that’s stupid.   Stick to a set of trim levels

I think this is the first time I’ve heard the escape called premium lol. There was nothing premium about it.

Continuing the school bus angle, you'll see some old B700's here:   (184) Poor-quality welds helped kill Carpenter Body Company - YouTube

I’ve been saying this for years too.   We’ve heard for decades now about Ford’s hybrid capacity issues.  You’d think they’d work more to rectify it.     FWD doesn’t fit with the Bronco name, so having this other product with different branding can allow them to have their cake and eat it too. Regarding Mustang sedan, I think their goal is two fold 1) offering a sedan based on a sports car allows them to charge a premium and keep ROIs where they want them, and not fall into the price war strategy of offering a typical FWD midsize sedan, and 2) give Flat rock additional product for a highly underutilized factory.    I doubt we’ll see it with 3 rows. i also see no reason to call this Flex.  Flex was a large 3 row, vs 2-row something compact maybe bleeding into small midsize at best. call it Escape.     -Calling it Maverick Sport makes absolutely no sense.  It’s not a truck. -Explorer Sport is a lazy attempt to capitalize on Explorer branding, however, maybe it would mean they’d try harder to keep it competitive to not tarnish the Explorer name?  -Just call it Escape.  The market knows the name, and IMO is not tarnished beyond repair.  If it returns as a highly competitive and good looking product, customers will return.   it sounds like they actually want to try with this one and make it something customers will be more passionate about, which can still fit the mantra even if it sounds goofy on the surface.

Trim levels are reported to be XL, XLT and Mariner.

I knew that "fathom" was a marine measurement. Researching further I see it's about 6 feet deep in water. So I just can't fathom why they named it Fathom!!!!

Because labor is not the only cost - it also requires significant platform cost reductions which were just realized with UEP.  And they were putting all resources into EVs.  It's a complex game where you have to balance resources and investments across all markets and all vehicles and technologies.

Yep that's what I meant to say.  Just like Fusion and Edge

Of course that I understand that but it seems that you are not seeing it. Farley has said hundreds of times the commodity “phrase”. why not instead of doing that, they just change the platform and where they make it like every other automaker is doing nowadays? Do you really don’t see the incongruity in all of this?  for example, BMW is moving the production of their midsize EV from Germany to Hungary (neue Klass)

It WAS designed to be more premium, thus why it didn't make money. I'm guessing the ROW Kuga/Escape sells better in higher trims then the NA one does because its a "commodity" product here that replaced the midsized sedan market.    Ford had issues with the 2013-2019 Gen...pricing was all over the place, major decontenting at the end of the production run. I saw it first hand between the 2013 Ti and a 2017 SEL models-the SEL had better equipment outside of wheel and seating surfaces but cost 5K less.    I'm guessing the 2020 righted that to a point but like you said the styling and increased competition didn't do it any favors