I sense that Farley is over US based ICE engineers and their big book of doing things the old way. Eyes are being opened by other projects, so let’s hope this flows through to much better products.   akirby brought up good ergonomics, it takes a lot more  research and questioning of control placement, it shows that engineering team are learning and taking notice of  changes for the better.

this is an excuse.   So instead let’s have them diverge and put money to two different refreshes? The engineering is already done, bring the better updates here.

while Bronco gets more of a pass given its limited and loyal segment, Bronco Sport competes in a much more competitive segment, even if it’s put itself in a more specific slice of the segment.   It cannot go as long as the big Bronco can and expect sales momentum to stay the same, IMO.   The only way it might get lucky is because Ford is dropping its internal competitor - Escape, so if you want a small SUV from Ford, BS will be it for a while.

Escape is cheaper and BS has no hybrids.

That's exactly right.  Orion was a Canadian company but opened their NY plant to get the incentives.  Nova Bus opened a plant in Plattsburgh for the same reason. 

Bronco Sport demand hasn’t been that strong. Escape is outselling it. 

Very exciting. Hopefully it’s closer to the size of the long wheel base TC. The short wheel base was SO short. 

Rick73, Transit customer at 79” wide  is larger than Transit Connect based Maverick (72.5”) So what Ford is looking to do is sell a Transit Connect sized van with Maverick front end.

As an owner of an Escape PHEV I recently got a marketing type of e-mail from Ford. It had a one liner in it that caught my eye. It said "Like your hybrid Escape or Corsair? Stay tuned." I have been looking all over for it so I could post it here but now I can't find it anywhere. I wish I would have saved it.  But it does sound like Ford has something cooking.

Orion Bus was built at the old Oneida County airport. Locally to me and I had lots of friends that worked there. It was located there so that Western Star could take advantage of "NYS built" incentives but as usual, that all dried up with new administrations and of course, the plant was closed.