Doesn't look super promising. There's almost an art deco vibe to it, but not in a good way imo. Idk, I'm prepared to eat my words if it looks good when we see the full thing in a few weeks. It'll definitely stand out, that's for sure. 

Easy - super high warranty costs and huge EV investment.

But you’re not going to get high margins on lower priced trucks because they’re competing solely on price and competing with Maverick and other cheaper vehicles.  Not saying they wouldn’t be profitable but the margin would t be worth the added investment vs other opportunities.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/21/business/stellantis-jeep-woes/index.html     this was an interesting story on cnn about jeep prices being too high. In 2023 jeep had the highest ATP of any automaker. This year they are second to ford. Ford has an atp of 55k vs the industry average of 47.5k. Things aren’t so great lately for jeep. Is ford following in their footsteps?    https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/which-automaker-is-actually-the-most-profitable/   I found this article interesting as well. Ford is at the bottom of the list for profit per vehicle at 3%. Toyota on the other hand is at 11.1% and Kia is at 11.6%. With all the high dollar trucks ford sells, how is their profit so low?

Agree completely, but for clarity, I’m not suggesting Ford reduce Ranger prices and therefore erode margins on existing variants, but to develop new ones that are much lower price (if possible) and sell at same or near-same margin.  I know Ford could reduce manufacturing costs some by going to a single cab with 6-foot bed, but that alone probably won’t reduce cost $5k to get MSRP down around $30k.  It will likely also require lower-cost powertrain.  That seems the toughest part since everything has gone more upscale. 

Big difference in organic demand vs demand driven solely by low prices.  They could cut Escape prices by $10k and increase demand and sales by at least 50% (maybe more) but they would be losing money.   They're setting minimum profit margin targets and adjusting volume to match the demand at those prices.  They might need to drop prices a little but not a lot.  Not yet at least.  

Did you miss this part?    

They may be owned by the same parent but VW and Audi are completely separate companies.  More like the Ford/Mazda arrangement than Ford/Lincoln or Toyota/Lexus or Nissan/Infiniti or Honda/Acura or Chevy/Cadillac.  Those other brands are completely different.    

And Bentley, Lamborghini... Bugatti, but they kind of gave that one away to Rimac.    VW is kind of a luxury conglomerate stuck with VW along with Skoda and Seat.

Dealerships where pocketing 10K markups and they still sold, which is the primary driver of the price increases.