cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/42676060
Ford has been too busy selling $80,000 trucks to worry about cars and EVs.
I’ve never understood why so many people in the US buy pickups. City dwellers? Why? People in most trades? Panel van > pickup. Farmers or ranchers? Makes sense.
My employer just swapped me from a pickup with a covered rollout bed to a van. I absolutely love it! Slightly less comfortable ride, but carries more parts and it’s all more accessible, especially if it’s raining or snowing. So this is why many companies have been using vans for so long…
Utility, can carry tall stuff, and can carry messy stuff without worrying about dirtying up the inside of a vehicle. Rain will wash a pickup bed out. At least that’s why I have one, hauling stuff, working around my property, hauling trash. But mine is a 1995.
I/my business have owned 4 panel vans. One was an IVECO that had a 5+m long by 2+m tall interior. I’d much rather haul a tall load enclosed. If I ever needed to haul something taller, I could always rent a pickup or a real truck, and not being saddled by the pickup’s shortcomings everyday.
Pickups have their uses, and I never denied that, I just say that most pickups don’t do pickup duty, and that a lot do panel van duty.
An assessment of the global electric vehicle market and Ford merited one lukewarm, brief sentence. At the time, Farley was the Executive Vice President and President of Global Markets. If that sounds like a job that would require paying close attention to China’s reality and increasing competitiveness, it is. If that sounds like a job that should understand disruptive innovation’s death knell for firms like Ford, it is. If that sounds like a job that should have been creating strategy to deal with the reality of China’s emerging electric vehicle juggernaut, it is.
Auto industry mismanagement is redundant.
Oh my that damage control speech from Ford the article was forced to include does not work in the direction they hope it does.
There is actual fear to be perceived as Incompetent in there.
The reporters did very little to sugarcoat that they got told to edit it. Basically a copyPaste of fords demands of what needed to be talked about
What’s this thing where when you need to italicize something that is already italicized, you change it to a sans-serif font? Looks bad
They still build the only real EV truck though
I get the criticism of the cyber truck, and the hummer EV is ridiculous, but why do the R1T and Silverado EV not count as trucks? R1T is an expensive but great midsize go anywhere truck. Silverado EV is a range king and a little flat looking, but still 100% “truck”. Lightning is just the all around best value of a truck. I say this as a lightning owner, there are options in this market.
They almost made a truck with the Silverado EV but then they had to turn it into whatever the Avalanche is supposed to be with fins coming off the cab that get in the way of things. Anyways, not to sound bitter but some people like to be able to put camper shells, tool boxes, or other accoutrement on the back.
R1T is decent, just really expensive.
Trucks are for every tradesperson that does the things you lack the time, training or tools to do when something breaks at your residence. Trucks help you move.
Trucks don’t do that, vans do.
In Europe every tradesperson drives a van because it is a lot more efficient and can haul way more than trucks ever can.
And if said tradesperson doesn’t want their equipment to get wet in the rain they get a van instead.
Vans, you’re thinking of vans. Becuase you can lock up all your expensive tools in a van, it keeps rain off your supplies, it gives you a mobile workspace with AC, and you can take out the seats or reconfigure it for the job at hand. All the tradesmen I know drive vans. All the idiots I know who want an expensive mall crawling pavement princess so they look like they could do actual work, buy trucks.
It was crazy visiting China last year. The EVs that everyday people are driving feel so polished and futuristic in many ways.
I did also and was astounded. More EV brands and retail stores for them than for mobile phones and gadgets in the malls. I counted 14 brands in one mall. Like EVs are a fashion accessory. And I saw car designs for sale and on the steet that looked like what we usually see only as early concept art. not high tier of market either. It is an ultra-competitive race to the bottom , There must be several new factories and brands opening every week, and maybe the same or more shutting down. some of the bells and whistles being thrown in are pretty funny. Little robotic characters ala alexa for your car that sits on the dash with led face responding and moving to commands. half side doors being an LED screen for some reason (mainly to atrract potential buyers in the malls I thought) . The european, tesla and other US evs alongside were very very plain. Whether all of this is a good thing is another matter.
