Be careful, what China called an Ecoboost engine is differnt to the Ford corporate engines,
my sources tell me it’s a 1.5 I-4 turbo that’s branded as Ecoboost to fit the Ford branding
but the engine is actually a heavily evolved Mitsubishi Orion design bought years ago
and now used as a commonly available engine (part of the Chinese parts localisation).
Unfortunately in the same boat, die hard Ford but no Lariat Supercab means my next truck will not be a Ford for the first time and probably never buying another Ford.
For super duty diesel trucks it is more maintenance or if you’re actually towing a lot. My tires were $400 more but that’s every 5 years for me. The rest is negligible on a street driven F150.
That’s an interesting concept, however large cities don’t completely go to sleep at night. Traffic congestion is certainly lighter, but there still is traffic. I think they would still have difficulty getting that approved in many jurisdictions.
Aren't maintenance items like tires, brakes, batteries, suspension components, that sort of thing more expensive on larger trucks? The maverick seems to have maintenance and repair costs that are pretty comparable to economy cars like the civic and Corolla.
I can't speak on the maintenance costs for an f-150, but I have some family members who own newish heavy duty trucks. They like their trucks a lot, but that is something they mention a lot, the fluid changes, the basic maintenance items, it all adds up a lot more than with smaller, cheaper vehicles.
My F150 gets 21-25 mpg depending on speed, has a 6.5 ft bed can tow 11k lbs and has 470 lb/ft. Maintenance is exactly the same as a Maverick. Only big compromises are price and size when parking.
There is just too much baggage to overcome with Chrysler. The only reason to buy it is to gain entrance to the North American market which FCA then Stellantis did. Between they did it, the main reason was they got Jeep and pickups, which is the profit center and an entire dealer network as well as plants. If a Chinese company buys just the Chrysler name, they may get a plant, but Stellantis probably won't let them sell in their dealer network, so the'll have to start that from the ground up. Most of the NA market likes pickups and Suv/CUVs which Chrysler is weak with product history. So a Chinese company would need to start selling their products under a nameplate which is viewed apathetically by the homeland of the nameplate and wouldn't care one way or another if it disappeared with an untested dealer network.
Also why would Stellantis want to aid a competitor which they have every reason to keep out of the marketplace to steal their lunch.
The grandson buying the company would be an even worse situation where after buying the company, they have to spend billions developing several new products to sell in a new dealer network to keep alive a nameplate no one even cares about in the first place.
Stellantis would just be better off keeping Chrysler with badge engineered Opel, Peugeot or Citroen cars or just letting the brand disappear completely. I'd even consider replacing it with a European brand or even reviving AMC to sell a line of CUV's from Europe at this point.