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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.
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.
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.
People who want to drive and EV aren't the same people who want to drive a giant tank
The average person can't afford a $150k truck... Too much emphasis on computation instead of a vehicle that goes from A to B
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.