When I tried to find the new Rav4 daughter wanted they would hit the dealer inventory when the order hit the factory and within 2-3 days they were sold.  Got lucky and found one that just hit the website and got a deposit down.   It's a crying shame Ford didn't build a new C2 hybrid Edge for North America.

I think the bed (going by the above photo) is going to be roughly the same size as the Maverick, but the passenger cab/greenhouse is going to be larger.    Also the patent drawings are going to be a very general approximation of it too-we just don't know how the surface detailing is going to look on it. 

I think the issue is just company inertia for almost the past 50 years-   Smaller cars in the 1980s where only being built to keep plants busy and for CAFE offsets of larger more profitable products. There was really no thought given to how to make smaller products cheaper to build so they would generate a profit. You can see that with the 2013-2020 Escape-the EU Kuga was too high end for the NA market and there was growth of features to the point that the mid level product line was better equipped outside of leather/wheel size vs the top trim model from 4 years prior.    The real question is how much of the assembly/engineering of the CE1 platform from the assembly standpoint can actually be applied to ICE products. EVs are inherently less complex to assemble because they have less parts. I'm not sure how the new assembly process can help cut back on how much it costs to pay UAW workers to assemble products in the USA at least.    The only way that I can see less expensive products become more profitable for Ford is that they are EVs and the costs of batteries are so cheap and having a smaller battery pack won't hurt expected range or performance

I think the Rivian thing was more about being beholden to an external source vs having a partnership with them. I'm assuming the VW group went with Rivian because they had no other choice due to external factors pressing on them.    It is the same situation as Ford has with VW-they went with the VW platform because they thought it would be the cheapest/best route to getting more EVs to market. I'm also considering that Ford has also decided to cut back on Ford EU doing engineering for new projects also and those engineering assets will be more NA based.   Finally, maybe Ford figured it out that doing its own skunkworks CE1 project (after doing just about everything else) was the best path forward for them for the future. 

She doesn't "love" cars, but I don't know of anything stronger than a 5 time repeat buyer. 

Also, it’s not the $800/ car anymore more, that volume of Shelby sales ain’t comin back. So I bet the price is way more than $30 million for the latest contract and somehting more like $3,00 to $4,000 per car on expected future sales - no wonder Ford said enough.    

Also, Ford has now accumulated a sizeable debt (actual and paper) from false starts on it electric vehicle programs. Any thoughts of doubling back to safer /older vehicle sales plans is definitly off the table. So much of Ford’s financial wounding is of its own doing, it costs a bomb trying to accelerate technology. The upside is that while those older vehicle are non-starters, I’m curious to know how or if a newer version of those types of vehicles are possible on CE1 or some modified gasoline-hybrid version 

The other issue that really hurts Ford is the way its vehicles are made and sourced from suppliers. The complexity of build and up to hundreds of supplier based computer chip software based modules  is what’s driving up prices massively to the point that vehicles “on the edge” are just so easy to cut….   And to think that Ford’s Engineering nixed the Rivian because it had a single CPU that did virtually everything  is just so maddening, that is the future of manufacturing and they turned away from it to keep their own designs.

I was rewatching Ford's vid on the skunktruck trying to make out any additional details. I didn't notice much new, but I will say this, I grabbed a screenshot that I believe gives us the best idea of the trucks overall proportions and shape.    It looks a lot better here than in some of the other screenshots I've seen online that frankly look pretty terrible, the ones where it makes the front look really round and bulky with massive overhangs and a super disproportionate cab to bed ratio. This looks a lot better than that does imo even if it's still just the aero lines.    The front is still smooth looking, but has a more traditional boxy shape. I also like the proportions more here, it makes the bed look slightly longer than in some of the other images. The bed might be slightly longer than we think, and the truck might be more attractive than some of the aero stills online have made it out to be. 

Quality of Ford cars wasn't competitive either, which we also knew - and Jimbo acknowledged:   Farley said during a recent appearance on the Rapid Response podcast, "Until our company got serious about cost and quality, we really didn't have the rights to compete."