They didn't put the gas struts on the Bronco at all, just a prop rod.  I wound up buying the "Ford Performance" gas struts for it that actually lift the hood higher than the prop rod did.

A few months ago I said all these losses were on paper and somebody blasted me and said Ford can't do that.

I wouldn’t mind seeing the xiaomi su7 and yu7 with a ford badge. They look better than anything ford is making now.

If the mount the prop rod halfway down the fender, they would save almost 50% of the cost over one that is mounted to the front shroud.

Isn't this part of the $19 billion write down that was already announced?

Don’t give them any more terrible ideas.  

Looks like Ford takes over both assets and liabilities for both plants but I also read this in the linked story. I separated the sentences below to help clarify This has to be a projected loss of income that Ford can justify as part of TE3 not proceeding so definitely looks like a paperless until Ford retools for those LFP batteries it will sell for storage use.   With both battery plants wholly owned by Ford, it sets them up for that new income stream that Bill Ford has been desperately searching for for since the Premium Auto Group days.    

Interesting if this pans out….   BYD has another pickup thats bigger than Shark 6 but maybe not Full size like F150   Would be interesting if Ford signed up with BYD, probably the largest battery maker in China with huge vertical integration.

Yea, exactly. Jimbo touted this shortly after construction started for Blue Oval City:   It's a marvel of simplification. The most important thing is to reduce the labor content, we're insourcing with batteries and things like that. The vehicle's [T3] designed in such a way - because it's second-generation - where we radically simplified the subassemblies. It's a really big change, the way this will be built. This will be a seminal moment like the Rouge was, but this is a new industrial revolution about clean, carbon-neutral manufacturing.   Another Ford big shot, Lisa Drake (who now leads the newfangled "Ford Energy" business), said this:   When you walk in, it will not feel like a plant that you've been in before. Our target was to actually build this truck more efficiently than the best truck we build - and we build trucks pretty well. It's more radical than just fasteners and brackets. We've done some systems engineering work where, essentially, we've taken pieces of the truck and reduced the design content down so it's a much more reductive design with less tooling and less people needed to install.

Do you really think commercial fleet buyers are influenced by tv ads?  I don't remember seeing tv ads for bobcats, front end loaders or dump trucks.