There are some valid points here, but even beyond price, and even sportiness and style, there are other factors as well. Lower fuel costs, that comes back to price, but also just ease of ownership, if you have a car that gets better fuel economy, you're taking less time to go to the fuel station. A lot of people live in an urban setting, smaller cars are generally easier to see out of and easier to park. So while price is definitely a factor for a lot of people, so is peace of mind and ease of ownership.
We complain about Ford's styling choices but remember, it is Ford that will break any mold their cars are styled as....think '49 Ford....think 1960 Continental....think 1965 Mustang....think 1986 Taurus.....think 1997 F150...these are just a few examples of when Ford went in a radically new direction style wise, threw out the conventions, started from a fresh clean sheet and hit it out of the park.
Right, but what I am saying is, does battery pack construction require its own line to build out. If you compare Cuautitlan to say Kansas City...they don't build the engine for the product built there at KC, it is shipped in from another facility and installed there. Where are the battery packs for Mach E made? And, if they are also constructed at Cuautitlan, I presume it requires it's own line, much like a 2.0L Ecoboost does at Cleveland Engine in Ohio.
The GR-1 was intended to be the successor to the 05 GT and used a modified version of its platform.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/shelby-gr-1-the-ford-gt-sequel-that-never-was/
Just look at the sales numbers of the Escort back in the 1980s as proof of this-it was the smallest car Ford made/sold in North America in the 1980s (outside of the Fiesta and Festiva at the start and end of the 1980s) and they sold around 400K of them a year-mostly to offset CAFE of larger vehicles.
Tesla operates two vehicle assembly plants in North America:
Fremont Factory in California: 5.5 million square feet; produces Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Model Y (mainly for Western U.S.)
Texas Gigafactory: 10 million square feet; produces Cybertruck and Model Y (mainly for Eastern U.S.)
There is also a factory proposed for Mexico, but construction of that plant is on hold currently.
It’s interesting to see the development of compact cars like Focus over the years against something like say the Pontiac GTO that was based on a Holden Commodore
the Focus sedan was around 183” long and 71.9” wide
the GTO coupe was around 189.8” long and 72.5” wide
I find this an interesting development and shows how a well designed FWD/AWD
design can replace a car that was considered large in markets outside of the US.
and yes, I readily agree it an unequal comparison but it does show how
good design can change buyers minds and expectations.
I guess that also touches on why Compact Utility is now such a popular segment.
Cuautitlan's capacity is greater than its current production; they're running a single shift. The program was built for 25 jph; a few years ago a capacity increase action was implement to boost that to, if I remember correctly, 35. Adding another shift or running 3-crew would boost things without any type of CAPEX investment at all.
BEV and ICE could probably be mixed at CSAP. There'd be cost, and it's not as simple as my saying "probably," but the body is not sufficiently different than and ICE body. Paint is Paint. Final assembly still loads what we call a chassis these days; it's just a battery pack under the floor instead of an engine/tranny up front (oversimplified, of course).
On the other hand, future architectures probably can't mix ICE and BEV production in the same plant, especially if they're low-cost architectures replacing production in LAP. That's as close as I'm going into NDA territory.