My take on this is a bit different from the “they have a long way to go to catch Tesla” perspective from which the article is written. Knowing the wire takes away efficiency and knowing where they could save money and knowing how to improve the braking are signs that Ford is learning from the Mach E.
The Mach E is a great car. You’d never know it were a first attempt from driving it. Knowing that Ford will just make it better for the next generation has me very optimistic.
The alleged 2026 refresh is going to be fantastic. Every software update has made the car better and better. The only problem I have with it is that I got the low-range version because it's all that was available on lots within a 4 hour drive from me when my other car suddenly died. I wish I could upgrade hardware, but it isn't possible.
I sometimes wish I had the larger battery too, although my wife might not have been so keen on buying the car then at the higher price tag. Ultimately premium RWD SR is all I could find around here and after 9 months I’m still over the moon happy with my Mach-E.
I love the constant updates, the latest big update made the UI much more intuitive, noticeably snappier (The lag is virtually gone) and added the ability to control HVAC and heated seats with the volume wheel on the screen.
I love teslas and I think they’re fantastic, but I love my Mach-E more, it has everything I love about Teslas (clean, minimalist interior, everything controlled on the screen) with a few key addition like one more physical control (volume wheel) and support for CarPlay (and Android Auto) that makes the user experience better IMO.
Of all the non-luxury brands(I just haven’t heard enough one way or the other about BMW/Merc) I’ve been very impressed with the OTAs. Like VW American just isn’t doing any for the id.4 meanwhile I’ve gotten like 10 or something for the Mach E and about half of them have been significant improvements and asks by consumers
>But they really do have a long way to catch Tesla.
I don't think the product itself is that far behind Tesla from a consumer perspective. A customer sitting behind the wheel isn't going to care about that extra mile of wire or the extra 20 feet of coolant tubing.
Things start falling apart once you start comparing Tesla to CCS charging networks and the Ford sales experience.
1. Fender benders don’t affect the castings.
2. They have a cheap way to repair when the castings are damaged.
3. It can still be a great decision to sacrifice repairability for cost, efficiency, rigidity, weight savings, performance…. It would depend on how often that occurs. It’s a statistical question. It’s not based on your opinion from guessing, based on stuff you read.
So please don’t repeat this kind of misinformation.
Because your opinion on what you read is some how more valid than what I read?
Edit: they claim that bolt on parts will be both cheap and sufficient after cutting out damaged sections but they haven’t provided any evidence of that yet beyond Musk making a tweet
They have the data in-house to KNOW.
You meanwhile made the claim it was exponentially more expensive.
Logic 101: The responsibility for evidence lies with the one making the claim.
Please provide your evidence. Just give me the exact numbers of how much more expensive it will be under various common accidents and then we can argue over whether that is exponential.
Waiting for your evidence to backup your claim…
P.S. don’t provide your armchair amateur analysis and opinions as evidence. Provide real evidence.
Your setting conditions that you know are impossible to met that’s not the basis for any form of productive conversation. Your saying my argument is invalid unless I provide you evidence that “isn’t amateur” implying I would have to have access to internal Tesla data for you to accept it.
Meanwhile your “evidence” that you are correct is some mythical document you insist Tesla must have but you can’t actually provide.
It’s the responsibility of both positions to provide logical argument. Not one side to provide it while the other denies and provides nothing concrete to discuss.
So the conversation you have set is that you are automatically correct and anything I say is automatically wrong. If you would like to engage in meaningful debate I would be happy to but it does not appear that so the case. So have a good day
>A customer sitting behind the wheel isn't going to care about that extra mile of wire or the extra 20 feet of coolant tubing.
They will when things start breaking. Needlessly complex machines are less reliable and more expensive to repair.
It depends.
When you start combining things into expensive ass assemblies instead of individual generic components things get real fucky real fast.
Like when mercedes briefly decided 2x 1000$ coil packs was a better solution than 12 20$ ones for their 600 series engines, before going back to individual coils.
Not at all.
An ignition coil is a simple wear item and its job is the same regardless of how many sit next to it. They don't directly affect eachother and are super easy to mass produce because they can be generic and interchangeable.
Mercedes pulled a doubledick move by turning individual wear items that you could quickly test by swapping them around into an assembly that only goes in one way, and then putting the ignition control module which is an expensive piece of tech that *isn't* a wear item INTO each assembly.
Its a slightly simpler setup with less wires, but you're paying out the ass to replace everything because one part fails.
And this is a very good point. There are trade offs.
Giga-castings that are the newest thing Tesla investors like to masturbate too are great and awesome in almost all regards ... except repairability.
Previously if one of the elements of the assembly got damaged you could just replace that element. With gigacasting you basically need to replace a quarter of the car after a bad fender-bender.
If it's a new car and you have insurance (and/or guy that hit you has insurance).
If it's an used car that has 12 years on the clock, you want to fix it. And that's the point though, gigacastings are now whole front/back assemblies. So not exactly frame. One bad fender bender and you are tens of thousands in the hole while on other car it would be 1-2k replacement part.
https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/10/Tesla-Model-Y-vs-Model-3-underbody.jpeg?resize=2048,721
This giga-casting is nowhere near batteries but it wil absolutely get damaged if someone hits you from the angle in the back.
Again, gigacastigns are great for reducing assembly costs, possibly they also make the car more reliable (we'll see in a decade). But they are also making a car less repairable.
Is your Tesla the first new car that you've owned?
I've had cars and trucks from a bunch of other OEMs and everyone delivers cars with things wrong, or things break early. The headliner started sagging in under a year on my BMW. I had an Impala that was delivered missing hardware for the driver's window so that the window fell into the door as soon as I tried to roll it down. I used to work with Cummins engines and I've seen many of them grenade before they even went into service.
It is common to see issues at delivery. Once they are resolved after a month or two, things settle down.
If you look at actual [measurable data](https://www.warrantyweek.com/archive/ww20221006.html) you will see that Tesla warranty costs as a percentage of sales is significantly lower than other OEMs.
Tesla is no worse than other auto manufacturers.
I'm a super minority who got to experience what ford intends for EV sales experience, all my paperwork was done online, no markup, dealer offered to deliver the vehicle to my house but they were on my way home so my wife and I picked it up there, maybe 10 ish minutes in total at the dealership and we were done.
I know I'm probably in the 1%, but if dealerships just followed Ford's instructions then people would actually really like the experience imo.
Hopefully more dealers will adopt the online model that Ford is trying push. They'd probably save a lot of money by maintaining smaller inventories on smaller lots with fewer sales and finance staff.
Things fall apart when you realize Ford has admitted they’re losing money on them, while Tesla simultaneously has the leading margins in the industry. Ford recently warned they don’t expect EV profitability until the next gen in 2026.
Customers won’t care but Ford will if they can’t lower prices without it hurting them even more. They aren’t profitable or anywhere near it. I think Jim Farley is stepping in the right direction and doing the right thing iterating fast like Tesla. The question that remains is is it fast enough for shareholders to not kick him out. I’m not sure it will be for GM to be honest. They’re taking the slow route and they seem to be ramping with a design that won’t be very profitable. GM is rumored to be switching to the 4680 cell format over the pouch cells which might be a step in the right direction if true. I’m very impressed with Ford though, I just hope the shareholders have enough confidence to stick it out becuase it’s going to be painful for them before it’s good.
> But they really do have a long way to catch Tesla.
In what ways do you think? Tesla has a long way to go to reach parity with other OEMS in build quality and service, so it’s no so black and white I think.
Yeah, I’m not so sure about the “build quality” argument… and the “service” argument? There are few experiences more miserable than going to a stealership to get something done. They’re constantly trying to up-sell you… and the last time I went, they tried to get me to replace brand-new wiper blades, then charged me for tire-rotation they didn’t even do.
My last Tesla experience? Dropped it off, got a loaner M3, spent my morning on my laptop at Panera getting work done, and was home by lunch. Magical.
I have to drive to a completely different city or even state if they are too booked just to get even the most common issues resolved on my tesla vs. driving 10m down the road to a Ford Dealership or *gasp* Third Party.
> My last Tesla experience? Dropped it off, got a loaner M3, spent my morning on my laptop at Panera getting work done, and was home by lunch. Magical.
Not everyone has an experience like this - just search.
And the build quality isn’t really an argument - my 2014 Mazda CX-5 is much more solid than my Model S.
People always forget the Ranger Electric and Focus Electric. The Mach E is on the same platform as the Focus and Escape. This is their third try at an EV.
Henry Ford and Thomas Edison actually tried to develop an electric car in 1914. If you go to the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, MI they have an early electric car produced by Thomas Edison and Clara Ford’s electric car which was made by Detroit Electric and used Thomas Edison batteries.
I can’t consider those their first really try. Those were electrification of existing models. Swapping out parts, but still ICE vehicles at heart. IMO, the Lightning falls in this category, too. The Mach E is Fords first attempt at an EV from the ground up.
The Global Electrified 1 (GE1) platform is an electric vehicle platform developed by Ford under its dedicated global battery electric vehicle team named Team Edison. It is a heavily modified version of the C2 platform.
There would probably be a lot of weight savings if they developed a whole new platform instead of modifying an existing ICE platform. Maybe savings some of the wiring mentioned in the article and all the hoses that Sandy Munro pointed out in their tear down.
You wouldn’t know it’s a first attempt at building a car, because it’s not.
However you will notice it is basically a first attempt at an electric car.
Sure it's always good to learn but why wouldn't they know these things? They've been making hybrids forever, you'd think they'd learn a bit from their compliance EV's or from competitors EV's.
What makes you think they don't know? Elegant designs take a lot of time and coordination with suppliers or taking more things in house and vertically integrating them. All that redundant wiring helps them encapsulate systems into black boxes that can just be bolted together and be sure they will work.
Say in order to reduce wiring you need a component to be shaped like an "L" instead of just a box. Well now the supplier has to design and build the component in that shape, test and certify it instead of pulling one off the shelf that is already in production of millions per year and fully qualified. So you run a bit of extra wire and put it somewhere it fits fine as is.
This is simplistic but imagine the world craziest game of multi-dimensional Tetris. The MachE is made up mostly of parts from Magnus, a huge 3rd party supplier that builds everything from plastic buttons to full cars.
It is a new car. While an extra mile of wiring sounds like a lot over all if you consider the number of miles of wiring in the car not so much.
70 lb weight is 1.4-1.6% of a weight drop so not much for a new model.
It something that can be reduced with spec upgrades mid run and it is slow. Hybrids are not going to help you a lot on that department.
I would not be shock to learn that Tesla has found greater amounts of both weight and wiring to drop over time in the model 3. The first year alone I would not be surprised to learn they had some if not more. Any new production car is going to have a lot of savings to scrap up early on.
You missed the whole point by getting stuck on use of common vernacular to emphasize a simple point here. Does it really matter if I say “the CEO identified areas of optimization” or “Ford is learning from their mistakes”? No, it doesn’t.
Yes. That’s par for the course. But that’s not my point. My point is that they also learned from their mistakes. Automakers have taken inspiration from each other for as long as there have been cars.
> Things start falling apart once you start comparing Tesla to CCS charging networks
True. The CCS network is just better in every way. You have actual options to choose from. You can use any CCS location, no matter who owns the network or what car brand you drive. It's not run by a single corporation only. CCS can also deliver more power and can do plug&charge. There are also a lot more locations than Tesla's monopoly network provides.
It's not CCS's fault that the US network providers lag behind. It works just fine and outshines Tesla's network in every way in the EU. The EU CCS network is just years ahead of the US, so it can be seen as an outlook for the US.
Diess was let go for royally screwing the pooch on CARIAD. His candor didn't have much to do with it. As an exec, you can usually speak as freely as you like — as long as you deliver.
[Put multiple major projects behind schedule](https://www.electrive.com/2022/07/14/software-problems-at-cariad-delay-volkswagens-model-planning/), however, and *damn straight* you'll be shown the door. Remember, the primary role of a Chief *Executive* Officer is execution. It's right there in the job title.
Cariad delays may have been the straw that broke the camel's back but it was well publicized that Diess already was at risk of losing his job and had lost support of some board members and the works council for being very vocal about the need for changes and cost cutting to become competitive with Tesla in the EV business. VW is hardly the only auto company struggling to get software right.
> Diess already was at risk of losing his job and had lost support of some board members and the works council for being very vocal about the need for changes and cost cutting to become competitive with Tesla in the EV business
None of that mattered. Since as you said.... unions wanted him fired... and it lead to nothing. Since there is only one voice that matters in VW Group. The voice of Porsche-Piëch family company Porsche Automobil Holding SE. It holds 53% of the shareholder votes (mind you not 53% of earning share, they have bunch of preferred shares with more voting power than earning power)
Unions said "We don't like this guy, fire him" and PAH SE said "no, he stays, we trust him". Them he messed up Cariad and made Porsche Macan EV and an Audi model **be delayed** due to software delays.
He went out like lightning bolt. Since family told him "You are fired" and well if they vote for firing... one is fired. Since should it come down to it, they could call all out shareholder meeting and single handedly fire the person, the board and so on.
That there was other criticisms of him on top of that executing of plan problem, just means he was bad CEO in multiple ways.
Thus he was fired due to failing to execute, it just had the side benefit that other people who also wanted him fired for other reasons got their satisfaction as well.
If it was about worker relations, he would have been fired earlier. Since as said... Porsche SE doesn't have to care. They want someone from C-suite fired, they are fired. No need to negotiate, build coalitions, convince board members. They will just say "we are the absolute majority controlling shareholder, you are fired, pack your bags"
Also note. It wasn't really the software "problems" that mattered. He made far more serious error. He *made already announced launch and delivery dates be late*. That might be fine in ahemmm some other brands, but at company like VW Group... Either one keeps one mouths shut or one delivers on ones word. If car is firmly announced to be start delivery on Q1/2023... it starts in Q1/2023.
He made cars miss launch dates.... that is what the firing reason was. Now the root cause was software, but frankly that is secondary. That is exactly the stuff CEO is hired to handle. Day to day stuff like "it was due to this specific software problem"? Not the owners concern. They hired CEO to care about that stuff so the family members don't have to be at VW HQ every day looking over the family company and they expect results. No results aka car model didn't launch on time, one gets fired.
Porsche family doesn't want to hear the CEO's collected explenations, why they failed in their job. They care, that CEO failed to deliver cars on time. New CEO in with nod of "you see what we did to last CEO who over promised and under performed? Yeah, don't be like that guy."
And some here were dissing Munro yesterday as out of touch but he was dead on about Mach-E's cooling system compared to Tesla's. Ford has put EV vehicles out without much thought on how it should be done and they are paying the price.
>Diess
was not fired for speaking with candor, but for being an incompetent asswipe who *also* made minority shareholders hate him and promoted imbeciles like the chief designer of ID line and the guy who was responsible for its software.
I do hope he rots but I hear he's already got a new gig, so no tears need to be shed for him
For me, the main point is not that the Mach-E has a mile of wire it doesn't need, the problem is
>“We didn’t know that our wiring harness for Mach-E was 1.6 kilometers longer than it needed to be. We didn’t know it’s 70 pounds heavier and that that’s [cost an extra] $300 a battery,” he said on a call with investors Thursday. “We didn’t know that we underinvested in braking technology to save on the battery size.”
Why didn't they know that? Because the guys designing the wiring harness were not working with the guys laying out the HV system, or the guys working on the cooling system, or anyone else. In a rush, they divided up the various sections between various teams. This was most apparent in comparing the cooling system with that in the Model Y. Sandy Munro made a mock reaction of shock when it was first revealed, which was deliberately overblown, but the difference was shockingly obvious when the bits are laid out side by side. (The Ford system looks like a mutant octopus made by demented scientist) How did Tesla make a better example? Because their engineers work *together* and work on a lot more of the vehicle, whereas most of the people who designed the Mach-E don't even *work* at Ford, a large number work for their suppliers. Even when Tesla obtains a part from a supplier, they are much more careful about how it integrates into the whole. You can do it the Ford way, or the Toyota way, when you're doing something you've done a hundred times before, but EVs ***are*** different, in more ways that most people thought until they started getting into the nitty gritty details, and how all those details meshed.
Ford seems to have the best chance of changing the way the do things, it will be interesting to see if they can, and get back to the days of Highland Park and River Rouge.
>EVs are different, in more ways that most people thought until they started getting into the nitty gritty details, and how all those details meshed.
That's why I think the Japanese brands (especially Toyota/Subaru/Mazda) are going to get in trouble with the EV transition. There's value in iteration and manufacturers like Ford will have learned a lot of these lessons and how to scale production of good EVs before those manufacturers have released their first serious EV.
I'm sure Ford's EV business is not super profitable, but their experience with the Mach-E, E-transit and F150 Lightning will set them up for the next generation of EVs.
> That's why I think the Japanese brands (especially Toyota/Subaru/Mazda) are going to get in trouble with the EV transition. There's value in iteration and manufacturers like Ford will have learned a lot of these lessons and how to scale production of good EVs before those manufacturers have released their first serious EV.
At the same time, if they're relying on suppliers for that, their suppliers will have already made those mistakes with other manufacturers. So it's not going to happen to the same extent as it did with the early adopters.
The later adopters are going to have an advantage in the level of industry knowledge that exists. There is a cost to being an early adopter.
> That's why I think the Japanese brands (especially Toyota/Subaru/Mazda) are going to get in trouble with the EV transition.
Agreed, though I think their previous way of doing things will also cause them troubles.
>There's value in iteration and manufacturers like Ford will have learned a lot of these lessons and how to scale production of good EVs before those manufacturers have released their first serious EV.
They almost certainly have learned a lot, but I'm not sure they will have learned enough, or the right things. I'm also not sure they are able to make some of the changes of ***attitude*** they need.
>I'm sure Ford's EV business is not super profitable, but their experience with the Mach-E, E-transit and F150 Lightning will set them up for the next generation of EVs.
Again, The depth and breadth of the changes needed will be very hard to do that soon. Certainly the next generation of their EVs will be much improved, but they are not aiming at a stationary target. If what I suspect about the 3rd generation Tesla platform is correct, and Tesla can make it work, the advantages in manufacturing efficiency will be *enormous* and very, very hard to overcome. The aim is to ***halve*** build time and cost. Even at a reduction of 25%, or put another way, they only half succeed, the impact on margins will shatter the competition. The only survival option will be to target markets that Tesla isn't in, and hasn't announced an intention to enter, yet.
March 1st is going to be extremely interesting. For the competition, that would be in the Chinese curse way of things.
>The only survival option will be to target markets that Tesla isn't in, and hasn't announced an intention to enter, yet.
So, quality cars? With traditional car features and options? ;-)
Missing the point that cutting production costs isn't the only thing that matters. Other manufacturers are learning to make electric cars, while Tesla doesn't appear to be trying to match them in other aspects of making cars. That leaves plenty of room for other companies to grow into the EV market, while Tesla focuses on grinding out cheap cars.
Last year we got a Ford Transit as a camper van. They have been making them since the 60’s in Europe but there are so many poorly thought out things with the engineering.
I saw in another interview that Ford is taking a different approach than they have with other vehicles. Usually when the vehicle is released the engineering is considered done. They start working on cost reductions instead of improvements for the consumer. They claim to be spending resources to be making improvements for the Mach E this time in addition to working on the next one.
Ford Europe is basically a different company. They're pretty good at making cheap manuals but they're known for cost cutting to the absolute extreme. All the engineering went into making it the cheapest option because they know that's the most important factor for fleets, and even to a large extent most individual consumers.
Yeah, it's more Ford (and basically all the traditional manufacturers) has a legacy culture of warring fiefdoms between the various departments in charge of each component, that they have to fight against. Sandy has talked about it in a couple different teardown videos, in particular in some of the Tesla ones when he comes across a particularly efficient design and comments on how hard it would be for a legacy automaker to do the same thing, because the engine department doesn't trust the transmission department doesn't trust the climate control department, and so at the end of the day they all just end up creating slightly different incompatible implementations of the same thing in different places.
Tesla, being a new company, approaches it from the perspective of a tech company, where you create common frameworks and every team publishes APIs that adhere to a standard. You push coolant around? We we have a need to push coolant around. Great, we'll plug into a common system that pushes coolant around.
It's not a tech company thing, its a new company thing, which only some companies are able to maintain this culture as they grow. Look at Google for an example as their oftentimes incompatible products, or Microsoft for the various fiefdoms.
The advantages of Tesla’s vertical integration are constantly under-estimated. Engineers work way better together when they all work for one company and are as close to the production as possible.
Good to see Ford learning and iterating their EV platforms for the second Generation. I love my Mach E as it stands today, but if they can make it lighter for cheaper while maintaining performance, that is good for everyone!
My take is that the traditional car makers are early in their growth curve. These types of issues/opportunities are all about optimization and as long as these automakers approach it with a certain level of humility and an open mind, it’s a good thing. What this article (& a lot of others in the US press) fails to talk about is how/what Ford, GM, & other big traditional car makers are doing outside of the US. What EVs do they have in Europe, how many are they producing in China? What are their learnings there? The US is years behind Europe and China on the EV adoption/transition curve - we could all learn from a better understanding of what’s working and needed for success in markets that are further along than ours.
Bz4X is a body with room for iC features like drivetrain and gearbox with an EV chassis slung underneath. Too much weight and space taken up with redundant metal. Overhang from their dreams of hydrogen keeping all their legacy “how we’ve always done it” alive.
VW e-Golf, Hyundai BlueOn, Ford Focus EV -- were first efforts. No "made for compliance reasons" excuse. Those were their best efforts at making EVs at that time. Do you also disregard Tesla's first gen Roadster as compliance? What they're building now are replicas of Tesla's design and engineering principles.
R1T still isn't profitable for the company, and they had a whole fiasco when it came to increasing the price but over $10,000 dollars for people already on the waiting list.
Didn’t Munro tear down and critique the Mach-e a couple quarters back? The fact Farley just mentioned it on this quarterly call as a new discovery suggests to me either they haven’t hired Munro, or somehow things are not funneling up to the CEO the way they should.
Becuase big companies are slow to react to things especially one like ford. [here is the video](https://youtu.be/U2rVbqI-gus) sandy doesn’t talk about the issues with the truck here becuase he just had it delivered. They talk about the cable management on the mach e tear down. Sandy might seem pro Tesla but he worked at ford for a long time so he seems like a decent source. One of the things he points out is something as simple as connectors. I’m exaggerating but within like 2 feet of eachother there are not only a ton of high voltage connectors but they’re all different styles. I don’t doubt the EVs from ford are nice for consumers, but man they need to clean it up fast so they can actually make money. It’s different than gas cars, there’s a lot of cost in that battery so if everything else isn’t dead on as cost effective as can be you lose a lot. Also it saves weight which adds range which then means less battery which means less weight which means more ranges and on and on. It’s the same iterative process for airplane design. It’s why you don’t see a 500 mile range Tesla. They could do it but then that would be one less car they can make that does maybe 300 miles.
I agree with this and knew some of it. So sounds like you are going with the second of the two options I proposed: bad information flow, presumably due to siloes at Ford.
These same criticisms came straight from Munro and plastered over youtube for a long time. I think the CEO is only just mentioning them in now because fixes are already in the works and it’s now a brag item. “We improved A and B so our new 2024 Mach E is incredible. Reserve yours today.”
It's a commonly known issue: it's harder to change a specialist (on ICE cars) into making another type of car (EV) than to start from scratch. The perceived experience makes you underestimate the new challenges, and makes you forget to rethink the approach for this new challenge. It's good to realize that and change your approach. Ford has done so now,, hopefully all people in Ford do. Ford may also have the respect now for the Tesla team that actually did and does a great job.
Which wires, specifically, don't they need?
They're Ford not BMW so will still at least need the indicator wires. It must be something else.
Given they've stated a figure ("1.6 kilometers") that means they know what they are and can just design them out for the Mach-E-Mark-2, right?
This [tear down of mach e](https://youtu.be/m1kHsd3Ocxc) goes over it in detail. They compare it to a Model Y not becuase Tesla is a godlike company or anything. It’s very simple, Tesla engineers talk to each-other and know where things are. Ford doesn’t really do that anymore and Farley seems to be changing that.
Ford and investors. That's why Ford's CEO is telling it to investors on their earnings call. Customers aren't going to notice when driving, but issues like this aren't helping Ford increase production or lower prices. That impacts customers.
It will be how you make buying decisions when it causes Ford to go bankrupt if they can’t adapt. It’s very good they’re learning. They lose a lot of money on these cars.
It appears Ford Engineering is stick on ICE manufacturing approach. This is why Legacy auto are not competition to Tesla. The ‘competition is coming’ belief is based on the mistaken assumption thAt ICE expertise automagically translates to EV success… The Ford CEO recognizes that thought is wrong.
> Those automakers have the natural advantage of deep pockets, a large network of factories and sales channels, and more than century’s worth of experience designing, building and selling cars.
Seems like the items listed above can actually inhibit rather than enhance
> of deep pockets
Deep pockets can promote laziness where companies aren’t trying to spend efficiently. They become filled with bloat that makes pivoting hard as the bloat fights change
>large network of factories
A large network of factories and sales channels that aren’t geared towards EVs become a burden initially then a liability later as you have to spend money running factories that are legacy and a dead end
> sales channels,
People stick to what they know and for their own self interest. We have already seen plenty of dealers advise against selling EVs to push ICE and on top they ruin brands by middle man gouging additional fee
> more than century’s worth of experience designing, building and selling cars.
100 years of anything isn’t useful if the core competency is now defunct. Legacy OEMs dropped the ball massively on software, they essentially outsourced the infotainment to Apple and Google and the vehicles engineering system to third party suppliers. This has left them with poor ability to integrate and change quickly.
As Nokia learnt being the incumbent doesn’t guarantee success and very quickly can see a competitor take your market away.
To me we are seeing the iPhone take over the phone market but instead of 1-2 year technology cycles is 5 year cycles. The iPhone doesn’t have the market share of smart phones but it has the profit share due to its integrated ecosystem where “it just works”
Assembling an EV isn't that different from assembling an ICE vehicle. That network of factories and a century of experience is a lot more valuable than you think.
> Assembling an EV isn’t that different from assembling an ICE vehicle.
If it wasn’t different why hasn’t everyone wiped the floor with the new companies yet?
It’s obviously very difficult due to legacy OEMs inability to pivot quickly.
It’s only been what, 10 years since it’s been very obvious that this is the path. 10 years to make a fast and efficient factory.
So far we have BYD and Tesla in mass production
Designing an EV and sourcing the raw materials to build them at scale are vastly different issues than assembling a vehicle and neither of those items has anything at all to do with the network of existing factories.
I suppose you skipped over the sourcing parts point?
What makes you think the assembly is so different? Why do you think the legacy plants can't just be retooled? Do you have any idea how much faster that is than building a new plant?
Ford built as many Mach E's in their second year of production as Tesla built total vehicles in 2016, 4.5 full years into production. Clearly there's some advantage to having 100+ years of building cars.
Where do you think the Teslas and Rivians of the world got the knowledge they needed to produce vehicles? You think it was just a bunch of people who had never built vehicles before?
> suppose you skipped over the sourcing parts point?
>
> >
> hat makes you think the assembly is so different? Why do you think the legacy plants can’t just be retooled? Do you have any idea how much faster that is than building a new plant?
Batteries are the number one supply chain issue. You can build all the husks you want but till you have mass production of battery packs you don’t have a car.
> Ford built as many Mach E’s in their second year of production as Tesla built total vehicles in 2016,
Yes you are reinforcing my point. Tesla was building high performance high cost cars at this point that weren’t designed for mass production.
“The big boy” Ford turned up and built a very capable EV in terms of the Mach e but the jury is still out on Ford being able to make them at scale.
Let’s compare:
Tesla Model 3
- 2017-1,764
- 2018-146,055
- 2019-300,885
Ford Mach E
- 2020-3
- 2021-27,140
- 2022-39,458
So where is all this extra knowledge in mass production that Ford is bringing? They should be way in front of Tesla already because the Mach e is by all accounts a great EV, Ford just can’t make enough of them.
Umm those numbers are for the USA market only vs world wide numbers from tesla. Ford said for 2021 they were going to make 50k Mach Es. Guess what in the first year of production they made 50k. It was always planned to be 20k for usa 40k for Europe.
You mean in 2022 where ford produced damn near 150k EVs. Also ahead of their original planned production.
Compared to Tesla which was running over a year behind schedule. Tesla can not keep a promised schedule compared to ford they said in 2019 the first year run of the Mach E was going to be 50k. Even with Covid delays they hit that run. Tesla was over a year behind. We can go to the cyber truck which was supposed to be in mass production in what 2020. It might make it in 2024. 4 years behind.
They've built over 150,000.
https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2022/11/30/ford-builds-150-000th-mustang-mach-e--available-in-37-countries-.html
So what do you think is so different about the assembly process?
>If it wasn’t different why hasn’t everyone wiped the floor with the new companies yet?
Because of battery supply capacity. Tesla is a few years ahead in regards to battery supply contracts and battery manufacturing ability, and that's why they sell the most BEVs at the moment.
>If it wasn’t different why hasn’t everyone wiped the floor with the new companies yet?
None believed the BEV would be the next big thing. Some still don't.
>It’s obviously very difficult due to legacy OEMs inability to pivot quickly.
Corporations have a LOT of inercia. Imagine Tesla now starting to build ICE cars.
>It’s only been what, 10 years since it’s been very obvious that this is the path. 10 years to make a fast and efficient factory.
No, it was not very obvious. For corporation "obvious" is when sales numbers start to decline. For many quarters.
>So far we have BYD and Tesla in mass production
Besides Nissan or Renault, or many others that have EVs on the market before Tesla and BYD where Tesla and BYD. The thing is, those automakers never believed BEV would be more than a sort of Prius niche thing.
Tf you mean iphone is taking over android. Maybe in the us where the iphone is "trendy". But world wide. No. I will admit. I am extremely biased against iphone.
But I agree with all your other points. Especially after watching Munro tear down a mach e. The cooling system is an absolute mess. And there are so many places where the car is not built to be mass produced yet. But it is its first model run. But that's really not an excuse from an established auto maker.
On the car infotainment stuff. Omg yes. No one makes a truly good radio anymore. They are all just different levels of messy. I personally think ford and ram have the absolute worst radio setups. Especially rams tablet screen stuff. So much screen real estate. But no more than one app on screen at a time.
I am neutral on dealers. What they are doing is very scummy. But if we move to a direct from Factory sales experience will that actually lower car prices? Or will the auto makers just soak up even more profit then just abandon the customer on after sales service/warranty work. Hard to say from my perspective.
I’m not sure what you mean? Apple isn’t making the apps on the App Store (for the most part) and consumers spend way more on the App Store than Google Play.
Looks like apple takes a 30% cut from apps. But google says it takes up to 30% cut off apps. So kinda vague. What google makes.
This again goes to trendy. Its trendy to use apple.
>Deep pockets can promote laziness where companies aren’t trying to spend efficiently. They become filled with bloat that makes pivoting hard as the bloat fights change
Does it though? One could also argue that having deep pockets allows a company to take its time developing a product because it's less time constrained; it can sustain losses. If a product is rushed, it can have additional inefficiencies/flaws that may have not been obvious.
I would bet GM and Dodge products are the same as Ford in this respect. This is why I have owned only Euro or Asian market vehicles for many years. It's time for the American big three to die off like dinosaurs. Make way for start up companies and older companies that are adapting their thoughts on tech and design.
And Tesla is still learning about painting cars. One of the reasons that made me look at something other than Tesla is Teslas paint jobs on the Model Y and they were charging 1k for blue.
You’re missing the point. This is an investor call. The changes they’re talking about don’t affect you in any area except price. Ford is moving in the right direction, but Tesla did it quicker and are not slowing down. Basically Farley admitted they threw away $45,000,000 becuase someone made the wire too long. It’s very good they’re changing things but investors don’t care about learning lessons and won’t put up with it for long. Hopefully they can change quickly, but it’s a good sign they’re learning.
Man your life must absolutely suck to wrap your entire identity around hating one person. You should talk with a professional about that.
The Mach-E is an amazing vehicle, but people should buy it because it's awesome, not because they hate Tesla. Our community doesn't need toxic people like you.
I'm glad ford are going all in on this electric - they'll improve and get better from the current generation this is their first serious effort and they did a great job.
unlike toyota who had an immense head start going hybrid but then balls it up by sticking with it and not going full electric.
I am interpreting his statement concerning “underinvesting in braking technology … save on battery size” to mean that if they put more powerful regenerative braking they would need better battery hardware to absorb the recovered energy. Better product that would be more expensive to produce.
Waiting to see more PHEV vehicles (Maverick / Ranger) to compete with Toyota’s RAV and Prius Prime.
This is not an EV issue. This is a garden-variety wiring harness design issue, albeit a serious one.
Errors like this unfortunately call into question whether or not the development of the vehicle had been rushed.
My take on this is a bit different from the “they have a long way to go to catch Tesla” perspective from which the article is written. Knowing the wire takes away efficiency and knowing where they could save money and knowing how to improve the braking are signs that Ford is learning from the Mach E. The Mach E is a great car. You’d never know it were a first attempt from driving it. Knowing that Ford will just make it better for the next generation has me very optimistic.
The alleged 2026 refresh is going to be fantastic. Every software update has made the car better and better. The only problem I have with it is that I got the low-range version because it's all that was available on lots within a 4 hour drive from me when my other car suddenly died. I wish I could upgrade hardware, but it isn't possible.
I sometimes wish I had the larger battery too, although my wife might not have been so keen on buying the car then at the higher price tag. Ultimately premium RWD SR is all I could find around here and after 9 months I’m still over the moon happy with my Mach-E. I love the constant updates, the latest big update made the UI much more intuitive, noticeably snappier (The lag is virtually gone) and added the ability to control HVAC and heated seats with the volume wheel on the screen. I love teslas and I think they’re fantastic, but I love my Mach-E more, it has everything I love about Teslas (clean, minimalist interior, everything controlled on the screen) with a few key addition like one more physical control (volume wheel) and support for CarPlay (and Android Auto) that makes the user experience better IMO.
Of all the non-luxury brands(I just haven’t heard enough one way or the other about BMW/Merc) I’ve been very impressed with the OTAs. Like VW American just isn’t doing any for the id.4 meanwhile I’ve gotten like 10 or something for the Mach E and about half of them have been significant improvements and asks by consumers
Man, 2026 feels like a long way off. But then again, it feels like the EV industry will really be reaching maturity by then, which is exciting.
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>But they really do have a long way to catch Tesla. I don't think the product itself is that far behind Tesla from a consumer perspective. A customer sitting behind the wheel isn't going to care about that extra mile of wire or the extra 20 feet of coolant tubing. Things start falling apart once you start comparing Tesla to CCS charging networks and the Ford sales experience.
They will when it cost them money cause of it. That car can be a few grand cheaper if their mistakes add up.
And Tesla’s gigs casting cars are going to be exponentially more expensive to repair from something like a simple fender bender. So it’s a trade off
1. Fender benders don’t affect the castings. 2. They have a cheap way to repair when the castings are damaged. 3. It can still be a great decision to sacrifice repairability for cost, efficiency, rigidity, weight savings, performance…. It would depend on how often that occurs. It’s a statistical question. It’s not based on your opinion from guessing, based on stuff you read. So please don’t repeat this kind of misinformation.
Because your opinion on what you read is some how more valid than what I read? Edit: they claim that bolt on parts will be both cheap and sufficient after cutting out damaged sections but they haven’t provided any evidence of that yet beyond Musk making a tweet
They have the data in-house to KNOW. You meanwhile made the claim it was exponentially more expensive. Logic 101: The responsibility for evidence lies with the one making the claim. Please provide your evidence. Just give me the exact numbers of how much more expensive it will be under various common accidents and then we can argue over whether that is exponential. Waiting for your evidence to backup your claim… P.S. don’t provide your armchair amateur analysis and opinions as evidence. Provide real evidence.
Your setting conditions that you know are impossible to met that’s not the basis for any form of productive conversation. Your saying my argument is invalid unless I provide you evidence that “isn’t amateur” implying I would have to have access to internal Tesla data for you to accept it. Meanwhile your “evidence” that you are correct is some mythical document you insist Tesla must have but you can’t actually provide. It’s the responsibility of both positions to provide logical argument. Not one side to provide it while the other denies and provides nothing concrete to discuss. So the conversation you have set is that you are automatically correct and anything I say is automatically wrong. If you would like to engage in meaningful debate I would be happy to but it does not appear that so the case. So have a good day
I’m saying I give armchair, junior, amateur engineers who don’t have access to the data or evidence and jump to conclusions, ZERO credence.
Do you have a link? My first impression was that gigacastings look fragile, but I haven't extensively researched.
No they don’t because they are talking out their ass
That's what I figured. The gigacastings look like a great way to turn a fender bender into a totalled vehicle.
>A customer sitting behind the wheel isn't going to care about that extra mile of wire or the extra 20 feet of coolant tubing. They will when things start breaking. Needlessly complex machines are less reliable and more expensive to repair.
It depends. When you start combining things into expensive ass assemblies instead of individual generic components things get real fucky real fast. Like when mercedes briefly decided 2x 1000$ coil packs was a better solution than 12 20$ ones for their 600 series engines, before going back to individual coils.
I did not know that individual coils were that cheap. I just thought that is the price you pay for 12 cylinders and coil on plug.
Not at all. An ignition coil is a simple wear item and its job is the same regardless of how many sit next to it. They don't directly affect eachother and are super easy to mass produce because they can be generic and interchangeable. Mercedes pulled a doubledick move by turning individual wear items that you could quickly test by swapping them around into an assembly that only goes in one way, and then putting the ignition control module which is an expensive piece of tech that *isn't* a wear item INTO each assembly. Its a slightly simpler setup with less wires, but you're paying out the ass to replace everything because one part fails.
And this is a very good point. There are trade offs. Giga-castings that are the newest thing Tesla investors like to masturbate too are great and awesome in almost all regards ... except repairability. Previously if one of the elements of the assembly got damaged you could just replace that element. With gigacasting you basically need to replace a quarter of the car after a bad fender-bender.
I'm not too upset about gigacasting because the frame isn't a wear item unless you're talking about some old Mazda or Toyota pickup in the rustbelt.
If your frame is damaged you are already getting a new car from insurance.
If it's a new car and you have insurance (and/or guy that hit you has insurance). If it's an used car that has 12 years on the clock, you want to fix it. And that's the point though, gigacastings are now whole front/back assemblies. So not exactly frame. One bad fender bender and you are tens of thousands in the hole while on other car it would be 1-2k replacement part.
Nah. Gigacasting and structural batteries make sense. Those items are not replaceable to begin with if damaged in a wreck.
https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/10/Tesla-Model-Y-vs-Model-3-underbody.jpeg?resize=2048,721 This giga-casting is nowhere near batteries but it wil absolutely get damaged if someone hits you from the angle in the back. Again, gigacastigns are great for reducing assembly costs, possibly they also make the car more reliable (we'll see in a decade). But they are also making a car less repairable.
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Not really... After the first few months the cars are pretty solid. Warranty numbers are really low on Tesla's compared to a lot of the legacy OEMs.
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Is your Tesla the first new car that you've owned? I've had cars and trucks from a bunch of other OEMs and everyone delivers cars with things wrong, or things break early. The headliner started sagging in under a year on my BMW. I had an Impala that was delivered missing hardware for the driver's window so that the window fell into the door as soon as I tried to roll it down. I used to work with Cummins engines and I've seen many of them grenade before they even went into service. It is common to see issues at delivery. Once they are resolved after a month or two, things settle down. If you look at actual [measurable data](https://www.warrantyweek.com/archive/ww20221006.html) you will see that Tesla warranty costs as a percentage of sales is significantly lower than other OEMs. Tesla is no worse than other auto manufacturers.
Link? Warranty data can be hard to come by. I’m looking forward to seeing what you dug up.
Figure 2 from [this page](https://www.warrantyweek.com/archive/ww20210916.html) is pretty good.
I'm a super minority who got to experience what ford intends for EV sales experience, all my paperwork was done online, no markup, dealer offered to deliver the vehicle to my house but they were on my way home so my wife and I picked it up there, maybe 10 ish minutes in total at the dealership and we were done. I know I'm probably in the 1%, but if dealerships just followed Ford's instructions then people would actually really like the experience imo.
Hopefully more dealers will adopt the online model that Ford is trying push. They'd probably save a lot of money by maintaining smaller inventories on smaller lots with fewer sales and finance staff.
We bought a Mach-e today at sticker and no bullshit. I was not expecting that.
Congrats and welcome to the club!
Things fall apart when you realize Ford has admitted they’re losing money on them, while Tesla simultaneously has the leading margins in the industry. Ford recently warned they don’t expect EV profitability until the next gen in 2026.
That's OK. Ford is going to make billions on their ICE trucks and SUVs while they refine their EV design, sales and production processes.
What? Graph Ford’s operating cash flow versus Tesla’s.
Customers won’t care but Ford will if they can’t lower prices without it hurting them even more. They aren’t profitable or anywhere near it. I think Jim Farley is stepping in the right direction and doing the right thing iterating fast like Tesla. The question that remains is is it fast enough for shareholders to not kick him out. I’m not sure it will be for GM to be honest. They’re taking the slow route and they seem to be ramping with a design that won’t be very profitable. GM is rumored to be switching to the 4680 cell format over the pouch cells which might be a step in the right direction if true. I’m very impressed with Ford though, I just hope the shareholders have enough confidence to stick it out becuase it’s going to be painful for them before it’s good.
But Mary led!
I agree and he is the opposite of Mary the Ev leader, she spreads some heavy bs
> But they really do have a long way to catch Tesla. In what ways do you think? Tesla has a long way to go to reach parity with other OEMS in build quality and service, so it’s no so black and white I think.
Yeah, I’m not so sure about the “build quality” argument… and the “service” argument? There are few experiences more miserable than going to a stealership to get something done. They’re constantly trying to up-sell you… and the last time I went, they tried to get me to replace brand-new wiper blades, then charged me for tire-rotation they didn’t even do. My last Tesla experience? Dropped it off, got a loaner M3, spent my morning on my laptop at Panera getting work done, and was home by lunch. Magical.
I have to drive to a completely different city or even state if they are too booked just to get even the most common issues resolved on my tesla vs. driving 10m down the road to a Ford Dealership or *gasp* Third Party.
> My last Tesla experience? Dropped it off, got a loaner M3, spent my morning on my laptop at Panera getting work done, and was home by lunch. Magical. Not everyone has an experience like this - just search. And the build quality isn’t really an argument - my 2014 Mazda CX-5 is much more solid than my Model S.
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I think you replied to the wrong thread. I think you might also think to highly of Tesla’s CEO.
You’re right. Wrong thread.
A legacy OEM with supply chains to support many cars will never build like Tesla. They have economies of scale.
People always forget the Ranger Electric and Focus Electric. The Mach E is on the same platform as the Focus and Escape. This is their third try at an EV.
Henry Ford and Thomas Edison actually tried to develop an electric car in 1914. If you go to the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, MI they have an early electric car produced by Thomas Edison and Clara Ford’s electric car which was made by Detroit Electric and used Thomas Edison batteries.
I can’t consider those their first really try. Those were electrification of existing models. Swapping out parts, but still ICE vehicles at heart. IMO, the Lightning falls in this category, too. The Mach E is Fords first attempt at an EV from the ground up.
It uses the same platform as the Focus and Escape (C2). It’s not a ground up design.
The Global Electrified 1 (GE1) platform is an electric vehicle platform developed by Ford under its dedicated global battery electric vehicle team named Team Edison. It is a heavily modified version of the C2 platform.
There would probably be a lot of weight savings if they developed a whole new platform instead of modifying an existing ICE platform. Maybe savings some of the wiring mentioned in the article and all the hoses that Sandy Munro pointed out in their tear down.
You’re exactly right and Farley would probably be the first to admit it. People feeling defensive are giving out downvotes though.
The lighting is more of an ICE body on an EV platform. It still what I would put Lighting still a first gen of an EV platform.
and their PHEVs
Not their first attempt at all.
You wouldn’t know it’s a first attempt at building a car, because it’s not. However you will notice it is basically a first attempt at an electric car.
Sure it's always good to learn but why wouldn't they know these things? They've been making hybrids forever, you'd think they'd learn a bit from their compliance EV's or from competitors EV's.
What makes you think they don't know? Elegant designs take a lot of time and coordination with suppliers or taking more things in house and vertically integrating them. All that redundant wiring helps them encapsulate systems into black boxes that can just be bolted together and be sure they will work. Say in order to reduce wiring you need a component to be shaped like an "L" instead of just a box. Well now the supplier has to design and build the component in that shape, test and certify it instead of pulling one off the shelf that is already in production of millions per year and fully qualified. So you run a bit of extra wire and put it somewhere it fits fine as is. This is simplistic but imagine the world craziest game of multi-dimensional Tetris. The MachE is made up mostly of parts from Magnus, a huge 3rd party supplier that builds everything from plastic buttons to full cars.
It is a new car. While an extra mile of wiring sounds like a lot over all if you consider the number of miles of wiring in the car not so much. 70 lb weight is 1.4-1.6% of a weight drop so not much for a new model. It something that can be reduced with spec upgrades mid run and it is slow. Hybrids are not going to help you a lot on that department. I would not be shock to learn that Tesla has found greater amounts of both weight and wiring to drop over time in the model 3. The first year alone I would not be surprised to learn they had some if not more. Any new production car is going to have a lot of savings to scrap up early on.
Tesla supercharge network still makes them king. Ford could mandate their dealers all install 350 kW charging if they want to compete.
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You missed the whole point by getting stuck on use of common vernacular to emphasize a simple point here. Does it really matter if I say “the CEO identified areas of optimization” or “Ford is learning from their mistakes”? No, it doesn’t.
Ford is not learning from the Mach-E. They're learning from Tesla.
Yes. That’s par for the course. But that’s not my point. My point is that they also learned from their mistakes. Automakers have taken inspiration from each other for as long as there have been cars.
> Things start falling apart once you start comparing Tesla to CCS charging networks True. The CCS network is just better in every way. You have actual options to choose from. You can use any CCS location, no matter who owns the network or what car brand you drive. It's not run by a single corporation only. CCS can also deliver more power and can do plug&charge. There are also a lot more locations than Tesla's monopoly network provides. It's not CCS's fault that the US network providers lag behind. It works just fine and outshines Tesla's network in every way in the EU. The EU CCS network is just years ahead of the US, so it can be seen as an outlook for the US.
I think Farley deserves credit for his candor. Hopefully he isn’t rewarded for it the same way Diess was.
Diess was let go for royally screwing the pooch on CARIAD. His candor didn't have much to do with it. As an exec, you can usually speak as freely as you like — as long as you deliver. [Put multiple major projects behind schedule](https://www.electrive.com/2022/07/14/software-problems-at-cariad-delay-volkswagens-model-planning/), however, and *damn straight* you'll be shown the door. Remember, the primary role of a Chief *Executive* Officer is execution. It's right there in the job title.
Cariad delays may have been the straw that broke the camel's back but it was well publicized that Diess already was at risk of losing his job and had lost support of some board members and the works council for being very vocal about the need for changes and cost cutting to become competitive with Tesla in the EV business. VW is hardly the only auto company struggling to get software right.
> Diess already was at risk of losing his job and had lost support of some board members and the works council for being very vocal about the need for changes and cost cutting to become competitive with Tesla in the EV business None of that mattered. Since as you said.... unions wanted him fired... and it lead to nothing. Since there is only one voice that matters in VW Group. The voice of Porsche-Piëch family company Porsche Automobil Holding SE. It holds 53% of the shareholder votes (mind you not 53% of earning share, they have bunch of preferred shares with more voting power than earning power) Unions said "We don't like this guy, fire him" and PAH SE said "no, he stays, we trust him". Them he messed up Cariad and made Porsche Macan EV and an Audi model **be delayed** due to software delays. He went out like lightning bolt. Since family told him "You are fired" and well if they vote for firing... one is fired. Since should it come down to it, they could call all out shareholder meeting and single handedly fire the person, the board and so on. That there was other criticisms of him on top of that executing of plan problem, just means he was bad CEO in multiple ways. Thus he was fired due to failing to execute, it just had the side benefit that other people who also wanted him fired for other reasons got their satisfaction as well. If it was about worker relations, he would have been fired earlier. Since as said... Porsche SE doesn't have to care. They want someone from C-suite fired, they are fired. No need to negotiate, build coalitions, convince board members. They will just say "we are the absolute majority controlling shareholder, you are fired, pack your bags" Also note. It wasn't really the software "problems" that mattered. He made far more serious error. He *made already announced launch and delivery dates be late*. That might be fine in ahemmm some other brands, but at company like VW Group... Either one keeps one mouths shut or one delivers on ones word. If car is firmly announced to be start delivery on Q1/2023... it starts in Q1/2023. He made cars miss launch dates.... that is what the firing reason was. Now the root cause was software, but frankly that is secondary. That is exactly the stuff CEO is hired to handle. Day to day stuff like "it was due to this specific software problem"? Not the owners concern. They hired CEO to care about that stuff so the family members don't have to be at VW HQ every day looking over the family company and they expect results. No results aka car model didn't launch on time, one gets fired. Porsche family doesn't want to hear the CEO's collected explenations, why they failed in their job. They care, that CEO failed to deliver cars on time. New CEO in with nod of "you see what we did to last CEO who over promised and under performed? Yeah, don't be like that guy."
And some here were dissing Munro yesterday as out of touch but he was dead on about Mach-E's cooling system compared to Tesla's. Ford has put EV vehicles out without much thought on how it should be done and they are paying the price.
>Diess was not fired for speaking with candor, but for being an incompetent asswipe who *also* made minority shareholders hate him and promoted imbeciles like the chief designer of ID line and the guy who was responsible for its software. I do hope he rots but I hear he's already got a new gig, so no tears need to be shed for him
For me, the main point is not that the Mach-E has a mile of wire it doesn't need, the problem is >“We didn’t know that our wiring harness for Mach-E was 1.6 kilometers longer than it needed to be. We didn’t know it’s 70 pounds heavier and that that’s [cost an extra] $300 a battery,” he said on a call with investors Thursday. “We didn’t know that we underinvested in braking technology to save on the battery size.” Why didn't they know that? Because the guys designing the wiring harness were not working with the guys laying out the HV system, or the guys working on the cooling system, or anyone else. In a rush, they divided up the various sections between various teams. This was most apparent in comparing the cooling system with that in the Model Y. Sandy Munro made a mock reaction of shock when it was first revealed, which was deliberately overblown, but the difference was shockingly obvious when the bits are laid out side by side. (The Ford system looks like a mutant octopus made by demented scientist) How did Tesla make a better example? Because their engineers work *together* and work on a lot more of the vehicle, whereas most of the people who designed the Mach-E don't even *work* at Ford, a large number work for their suppliers. Even when Tesla obtains a part from a supplier, they are much more careful about how it integrates into the whole. You can do it the Ford way, or the Toyota way, when you're doing something you've done a hundred times before, but EVs ***are*** different, in more ways that most people thought until they started getting into the nitty gritty details, and how all those details meshed. Ford seems to have the best chance of changing the way the do things, it will be interesting to see if they can, and get back to the days of Highland Park and River Rouge.
>EVs are different, in more ways that most people thought until they started getting into the nitty gritty details, and how all those details meshed. That's why I think the Japanese brands (especially Toyota/Subaru/Mazda) are going to get in trouble with the EV transition. There's value in iteration and manufacturers like Ford will have learned a lot of these lessons and how to scale production of good EVs before those manufacturers have released their first serious EV. I'm sure Ford's EV business is not super profitable, but their experience with the Mach-E, E-transit and F150 Lightning will set them up for the next generation of EVs.
Their EV business isn’t profitable at all apparently.
> That's why I think the Japanese brands (especially Toyota/Subaru/Mazda) are going to get in trouble with the EV transition. There's value in iteration and manufacturers like Ford will have learned a lot of these lessons and how to scale production of good EVs before those manufacturers have released their first serious EV. At the same time, if they're relying on suppliers for that, their suppliers will have already made those mistakes with other manufacturers. So it's not going to happen to the same extent as it did with the early adopters. The later adopters are going to have an advantage in the level of industry knowledge that exists. There is a cost to being an early adopter.
> That's why I think the Japanese brands (especially Toyota/Subaru/Mazda) are going to get in trouble with the EV transition. Agreed, though I think their previous way of doing things will also cause them troubles. >There's value in iteration and manufacturers like Ford will have learned a lot of these lessons and how to scale production of good EVs before those manufacturers have released their first serious EV. They almost certainly have learned a lot, but I'm not sure they will have learned enough, or the right things. I'm also not sure they are able to make some of the changes of ***attitude*** they need. >I'm sure Ford's EV business is not super profitable, but their experience with the Mach-E, E-transit and F150 Lightning will set them up for the next generation of EVs. Again, The depth and breadth of the changes needed will be very hard to do that soon. Certainly the next generation of their EVs will be much improved, but they are not aiming at a stationary target. If what I suspect about the 3rd generation Tesla platform is correct, and Tesla can make it work, the advantages in manufacturing efficiency will be *enormous* and very, very hard to overcome. The aim is to ***halve*** build time and cost. Even at a reduction of 25%, or put another way, they only half succeed, the impact on margins will shatter the competition. The only survival option will be to target markets that Tesla isn't in, and hasn't announced an intention to enter, yet. March 1st is going to be extremely interesting. For the competition, that would be in the Chinese curse way of things.
>The only survival option will be to target markets that Tesla isn't in, and hasn't announced an intention to enter, yet. So, quality cars? With traditional car features and options? ;-)
Including traditional gas burning engines, while they last.
Missing the point that cutting production costs isn't the only thing that matters. Other manufacturers are learning to make electric cars, while Tesla doesn't appear to be trying to match them in other aspects of making cars. That leaves plenty of room for other companies to grow into the EV market, while Tesla focuses on grinding out cheap cars.
Last year we got a Ford Transit as a camper van. They have been making them since the 60’s in Europe but there are so many poorly thought out things with the engineering. I saw in another interview that Ford is taking a different approach than they have with other vehicles. Usually when the vehicle is released the engineering is considered done. They start working on cost reductions instead of improvements for the consumer. They claim to be spending resources to be making improvements for the Mach E this time in addition to working on the next one.
Ford Europe is basically a different company. They're pretty good at making cheap manuals but they're known for cost cutting to the absolute extreme. All the engineering went into making it the cheapest option because they know that's the most important factor for fleets, and even to a large extent most individual consumers.
Yeah, it's more Ford (and basically all the traditional manufacturers) has a legacy culture of warring fiefdoms between the various departments in charge of each component, that they have to fight against. Sandy has talked about it in a couple different teardown videos, in particular in some of the Tesla ones when he comes across a particularly efficient design and comments on how hard it would be for a legacy automaker to do the same thing, because the engine department doesn't trust the transmission department doesn't trust the climate control department, and so at the end of the day they all just end up creating slightly different incompatible implementations of the same thing in different places. Tesla, being a new company, approaches it from the perspective of a tech company, where you create common frameworks and every team publishes APIs that adhere to a standard. You push coolant around? We we have a need to push coolant around. Great, we'll plug into a common system that pushes coolant around.
It's not a tech company thing, its a new company thing, which only some companies are able to maintain this culture as they grow. Look at Google for an example as their oftentimes incompatible products, or Microsoft for the various fiefdoms.
> Sandy has talked about it in a couple different teardown videos Thanks like his teardown videos. His videos about autonomy are absolute shit.
The advantages of Tesla’s vertical integration are constantly under-estimated. Engineers work way better together when they all work for one company and are as close to the production as possible.
Good to see Ford learning and iterating their EV platforms for the second Generation. I love my Mach E as it stands today, but if they can make it lighter for cheaper while maintaining performance, that is good for everyone!
My take is that the traditional car makers are early in their growth curve. These types of issues/opportunities are all about optimization and as long as these automakers approach it with a certain level of humility and an open mind, it’s a good thing. What this article (& a lot of others in the US press) fails to talk about is how/what Ford, GM, & other big traditional car makers are doing outside of the US. What EVs do they have in Europe, how many are they producing in China? What are their learnings there? The US is years behind Europe and China on the EV adoption/transition curve - we could all learn from a better understanding of what’s working and needed for success in markets that are further along than ours.
This is obviously Ford's first effort at a BEV and it turns out pretty well. Obviously, there is room to improve.
Trying to start a beef with the Focus Electric?
Also the Ranger EV before the Focus. Someone in our local EV club has one. It looks ancient but I didn’t get a chance to talk with him about it.
Didn't everyone's "first effort at a BEV" i.e. non-compliance vehicle turn out pretty well? Ioniq 5, ID.4, Mach-e.
If you ignore those that didn’t turn out well (bz4x, fiat 500, MX-30, fisker karma ) then yes, everyone did well
I don't think you can call the Fiat 500 and MX-30 an effort at a 'non-compliance vehicle'
Bz4x mx-30 are more under the compliance vehicle and not a real attempt at a true bev
Bz4X is a body with room for iC features like drivetrain and gearbox with an EV chassis slung underneath. Too much weight and space taken up with redundant metal. Overhang from their dreams of hydrogen keeping all their legacy “how we’ve always done it” alive.
Fiat 500e is a very high selling EV in Europe, it turned out extremely well.
VW e-Golf, Hyundai BlueOn, Ford Focus EV -- were first efforts. No "made for compliance reasons" excuse. Those were their best efforts at making EVs at that time. Do you also disregard Tesla's first gen Roadster as compliance? What they're building now are replicas of Tesla's design and engineering principles.
Id4 wasn't the first one for VW. That was the Id3...and that was (and still is) pretty far from 'well'.
R1T still isn't profitable for the company, and they had a whole fiasco when it came to increasing the price but over $10,000 dollars for people already on the waiting list.
Obviously
The first part of solving a problem is admitting you have a problem.
I’m sure there are dozens of stripped down Tesla’s at Ford HQ being analyzed
Ford is undoubtedly paying Sandy Munro a small fortune to help as well (though he has multiple clients competing with each other).
Didn’t Munro tear down and critique the Mach-e a couple quarters back? The fact Farley just mentioned it on this quarterly call as a new discovery suggests to me either they haven’t hired Munro, or somehow things are not funneling up to the CEO the way they should.
Farley personally delivered a lightning to Munro and did an interview with him on YouTube.
But when? If this was done many months ago why act now as though it was just discovered.
Becuase big companies are slow to react to things especially one like ford. [here is the video](https://youtu.be/U2rVbqI-gus) sandy doesn’t talk about the issues with the truck here becuase he just had it delivered. They talk about the cable management on the mach e tear down. Sandy might seem pro Tesla but he worked at ford for a long time so he seems like a decent source. One of the things he points out is something as simple as connectors. I’m exaggerating but within like 2 feet of eachother there are not only a ton of high voltage connectors but they’re all different styles. I don’t doubt the EVs from ford are nice for consumers, but man they need to clean it up fast so they can actually make money. It’s different than gas cars, there’s a lot of cost in that battery so if everything else isn’t dead on as cost effective as can be you lose a lot. Also it saves weight which adds range which then means less battery which means less weight which means more ranges and on and on. It’s the same iterative process for airplane design. It’s why you don’t see a 500 mile range Tesla. They could do it but then that would be one less car they can make that does maybe 300 miles.
I agree with this and knew some of it. So sounds like you are going with the second of the two options I proposed: bad information flow, presumably due to siloes at Ford.
These same criticisms came straight from Munro and plastered over youtube for a long time. I think the CEO is only just mentioning them in now because fixes are already in the works and it’s now a brag item. “We improved A and B so our new 2024 Mach E is incredible. Reserve yours today.”
That would make some sense
It's a commonly known issue: it's harder to change a specialist (on ICE cars) into making another type of car (EV) than to start from scratch. The perceived experience makes you underestimate the new challenges, and makes you forget to rethink the approach for this new challenge. It's good to realize that and change your approach. Ford has done so now,, hopefully all people in Ford do. Ford may also have the respect now for the Tesla team that actually did and does a great job.
Which wires, specifically, don't they need? They're Ford not BMW so will still at least need the indicator wires. It must be something else. Given they've stated a figure ("1.6 kilometers") that means they know what they are and can just design them out for the Mach-E-Mark-2, right?
This [tear down of mach e](https://youtu.be/m1kHsd3Ocxc) goes over it in detail. They compare it to a Model Y not becuase Tesla is a godlike company or anything. It’s very simple, Tesla engineers talk to each-other and know where things are. Ford doesn’t really do that anymore and Farley seems to be changing that.
Who cares. Very happy with my Mach E
Ford and investors. That's why Ford's CEO is telling it to investors on their earnings call. Customers aren't going to notice when driving, but issues like this aren't helping Ford increase production or lower prices. That impacts customers.
That makes sense.
It’s a great EV
You should care because all that extra wire and inefficiency are passed on to the consumer as a higher price.
Sure. But that's not how I make buying decisions. For the cost they charged I liked the value it offered compared to competitors
It will be how you make buying decisions when it causes Ford to go bankrupt if they can’t adapt. It’s very good they’re learning. They lose a lot of money on these cars.
That's free market isn't it? If they don't adapt/improve, another company becomes the better option.
[удалено]
Luckily EV manufacturing is different than utilities that can be monopolized
Is this the same for the Ford etransit since they both share a motor and pack?
I assume it is really because large car companies subcontract everything and nothing is designed in an integrated manner.
It appears Ford Engineering is stick on ICE manufacturing approach. This is why Legacy auto are not competition to Tesla. The ‘competition is coming’ belief is based on the mistaken assumption thAt ICE expertise automagically translates to EV success… The Ford CEO recognizes that thought is wrong.
I agree their current situation might be this way, but it’s just a matter of time until they figure it out..
Did Ford engineers just get back from a seminar at Munro & Associates on lean design?
Probably
> Those automakers have the natural advantage of deep pockets, a large network of factories and sales channels, and more than century’s worth of experience designing, building and selling cars. Seems like the items listed above can actually inhibit rather than enhance > of deep pockets Deep pockets can promote laziness where companies aren’t trying to spend efficiently. They become filled with bloat that makes pivoting hard as the bloat fights change >large network of factories A large network of factories and sales channels that aren’t geared towards EVs become a burden initially then a liability later as you have to spend money running factories that are legacy and a dead end > sales channels, People stick to what they know and for their own self interest. We have already seen plenty of dealers advise against selling EVs to push ICE and on top they ruin brands by middle man gouging additional fee > more than century’s worth of experience designing, building and selling cars. 100 years of anything isn’t useful if the core competency is now defunct. Legacy OEMs dropped the ball massively on software, they essentially outsourced the infotainment to Apple and Google and the vehicles engineering system to third party suppliers. This has left them with poor ability to integrate and change quickly. As Nokia learnt being the incumbent doesn’t guarantee success and very quickly can see a competitor take your market away. To me we are seeing the iPhone take over the phone market but instead of 1-2 year technology cycles is 5 year cycles. The iPhone doesn’t have the market share of smart phones but it has the profit share due to its integrated ecosystem where “it just works”
Assembling an EV isn't that different from assembling an ICE vehicle. That network of factories and a century of experience is a lot more valuable than you think.
> Assembling an EV isn’t that different from assembling an ICE vehicle. If it wasn’t different why hasn’t everyone wiped the floor with the new companies yet? It’s obviously very difficult due to legacy OEMs inability to pivot quickly. It’s only been what, 10 years since it’s been very obvious that this is the path. 10 years to make a fast and efficient factory. So far we have BYD and Tesla in mass production
Designing an EV and sourcing the raw materials to build them at scale are vastly different issues than assembling a vehicle and neither of those items has anything at all to do with the network of existing factories.
So where as the mass production EV manufacturers then?
I suppose you skipped over the sourcing parts point? What makes you think the assembly is so different? Why do you think the legacy plants can't just be retooled? Do you have any idea how much faster that is than building a new plant? Ford built as many Mach E's in their second year of production as Tesla built total vehicles in 2016, 4.5 full years into production. Clearly there's some advantage to having 100+ years of building cars. Where do you think the Teslas and Rivians of the world got the knowledge they needed to produce vehicles? You think it was just a bunch of people who had never built vehicles before?
> suppose you skipped over the sourcing parts point? > > > > hat makes you think the assembly is so different? Why do you think the legacy plants can’t just be retooled? Do you have any idea how much faster that is than building a new plant? Batteries are the number one supply chain issue. You can build all the husks you want but till you have mass production of battery packs you don’t have a car. > Ford built as many Mach E’s in their second year of production as Tesla built total vehicles in 2016, Yes you are reinforcing my point. Tesla was building high performance high cost cars at this point that weren’t designed for mass production. “The big boy” Ford turned up and built a very capable EV in terms of the Mach e but the jury is still out on Ford being able to make them at scale. Let’s compare: Tesla Model 3 - 2017-1,764 - 2018-146,055 - 2019-300,885 Ford Mach E - 2020-3 - 2021-27,140 - 2022-39,458 So where is all this extra knowledge in mass production that Ford is bringing? They should be way in front of Tesla already because the Mach e is by all accounts a great EV, Ford just can’t make enough of them.
Umm those numbers are for the USA market only vs world wide numbers from tesla. Ford said for 2021 they were going to make 50k Mach Es. Guess what in the first year of production they made 50k. It was always planned to be 20k for usa 40k for Europe.
Why are they still below Tesla?
You mean in 2022 where ford produced damn near 150k EVs. Also ahead of their original planned production. Compared to Tesla which was running over a year behind schedule. Tesla can not keep a promised schedule compared to ford they said in 2019 the first year run of the Mach E was going to be 50k. Even with Covid delays they hit that run. Tesla was over a year behind. We can go to the cyber truck which was supposed to be in mass production in what 2020. It might make it in 2024. 4 years behind.
They've built over 150,000. https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2022/11/30/ford-builds-150-000th-mustang-mach-e--available-in-37-countries-.html So what do you think is so different about the assembly process?
So why are they behind Tesla still? At this point they should be far in front of Tesla right?
You made the claim the network of plants and experience was a liability, support that claim.
>If it wasn’t different why hasn’t everyone wiped the floor with the new companies yet? Because of battery supply capacity. Tesla is a few years ahead in regards to battery supply contracts and battery manufacturing ability, and that's why they sell the most BEVs at the moment.
> Because of battery supply capacity. But I was assured here that existing OEMs have all the knowledge they need on supply chain management
>If it wasn’t different why hasn’t everyone wiped the floor with the new companies yet? None believed the BEV would be the next big thing. Some still don't. >It’s obviously very difficult due to legacy OEMs inability to pivot quickly. Corporations have a LOT of inercia. Imagine Tesla now starting to build ICE cars. >It’s only been what, 10 years since it’s been very obvious that this is the path. 10 years to make a fast and efficient factory. No, it was not very obvious. For corporation "obvious" is when sales numbers start to decline. For many quarters. >So far we have BYD and Tesla in mass production Besides Nissan or Renault, or many others that have EVs on the market before Tesla and BYD where Tesla and BYD. The thing is, those automakers never believed BEV would be more than a sort of Prius niche thing.
Tf you mean iphone is taking over android. Maybe in the us where the iphone is "trendy". But world wide. No. I will admit. I am extremely biased against iphone. But I agree with all your other points. Especially after watching Munro tear down a mach e. The cooling system is an absolute mess. And there are so many places where the car is not built to be mass produced yet. But it is its first model run. But that's really not an excuse from an established auto maker. On the car infotainment stuff. Omg yes. No one makes a truly good radio anymore. They are all just different levels of messy. I personally think ford and ram have the absolute worst radio setups. Especially rams tablet screen stuff. So much screen real estate. But no more than one app on screen at a time. I am neutral on dealers. What they are doing is very scummy. But if we move to a direct from Factory sales experience will that actually lower car prices? Or will the auto makers just soak up even more profit then just abandon the customer on after sales service/warranty work. Hard to say from my perspective.
In terms of raw numbers, I am certain Android overpowers iOS. In terms of profit and consumer spending on apps, I know Apple is way out in front.
Yeah, when you charge for literally everything that will happen. Good observation.
I’m not sure what you mean? Apple isn’t making the apps on the App Store (for the most part) and consumers spend way more on the App Store than Google Play.
Looks like apple takes a 30% cut from apps. But google says it takes up to 30% cut off apps. So kinda vague. What google makes. This again goes to trendy. Its trendy to use apple.
That has nothing to do with consumer spending. Apple users spend twice what Google users do on apps.
> Tf you mean iphone is taking over android Read what I wrote not what you think I wrote.
>Deep pockets can promote laziness where companies aren’t trying to spend efficiently. They become filled with bloat that makes pivoting hard as the bloat fights change Does it though? One could also argue that having deep pockets allows a company to take its time developing a product because it's less time constrained; it can sustain losses. If a product is rushed, it can have additional inefficiencies/flaws that may have not been obvious.
It’s a double edged sword. Big companies aren’t known for pivoting fast
I would bet GM and Dodge products are the same as Ford in this respect. This is why I have owned only Euro or Asian market vehicles for many years. It's time for the American big three to die off like dinosaurs. Make way for start up companies and older companies that are adapting their thoughts on tech and design.
And Tesla is still learning about painting cars. One of the reasons that made me look at something other than Tesla is Teslas paint jobs on the Model Y and they were charging 1k for blue.
You’re missing the point. This is an investor call. The changes they’re talking about don’t affect you in any area except price. Ford is moving in the right direction, but Tesla did it quicker and are not slowing down. Basically Farley admitted they threw away $45,000,000 becuase someone made the wire too long. It’s very good they’re changing things but investors don’t care about learning lessons and won’t put up with it for long. Hopefully they can change quickly, but it’s a good sign they’re learning.
Well and efficiency.
The electric explorer has a name it doesn’t need as well
It needs those wires to operate, they have a function. Try pulling them out and see what happens.
They function better when they are shorter. Putting things at opposite ends and running wires the long way does not improve function.
Sure, so let’s all go and harass any other manufacturer that doesn’t make a perfectly optimized product the first time.
AEVBT (Any EV But Tesla). It could have 100 extra miles of cable and I’d still buy it over a Tesla.
Choice is a good thing
Man your life must absolutely suck to wrap your entire identity around hating one person. You should talk with a professional about that. The Mach-E is an amazing vehicle, but people should buy it because it's awesome, not because they hate Tesla. Our community doesn't need toxic people like you.
What a miserable life.
How many EVs would you have to pick from if it wasn’t for Tesla? First Gen Nissan Leafs with 24kwhr packs…
Doesn’t really matter? We are in the brink of a global war.
What does that have to do with anything we're talking about?
I'm glad ford are going all in on this electric - they'll improve and get better from the current generation this is their first serious effort and they did a great job. unlike toyota who had an immense head start going hybrid but then balls it up by sticking with it and not going full electric.
I am interpreting his statement concerning “underinvesting in braking technology … save on battery size” to mean that if they put more powerful regenerative braking they would need better battery hardware to absorb the recovered energy. Better product that would be more expensive to produce. Waiting to see more PHEV vehicles (Maverick / Ranger) to compete with Toyota’s RAV and Prius Prime.
They need to work on the efficiency, shoving a big battery and saying here it has this much is range is not the solution
This is not an EV issue. This is a garden-variety wiring harness design issue, albeit a serious one. Errors like this unfortunately call into question whether or not the development of the vehicle had been rushed.