I have been thinking about this.  I have an unpopular opinion that buyers buy what they can, and choice is an illusion for most buyers. To Be Clear, when most buyers need a car, they go to the Dealership and choose from whatever they have available, whether that is a new Version of their current vehicle or an "upgrade" to a new format or class.  With a New product like an EV, there is risk for the buyer and the salesperson. It's much easier to sell a more familiar product with less risk of a confused or disappointed Customer than a new "riskier" EV.  To your point, buyers need to be convinced, and not scared by the technology. This starts with convincing the dealers and salespeople that EVs are a good fit for most buyers.  This will happen naturally over time as more normies live with EVs and the perceived penalties are reduced and eliminated. Right now, making EVs affordable is the best way to increase sales. No matter the Backwardness of the US, all Automakers have no choice but to drive the costs out of EVs; global competition gives them no other choice.   

How so?    I don't know. The PR from Ford seems Business as usual, not transformational The Skunkworks program isn't guaranteed success. It will take time to deploy the lessons learned from this program The institutional inertia is always acting against change  The EV Focus of the Skunkworks isn't directly applicable to the product Development of ICE vehicles No Automaker has tried an unboxed process with an ICE vehicle. Connecting EV Boxes together is simpler Than ICE vehicle boxes, with Electrical, Fuel, Emissions, and Exhaust connections. I could be wrong, we won't know for sure until the products hit the market.

I believe a large part of why EVs are far more successful at lower price points is because people are more open to trying a new experience out at a more reasonable price. It's kinda like how most people aren't gonna go to an unknown restaurant if it's gonna cost them $500, but will if it's $50. People will take a chance on a new 30k vehicle because at the end of the day, if they end up hating the experience and sell it a year later, they're only out a couple of grand. Whereas with more expensive vehicles, people tend to be drawn to known experiences more, the majority of people I've met only want to spend 80k on a vehicle if they know going in roughly what to expect, and that they'll enjoy it, they don't want to gamble 80 grand on an experiment. 

The biggest hurdle is convincing enough buyers to buy a BEV but yes, that is also intertwined with the cost and battery density (size weight).   My observation is that BEVs seem to be attraction the entry price point  and the premium flagship buyers, the middle area Tesla made a splash but feels like that is waning as BYD comes to the fore in China and Europe.

It's kinda hard to keep track of everything so I have to ask, is the new Tennessee truck that new gas powered truck ford talked about? Because I believe that's gonna be a bronco truck with a BOF design. 

The biggest plus those outsiders bring is challenging the historic construction process and order of assembly. The advent of Gigacastings transforms the body shop operations, a lot of efficiency and speed could be achieved by this process, even for ICE construction.

I take a balanced view, Ford Blue and has lost a lot of experienced engineers but also gained a lot of new ideas and new thinking. It’s hard to judge the ability to engineer new platforms when Ford has  pulled $11 billion form its ICE platforms back in the early 2020. It’s also true that Ford now recognises that there are better ways to  develop vehicles than the old big teams taking four years, then think about the next vehicle required. T6.2 gave us a glimpse at how the engineering side and modules required was set in the first two years so that successive vehicles could take advantage of that work.   Starting with a BEV and working back to a HEV, PHEV or EREV may be an easier prospect than reinventing the C2 wheel.

I didn't think in the picture, the Outback looked too bad.  Just saw one on the road.  Uhhh, nope.  Nope. Nope.  Ugly.   Seems like they tried to make it look a RAV4 Woodland or something.  Lots of plastic and those sharp Toyota lines.  No longer looks like a Subaru, and not in a good way.

For 2019 vehicles.   I don't think you guys understand what they're doing.  They're trying to find all existing defects and fix them voluntarily now rather than wait until they're forced to recall them.  A lot of these wouldn't even qualify for a forced recall by the ntsb.     IF they've truly fixed a lot of the underlying root causes then this will mean a drastic reduction in recalls and defects going forward.  They'll never be zero and there may be more older ones yet to be identified but it's not nearly as bad as it sounds.

What about the fresh thinking engineers at the skunkworks? Will they be able to make up for the losses elsewhere within FoMoCo?