Good Tuesday morning and welcome back to the Morning Whatever We’re Calling This Now. We’d make a decision on what its final name is, but the site’s cofounder may have decided to permanently live in a U-Haul. It’s unclear at this time. But while we haven’t made a decision there, we will never fail in delivering the news.
Today, that means details on where Ford’s trying to win on efficiency; some more updates on Renault’s return to (North) America; VinFast is already cutting jobs in America; and rental cars are back, baby. Let’s dive in.
Ford (And GM) Go Into Cost-Cutting Mode
Financial results for the major American automakers (I have a hard time counting Stellantis these days since it’s so thoroughly international) for 2022 can be summed up thusly: GM good, and Ford not so good. The former posted a $3.8 billion profit and handed out bonuses to workers, and the latter showed great progress in many areas but was dogged by costs to the tune of a $2.2 billion loss. As I wrote last week, some of that was due to Ford’s investments in Argo AI and Rivian that led to write-downs; some of it was due to high costs, inefficiencies and quality issues that necessitated expensive recalls later.
Agnostic of ’22 profits (or lack thereof), both automakers are planning cost cuts ahead of an uncertain economy, rising interest rates, a still-sometimes-shaky supply chain and investments needed for EVs and hybrids. GM’s aiming for $2 billion in cuts over the next two years with no layoffs planned.
Ford is going to focus on efficiency as well. Here’s a tidbit frustrated CEO Jim Farley offered on the earnings call, per CNN:
“We didn’t know that our wiring harness for Mach-E was 1.6 kilometers longer than it needed to be. We didn’t know it’s 70 pounds heavier and that that’s [cost an extra] $300 a battery,” he said on a call with investors Thursday. “We didn’t know that we underinvested in braking technology to save on the battery size.”
That’s about .99 miles, if you’re like me and still don’t understand the Metric system. Basically, it’s a lot of wires. Ford unfortunately is planning job cuts as part of this plan, and Farley is due to elaborate on his efficiency goals on an upcoming radio show, reports Automotive News:
Ford Motor Co.’s engineering ranks may bear the brunt of additional job cuts the automaker has alluded to in the wake of disappointing earnings, judging from CEO Jim Farley’s latest interview.
“It takes us 25 percent more engineers to do the same work statements as our competitors,” Farley said on “Cars & Culture with Jason Stein,” a SiriusXM radio show that will air the interview on Friday. “I can’t afford to be 25 percent less efficient.”
I’ll give Farley credit here for his candor (and for cutting bonuses for himself and his executives.) There’s no point in sugar-coating the problem, and he seems to be tackling it with an urgency we haven’t always seen before.
Here’s another example: Ford is now the no. 2 EV seller in the U.S. behind Tesla, but its EVs are unprofitable on the whole. Only some Mach-E trims actually make money. Compare this to Tesla, which, for all its other issues, does post ridiculously high profit margins per car. The EV revolution is going to be more than just about “make batteries” and “put those batteries into cars”; the automakers will face many other challenges to get costs down in this war.
Renault Is Back On This Side Of The Pond For The First Time In Decades
As you’ve read here, Nissan and Renault have been working on their weird forced marriage lately and guess what? It’s actually going pretty well. I’m happy for them. Keep love alive, man. It’s been a tough struggle; the Japanese don’t love taking orders from anyone, especially a technically smaller company whose majority shareholder is the French government, thanks to le socialisme. But they’re making it work for the kids! (The kids in this case are the Altima and the Twingo.)
And in their latest reworked deal, the two have big plans for Mexico. That’s a market where Nissan has a gigantic presence, and it’s the gateway to the rest of Latin America, where Renault is a pretty huge deal. But don’t expect a U.S. comeback for Renault anytime soon, per Automotive News. With the exception of Alpine, which could be interesting:
In Mexico, Nissan will produce a new model for Renault, making it the first Renault vehicle produced there in 20 years. Renault Group models were last sold north of the border in the U.S. in the early 1990s, but CEO Luca de Meo said there are no imminent plans to reenter that market.
The repositioning comes despite the French automaker’s recent announcement that it plans to leverage the U.S. market as a key revenue driver for its Alpine sports car brand. The company wants to sell two models in the U.S., including a midsize electric crossover, starting in 2027 or 2028.
Speaking at a joint press conference, de Meo said Renault’s presence in Mexico would focus on bolstering Renault’s business in Latin America, especially in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia.
“It’s actually not in the plan to imagine, let’s say, Mexico as a platform for us to go to the U.S. That’s what Nissan does,” de Meo said. “We’re more looking at a way to use Mexico to kind of balance Latin America so you can play in three or four countries.”
It’s kind of hard to get excited about a U.S. return for Renault anyway, right? Maybe a few years ago, when the Renault Mégane RS was doing to the rest of the European hot hatch market what Napoleon did to Austerlitz. The current lineup? A bunch of crossovers and forthcoming EVs, which, ehh.
I’ll tell you this is really great news for junior alliance partner Mitsubishi, which only has four cars in its U.S. lineup and plans to make use of that Mexican production to expand its offerings here. You just can’t keep Mitsubishi down for long. I’ll give it that.
VinFast Is Already Doing VinLayoffs
Well, that was fast. Vietnamese newcomer VinFast, which is seeking to launch its presence in the U.S. this year, is already cutting jobs stateside, according to Bloomberg (via Yahoo! News.) It’s “only” 80 jobs, but the cuts also include the U.S. chief financial officer. That seems suboptimal, but they say it’s due to a larger reorganization that combined its Canadian and U.S. units:
VinFast, part of Vietnam’s biggest conglomerate and backed by the country’s richest person, said late last month it was consolidating its US and Canadian strategic business and management operations into a single unit called VinFast North America, headquartered in Los Angeles. Van Anh Nguyen was named chief executive officer of the new entity, while maintaining her role as CEO of VinFast US Manufacturing, the company said.
VinFast US CEO Giang Nguyen has been reassigned to be deputy CEO of VinFast North America, according to the people.
In response to questions from Bloomberg News, Vinfast said the restructuring was aimed at better serving customers in the region, and that it has been working with local service providers to improve efficiency. “This also leads to the streamlining of our North American operations and there are certain departments affected by this,” the EV maker said in an email.
VinFast is a massive conglomerate in Vietnam, the group behind entities like VinSmart, VinHomes, VinUniversity, VinMart and even the VinMec hospital. It’s new to carmaking in general but is going hard out of the gate by targeting America first, and with EVs, too; still, those cars have been delayed yet again.
As ever with VinFast, I’ll point you to Kevin Williams’ piece from Jalopnik late last year, which indicates this is still a shakier enterprise than it’s often characterized in the mainstream press. It’s hard to know how seriously to take VinFast so far, but the U.S. car market is the toughest and most competitive one in the world. I’m also deeply unconvinced about what the value proposition even is here, especially since the cars aren’t even eligible for the $7,500 EV tax credits anymore.
Someone reading The Autopian, go buy a VinFast and tell us about it! I’d pay for a long-term road test series on that. (Seriously, if you’re actually buying one of these, get in touch.)
It Don’t Hertz So Bad Anymore
The rental car industry got trashed in the pandemic, first with travel being decimated by the virus itself, then companies having to sell off their cars just to stay afloat, and then not having new cars to buy because they were just as at the mercy of supply chain disruptions as anyone.
But the happier times are here again as we get back to our new version of “normal.” Hertz, which also operates the Dollar and Thrifty brands, posted a better-than-expected Q4 earnings report. Here’s CNBC on that:
Here are the key numbers from Hertz’s fourth-quarter earnings report, compared with Refinitiv consensus estimates:
- Adjusted earnings per share: 50 cents vs. 46 cents expected
- Revenue: $2.035 billion vs. $2.033 billion expected
For the full year, Hertz reported adjusted earnings per share of $3.74 on revenue of $8.7 billion. That profit also beat estimates, as analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected earnings of $3.67 on revenue of $8.7 billion, on average.
As of the end of 2022, Hertz had $2.5 billion of total liquidity available, including $943 million in cash.
Hertz’s CEO indicates a lot of this came down to lowering costs, re-hiring employees it laid off during the pandemic and high demand for travel. Business from corporate travelers was up 31% in 2022 vs. 2021, CNBC notes, and demand from international travelers was up 88%.
I’d say I’m hopeful this means rental car prices will come back down to earth, but as with the rest of inflation, things don’t often work that way.
Back To You
Should anyone take VinFast seriously? What happens if we don’t and we’re wrong?
Having the CEO say that Ford has 25% more engineers than it needs doesn’t sound like a great way to boost morale. It also doesn’t seem like the best idea to cut engineers when the company is dealing with recalls and trying to fix quality control problems.
Whenever a company embarks on a ‘cost cutting’ program, it often simply turns into ‘quality cutting.’
Sounds like some turbulent times coming up for Ford.
Farley: “Our cars are inadequately engineered.”
Also Farley: “We need to fire a quarter of our engineers.”
Can anyone help me understand the technical details behind that Farley quote? Underinvested in braking, to save money on batteries, which used a bunch of extra wire…? I don’t follow what happened.
Well, I’m calling it the morning dump, dammit.
It’s afternoon, but guess what I’m doing right now?
I was disappointed to learn that VinFast doesn’t even make VinEgar !
Or a VinTner!
Or a VinDaloo!!
Or a VinAigrette!!!
Well, at least when their EV inevitably bombs in the marketplace they might pivot to the VinDiesel.
Oh wiring, here is my time to shine as a Wire Harness Engineer since 2013. Cutting wire weight and cooper usage will be hard, and only will be accomplished if they do a full architecture redesign. Keep adding more sensors, more modules, devices, complexity etc and wiring will be longer and longer. The only thing they can improve at this point is splice relocation and grounds. Modules, sensors etc cannot be just relocated without a vehicle redesign, they are stuck with this. Guess which harnesses are the most complex and ridiculous sized? Autonomous vehicles, its amazing how many people is needed just to lift a harness. And this is only the Low Voltage applications, add now to the recipe High Voltage, all the orange stuff you see, maybe thats where they get their 30% more usage lol thats when you contact your suppliers and ask for recommendations
Copper* lol I just ate lunch and I’m falling asleep. English is not my first language sorry 😛
Ford’s been flailing and in serious trouble since Mulally left the helm. Fields was ok but couldn’t overcome the bureaucracy and infighting the way Mulally could, Hackett was just an unqualified joke and Jim Farley seems to be more of a media darling without substance.
The reason Ford is losing billions isn’t primarily because of being overstaffed or using materials inefficiently, though that plays a role on the margins. It’s because it has not had one single launch since the Mulally era that hasn’t been an unmitigated disaster. The Explorer, Bronco, Mach-E, DPS6 transmission. No other automaker has had so many high profile quality issues or botched launches and it’s cost them billions and billions of dollars.
Still not convinced Farley is the man for the CEO job. He’s good at communicating his vision to the media and chasing the next big shiny thing, but it doesn’t seem like he has the capability to root out Ford’s ongoing deep seated structural, organizational and management issues to improve execution. I could be wrong but I’m not optimistic.
Agree. Mulally was an outsider and brought the methods he learned at Boeing to Ford. They need someone like that again. The entrenched old way thinking will give the same results they have now.
“Qwaliti is job wun”
Wiring isn’t the only place that Ford screwed the pooch on the Mach E. Check out Sandy Munro’s analyses of the cooling system:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1dQtlrI7uU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1kHsd3Ocxc
When American automakers wonder why people like me are buying Chinese-made (Swedish-designed) products like the Polestar 2, this is a prime example.
Oh, and should we be taking VinFast seriously? Not unless they get their shit together and offer a competently designed and built vehicle for a reasonable price.
Yup… I was thinking the same thing. And there was a subsequent video where they got the Mach E program manager in and a big part of the reason for the excess of hoses and other stuff is they ‘borrowed’ stuff they already had from vehicles like the Escape, even if the part in question wasn’t ideal for the application. They did that to get the Mach E out the door faster. But Ford even at the time of that video, Ford was already working on taking a lot of cost out of the Mach E.
VinFast sounded good on paper. Reading the review at The Site That Shall Not Be Named, they’ve got a long way to go based on that. If their vehicles were cheaper to account for the lack of tax credit and how they’re unknown, that’s fine. But unknown, not good from the reputable Kevin Williams, expensive and their ridiculous battery lease on top of it all makes me dubious they’ll make it here. I want them to succeed. Their chutzpah and the raw materials are excellent. However, the odds of them doing so with their current cars and business model aren’t good.
If anyone from VinFast is reading this, please, please, please show this comment thread to the higher-ups. And fix the issues so your North American venture succeeds. It’s hard to go wrong with a slightly floaty suspension tune as long as body roll is tamed with larger sway bars. Go rent a few competing ICE and electric vehicles (but do not put them onto a test track without the owner’s permission!!) and take notes on their power delivery. Hint: smooth and effortless is fine. 7 seconds 0-60 is perfectly adequate. Ditch the battery lease, please! We North Americans feel the need to “own” stuff and not be reminded monthly that something critical like the battery isn’t really ours. And to our minds it signals that the company isn’t confident in its packs. People buying off-lease or used hate having to pay for additional stuff. They’d just get a car that already has that feature included in the purchase price. There’s a reason nobody else does it that way.
I’ll happily beta-test a VF9 with a hitch and give my unvarnished opinion on Will It Kid, Will It Dog, Will It Hobby, Will It Highway and Will It Camp With Small Camper.
Tough pill to swallow for Ford employees as this comes on the back of the Ford/Red Bull F1 partnership announcement where untold billions will be spent.
Is wiring so expensive that a mile of it is adding an exceptional amount to the cost? This is a genuine question.
The quote says $300 per car.
That is monumental in a business where sourcing/material decisions are made on the basis of saving pennies.
If accurate it raises serious questions about how such a thing could have been allowed to reach production.
Thank you
To put it another way, Ford boasted on Nov. 30 that they produced their 150,000th total Mach E. So if the number is 160,000 something now, $300 per vehicle amounts to a $50 million hit to the bottom line just in wiring harnesses for one vehicle.
It reached production that way because they were rushing to get the Mach E out the door as fast as possible.
That may very well be true, but then the phrasing from Farley is odd. “We didn’t know” is a lot different than “We knowingly made sacrifices to cost and weight to achieve an aggressive launch date”.
The latter is both more sympathetic and presumably has the virtue of being true as well. The former just makes him and/or engineering management seem clueless (which may also be true).
VinFast will never sound like anything but the name Vin Diesel should go by after having spent 25+ years making Fast & Furious movies
Hey Patrick, what did I do to get in the moderation zone with you, and only you?
It’s not Patrick, YOU TRIGGERED THE SPAM DETECTOR!
“We didn’t know that our wiring harness for Mach-E was 1.6 kilometers longer than it needed to be.”
No, dumbass, YOU didn’t know. I can assure you the engineers know and when they requested $300k and 3 weeks slippage to optimize they were told to wait and do it later. Which, honestly, might have been the right decision in an emerging market.
This is typical management bullshit. They set the priority – GET THE MACH-E ON THE MARKET TO BOOST OUR SHAREPRICE! Then they complain that it isn’t profitable or competitive enough. Everything in a vehicle design and production is a tradeoff between cost, time, and quality. I would hope that the CEO of Ford would understand that.
Yep, I assume that was a royal “we” because Someone absolutely knew what was happening. What are the odds that Someone gets canned for this? I’d say about as long as the Mach E’s wiring harness. Instead they’ll fire the people doing exactly what Someone ordered them to.
I predict VinFast does a Daewoo in the US. That is, try to make a splash as something interesting and unique, but turn out to be not that exciting and end up as a rebadged domestic.
Farley crying about the engineers on projects “not knowing how long the wires are” is a complete fabrication and blame game. If he was honest he would say “I need to do a better job having all teams working a platform to look for efficiencies” or “We want to continue to improve and hone our products to be the top offering out there” with a side of “and we are working to deliver vehicles that customers want in a timely fashion.”
He’s the top of the org chart, he needs to own it, instead of blaming. Laying off engineers when he’s complaining about engineering is just going to drive away people he needs to keep contributing. Dude sounds like a loser.
Turns out the Farley body swap question posited here wasn’t a hypothetical. Someone’s trying very hard not to improve Ford and go back to their non-CEO life.
I’ll be honest, PG: I couldn’t read anything past “ONE MILE WORTH OF WIRES”. That gives me a panic attack in and of itself.
Hertz needs to stop filing false police reports. Prosecutors should never accept testimony from them again.
Renault can come back to teh US in the form of captive imports. Rebadge them as Nissans and Mitsubishis.
Mitsubishi Kwid
Mitsubishi Duster
Mitsubishi Sandero
Mitsubishi Lancer (a rebadged Megane), the RS could be the Evo XI
Mitsubishi Zoe
Also, bring back the Montero (which they made for other markets until just last year)
Nissan Twingo
Nissan Kangoo
Nissan Trafic
Nissan Clio
Nissan Master (could be renamed NVx500 )
Waiting for Ford to fix this extra mile of wires only to then find wires are pulled too tight and breaking or pulling loose because they cut down too far. Save $300 per car only to spend $1000 per car redoing it. (Hopefully they will actually get it just right, but I don’t want to be overly optimistic.)
Ford has always sucked at this 🙁
The Focus from 25 years ago had issues with the tail light wiring WTF
You can’t reduce that kind of wire length by reducing service length. You have to eliminate wiring and that’s going to be easiest at vehicle redesign. They’re stuck with what they’ve got which is fine; these vehicles are changing fast, they’ll have to get back into these things soon anyway.
Yeah, you are right that redesign is definitely going to be the time to take this on, and the redesign will probably see a lot of change anyway. And $300 of extra wire in a $55,000 vehicle isn’t ideal, but it’s not going to break Ford.
Every successful new entrant in the US market the last 50 years has had a unique and compelling selling point to differentiate itself from the incumbents.
Tesla – entirely different powertrain, modern/futuristic image
Hyundai/Kia – low prices, long warranty
Toyota/Honda/Nissan – Fuel efficiency (at first), reliability
What is Vin Fast’s unique selling point? The price (factoring in their stupid battery lease costs) doesn’t seem low enough to stand out. A conservatively styled EV crossover is obviously not breaking any new ground in 2023. Reliability is at best unknown but also less of a concern in the electric world. The range is merely competitive as well.
Finally, let’s just come out and say it: The median new car buyer in the US was alive during the Vietnam War. I was still hearing (semi-serious) cracks about Japanese cars and WWII from old people in the 2000s. It may seem ridiculous to anyone under 50, but this kind of thing matters to people still.
In short, they have an uphill climb. If they make it, great. But I wouldn’t count on it.
Exactly. I feel like if they ran the proven Hyundai/Kia playbook (which the Japanese basically did before them too) they’d have a shot here, but as-is, I have no clue what the appeal is supposed to be.
“Reliability is at best unknown but also less of a concern in the electric world.”
Their quality being trash is a pretty safe assumption, and yes, it is just as much a concern for EVs as it is for real cars. Ride quality and handling are reportedly abysmal which would strongly suggest that not a whole lot of engineering prowess went into the development and manufacture of components that are critical to keeping their cars out of ditches.
40 year old here who still thinks Jane Fonda is a traitor.
It happened 10 years before you were born. Have you read her account of it?
Not a great episode… but she’s a long ways down my list of people who need to be held to account for their “anti-democratic” actions.
just wait until the average murican learns that Vietnam is also COMMUNIST!! just like CHYNA!!
“It takes us 25 percent more engineers to do the same work statements as our competitors,” Farley said
That doesn’t mean you have 25% too many engineers. It might, but unless you have the same job titles, responsibilities and processes as your competitors it’s meaningless.
I’ve worked in places where project planning, purchasing and quality functions were done by engineers, and other where those functions were done by anyone who stopped at the factory gate to ask directions.
Even if it is an apples to apples comparison it might be your competitors are under-investing in engineering time to punt out a lazy semi-obsolete product. Their major competitor is GM, so…
Sound bites like that scare the shit out of your employees.
WTF Ford? You have 25% more engineers than anyone else, so they design a car with a mile more cable than is necessary?
See, stuff like this is why I haven’t owned a Ford product since 1986.
Ford: maybe one of the first “job cuts” should be to broom Jim Farley. The company axed all its passenger cars — save the OG Mustang, a vehicle of limited appeal — and did a lot of other things (like keying on EVs) to make money. Didn’t work. They have had decent executives running the show before, and I’m sure they can do it again. Whoever sits in the Blue Oval Hot Seat is going to have a helluva lot of work to do….
VinFast: a bad concept, badly executed. Without so serious rearranging of priorities it will sink of its own weight. Not much worried about being wrong; a bad car is a bad car. Lipstick on pork products doesn’t help.
Renault/Alpine: This will be the third time Renault has tried to enter the U.S. market. I don’t see them doing better — or even as well — as the last two times. Send us an Alpine A110, and there might be a small, but interested, group of customers. Another electric “crossover”/CUV/SUV? Pas de chance. They might as well hook up with VinFast.
Now we are “Back to me”…
Did we take Yugo seriously???
I suppose one could say we didn’t take the Subaru 360 seriously….
But then a lot of people didn’t take the VW Beetle seriously. That’s just like VinFast. Except for basic engineering, quality of materials/assembly, and hard-working people who made sure the product was backed up by parts and service. Oh, and continued improvement. And a nice low price.
1) Didn’t the Porsche 968 famously have a SUPER long wiring harness that no one really know how it worked?
Re: Hertz, So they PROFITED $3.67 billion… with a B. Wall Street is so fucking stupid. That’s simply ‘meeting expectations’ and ‘not so bad’. Fuck capitalism. These numbers are fake, money is fake, and we need to stop worshipping at its altar every moment of every day.
And stock prices are such that they could drop on a profit of billions, depending on how sure they are to keep meeting/exceeding ever-increasing expectations. Because the fake money is pumped into a further fake system of company valuations that doesn’t really tie back to any real value.
“Re: Hertz, So they PROFITED $3.67 billion”
That’s not what the article says. Earnings per share != net profit, and $1 != $1,000,000,000.
Yeah, sorry. Only $2.1B for FY2022. What a shitty company…
Pretty sure that’s still incorrect (there are about 300M outstanding shares of HTZ, making total profit closer to $1B), but you want to be angry online and get your likes from fellow anti-capitalists, so don’t let facts stand in the way of your outrage.
“Met expectations” means that everyone’s forecast, and therefore the existing price of the stock, were about right. So the stock price doesn’t change.
(This is a different issue than whether billions of profits are reasonable. )
I’m not aware that the 968 harness is hugely different from the one in the 944 – which is massively confusing…. for an ICE car from the 80’s with a single 8-bit computer (two in a turbo). I doubt it has nearly a mile of wire. Let alone an “extra” mile.
“Should anyone take VinFast seriously? What happens if we don’t and we’re wrong?”
No. If we are wrong, we should see evidence of that as they show off better cars than expected. At that point, we can admit that they are worth taking seriously. We don’t need to take every manufacturer seriously by default. We should wait to see their products before accepting them. Doesn’t matter if it’s VinFast, Faraday, or Canoo. Especially in this age of rendered “concept cars,” we should wait for evidence that a manufacturer can deliver a product worth buying.
Hype overvalues stock so someone can make a bunch of money dumping before we realize it was worthless.
I think that, eventually, VinFast should be taken seriously – this isn’t a Faraday Future situation, this is a massive company and the cars are a small part of the huge conglomerate. They make stuff, they have funding.
However, I think they seriously need to wait before they start expanding out of Vietnam. They need to launch strong, or they’re going to have to spend a ton of time recovering from a bad reputation in this market. Two generations from now and it might be viable to make an attempt. Launching now is going to kill their momentum because the car is bad.
Eventually may be the case. I threw Faraday Future to remind people that there are people taking even them seriously, not to say they are the same situation. They could iron out their issues and make a fantastic product. But we don’t need to take them seriously right now, and there is no risk in waiting to see them show something worth taking seriously.
I’ll go so far as to say the same is true of the Sony car. There is no significant risk in not taking it seriously, even though they have the experience and capacity to make it happen. Either it comes to market or it doesn’t. If it does, we can judge it on capability and features then. It’s unlikely to make such an impact on the market as a whole to warrant special concerns before production starts.
The Sony car is a joint venture with Honda now, isn’t it? That’s something to take seriously.
Joint ventures fall through at this stage sometimes. They don’t meet the expectations sometimes. It’s not something to discount entirely, but the buzz is based on a little bit of appearance and promises of Level 3 autonomy, while offering almost no specs, no proof they actually have Level 3 capabilities, and just riding on the reputations involved. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wait until specs are dialed in, at a minimum, before taking it seriously.
Every time we take something announced/revealed at face value, we encourage things like the Cybertruck hype. And there’s always someone happy to take advantage of that.
when they named it “Afeela” my question was ‘are THEY taking it seriously??’
Spot on. It has become easier than ever to create concepts and even prototypes. As Tesla and so many manufacturers before them found out the hard way, truly bringing a product to market and producing it at scale is still really hard.
I have the same reaction whenever I see a snazzy new product advertised in my social media feed. Where can I get it? Oh, it’s just a Kickstarter? Even if it’s “fully funded” that’s no more than vaporware. Come back to me when you’ve got the manufacturing and supply chain figured out.
The answer to the question: “What happens if we’re wrong?” depends upon who “we” are. If “we” refers to the general carbuying public, then it’s no big deal. At worst, we’ll miss out on an opportunity to buy a good car while we wait and see how they turn out. If “we” refers to automotive journalists, then the stakes are a little different; it’s their responsibility to identify a good car from a bad one. If they get too many calls wrong, they lose credibility.