Good Wednesday morning and welcome back to The Autopian’s yet-to-be-renamed morning news roundup. On tap for you today: Ford will pay you to go away, then it may pay its European plant to go to BYD; Tesla’s Autopilot is slipping in the ratings; and the electrified Honda Civic is back. Let’s do this thing.
Cash For Broncos
Think the auto industry’s supply crunch is over? Think again. Ford debuted the insanely popular Bronco at a very unfortunate time — right in the middle of the pandemic — and that’s kept a lot of models from reaching buyers’ driveways. The automaker has a bunch of Bronco orders it needs to fill, and now it’s going to pay you cash money if you consider another Bronco trim level or switch to another model entirely.
Automotive News explains it thusly:
That excludes the Mustang Mach-E. I know what you’re thinking because I thought the same thing: get a $2,500 cancellation discount and then a $7,500 EV tax credit for that car, right? But no, it doesn’t work that way. Probably because the Mach-E is facing similar supply and demand challenges. Sad.
Here’s what Ford has to say about the matter:
“One of the primary challenges and why we’re talking this morning is: Ramping up hardtop production with our supplier partner Webasto has been a bit more challenging. We’re still not where we need to be on volume and quality on the two and four-door hardtops.”“Embarrassed to say, but we did catch this early, and we’re doing the right thing. During pre-delivery inspections, we found out that these molded-in-color hardtop roofs didn’t meet our standards,” Marentic continued before making it clear that this issue does not impact the top’s functionality.“It causes, and could cause, an unsatisfactory cosmetic appearance. So what we’re doing — we need to do this right — we’re replacing all hard-top roofs for customers who have either taken delivery, as well as those that are waiting at dealers … and then we’re also going to replace all the roofs that have been built and awaiting final release at the Michigan Assembly Plant.”
“It’s cosmetic, or could be cosmetic,” Marentic made clear, saying owners can keep driving and “posting the way they’re posting and showing what this vehicle is capable of.”
The molded-in-color nightmare continues for The Blue Oval. -DT]
Ford’s German Plant To Build Some Dreams Instead?
Officials from Ford‘s management in Germany are planning to travel to China next week to discuss the potential sale of a plant in Saarlouis, where vehicle production is slated to end in 2025. Ford produces its Focus compact model there. Terms of the deal, including a price, couldn’t be learned.
The talks are still in a preliminary stage, and a deal may ultimately fall through. In addition to BYD, Ford is also talking to other manufacturers, including Magna International Inc., a Canadian contract auto manufacturer, and financial investors, who could potentially join with a manufacturer, the people said.
[…] Selling the Saarlouis plant would mark another step in Ford’s efforts to overhaul its European operations and shift completely to electric vehicles. It would also be a major step for China’s electric-car industry, which has begun expanding into European markets.
Another Hit For Tesla’s Autopilot
Of 12 systems tested by Consumer Reports, a nonprofit organization that evaluates products and services, Ford Motor’s BlueCruise was first, followed by General Motors’ Cadillac Super Cruise and Mercedes-Benz Driver Assistance.Tesla, which was second in Consumer Reports ratings in 2020 behind Super Cruise, fell to seventh, the group said.
“After all this time, Autopilot still doesn’t allow collaborative steering and doesn’t have an effective driver monitoring system,” said Consumer Reports Auto Testing director Jake Fisher in a statement.
Honda Civic Hybrid Returns
We reported last April that Honda had launched a hybrid version of the Civic hatchback in Europe, and speculated that the car would also come stateside to fill the gap left by the discontinued Insight sedan. We’re not sure yet exactly how Honda will adjust the European car’s powertrain, which consists of a 2.0-liter inline-four and two electric motors that combine for 181 horsepower, for the U.S. market. But we can only hope that its output comes closer to the 204 horsepower offered by the closely related hybrid setup in the 2023 Accord hybrid.
The new Civic is an exceptionally good car. If they keep the Civic Hybrid’s price reasonable, I think you would be hard-pressed to find a better daily driver than that.
The Flush (For Now)
Why doesn’t Tesla fix Autopilot? All these Model 3s crashing into swimming pools lately, it’s getting tiresome.
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
Preston Tucker was ultimately defeated because he took orders on product he couldn’t deliver. Ford is doing the same thing and they know it. They have no intention of producing enough vehicles to meet demand and they have the pandemic for misdirection. Like cryptocurrency their business model is based on hope and promises. I feel badly for customers losing out on their dream car but most customers are speculators looking for a quick flip. The new Bronco NFT.
Speaking of Ford, Tesla is making the classic Henry Ford mistake. Henry couldn’t understand why his loyal subjects were turning their backs on the Model T. He assumed it was the perfect car with no more development needed. Before long those Tesla charging stations will become their main source of income.
Tesla’s Autopilot. Isn’t the fix for that a spike where the air bag is usually installed in the steering wheel? They have enough supply for that?
Ford supplier Webasto isn’t performing well, causing issues with Bronco hard tops. Webasto is one of the suppliers of diesel heaters used in camper vans and other vehicles. I’m not sure of the exact cost, but they are not inexpensive, like $800 or so. The Chinese make clones (search ‘Chinese diesel heater’) they go for less than $150 and appear to be decent. (Full disclosure, I installed one in my van last fall, I upgraded some of the components, and I still only in it for $250). So far so good.
Maybe the Chinese should clone the Bronco hard tops.
Webasto also stopped making aftermarket sunroofs 3 years ago 🙁
Too bad the Transit Connect isn’t on the list of alternatives. This is the last year they’re making them, and they come in orange
Folks, you are a car enthusiast website. I think you are missing the obvious interim answer for your in-development morning news article naming convention. What do all car companies do when testing a soon-to-be released-but-not-officially-announced models in the wild? Digital cam wrap…I fully expect to see tomorrow morning’s article of five-ish bite size nuggets to be called “The ”
There is a Sasquatch trim level?
Without bothering to look it up I would like to know whether that means that you can hose out the interior after carrying a Sasquatch, or if the interior is covered with Sasquatch fur.
I might be interested in the hose out the Sasquatch option.
The way you write software to dazzle the tech press with staged demos and the way you write software to deal with legal liability exist on opposite sides of a spectrum, and Tesla is far, far closer to the former in how they go about things.
That and, at least anecdotally (Silicon Valley code monkey here, get plenty of 1st and 2nd hand testimonials), much of their experienced engineering workforce is being hollowed out. Place was always a dysfunctional hellhole to work at and now that the share price party is over most the folks who have no problem finding jobs elsewhere are doing just that.
In what universe is BlueCruise better than Autopilot? I have both and BlueCruise bounces back and forth from “hands off driving” to “Grab the wheel but I’m still working!” to “TAKE OVER NOW” for no discernible reason. Autopilot is pretty predictable and always wants you to have hands on the wheel. ???
Ford is a clown car of a company, and it’s baffling to me why anyone would buy one of their cars. Just issue after issue, rollout problems over and over again.
May I humbly submit “Morning Milk Run” as a new name for this feature? You could launch it with a newly imagined Divco EV milk truck fit for the return of milk delivery in trendy neighborhoods.
Wait, Ford still can’t manufacture the hard tops? Isn’t this a problem that has been known basically since launch? This is starting to sound like the horror stories I hear from family involved in manufacturing. There’s probably an expert in Ford/Webasto who knows exactly how to fix this and has explained it to everyone, but they’re ignoring him/her for reasons I can only speculate on.
Hey, you, Tesla stan! Yeah, you over there, buddy! Get off my lawn and get your Tesla outta my pool!
My fiance has 2 years left on her Gladiator lease- wonder if we should order a Bronco now for when it’s up.
Remember the phrase ‘good, fast, and cheap. Pick 2’? I think it’s down to picking 1.
sadly, you can’t order one at the moment. last time i talked to my ford dealer, they were thinking Fall ’23 for ordering again. with this news, though, might be pushed back more.
Scuttlebutt is that, aligning with Ford’s usual logic, orders may open on March 7th. Since, you know, they have everything under control now.
Tesla doesn’t fix their system because they are completely committed to the illusion. If you add better driver monitoring or change the system to be more collaborative, you admit that it doesn’t just drive itself. If you restrict the self-driving to limited geographical areas or use cases, you admit it’s not capable in all situations.
Sure, it would be better to admit those things and fix the problems, but that isn’t as flashy and they’ve currently got a customer base that will support them.
The Civic looks like a good introduction to full EV. Well known vehicle, new transport model.
As for Autopilot. Tesla would have to admit something doesn’t work and can’t blame others. Not going to happen.
Elon can’t re-write the FSD code because he’s too busy writing the new Twitter 2.0.
Elon can’t
re-write the FSDcodebecause he’s too busy writing the new Twitter 2.0.I have a buddy who ordered a Bronco back in 2021 and it’s been an absolute shit show for him. His 2022 got delayed until 2023 and now he’s in the $2500 rebate batch and is currently weighing his options. I feel for him, because it’s a car he was super excited about and now he’s reached a stage of defeated indifference.
It’s really killed his enthusiasm for the model and I think he’s going to wind up canceling his order and going in another direction. I get that these are ridiculous times for car manufacturing and the supply chain, but honestly shame on Ford for how hard they’ve overpromised and under delivered with this, the Maverick, and the Mach E.
They all seem like great cars…but to make desirable cars, then tell customers they can get whatever they want, then tell customers they can get most of what they want, and eventually tell customers “lol sorry it may never happen” is weak as hell. It’s also frustrating to hear this Ford rep spewing excuses.
Just admit you overpromised and underdelivered. It’s what all these damn companies do. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it came out later that Ford has been limiting supply on purpose. It’s what pretty much all these manufacturers are doing with enthusiast models…and it’s enabling scalpers to eat up supply and profit, bloodsucking dealerships to slap ridiculous markups on them, et cetera.
All these companies want to make excuses about how none of this is their fault but guess what? A lot of it is.
Yep, this is pretty much what happened to me, too. Got burned out waiting for my order and decided to go a completely different route instead (building up a GX460 for overlanding).
The GX460 is an amazing truck. Good looking. Capable. Comfortable. Bombproof…there’s a good chance you’ll only be under the hood for oil changes for the first 100,000 miles. My wife and I will need a family hauler in the next few years if all goes according to plan and I’ve tried to sell her on a GX but I think the fuel economy is a non starter for her.
yeah, the fuel economy/premium gas combo is definitely the biggest bummer about the 460. i came from an ’88 FJ62 and it’s remarkable how quiet the cabin is and it’s just so nicely built (still built in Japan, too, IIRC). wasn’t sure if i’d like it as much but now that i’ve put time some time into it, i love it and i’m like sixty-who? sike, i miss my 62 a lot but not as much now 🙂
Oh no! The editors at Car & Driver are really going to hate you! That platform is old and boring! Meanwhile, you are driving a bulletproof tank that will never let you down. I salute you, sir!
LoL….we also got a GX 460. I then no longer needed my F-250 so we sold it for a bit older 4 door wrangler. I like the Bronco but I don’t see me every buying one due to the shitshow…
“Defeated indifference” is a pretty common refrain on the B6G forums. I’m a day 1 reservation, still waiting. Ford has doubled-down on the issues over these years by re-opening order books and filling new orders, and dealer stock, before people that have waited for years. All because dealers balked at moving beyond the legacy allocations model. The potential good news in the short term, is that Ford is using this next month make a push to clear the old backloggers like me. They’re allowing dealers with a large queue to “pull forward” allocations, now new orders, and no dealer stock scheduling. Unfortunately, there’s word that order books will reopen in March.
I’m a day 1 reservation, still waiting. As a Base ManSquatch hopeful, this news has nudged me to switch to a base Base. If it gets built this MY, I’ll be under $30k out the door. If not, I’m just not a Ford customer going forward (another common refrain).
I feel extra bad for people that have to sacrifice on their $50k+ WildTrak order for a relatively small incentive.
I went through the classic 7 stages of grief on my Bronco order for all the reasons you guys listed. I gave up and went another direction as well.
I had wanted a Bronco since I was a little kid, and I thought my dream was going to come true. They crushed that right out of me. In the process of handling my Bronco order, then my Maverick order when I gave up on the Bronco, then their lack of effort in handling my request to find another vehicle when I couldn’t wait on the Maverick any more, and finally their ineptitude in the final service of my previous vehicle, the dealer destroyed the trust I had in my 15 year relationship with them. I will never go back to them for anything, ever again.
That Ford quote about the tops being “cosmetic” is bull. V1 was delaminating at the edges, meaning that water could easily intrude, expand, and destroy it. V2 is currently cracking around the rear quarter window. That’s not cosmetic. And the issues are due to a bad design with aggressive cost-cutting.
Apparently, an enormous company like Ford still hasn’t learned that if you do it cheap once, you just do it expensive twice.
Having worked for auto suppliers myself, Webasto is responsible for the design and manufacture of the tops, not Ford. And those issues you list can still be attributed to the molded in color material – the fact that those issues are occurring doesn’t mean that the color issue is NOT the primary reason for the stop sale and recalls. If Ford should be blamed for anything, it’s that their pre-production process didn’t catch those issues early enough. I would like to think that Webasto is an experienced enough supplier that they weren’t playing “fake it til you make it” on the tops, but it wouldn’t be unheard of. Plenty of suppliers bid on contracts knowing they can’t actually build the parts to their quote, but once the design process is underway, it’s extremely difficult/expensive for the automaker to change suppliers.
The plant is almost in my backyard and it was a greenfield build. Compared to when the Bronco hit SOP, that plant went up late. Nearly all of the pre-production test mules were running around with soft tops, and the hard tops were made in a non-production process.
From the forums, the first issue of the tops delaminating was a design issue from the Ford side, but it was partially or completely masked by manufacturing issues on the Webasto side. If the plant had been up and running sooner, that’s the sort of issue that would have been caught in C sample (production intent, non production process) or D sample (production intent, production process) testing.
I haven’t heard much about the cracking around the rear window, but I also stopped following Bronco news after I cancelled my order due to extensive delays with poor communication from my dealer and Ford (I got left out of all the “sorry” gifts from Ford).
At the end of the day, the average consumer thinks that Ford screwed up, and Ford must be incompetent for these issues. Many times the issues were impossible to predict or were the results of other upstream issues they couldn’t prevent. But, as with my comment on another article, the lack of clear and timely communication with customers is what kills relationships.
Thanks for this insight. I was going to ask why they have to be color-molded and why they can’t just y’know, paint them. Or put a vinyl wrap on them. Or _____. But it sounds like the problems are more than cosmetic.
RE: The Flush: It’s a dangerous combination of Hubris and Ignorance
the venn diagram of catastrophe
I feel like that Civic has almost a throwback greenhouse. First sedan I can remember in ages that doesn’t look like the belt line is trying to marry the roofline, and the glass is trying, but failing, to separate them.
I wonder how it compares in size/volume with my Alltrack. Not that I’m trading in—I freaking love that car—but the Honda has its appeal.
Honda has always seemed to value outward visibility more than other automakers
Yeah normally I’d write off a Civic Hybrid, but a hatch….that is different. Of course it will be up against the new Prius, so there is that. And I’d probably prefer a PHEV at this point.
with all the driver assist and automated driving dreams that keep confusing or outright failing the public.
I know being unfettered with rules and regulations can lead to innovation, but at this point in the game I feel like regulations would benefit the public at this point.
enough with the branded name systems, here is the list of required levels of automation and here is what you have to call it if it can meet these levels.
Sucks on the Broncos. Its hard enough to be trying to roll out a product and have it not meeting spec in the factory, when you get it out in to the real world and it still isn’t?
Gotta feel bad.
To fix Autopilot, Tesla would have to admit they screwed up. The engineering and design teams are capable of that, I’m sure. There just seems to be one single road block in doing so.
…. Welp
Gotta keep the share price high to afford that shiny new toy called Twitter.
If we’re all very lucky, he’ll end up overleveraged enough to allow others to buy up enough of Tesla to oust him.
Also concerning Tesla FSD, I offer up this tidbit:
“A Dec. 31 tweet suggested drivers with more than 10,000 miles using Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) software system should be able to disable the “steering wheel nag,” an alert that instructs drivers to hold the wheel to confirm they are paying attention. Musk responded: “Agreed, update coming in Jan.””
So, yeah, there’s that.
Ah Ford, they can’t make enough Broncos, Mach-E’s, Mavericks (and the hybrid is totally MIA), or F-150 Lightnings, but you can console yourself with a nice Ford Escape…
If I was going to buy a Bronco, I want the red on on the header picture.
If I was going to buy a Bronco, I want the red on on the header picture.
The Heritage edition ones are so fucking sweet looking. I’d probably find a way to go with Federal Standard 34350 myself
But the yellow one at the top is sweet as well. But, when I look at the configurator, there is no yellow color option. I’m waiting for my Maverick and I think I’ll be ordering a red heritage. I never would have thought I would be on a waiting list for TWO Fords. This new world is really weird.
Yeah I had to laugh at the idea that someone sitting on a Bronco order for over a year is just going to decide they’re good with anything else in the Ford lineup. Just get an Edge, same thing right?
Honestly they’d be more likely to get a Wrangler or a Gladiator. Honestly Jeep is missing an opportunity in making a new Jeep Gala/Surrey trim for the Wrangler and Gladiator like the old DJ-3a as well as various two tone and other retro Jeep paintjobs. They can make their own “Heritage Edition” models but without the year+ long wait times that Ford has with the Bronco.