Good morning, y’all, and happy Friday. Congratulations to all involved for nearly powering through another work week. Let’s mount up some William H. Macy Signature Series Performance Coilovers and finish the job, shall we?
On today’s morning roundup of car news, we look at how Ford swung and missed in Q4 and all of 2022; why Mazda’s U.S. boss has hot takes about EV range; how it’s a tough time for EV startups; and why Honda’s dealers are nervous about this new Sony venture.
Ford Left $2 Billion On The Table In 2022
Despite all the many headwinds the automotive industry faced in 2022, General Motors had a pretty great year. The automaker closed things out with fourth-quarter revenue of $43.1 billion and a record net income of $14.6 billion for the full year, leading it to pay some very nice bonuses to its hourly workers.
The story couldn’t be more different for crosstown rival Ford. In an earnings call last night, CEO Jim Farley announced $2.2 billion in losses for 2022, missing analyst predictions in a big way, and responded by vowing change in Dearborn. What the hell happened?
First, Ford ate it on its investments in both Rivian and Argo AI, the autonomous driving startup it invested in with Volkswagen that closed up shop last year. Here’s the New York Times on that matter:
The company wrote down its investments in Rivian, a young electric truck maker, by $7.4 billion and Argo AI, a company developing autonomous vehicles, by $2.8 billion last year. Ford said on Thursday that it had almost completely sold its stake in Rivian. In October, Ford said Argo was winding down.
Ouch. But Ford’s big problem wasn’t really startup investments, but traditional automaker stuff: production is too costly and inefficient and quality stinks, leading to constant, expensive recalls all of the time.
This is a pretty well-known problem at this point. Ford seems unable to launch any new product without issues, and those after-the-fact repair costs are starting to add up. Add in all the volatility faced by the entire business in post-pandemic 2022 and you see why this was such a mess. Here’s the NYT again:
Ford has long struggled to reduce defects and recalls in its cars and trucks. Recalls can be expensive and time-consuming, and company executives said on Thursday that they were working to improve the reliability of their vehicles.
“In simple terms, we need to improve quality and lower costs now,” the company’s chief financial officer, John Lawler, said in a conference call.
Farley said Ford’s complexity is part of the problem.
“We have a lot of complexity relative to the customer and also inside our company. And we can cut the customer-facing complexity like we have, but it takes time to work that down to parts on the line, to the manufacturing line,” he said. “It just takes time to work through that and that’s what we’ll do.”
While discussing the fourth-quarter results with Wall Street analysts, Ford’s leadership declined to detail the specific steps it will take to cut costs and make the automaker more efficient and profitable.
Farley said the answer is not simply cutting jobs, which has historically been the way automakers have cut costs. “There are things we could do in the short term, but I don’t want to just make the output the cuts without redesigning the work. This has to be sustainable and that’s how we’re thinking about it nowadays,” he said.
Basically, things are so weird right now with supply issues in the auto industry that car companies can’t afford to get the basic stuff wrong anymore.
There are some upsides, though; Farley said Ford was producing 12,000 EVs a month at the end of 2022, but by this year’s end it expects that number to be around 50,000 (hence why it could do the Mustang Mach-E price cuts to compete with Tesla.)
I like Farley, and I think he’s one of the best leaders Ford’s had in a minute, but he’s certainly got his work cut out for him this year getting manufacturing in shape. Plus, the constant quality issues and recalls aren’t doing anything for winning return business on the customer side.
Mazda Doubts High-Range EVs Are The Answer
How much EV range is enough? I’ll have more to say about that later today. But at the launch of the new CX-90 this week, Mazda’s American boss had some takes about electric range that Green Car Reports scooped up. This is an interesting discussion:
[Jeffrey Guyton, the president and CEO of Mazda USA] told Green Car Reports at the 2024 Mazda CX-90 reveal that while electric vehicle buyers today are looking for 300 miles of range, the future’s not ever-longer range. Consumers will find they don’t really need even that much, he said.
Second-time BEV owners will learn, evolve, and shift their priorities and needs based on experience, Guyton thinks. As charging infrastructure develops, people’s experiences will develop, charging at home will factor in, and the technology will improve.
The executive noted that the adoption of EVs across the country will be inherently tied to how people feel about the infrastructure.
[…] On the subject of finite resources, Guyton also believes battery packs will be smaller and weigh less while providing less range but quicker charging versus what we see today.
The weight gain of electric trucks that aim well beyond 300 miles of range is a concern for Guyton, noting that the IIHS just upgraded its testing lab so that it can crash 10,000-lb electric pickup trucks.
“I don’t think that’s really sustainable,” the executive said.
He’s right about all this stuff. (Putting aside silly cars like the MX-30 with its 100-mile range, which, come on. Maybe if it was a European city car, but for the rest of us, that’s not good enough.) But I’ve heard this from other OEMs too; BMW’s even said that it finds these new 500- and 600-mile range EVs to be absurd, but it’s doing them anyway because it’s what EV buyers say they want right now.
This is a prominent stance of ours around here. Team Reasonably Sized, Efficient EVs. We should make some t-shirts.
Guyton’s also right about the inherent wastefulness and inefficiency of hulking, giant, high-range EVs. It takes a lot to make a battery pack that big, and some of these EV-behemoth SUVs just aren’t the way to go. Older generations of buyers especially care about super-high range, and as they move on from driving, those more accustomed to the charging process could be more comfortable with more reasonable EV ranges.
The EV ownership experience is likened to cell phones a lot. You charge when you need to, but you also charge overnight, regularly and when you can. All these people demanding 600-mile EV ranges, I think, are used to running their gasoline cars pretty low before they fill up again. Do you run your cell phone down to 0% before you charge it again every day? I doubt that; if that happens, it’s probably not intentional.
Then again, as Guyton notes, all of this depends on better charging infrastructure, including for people who aren’t homeowners. That’s certainly a work in progress.
A Rough Year For EV Startups Already
Speaking of EVs, it’s hard out there for a new venture. I mean, that’s always been the case, but 2023 may be a year when the field gets even narrower.
Rivian had to do layoffs this week as it struggles with costs and competing with Tesla and the legacy OEMs on prices; EV delivery van startup Arrival is cutting jobs as well; and Northern European “solar car” startup Lightyear’s parent company has entered bankruptcy just weeks after halting production on its $270,000 car and announcing it would work on something more affordable instead.
It’s hard to pin down any one, single reason for why this is happening; the truth is, it’s a lot of things. One analyst I respect likes to say “Everything’s great until the factory opens,” which speaks to Rivian’s ongoing production headaches, the kind faced by just about every startup automaker. Then there are the weakening capital markets for EV and AV startups as investors become more conservative. And I think there’s also going to be a natural selection process happening with some of these companies; how many EV van and delivery companies do we need? Especially with the legacy OEMs getting into that market too, when they can do production quite a bit easier?
Basically, not every startup will survive 2023. I think Rivian has a better shot than most given its early successes—it’s way ahead of where the old Fisker was a decade ago, for example—but it’s going to have its own “production hell” year just like when Tesla was struggling to build Model 3s in tents.
The bit players, like Lightyear? Yeah, who knows. It doesn’t seem great, especially as more established companies get serious about EVs.
Honda’s Dealers Aren’t Afeela-in’ The Love
The Sony-Honda EV joint venture is one of the more interesting experiments to come along in a while. Unlike so many startups, these are two Actual, Real-Deal Companies working together. It’s not some shady VC venture founded by an obscure weirdo who only keeps residences in countries that have no extradition treaties with the U.S.
I wrote a deeper dive into what Afeela is all about for The Verge a few weeks ago, and I can tell you that in all of my conversations with them, they’re indeed quite serious about breaking into the car market in a thoroughly modern way. That means a focus on longer-term ownership, OTA updates and subscription revenue. Afeela execs have also made very clear they’d prefer to do what Tesla does and sell online and direct to consumers, or have some hybrid model for sales.
Needless to say, however, Honda’s American dealers aren’t thrilled with any of this. Here’s Automotive News today with that angle:
But their plans are sure to rankle Honda and Acura’s U.S. franchised dealers, with many of them already leery of the venture’s intention to sell its vehicles online instead of through their dealerships.
Many Honda and Acura dealers assumed they would at least serve as the official customer-facing part of the equation, delivering the Sony-Honda EVs, servicing them and communicating with owners about Honda’s other products.
Bill Feinstein, chairman of the Honda National Dealer Advisory Board, was surprised to learn otherwise.
He told Automotive News dealers had not been advised that the Sony venture will work through other networks. But he had previously voiced worry the new brand could possibly compete with existing Honda dealerships.
“Unfortunately, there has been a lot of speculation and rumor regarding the Afeela product,” Feinstein said. “What I do know is that Honda dealers strongly believe that products designed and/or produced by Honda should be sold by Honda dealers.”
Yeah, I bet. But here’s the thing nobody likes to talk about, let alone auto industry execs, who live in fear of angering the dealer networks they depend on thanks to America’s tight franchise laws: if this connected-car, EV future pans out, the dealers are in for a hard time.
Besides the fact that it’s quite silly you can’t buy a new car online from most brands in 2023, dealers make most of their money on service and parts. And in theory, EVs will need less of both. Fewer parts, OTA updates to fix things, you get the idea. So if you’re Sony, and you’re taking a very Japanese and very new approach to the car market, why do you want to bother with Honda and Acura’s dealers at all?
(That’s the other interesting thing about Afeela, by the way; this is very much Sony’s jam. Some sources I’ve spoken to have likened Honda to a contract manufacturer, almost, like Magna Steyr. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but I can tell you all of the press, unveiling, design and planning has been Sony’s purview, not Honda’s.) Hell, even Yasuhide Mizuno, CEO of Sony Honda Mobility Inc., feels pretty frosty about working with dealers in America:
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Ok first ‘aliens’ is insensitive, they’re called ‘migrants’.
Second, I’d get rid of ‘ecoboost’, slapping a turbo on everything is going to lead to reliability issues. Hybridizing and cylinder deactivation are better ways to get economy gains, but really they’re just gaming the economy system as the turbo 6’s aren’t much better than the old V8s in real world, so maybe do some fancy fuel mapping like VW did and move on, not like they’re checking that anymore right?
Third, scrap semi-autonomous driving and giant screens until you’re making the chips in house, not talking about adaptive cruise, that’s decent stuff, but blue cruise can go. And if you’re not going to do over the air updates and run a high powered processor then don’t bother trying to be Tesla with a giant display, just a regular old 8 or 10 inch screen, have android auto and carplay and call it good, most people are using their phones now anyways.
Fourth, bring back 90s side decals for the Maverick and Ranger!
Now this is exactly what I expected. A completely horrible business plan ????
EV buyers want more range because:
You can’t fully deplete the battery
You shouldn’t fully charge the battery
You lose range when it’s winter
You lose range when you’re on the highway
Charging infrastructure isn’t great in a lot of rural areas of the country and we want to use our cars the same as ICE cars.
So if you have a battery that is rated at 600 miles (under perfect conditions), it’s going to have around 300-350 miles of useful range on a long trip depending on weather and speed. This is the range of a normal ICE car and it would mean a lot less range anxiety and ROI for the consumer.
Yeah actual rural areas are a small percentage of the population of the u.s., and most of you all have houses with power and can charge at home every night.
No one in the English speaking world is going to be a friggin’ car called the Afeela. Every time I think that we may have reached peak clueless Japanese businessman, they feel the need to set the bar even higher
Regarding Ford: I think it’s interesting how Ford and Alfa Romeo can both have awful reliability problems when they launch new products, but one gets largely forgiven and people continue to buy their products while the other gets effectively booted from the market.
Regarding Mazda: 300 miles of range is close to being enough… *IF* the charging infrastructure is in place for long trips. We’re not there yet.
New CEO of Ford, pretty sure I already wrote this a while back. Too bad I can’t just go through my old comments and copy paste it…
Have a big meeting with the dealerships and tell them that you WILL sell our new products at MSRP + Taxes and delivery fees. If you do not comply for every new instance you’ll be put last in line the general inventory allocations and order fulfillment. Why would someone go to your dealer if you have no inventory and it’ll take years for them to get a custom order fulfilled when they can go to a Ford dealer somewhere else where they can get their custom order in a month or less or buy one of the many vehicles on the lot. After the First few horrible dealerships crumble the rest will fall in line and we can shelve our WMD just in case the dealerships decide to get greedy again.
After dissolving development of new market specific cars in Europe and South America (which hemorrhage money)…
I’d stop all production of the cars, crossovers, and unibody SUVs at Ford factories in North America. Ford will now be focused on building utility vehicles first. If our products can hold up to commercial usage they can hold up to civilian usage.
I’d convert most of those factories to producing Maverick Hybrids.
I’d start Joint development with Toyota on replacing ALL of the automatic transmissions in the current Ford lineup to Planetary e-CVTs reducing cost while increasing durability, reliability, simplicity, fuel efficiency, longevity, etc. If you want an automatic then it’s a hybrid that actually gets very very good MPG. We would have the ONLY e-CVT equipped heavy duty vehicles on the Market blowing all of out competitors out of the market. Manuals with as many gears as possible for everyone who doesn’t want a Hybrid.
I’d also work out a killer deal with Toyota to license their AWD-e systems to us so we can apply said drivetrain to our new hybrids to maximize efficiency while having AWD.
Make the F-150 Lightning an actual F-150 by offering more than one cab, bed, and seating configuration.
Increase Domestic Battery Production Massively to account for all the new Hybrids and the increase in F-150 Lightning Market Share.
Make a BEV Maverick and an AWD-e Maverick
Make an AWD e-Transit
Make a Bronco with a IRS setup using the same tech as the front axle and height adjustable air suspension, in turn basically making a new Land Rover LR3/LR4 but better.
Apply that same Bronco IRS tech to the Ranger (As an option)
Then from there I’d work on making WORLD market products in North America that we can sell everywhere INCLUDING NORTH AMERICA. With all our hybrids and BEVs we won’t have to worry about the footprint rule anymore so we can actually afford to make ACTUALLY small Trucks and SUVs for the US market, and then we’d export them to other markets.
Raptor all the things (soft sprung long travel suspension is highly underrated for on road use).
And I’d do this all for the low low price of $1 plus free food, free travel (For work and occasionally to visit home), and free hotel stays. Yes I will likely lose all the hair on my scalp but I’m going to anyways and I don’t mind being bald.
“They promise they’ll give you your own body back if you can make Ford profitable again.”
I’m doubling down on two door long bed stick shift Mavericks!
Shit, I’m never getting back into my own body, am I?
I tried to find a book about how to run an automotive company, but “Managing Ford for Dummies” was no longer available as all copies had been sold in Dearborn.
Ford needs to start five new sub brands and describe them all as “lifestyle mobility brands”. Seems to work for everybody else these days. Doesn’t it?
Alien question. Let the company tank, take the golden parachute, and drive off in Mustang MACH 1 Premium.
My plan for fixing an automotive company if I’m Farley:
1. Get out on the road to try to sell
2. Think “chicken wings”
3. Make sure shipping doesn’t screw up the orders
4. If all else fails sell trick Zalinsky into a big order
My experience with Honda dealers has been that if they deem you worthy of buying a Honda, they really don’t want to see you again except for scheduled maintenance visits where pricing starts at “first born child” levels. And should you miss a said scheduled visit, BOOM goes your warranty and now you’re facing Hamptons mortgage rates for service or repair. Plus, they go deaf at the mention of a recall. I might be generalizing a bit here.
Two words: Electric Maverick
Ford CEO Freaky Friday Puzzle:
The first thing I do when I get to my fancy new office in Dearborn is to pick up the phone on my desk and dial my (Duke of Kent’s — not Farley’s) cell phone number. I talk to Mr. Farley (whose mind is now occupying my former body) and establish communications so that he can help me through running Ford and I can help him with my job until we can get things back to normal.
We will establish a system where we wear Bluetooth headsets to meetings so that our brains can hear what’s going on around our swapped bodies. As Mr. Farley, if any of my underlings inquire why I’m speaking funny, I will reassign them to other projects before they catch on to the switcheroo.
A motion picture will be produced based on these shenanigans. It will be passed over by the major studios and eventually dumped onto a streaming service — and not even one of the good ones.
Through accounting practices of questionable ethics and legality, we will show a profit for Ford (Enron-style, if necessary) through a combination of the company’s business and the streaming movie deal. While the profits won’t be sustainable, they will be enough to meet the minimum criteria set by the extraterrestrials, technically meeting our side of the bargain and having order restored.
We return to our former lives having learned a lesson or something… I don’t know.
Mazda is looking at electric cars in a wholly practical, data-driven way, which is at odds with their image as a company that focuses on driving enjoyment.
If your average driver drives 12,000 miles a year, that looks like 32.26 miles per day. But that’s not how a driver thinks of their use. They might drive 25 miles per day commuting for a total of 6500 miles of commute per year (more like 6000-6200 after vacations, holidays, etc.). That would leave 5500+ miles of travel that they’re doing outside the commute. Let’s call it 3000 miles of longer travel, and the rest is pretty local.
Now, there are a lot of factors I can’t get into here regarding length of a day of travel, but let’s pretend an average of 55 mph over 7 hours of driving. That takes a person 385 miles in a day. I’ve definitely driven more in a day, but it’s reasonable. If your EV goes 300 miles in a charge on average, it’s gonna do a lot worse at freeway speeds. Let’s call it 200. You don’t want to charge twice on the road, but 15 miles isn’t much of a cushion, plus the charge to 100% takes a lot more time than the charge to 80%. You stop for a 45 minute lunch and charge, plus you charge for about 15-20 minutes later in the trip. So you’ve had an eight hour or so travel day. And you want to be sure you can charge overnight. If high speed efficiency or charging speed are improved, you could probably do with less, but 300+ seems like a solid spot to hit.
If we imagine the trip with an average of 60 mph, we want to go 420 miles in our 7 hours of driving. We are looking at something along the lines of two full charges and a partial charge, for something approaching a total of 9 hours. Still with a 300 mile range vehicle taking a range hit to 200 miles.
Now, your trip could be planned to hit points of interest with charging stations if we put charging there, but it’s a tough sell to tell someone it will take a lot longer to get to their destination so they can enjoy their vacation or whatever. Sure, we sell a bit of sacrifice for the good of the environment, but people aren’t buying, especially while others fly everywhere in private jets. Mazda’s not wrong, data-wise, but data doesn’t sell cars in a vacuum. Do we need every EV to go 500 miles at freeway speeds? No. But you’re not going to get people off their gassers with a 100 mile range.
Every European and Japanese auto executive should be forced to road trip across the US once a year, because I don’t think the size of the country really sinks in until you’re 8 hours out of Chicago and Denver is still 8 more hours away.
And there you are in fucking Kansas!
Only if every American auto-executive is forced to tour Europe and Japan in a full-sized American pickup or SUV.
Spot on. I live in Southern Pennsylvania and take a vacation to the middle of Maine every summer. (family owns property there) We drive straight through, so that we can have as many days there as possible. It is a minimum of 11 hours of driving.
With the scenario and range you describe, taking this trip in an EV would make it a two day trip, which is definitely a non-starter for me.
Hey, that’s easy math. 11 hours at an average of 60 mph comes out to 660 miles. Assuming we can get 180 miles per charge (going with 80% charge and loss of range–since we know your trip is summer, I adjusted slightly from my previous 200 mile assumption because we can assume relative warmth), you’d be looking at 4 times charging, though the last could be a little quicker. Assuming 45 minute charge times (sometimes you might find a faster DC charger, sometimes a slower one, but let’s average this), you’re now looking at something like 14 hours driving. That is pretty rough.
And there is little fix for your situation. At 11 hours, you’re really touching the maximum amount of time you want to be on the road. If you planned with the fastest available charging, you’re looking at probably 18-20 minutes a charge. Even that puts you over 12 hours on the road. You’re going to be looking for something with at least 400 mile range at the current fastest charging available. Of which there aren’t a lot of options at the moment. You’d probably be better served by a PHEV and/or a two+ car household instead of a single EV if you wanted to go at least partially electric.
And, side note, the 2+ car household is an ideal use case for a short-range commuter EV. Not Mazda’s overpriced one, but something cheaper that has enough range for local use.
So, why would you use the ev? Use your Tahoe or whatever and drive the ev daily.
If I make it profitable I go back to not being a multi-millionaire CEO and if I don’t I get to be a retired multi-millionaire ex-CEO? First thing I’m doing is canceling the F-150 and calling some corporate bankruptcy lawyers.
This may be the one objectively correct answer to the question. 😀
The changes I would make at Ford are:
2 door Bronco Raptor
Bronco Raptor R with the V8, including 2 door
Put the Tremec back in the GT500
Make the 7.3 an option in the F150 and Expedition/Navigator
Make a light RWD car smaller than a Mustang, powered by Ecoboost engines
Bring back the Excursion, with the full range of powertrain options from the Super Duty
I’d expect my tenure to last about 10 minutes and I’d never get my body back.
I like the cut of your jib. Or, better yet, I like the cut of your Jim
Ford is a multinational company.
That sounds like Reddit Motor Company. You’d be bankrupt pretty quickly.
Of course, but how is it fun is it to come on here and say boring stuff like “expand truck production” or “stop investing in Rivian”, which are the real answers.
I really do think bringing the Excursion back would be a good idea though. The rest are pretty tongue in cheek.
Oh look, another Japanese manufacturer telling me I’m wrong, they’re right, and that I’ll get my car the way THEY want it to be. That’s how this is supposed to work, right? Consumers listening to manufacturers’ advice on what they need? I really struggle to consider buying a car from Honda, Toyota, or Mazda when this is the type of attitude they show towards potential customers.
Anyway my wife and I making the 300ish mile drive to see her family as we speak and are currently on the 100ish miles of rural road that have no charging. Guess what? We couldn’t make this trip reliably in an EV unless it had a lot of range. For some applications you actually need to pile on miles, it just is what it is.
If my brain was inserted into Farley’s body I would simply stop overpromising. Ford keeps laying out all of these wildly ambitious goals, opening order books, and talking a huge game only to fail to deliver the products as promised or delivering them with defects. Close the order books, be realistic with your production capability, and do damage control on the plague of recalls. Just say “we didn’t plan appropriately for demand, our manufacturing capabilities haven’t fully recovered from Covid, and we’ll do our best to catch up, sorry”. They may need to suck up a less profitable year or two in the name of QC improvement, but it’ll pay dividends in regards to their image.
So your unique user case means that no one else should get a moderate-range EV? Sure, YOU need to be sure to have something that gets you comfortably across that 100 mile stretch, but most Americans on most days don’t need that kind of range. Just like the current automotive ICE landscape, there will be different offerings for different people and use-cases.
Patrick gave a good nuanced take on the statement from Mazda. However, this is just another tone-deaf response to nuance, something we truly can’t have on the internet, I guess.
What is nuanced about the following statements?:
“Consumers will find they don’t really need even that much, he said.”
“Guyton’s also right about the inherent wastefulness and inefficiency of hulking, giant, high-range EVs. It takes a lot to make a battery pack that big, and some of these EV-behemoth SUVs just aren’t the way to go.”
It’s hardly a unique use case to drive on a road trip. The “most days” framing is ridiculous, too. On most days, I don’t use a truck bed, a lawn mower, a snow shovel, an umbrella, or a nice suit and tie, among many other things. I still need to own those things. Is it “wasteful” that I do?
No one is saying don’t sell low-range EVs if people want them. But some of us (especially those who live far from family, live in a cold climate, or who road trip often) can’t make do with 300 miles of rated range. It’s patronizing and insulting to just say “make do with something worse than you already own”.
And who is telling you to buy those things? Who is conspiring to make all car companies offer ONLY those types of vehicles “worse than you already own”?
The nuance comes in because there is an argument being made that there is a majority of people out there that don’t need 600 miles of range in something the size of a 1-ton pickup while laden with a camper while towing a boat. Does that fit SOME use cases? Of course. Are there people out there that could use (or even prefer) the Lucid Air’s 500+ miles of (EPA rated) range? Yes. Yet, there are people out there who don’t need specs like that enough to have that be the ONLY solution. I tend to agree with the Mazda spokesman that people will learn they don’t have to have ludicrous range on tap at all times.
The other side to the argument is that infrastructure needs to catch up and surpass what is in place now; battery tech needs to advance to be easier/quicker to charge. We’re at the beginning stages of this whole process, and there are people out there looking ahead to try and see a mature sector of EVs, and then there are the “enthusiasts” who want to stick their heads in the sand and say it won’t work until a 600+ mile battery can be recharged in 5 minutes, all with the vehicle pricing not changing one iota.
Except I’m not one of those people and when one that can consistently travel 300 miles, handle a few pulls without losing a ton of juice, haul what we need it to haul, and not cost $70,000+ we’ll consider one.
“And who is telling you to buy those things? Who is conspiring to make all car companies offer ONLY those types of vehicles “worse than you already own”?”
I mean, this article is basically advocating for that viewpoint.
I’m not sure why you either can’t see that or don’t want to. Relax guy. The future that’s coming looks way more tailored to the way you want it than the way I want it. There will always be a 300 mile EV for you to buy. There’s not even a single EV on the market that will do a 500 mile road trip in winter without long recharging. Nor is there any type of reliable, plentiful, and fast recharging capability. I’m not aware of either of those changing in the foreseeable future either.
There’s something frustrating about online EV evangelism that seemingly requires me not only to acquiesce happily to worse vehicles, but also to pretend that I’m aren’t losing anything at the same time. If you never road trip, tow, or drive in winter, great. Some of us do, and current EVs don’t get the job done for us. Telling us we are wrong for expecting more from our cars doesn’t sit well with me, whether that’s done by executives, journalists, or commenters.
People who can’t/won’t use EVs are much like vegans. They’ll show up in every discussion to talk about themselves and their needs.
I’m actually pretty pro EV but I agree that some of these THIS ISN’T HOW YOU ACTUALLY DRIVE YOU IDIOT retorts are pretty patronizing. Statistics don’t tell the entire story and they can be manipulated to say a lot of different things. My wife and I HAVE to make long road trips several times a year and an EV won’t work for them. It’s not like SELFISH or ANTI CLIMATE or whatever for us to want both of our cars to be able to make the trips we have to make considering they aren’t just for pleasure/we could be needed at a moment’s notice.
EPA range estimates are also a bunch of baloney. None of these cars can touch their estimated ranges in real world applications unless the weather is perfect, there’s no traffic, and you absolutely dog them. When EVs can handle this specific use we’ll move towards them. Hell, my wife wants a PHEV as her next car and I’ll likely be looking for a performance hybrid.
But full EV doesn’t work right now for our needs.
I’ve never run a giant car company. Does anyone have one-sheeter or SOP I can borrow?
Ford Maverick Raptor with the Focus RS drivetrain, Ford Explorer RS with the GT500 engine and transmission but with AWD, Ranger Raptor for USA, new Expedition, with a Raptor R variant, Mach E Dark Horse, increased Bronco and Maverick production, Ford Edge replacement with an EV version, EV Maverick, and a whole pack of Red Bull special editions
Yes to all this. I’d also add a PHEV Maverick, Bronco Sport, and Explorer into the mix. I’d love to bring back the Fiesta but the name of the game is profitability. But maybe an EV version of the Fiesta could work for overseas.
“What I do know is that Honda dealers strongly believe that products designed and/or produced by Honda should be sold by Honda dealers.”
That’s kind of BS though because if it were true they would be selling Acura in Maine despite only having Honda dealers. But they don’t.
How TomMetcalf would turn around Ford as Jim Farley in 3 easy steps.
1. Take one of the original GT40’s from the Henry Ford Museum to use as a D.D.
2. Manual transmissions in all vehicles (they are a lot harder to fuck up than D.C.T.’s)
3. Any engineer that designs a part that gets recalled has to help install the new parts at a local dealership as penance. While wearing a hat of shame.
4. Grab my golden parachute and peace out as these are all terrible ideas.
I dunno, I really like the idea of #3…
I feel I already knew the alien mind-swap had happened to me, as I just read Ford is returning to F1!
That sounds exactly like my kinda questionable idea of how to turn things around. I mean at least in terms of counter-balancing the whole “we just make trucks and endless varieties of a single car” company mojo.
Man, sounds like it might be getting close to buying some Ford stock again. I slightly-more-than-doubled my money on them from mid 2020 – end of 2021
How to get them more profitable? Obviously, stop the recalls, crank out more Mavericks and Broncos. Two statements seem to be directly opposed to each other, but it can be done with the proper wording of the press release and then actually doing that. The “actually doing that” part would be the most difficult.
Random question, can we get me white listed in the spam filter? Is it possible to do that? I get that posting about making money is a good way to trigger the spam filter, but c’mon. If you’ve got a dead sexy shirt (which, technically I don’t yet,) an Autopian bumper sticker, and a grille badge then I’m pretty sure you guys know that person is not gonna spam the place up.
Nothing I like more than auto companies and autowriters telling me what my vehicular needs are, and how I’m wrong for wanting what I want.
You don’t want a car with a big, inefficient engine and only 2 seats. Give me the Viper and I’ll send you a nice crossover with a high seating position and transmission that shifts all by itself. It can haul all your friends as soon as you make some. 😉
Only if the friends are included in the deal.
Then why else come here, if not for cheerful advice from me on how to live your life?
Parenting advice.
Advice on how to eat spaghetti in the shower
“Anyway, the point is, you are now the CEO of Ford Motor Company. You had a pretty crappy 2022. What do you do to turn things around?” If I turn things around too much, I go back to my own life. Does Farley have to also improve my life in order to get back?
I think that seems fair, doesn’t it? He’s the CEO of Ford. I bet he has at least some ideas you could use.
If his body isn’t dealing with any chronic pain or health issues I’ll run Ford straight into the ground to keep from switching back. I assume that body also comes with a golden parachute deal after Ford kicks it out of the corner office?
That’s my assumption. The only downside is that he’s older than me, but it’s still worth it.
Into the crevasse!
Exactly. What’s to say my life is so great? If I don’t turn Ford around, I (in Farley’s body) get fired and paid as only a CEO gets paid to be unemployed. Take the money & run!