I saw a Ford Maverick in town yesterday and starting laughing remembering this April fools joke I completely fell for. I am grateful Ford has a sense of humor and is NOT going to produce this convertible.

 

<yawn>

Ford Posts $1.8 Billion Profit, Cuts Mustang Mach-E EV Prices

 

can't read that due to paywall, here is a Reuters link

https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...ks-2023-05-02/

Yawn indeed. ICE division continues to subsidize EVs. News at 11.

The cheapest F150 Lightning in my area that is available for purchase is an 88k unit that was listed a month ago and two weeks ago they slashed it to MSRP. No takers yet.

https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/e...-5fa9bf63264e/

 

Sure, but that’s been the plan for all of them from the beginning. So far, nobody on Earth has figured out how to start production of EVs and turn a profit. Tesla has been able to turn a profit, but it took them years to build economies of scale to make that happen. Legacy players like Ford, GM, VW, and others have an advantage with manufacturing knowledge, but they still have a long way to go before EVs pencil out for them.

I think it’s good to see Ford adjust pricing on their MachEs to keep moving them off off the lots. I’m near the Twin Cities metro, and there’s only a single Lightning on the lot within 150 miles of me. It has a $2K advertised discount, but still way too much after the recent price increases. Ford has shown they will adjust pricing to keep moving the volume, so I hope to see Lightnings come down to reality soon. It’s all right out of the playbook Tesla has been using, and it’s been working well for them.

There’s a huge learning curve with an entirely new type of powertrain, and dealers have a ways to go. The difference between me and many others in this thread is that I believe they’ll figure it out. Tesla doesn’t have a monopoly on smart engineers and managers who can figure this stuff out.

 

The one thing that's not advertised is how much more those ICE customers are having to pay for their vehicle to subsidize that Lightning product. Subsidizing has never been a good thing no matter how you spin it

Hopefully Ford can get the battery plant up and running soon that they claim will reduce the cost of batteries. What doesn't make sense is they're proposing this factory right in the middle of union nation.

 

The difference is Tesla for better or worse has not have left a lot of angry buyers who got stiffed by their dealers' shady practices and surprise markups, allocation games, whathaveyou. Let's not even get into how ridiculous it is that 3 years after introduction Ford cannot even produce a basic manual Bronco for buyers like me who have been waiting for the insane markups to die down(which still hasn't)

Farley paid some lip service to taking on markups but didn't make a lick of difference. If the current administration is re-elected, in fact even if it is not, the window for ICE trucks to subsidize EVs is going to close very soon, looking at the recent EPA proposals on MPGs and emissions standards, and how impossible it was for the previous admin to just freeze the standards, you can be sure a new set of extremely strict guidelines for ICE vehicles will be written into regulatory books at the latest, Jan 2025. To comply with those standards will eat into ICE profits very quickly in penalties, credits, and R&D+Manufacturing costs, unless Ford has a way to raise average transaction price of F150s by another 10-15k.

 

Comments yesterday from Ford’s biggest EV competitor.

 

Elon is borderline trolling here, he knows the more Lightnings Ford sells the more loss it causes. Sure, per unit margin will theoretically get less negative the more they build, but that depends on parts and material source being available to be cheaper as the volume scales up, but remember that Ford is saying they are supply chain constrained and not demand constrained, so it is not guaranteed that more units built will reduce per unit cost.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/02/ford...s-q1-2023.html

Recall that revenue for manufacturers is counted when it reaches the dealers, not when the vehicle is sold to customers. At current time the days of inventory on F150 is astronomical and that's behind Ford's strong caution on near and medium term financials.

 

You’re operating on the assumption that Lightning profitability is out of reach for the foreseeable future. I’m not sure that’s the case. If it was, the project would have never made it to production. The same could be said for similar vehicles like the Rivian R1, Silverado EV, Hummer, and Tesla’s Cybertruck.

Tesla sold all of their models at a loss for the first couple years of production, but that didn’t last forever. I don’t see why the Lightning would be any different.

 

Ford should be able to cut Mach E prices since it's assembled in Mexico.

 

They should cut prices on that vehicle. It is ugly, seemingly plagued with problems so much that Consumer Reports does NOT recommend it. Everything from infotainment center issues, failed battery cells, etc... I get it, growing pains... Although, I truly wish they had picked a different name than the legendary Mustang and Mach. Perhaps they were trying to generate excitement, I don't know...

 

I like the MachE, and may be the only person in North America who’s not offended by its name. The reliability issues are disappointing, though.

I spent a lot of time on another forum defending the MachE against Tesla fanbois who ridicule everything else. At current pricing, there’s no value in the MachE when you compare with the Model Y or others in the field. I think it’s a good car in its own right, but it can’t be priced above a competing model that’s more reliable, bigger, more capable, faster, and has longer range. I really like Ford’s decision to go with a modular battery pack, though.

I recently got a bigger boat that my Model Y won’t pull, so I find myself glancing at the Lightning again. If used values plummet like some on here predict, I could see it happening down the road. They have a long ways to go, though. For now, my Expy’s spot in the garage is secure.

 

Nice Nautical Vehicle Tom! ..... are you waiting for its EV Motor also? Haha ...........
Thas not meant to be taken the other way ....

 

Ha! Thanks!

I wish. I’m a huge fan of electric power, but EV boats are niche toys for people with a lot more money than I have. Maybe someday…⚡️

 

U just have to figure a Bass boat with a 250 HP EV would really ride low in the water! Lol...
My thoughts are Solar covered uppers on the boat to help with the power thingy! I to totally dig
Tech stuff. I see near 100,000 wind turbines soon. 1/4 the nations generated Electric power is Turbines now. Wow, will the wind really blow hard!