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Ford Confirms Layoffs, Says It Is Cutting About 3,000 Jobs - WSJ


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For any salaried employees out there. Good time to look and update your LDEP. If you have any coursework or experience prior to Ford which may have benefit to the new electric world order. Know sometimes management doesn't look too deep when making these decisions. But increase your odds. Interesting enough I know at least 4 former Ford Employees who currently work for Tesla. Amazing how Tesla needs automotive talent, and Ford needs fewer...

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On 8/26/2022 at 10:45 AM, paintguy said:

 Interesting enough I know at least 4 former Ford Employees who currently work for Tesla. Amazing how Tesla needs automotive talent, and Ford needs fewer...

Maybe Ford still thinks that BEVs are easy to develop, ICE top  hats (Ford Blue) + electric skateboards (Model E) and voila..

 

 

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On 8/23/2022 at 2:51 PM, paintguy said:

Also after Nasser's departure during the Great Recession, most Ford Salaried were shocked when General reductions came along. Said they never had that. Only from plants closing or for cause. 

 

"No one ever gets fired from Ford Motor Company" is what I was taught when I started working at Dearborn Engine and Fuel Tank in 2000.

 

On 8/25/2022 at 8:45 PM, paintguy said:

For any salaried employees out there. Good time to look and update your LDEP. If you have any coursework or experience prior to Ford which may have benefit to the new electric world order. Know sometimes management doesn't look too deep when making these decisions. But increase your odds. Interesting enough I know at least 4 former Ford Employees who currently work for Tesla. Amazing how Tesla needs automotive talent, and Ford needs fewer...

 

We don't have LDEP's anymore. There's some nebulous thing in "Career Navigator," but it certainly doesn't work like LDEP's did.

 

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3 hours ago, balthisar said:

 

"No one ever gets fired from Ford Motor Company" is what I was taught when I started working at Dearborn Engine and Fuel Tank in 2000.

 

 

We don't have LDEP's anymore. There's some nebulous thing in "Career Navigator," but it certainly doesn't work like LDEP's did.

 

I was told the same thing. Pretty much had to take a bribe. 

 

They were working with career navigator when I retired. Said it was to be a big improvement. Sorry to hear it isn't all that.

Think if you had a part time job at Radio Shack when in High School, would list somewhere as "experience in electronics". But seriously, as a Paint Guy, I could realistically have relevant experience in many processes used in battery manufacture. Ford may find difficulty in hiring experienced people in the "new" technologies. For any that desire to continue employment, don't sell yourself short. Anyone who has maintained productivity, particularly since the Great Recession, has that to take pride in accomplishment.

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On 8/27/2022 at 1:36 AM, jpd80 said:

Maybe Ford still thinks that BEVs are easy to develop, ICE top  hats (Ford Blue) + electric skateboards (Model E) and voila..

 

Or they need more software/electronics engineers 

 

Tesla seems to have the software/electronics down, but not the assembly process, which Ford has a good handle on.   

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37 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

Or they need more software/electronics engineers 

 

They sure do. Software and electronics expertise have historically been weaknesses for Ford. Jim Farley acknowledged this when he became Ford CEO. While Ford has recruited thousands of software and electronics experts from universities and from other industries since that time, it needs many more in order to fully develop the "differentiated tech stack" Farley envisioned.

 

ford-tech-stack.png?auto=webp&width=1200

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28 minutes ago, rperez817 said:

 

They sure do. Software and electronics expertise have historically been weaknesses for Ford. Jim Farley acknowledged this when he became Ford CEO. While Ford has recruited thousands of software and electronics experts from universities and from other industries since that time, it needs many more in order to fully develop the "differentiated tech stack" Farley envisioned.

 

ford-tech-stack.png?auto=webp&width=1200

How much of this was exacerbated by spin off of Visteon? I'm just a paint guy, but recall being in quality meetings where the electronics folks relied on the vendors even more than paint. And we relied on vendors a bunch in paint. 

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32 minutes ago, paintguy said:

How much of this was exacerbated by spin off of Visteon? I'm just a paint guy, but recall being in quality meetings where the electronics folks relied on the vendors even more than paint. And we relied on vendors a bunch in paint. 

 

Visteon was almost 20 years ago when it was spun off? That is an epoch when it comes to pretty much anything software or IT related

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4 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

 

Or they need more software/electronics engineers 

 

Tesla seems to have the software/electronics down, but not the assembly process, which Ford has a good handle on.   

By the end of the year, Tesla is expected to hit a production rate of 2 million per year, their gigacastings process has transformed their production speed. They’re far from perfect, flawless vehicles for sure but they seem to be cutting into German luxury brands sales at an alarming rate. I think that was Musk’s plan all along, amazing what they’ve done with two vehicles 3 and Y.

 

Software development is critical to Ford but I think they’re struggling to attract the kind of talent required and will continue to do so.

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2 hours ago, jpd80 said:

By the end of the year, Tesla is expected to hit a production rate of 2 million per year, their gigacastings process has transformed their production speed. They’re far from perfect, flawless vehicles for sure but they seem to be cutting into German luxury brands sales at an alarming rate. I think that was Musk’s plan all along, amazing what they’ve done with two vehicles 3 and Y.

 

Software development is critical to Ford but I think they’re struggling to attract the kind of talent required and will continue to do so.


I know it's trendy on here to hate Tesla, but the giga factories and giga castings are really impressive. Seems like they're two steps ahead of every one else.

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42 minutes ago, Captainp4 said:

I know it's trendy on here to hate Tesla, but the giga factories and giga castings are really impressive. Seems like they're two steps ahead of every one else.

 

Most definitely Captainp4. In all operations associated with designing, engineering, manufacturing, and marketing BEV, Tesla is ahead of not only the incumbent automakers but of newer BEV only startups like Rivian, Lucid, NIO, etc. as well.

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6 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

 

Visteon was almost 20 years ago when it was spun off? That is an epoch when it comes to pretty much anything software or IT related

True enough. But much of the electronics left with that. Ford believed it was not core to the business, so talent base was not replaced. 

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21 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:


I don't know that I would go that far until their quality improves. 

Seems the details of assembly have been difficult to learn. Also impressive new technology can be great, but also introduce new problems. From reading your posts Fuzzy, believe you have seen that up close and personal. 

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9 hours ago, akirby said:

I’ll give them credit but let’s not forget that 93% of their sales are just two models.

And the reason for that is because demand is just so strong, two sizes of Cybertruck coming from the middle of 2023 which will test the validity of those 1.3 million reservations. I’m not a giddy Tesla fan but to me, Musk is in the drivers seat and going after those premium priced German luxury marques. Man if he had compacts that were just bigger than 3 and Y, I think BMW, MB and VW group would be ferkacked.

 

When it comes to BEVs, I think that Ford and GM are relatively “safe”:for now due to the strength of their buyers in those segments but outside of large Trucks and Utilities, I think that both are very vulnerable, cost of resources and low enough price to entice people away from Tesla 3 and Y is a tough ask….they need decidedly different product…BEV Bronco Sport, Bronco, Ranger, even Maverick to break the rhythm of competitors…

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As for Tesla being luxurious-I wouldn’t go that far, they are more like IKEA then Mercedes or BMW level. They are extremely boring inside with zero design effort. Even the Mach E has more style then the S or 3 I’ve been in. 
 

I think part of the reason they are getting those level of buyers is because of the interest in something different and maybe partly being a status symbol. I see parallels with them and the iPhone-which was once a status symbol, but now is commotiy level product that doesn’t have a huge advantage over its competitors. 
 

The biggest issue I see for everyone is keeping costs under control when it comes to batteries. I get that average transaction price is high, but you still need $20-30k level product to sell. 

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The chip shortage and supply chain issues allowed Tesla to raise prices up to $9k otherwise they’d still be relying on carbon credits for profits.  Cybertruck is vaporware.  S/X have always been low volume due to price.  3/Y is a success but we’ll see how well they scale up production of other models.

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4 hours ago, jpd80 said:

I’m not a giddy Tesla fan but to me, Musk is in the drivers seat and going after those premium priced German luxury marques.

 

Musk is most definitely in the driver's seat as Tesla continues its overall leadership with BEV. Jim Farley summed it up best in the twit/tweet below. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, 7Mary3 said:

Jim, Ford will never be Tesla.

 

Jim Farley acknowledges that. Even though he successfully attracted a couple top former Tesla employees, Doug Field and Alan Clarke, to Ford, he said the following in an internal Ford meeting. There's no way Ford (or any incumbent automaker) will match or exceed all of the Tesla strengths mentioned by Farley anytime soon. Ford CEO praises Tesla in internal meeting: 'No one does electric better' | Electrek

 

Look at Tesla, why are they doing what they’re doing and what can we learn from them.
  • First, they have a direct model… There’s no one in between. They make it so easy. Three or four clicks configuring the vehicle with not a lot of complexity to delivering it to the customer. Simple, non-negotiated pricing. A large reservation system as well as remote service.
  • Second, Tesla maximizes use of electrons in the vehicle. No one does it better than they do. Their customers pay less for a better battery. Their focus … after they launch the vehicle, their obsession after the launch of the vehicle, to make the customer experience better, to re-engineer the electronic components, to simplify, to address quality based on data coming off the vehicles, to reduce the bill of material based on how people actually use the vehicle, to drive vertical integration, so they do more and they solve the hardest problems at Tesla. And they manage every electron so they can be as efficient as possible with the expense of battery.
  • Third, the product itself is highly differentiated from the rest of the ICE field and complexity is tiny, compared to OEMs. That allows them to have enormous reuse. Reuse that we’ve never seen in our ICE business. Tesla can scale quickly because of that complexity reduction. They can drive cost down, which they have. They can keep processes simple.

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6 hours ago, akirby said:

The chip shortage and supply chain issues allowed Tesla to raise prices up to $9k otherwise they’d still be relying on carbon credits for profits.  Cybertruck is vaporware.  S/X have always been low volume due to price.  3/Y is a success but we’ll see how well they scale up production of other models.


To be fair Ford has raised the extended range MACH-E ~$11,000 from when it launched. It was also profitable when it launched to losing money on units produced now that were price protected. That is after streamlining and removing cost from the program. The supply chain went/is absolutely crazy.

The elephant in the room for Tesla is that their units are getting old in the style department, you have people that are on their second going on third unit that are tired of it being exactly the same and are shopping around. They are making the Henry Ford mistake with the Model T.

 

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42 minutes ago, jasonj80 said:


To be fair Ford has raised the extended range MACH-E ~$11,000 from when it launched. It was also profitable when it launched to losing money on units produced now that were price protected. That is after streamlining and removing cost from the program. The supply chain went/is absolutely crazy.

The elephant in the room for Tesla is that their units are getting old in the style department, you have people that are on their second going on third unit that are tired of it being exactly the same and are shopping around. They are making the Henry Ford mistake with the Model T.

 


You mean leaving an exterior of a vehicle unchanged for extended periods of time can have a negative impact on sales?   Who would’ve thunk?

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46 minutes ago, jasonj80 said:

The elephant in the room for Tesla is that their units are getting old in the style department, you have people that are on their second going on third unit that are tired of it being exactly the same and are shopping around. They are making the Henry Ford mistake with the Model T.

 

To add to that, Model S is over a decade old at this point with only minor exterior styling changes.  First deliveries were in June 2012.  So far, they haven't needed to do much about it as they still continue to sell everything they can build, and Model S and X are low volume compared to 3 and Y.  That said, even Model 3 is over 5 years old, having launched in July 2017.  Wouldn't expect them to do any major upgrades until it starts hurting them, though.  For now, even if one customer goes elsewhere due to the dated designs, another is right there to take their place.

 

https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-motors-begin-customer-deliveries-model-s-june-22nd

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_3

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