Recently, there’s been some bad news out of Detroit. Ford’s backing off on some upcoming EV models, including a three-row SUV many had been looking forward to, and will instead be focusing more on hybrids. GM has been having different problems with software, recently laying off 1,000 developers after a string of Silicon Valley types failed to acclimate to more traditional corporate culture.
While these companies would like to have us all believe that making EVs and software for EVs is simply too hard, other companies like Tesla and Rivian have been doing a lot better. Tesla is now making more EVs than anybody, even beating out ICE models in some segments. Rivian is still climbing the profit ladder, but is selling software to Volkswagen, a pretty good sign that “legacy auto” is struggling in odd ways while newcomers are having no problem churning out EVs.
So, we need to ask ourselves why these established players are struggling while newcomers are doing just fine.
Silicon Valley types failed to acclimate to more traditional corporate culture
Ford: We suck at software, hire different people to do it better.
Also Ford: The different people are doing things differently and my ancient management structure is scared and confused! Fire them!
Bringing in experts to fix your problems, then not letting them. Classic.
I see this all the time in tech. "We don’t like product/service X. So we went with competitor Y. Then customized Y to look exactly like X. I don’t understand why we don’t like it. "
Looked at another way: People with no process control comprehension had difficulty understanding the requirements of safety critical software and are best building mobile apps rather than truly high reliability, critical software.
Just a thought as someone that’s worked among Silicon Valley Types for decades.
The problem is almost certainly less about management style and more about development cycle differences. Ford’s inability to understand software development strategies, and developers’ inability to understand hard requirements and tight scoping.
I think there’s truth in both camps here.
Certainly software developers don’t understand safety critical design a lot of the time.
Also mechanical / production engineers don’t understand software development a lot of the time.
However, EVs need very little software. Trouble is, they’ve been positioned as luxury cars, which do.
IMO a good luxury car doesn’t need a bunch of bullshit software either. Making a vehicle that works primarily as a vehicle and lastly as a gadget should really be the focus IMO. But these companies all thought there was easy money to be saved by eliminating buttons and replacing it with touch screens running software. Unfortunately, very few of them compared the reliability of a button with a 10 million cycle rating to software running on an ARM processor on a commodity LCD panel.
Younger consumers that are buying expensive vehicles for the first time also don’t realize that luxury doesn’t mean sparse plastic interior with a touch screen, but rather the quality of materials and components used in the vehicle. Perhaps that’s the industry changing, or perhaps is naive people being ripped off, only time will tell.
GM, not Ford, but your point stands.
my kingdom for a sub $25k, 420 mile per charge, hatchback EV. Make that, make it dependable, without any subscriptions or fancy electronics that accidentally brick the car out of nowhere, and you’ll be able to buy the bank.
Maybe in 5-10 years unless it’s a Chinese OEM.
We’ll get there though.
A 300m version, hopefully much sooner.
Getting that in a new ICE vehicle is nearing impossible. Hell, used car prices were topping that number out for a while.
And yet their costs did not go up that much. The real complaint here is they don’t want to make an economic car anymore. Not that nobody would buy it.
I don’t think you can say on one hand they are “losing money on every EV” and that they don’t want to sell economical cars. But they are still a corporation and will take as much as customers will pay.
They aren’t losing money. They rolled long term capital investments into the “cost” per car. They had to make those investments or get left behind when the protectionist dam breaks. For what they actually spend per unit they make money on every car. In fact the cost doesn’t go up that much for higher models. So the higher the model they can sell, the more they make. They influence that by literally not making economic vehicles available.
I know full well Ford aren’t losing money on each sale. But that’s the idiotic meme that keeps popping up.
Yeah the expectations for a cheap EV in the US are insane. I want one too, but realistically I want a 30k EV that gets 300+ miles. There are a couple of close options today, but more competition would be great.
Exactly. That’s the problem they’re faced with. They’re struggling on figuring out the best way to take advantage on their consumers with the software and subscriptions.
They did in the Bolt EUV. And then they stopped making it to make more money. Fuckers.
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Used are about 22k. But you are right about range. I thought it was greater.
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including a three-row SUV many had been looking forward to,
Who. Who was looking forward to another fuckhuge 8 ton SUV on the road?
A whole lot of people that neither need one nor can actually control the damn thing
Also a lot of them can’t afford it.
Money they don’t have on things they don’t need
I suspect the fact that they killed it tells you exactly how many people had been looking forward to it. Nobody. The market for $100k behemoth SUVs is pretty well tapped out, and Ford almost certainly knew they weren’t going to actually sell any. I don’t know why it’s a bad idea to scrap a vehicle that absolutely isn’t going to sell in numbers worth manufacturing.
Lots of people want to switch to EVs but there basically aren’t many options for 7-seaters (the Tesla X and Y both have 7 seater configurations but the back row is basically useless for actual normal sized humans). So the 7-seater+ gasoline powered SUV still sells like crazy in the U.S. market.
So that a lone middle aged woman can drive it to work three days per week.
The concept that 7 seats is a prerequisite blows my mind.
I have 4 kids. If we want to travel as a family and not have to take 2 cars, it is a prerequisite.
That’s not most people though, is it.
There’s more people than you think in this situation, but yeah, it’s not the majority.
Most people don’t need to tow 10 000 pounds on a daily basis either, but car manufacturers still trip over themselves to make huge trucks that’ll mostly be used to get groceries.
Sadly SUV and oversized trucks are all too common here. And universally the worst drivers on the road. Gotta love when a tank stops in the crosswalk and honks at you like you’re the asshole for walking infront of them. What I wouldn’t give to force all those idiots to trade out for smart cars, the roads around here would be a lot safer.
Notable performance was seen in the F-150 Lightning, with sales up 77% to 7,902 units, and the Mustang Mach-E, with sales increasing 46.5% to 12,645 units. The E-Transit van also saw a significant rise, with sales surging 95.5% to 3,410 units.
Uh huh. Really struggling.
That’s a total of 23,957. You think that’s good? Tesla in a slump sold 443,956 in Q2.
Teslas are also pieces if shit. Should fort switch to making unreliable, poorly built shitboxes with crappy interior materials and designs? I don’t personally think so. Also, how much of Ford’s production run was sold versus Tesla’s?
Should have searched reliability before posting this. Tesla has the Mach E beat. I hate tesla as much as anyone but I’m not going to spread bullshit about them.
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People who want to drive and EV aren’t the same people who want to drive a giant tank
Also most people who want to drive EVs want to do so as a cost saving measure. ICEs can go for 25K where I haven’t see an EV in my local area go for less than 40k.
I would love an EV but can’t find anything in my price range, even used ones that optimistically get 70 miles per charge cost more than what a new ICE would cost. I can’t even make a round trip to my parents and back on that.
I drove 3 hours for my ‘21 id.4 Pro S AWD for $19k and I’m really liking it. Same car in my area would have been much more expensive even with the slightly higher mileage. It also helped that we had the $4k PoS credit too.
The average person can’t afford a $150k truck… Too much emphasis on computation instead of a vehicle that goes from A to B
F150 Lightning Pro $55k new, as low as $35 used. 200 miles real world range. No more tech than a regular ICE F150.
They no longer offer the Pro in 2024 models. I believe it starts with the XLT around $65k.
They don’t in their build and price site, but as far as I know you could still dealer-order one. Would suck if they killed it entirely.
Nothing in that article counters what I said.
True cost, yes it’s purchasable at your price but in reality that 60k truck is in reality minimum 100k. Hence why ford is saying fuck that, I’m out
Ford isn’t in the business of losing money, and they aren’t out. They are taking a loss right now in R&D, and building new factories for sure, then saying their EV line loses 1.3 billion and averages that across the number of cars they built. But much of those losses are one time costs and they will eventually pay off. The only thing Ford bailed on was a big electric SUV. They’re still producing lightnings, MachEs, and e-transits. They just announced a new full-size electric truck and a mid size, both likely coming in 2027. They did slow some things down as the market for all vehicles cooled. But they are far from out.
In what world is an F150 “a town car”?
Honestly I think the motor companies have made their own problem. By making people feel entitled to massive vehicles, they can’t now do anything different.
35k used for a glorified town car that gets ridiculously less mileage if you actually load it.
There’s a reason GM is bringing the Chevy Bolt back.
Rivian and Tesla make products for a different consumer demographic than Ford and GM. Ford and GM make cars, Tesla and Rivian make tech products that drive. Some people want what Tesla and Rivian are selling: advanced, high tech machines that don’t look or operate like a traditional car, and some people want what Ford and GM are making: cars. Just cars. I don’t think most car buyers care all that much if their car is ICE or electric, as long as it’s affordable, easy and convenient, and meets their transportation needs. I don’t think EVs can replace ICE vehicles until they are just cars, that meet the needs of people who need a car (or truck).
I look at something like the Chevy Silverado EV Work Truck. It’s a good truck, that does truck stuff, with a lot of range and good power. But, it’s $80k. Most people just ain’t gonna spend $80K for a work truck. Some people will pay $90K to $100k+ for a high end luxury truck, like the Hummer EV truck or the GMC Sierra EV Denali, but those are high end vehicles for a relatively niche market. The mainstream options just aren’t quite there yet. Battery prices have to come down more, so that vehicles can be price competitive, AND, there needs to be more charging infrastructure.
That being said, there are options coming to the market that are getting close, like the Chevy Equinox EV or Honda Prologue. Those are relatively affordable, decent to good cars, that also happen to be electric. I think the only thing holding those cars back from wider scale adoption is charging infrastructure.
I’m not convinced that this comparison is true anymore.
I think Doug Demuro phrased it well when he called the Model 3 “The Greatest Appliance Ever Made”. The M3 and MY LR RWD cost the same as the cheap Ford and Chevy cars and crossovers / "CUV"s. Teslas aren’t just playthings for tech bros. Now, Rivians on the other hand…
Tesla’s have become much more price competitive, in those two segments (obviously that’s not the case in the truck segment, since the Cybertruck is the most niche of niche trucks). If you’re looking specifically for what Tesla is selling, it can be a great option. But, not everyone wants those models. Price isn’t the only dividing line, it’s also how it drives, styling and features, but also the brand. Companies like Ford and GM are pretty simple: they make and sell cars. Tesla is explicitly trying to disrupt the auto industry. I don’t think everyone wants to buy a disruptive product. I think Tesla has tried to “fix” problems that weren’t really problems, at least not for everyone. For instance, I don’t think most people were thinking, “I wish I could replace all the physical dials and switches in my car with a single, 20 inch iPad.” Or, “I don’t like how door handles work, let’s change them.” Tesla is clearly selling what some people want, I’m just not sure it’s what most people want.
Obviously people can buy whatever they want, whether it’s for a rational reason or not. It would be cool if any other vehicle on the US market could hit the same balance of performance, range, speed, price, etc.
It would be cool if any other vehicle on the US market could hit the same balance of performance, range, speed, price, etc.
It could and the US government has explicitly banned that from happening because it would put the “legacy” (and what legacy is that, exactly?") automakers out of business overnight.
I’d argue that Rivian makes a vehicle that operates like a normal vehicle and the “tech” part (infotainment) basically gets out of your way. Not much difference between Ford’s vertical screen and Rivian’s horizontal one outside the software that runs on it. That’s the mark of a good vehicle, IMO. That it’s a vehicle, and anything else it can do comes at a distant second place.
GM and Ford, and every other automaker have adopted the infotainment craze. Some have done it better than others, some companies have tried to force it on users while the quality is far below what it should be (Tesla). But you’re going to be hard pressed to find a new Ford or GM vehicle that doesn’t come standard with a touch screen interface these days.
Make one that’s fast, zero to sixty in under 4 seconds and the quarter mile in the mid to low 11s. Instead you get boring that will get mopped by a minivan.
Make something neat, make something someone wants, and make it affordable. Make a cheap crap version for people who are brand loyal or want a cheap ev.
Not everybody needs a sports car. Maybe we should focus on making sensible vehicles for what people actually need, and less on the ability to drive through a building before the operator knows what went wrong.
The thing about sports cars is, it caters to people who LOVE cars, in turn, these people show these cars to others, their families ask the “car guy” what car they should buy and before you know it everyone is buying the non sports version of the sports car brand that the sports car guy liked. That is exactly how Tesla got to where they are. They built an awesome fast “sports” car that people loved and started telling everyone about. I firmly believe if Ford wouldn’t have missed the mark on the Mach-E (and made an actually coupe mustang). I think Ford wouldn’t be struggling right now. Ford had no electric car catalyst for car bros to tell their grandma and grandpa how awesome Ford electric cars are. They made another boring SUV.
It isn’t the 1960s anymore and this isn’t how people shop for cars. The advice my family has asked is about EVs because I own one. Nothing at all to do with sports car or not.
Tesla got where they are by screwing customers and relying on other companies not taking safety or financial risks that Elon is more than happy to. And if you look, you’ll see that Tesla sales have slumped dramatically as real manufacturers started making cars. None of the Tesla models were sports cars until arguably the model 3, which sold because it was half the price of the model s. You don’t seem to fully grasp the industry history here.
Tesla single-handedly changed the perception of EVs in the general public. Before Tesla, EVs were perceived as not much more than glorified golf carts that only vegan tree-hugger die-hard climate activists would even consider driving. The Mitshubishi MI-EV was basically the quintessential example. The Nissan Leaf was a more practical car in many aspects, but it was still in the same vein.
Then Tesla came along and made powerful electric cars that were actually fun to drive. Nowadays it’s just expected that an EV is quick, but it could have been very different without Tesla. You have to give them credit here, they basically kicked the whole industry in the nuts and started the inevitable EV transition ~10 years early.
Simping this hard for Tesla at least gets you paid, right? Because doing it for free would be so sad.
You’re the one talking about industry history. Tesla is admittedly shit in some areas, as you pointed out, but you have to at least give them credit where they deserve it.
I can give the other automakers credit too: Ford is widely known as the company that invented the assembly line, and Toyota perfected it. They pioneered hybrid cars which is a crucial transition technology. GM has had a weird history with EVs, sometimes being at the forefront, and then infuriatingly taking a step back.
As for being paid, well I do have a bit of stock in some of these companies, but my main investments are elsewhere.
I give Tesla credit for what they did. Bilk state and federal governments out of billions of dollars with various schemes to build a car company that makes chintzy cars and sells them to over extended buyers for top dollar. That is the Tesla success story. They weren’t first, or best, but they were able to expand their production based on debt and fraud unlike other players in the space.
You must not have read my entire comment. The neat thing about vehicles is, if you don’t like one don’t buy it, but then don’t complain nobody wants to buy your crap.
'Kay. Now explain why Ford’s Q2 sales increased…
Kay, Ford sales improved by 1%, 5% was their trucks. They sold a total of 23,957 EVs. To put it in perspective, Tesla sold 443,956 EVs. Tesla sales are down because Elon is an asshat.
I’ll say it again, make something people want to buy.
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Improvement percentage doesn’t mean much when you sold 24k EVs compared to 443k.
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