing everything possible to meet or beat Ford's current internal timeline for the transition to a 100% electric vehicle lineup.

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BTW, the chart I posted above is already out of date. Plug in sales in the US in 2021 was 610k, 16% higher than this projection. And that was just the base year in the projection - you can imagine what Ford and other OEM's internal data looks like. Their data probably shows 50% by 2030.

 

 

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5 hours ago, j2sys said:

By saying that Ford Blue (the ICE team) will not build Escapes in the future?  How do you make the wild assumption from that that no EV Escape will come out of Model e?

It’s not a wild assumption, please read Farley’s comments “regarding we’re (Model E) not going to do commodity products like Escape or Edge”. Sot it’s easy to see that new compact and mid sized vehicles produced by Model E will be higher profit and more likely than not to have no association with the names Escape or Edge.

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5 hours ago, bzcat said:

BTW, the chart I posted above is already out of date. Plug in sales in the US in 2021 was 610k, 16% higher than this projection. And that was just the base year in the projection - you can imagine what Ford and other OEM's internal data looks like. Their data probably shows 50% by 2030.

 

 

This is like the pivot away from sedans to utilities that really sped up in the past five years, sitting pretty with a full line of ICE/hybrid utilities and not pressing on with BEV replacement vehicles would be a huge mistake. Escape and Edge going exactly the same way Fusion did and Ford is already planning successor vehicles that offer a different experience. Unfortunately, there are people who wake up one day and realise that their favourite vehicle is now on the outer and no amount of persuasion can convince them, denial is part of the grieving process…

 

Ford always had an issue with the costs associated with providing profitable compact electric vehicles, I wonder if that view has changed to providing small mid sized vehicles that can justify the added price. It would explain how GE2 could provide a product envelope to suit a changed view so that electrics offer more room than ICE Compact vehicles…

Edited by jpd80
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1 hour ago, jpd80 said:

It’s not a wild assumption, please read Farley’s comments “regarding we’re (Model E) not going to do commodity products like Escape or Edge”. Sot it’s easy to see that new compact and mid sized vehicles produced by Model E will be higher profit and more likely than not to have no association with the names Escape or Edge.

 

That comment was entirely Ford Blue, not Model e.  Thus to draw conclusions about Model e from it is to make wild assumptions based on facts not in evidence.

 

The plan as previously communicated was to develop electric/electrified versions of existing brands rather than throwing out the bathwater without safely removing the baby first.hat, if

 

The quote below suggests that, if anything, the more profitable "passion brands" like Mustang and Bronco, in ICE form, will fund development of EVs to include "commodity products like Edges and Escapes".

 

Just because (ICE) Edge is going away soon, don't assume the quote means that there won't be an Escape EV.

 

Quote

“The first step is you cannot ask everyone to do everything,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said while speaking at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference. “You have to say: Blue team, be the cash cow. You heard it in the video. Our job is to fund the future. And we’re going to have passion brands; we’re not going to have commodity products like Edges and Escapes. Mustangs and Broncos…good stuff.”

 

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29 minutes ago, j2sys said:

 

That comment was entirely Ford Blue, not Model e.  Thus to draw conclusions about Model e from it is to make wild assumptions based on facts not in evidence.

 

The plan as previously communicated was to develop electric/electrified versions of existing brands rather than throwing out the bathwater without safely removing the baby first.

 

 

Check out the new thread, that’s exactly what Ford is now doing, a lot of you will be shocked at the pace of change coming

 

Ford is pivoting away from just doing a BEV version of existing ICE branded vehicles.

 

Ford CEO Farley Says 2022 F-150 Lightning Won't Be Emulated

https://fordauthority.com/2022/06/ford-ceo-jim-farley-says-2022-ford-f-150-lightning-wont-be-emulated/

 

“In a kind of weird way, it’s kind of too bad that Lightning winds up being our most successful vehicle today because it feels so derivative from the F-Series. It’s not our only truck and the other trucks won’t look anything like it,” said Farley. While that statement may seem radical, it isn’t completely out of line with how the company is thinking about its future as an electric vehicle manufacturer. The 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning is simply an electric variant of the Ford F-150 and rides on the same basic platform. Going forward, that is not how Ford will develop its lineup, as it intends to do more than make carbon copies of its internalcombustion lineup. As Ford Authority recently reported, that may even spell the end ofestablished and popular vehicles like the Ford Escape, since the company’s pivot is gearedtoward icons and commercial vehicles.

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30 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

Check out the new thread, that’s exactly what Ford is now doing, a lot of you will be shocked at the pace of change coming

 

Ford is pivoting away from just doing a BEV version of existing ICE branded vehicles.

 

Ford CEO Farley Says 2022 F-150 Lightning Won't Be Emulated

https://fordauthority.com/2022/06/ford-ceo-jim-farley-says-2022-ford-f-150-lightning-wont-be-emulated/

 

“In a kind of weird way, it’s kind of too bad that Lightning winds up being our most successful vehicle today because it feels so derivative from the F-Series. It’s not our only truck and the other trucks won’t look anything like it,” said Farley. While that statement may seem radical, it isn’t completely out of line with how the company is thinking about its future as an electric vehicle manufacturer. The 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning is simply an electric variant of the Ford F-150 and rides on the same basic platform. Going forward, that is not how Ford will develop its lineup, as it intends to do more than make carbon copies of its internalcombustion lineup. As Ford Authority recently reported, that may even spell the end ofestablished and popular vehicles like the Ford Escape, since the company’s pivot is gearedtoward icons and commercial vehicles.

 

It's one thing to say that Ford's future lineup of EVs will be purpose-built EVs, not just adapted versions of current ICE models.

 

It's another thing entirely to say that there won't be a vehicle in the same class with the same general size and model name, with some design features that may carry forward.

 

It's entirely possible to build an Escape EV from the ground-up on a completely new electrical architecture and everything, with no provisions for any form of ICE powertrain, better aerodynamics, etc.  Maintaining the branding, the overall interior dimensions, etc.  Designed around a "skateboard" platform unlike the current Escape.

 

As opposed to F-150 Lightning, where they're literally building F-150s, that are about as aerodynamic as a brick just like an ICE F-150 with the same dimensions from bumper to bumper.

 

Doesn't mean Ford needs to exit the category or call the replacement model "Cucumber".

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1 hour ago, bzcat said:

 

Knowing Ford, Cucumber Sport and Cucumber Connect will launch before Cucumber. ?


Especially if your cucumber needs batteries that aren’t available……..

Cucumbers come in different shapes and sizes to suit the users needs

 

Remember the days of white space vehicles when Ford under Hackett didn’t have a clue……

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1 hour ago, Andrew L said:

 

Could be worse could be the Cucumber II

A supposed flop that actually timed perfectly with a major external change?

 

Sorry, this banter is going to go whoosh with the younger crowd……

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