And finding the old ones now and understanding those issues helps to eliminate the same problems with new models going forward and helps to learn from their mistakes. At least in theory.

Other automakers don't sacrifice viable products for new products. Honda didn't sacrifice the Accord or Civic to build their new EVs. GM stopped Bolt production at its peak, even extending the stop date due to delays in retooling for the product that would replace it, and resumed production at a different plant shared with other products 18 months later.   Ford seemingly isn't building in flexibility in their planning. OAC stopped producing the edge and MKX to retool for a product that was cancelled. I can imagine Honda doing this to a profitable product. 

Of the several Ford F-150s I've owned over the years, my current 2022 F-150 Lightning is by far the nicest feeling, most reliable, lowest maintenance, affordable vehicle with the fewest compromises. That's why Ford needs to ensure that next generation F-150 Lightning family includes a pure battery electric version in addition to the EREV they already announced. EREV is, by definition, a compromise.

Yea, that's why I'm cautiously optimistic that Ford will succeed with CE1 products, Universal Electric Vehicle Platform, and Universal Electric Vehicle Production System.    And at least some of the Ford big shots understand that if it doesn't succeed, competing with Toyota and Hyundai will be the least of Ford's concerns. 

What part of the country are you in? My experience in Indiana (my home), Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee is that public charging infrastructure in the parts of these states where I travel regularly has improved dramatically since I bought my F-150 Lightning in 2022, and keeps gettin' better.   The number of public charging locations has gone up a lot, Ford sent me a NACS adapter allowing use of Tesla Superchargers with the truck, and reliability of the non-Tesla charging providers (especially Electrify America) has improved a lot too.   Nationwide, the number of public charging ports increased to more than 235,000 total (L2 and DC Fast) as of November 2025, and to almost 66,000 for DC Fast ports specifically:    

Thanks for the history lesson. I don't think I could have found a better and more concise bit of info anywhere else!

Commodities bring lower prices because there is nothing compelling about the product to support higher prices so price is the only factor.  Nobody is going to buy premium ketchup - lowest prices always sells more.     Maverick is a perfect example of a non commodity lower priced vehicle.  It basically still has no real competition but started out at the low end of the market.  They've been able to raise prices and maintain sales because it's not a commodity and that yields healthy profit margins.

But that is the reason whether you agree with it or not.  You have new models to build so you either have to expand and build a new factory or free up an existing one.  Ford chose to build one new plant but decided it was too expensive to build 2 more so they killed edge and nautilus to build the 3 rows and killed escape to build ce1.  It's corporate finance 101.  I'm sure edge and escape were profitable but at very low margins so they were the easiest to get rid of.  Without the EVs they would not have killed them.

I agree that public charging is key but I don't expect huge numbers at first - maybe 50k-75k for the truck, a little more for the CUV.  They can ramp up slowly and will eventually have 4 models in the plant.  More people will put up with less than ideal public charging on a $25k ev than a $45k EV.  

Two different things I can come up with-   The Edge went away because sales were dropping towards the end of its life and other new products like the Bronco and Mach E would occupy its price range, while not being an exact replacement.    The Escape “died” (at least in North America) so they could build the CE1 products in the plant and the Bronco Sport/Maverick hopefully fixed the pricing/profitably issues C1 was experiencing.    The CE1 is hard reboot of the building process of small vehicles. Hopefully lower prices will make EVs more desirable for buyers.    I’m also going to assume that some sort of ICE/hybrid product is coming in the next 24-36 months that will slot into the Escape/Edge market because the situation has changed.