Anyone getting Concerned that Ford is not in on EV for the long haul

[LightningDoug]

Texan here: bought my 1st generation 2022 Lightning for its bidirectional battery. Having Sunrun install the Home Integration System (HIS) six weeks later to integrate the truck battery into our all electric home & solar to hopefully be able to power everything if another winter storm Uri hits or whatever else to disrupt our grid.

The HIS/battery backup worked perfectly for the 1st four months until a Ford truck software update in Feb ‘23 shut down and he HIS/battery connection for FOUR months while Ford Engineers worked on a software upgrade to get it working again.

Our software dependent fencing HIS was “bricked” by Ford software engineers.

if Ford is slowing their EV expansion/engineering how long will it take to fix their next “brick”?

I’m disappointed

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[earlyadopt]

Texan here: bought my 1st generation 2022 Lightning for its bidirectional battery. Having Sunrun install the Home Integration System (HIS) six weeks later to integrate the truck battery into our all electric home & solar to hopefully be able to power everything if another winter storm Uri hits or whatever else to disrupt our grid.

The HIS/battery backup worked perfectly for the 1st four months until a Ford truck software update in Feb ‘23 shut down and he HIS/battery connection for FOUR months while Ford Engineers worked on a software upgrade to get it working again.

Our software dependent fencing HIS was “bricked” by Ford software engineers.

if Ford is slowing their EV expansion/engineering how long will it take to fix their next “brick”?

I’m disappointed

That is disappointing to hear. Sorry for the situation you find yourself in. Software will be king now and more importantly in the future.

 

[Grease Lightning]

I read where there is a test battery that can go from 20% to 80% in 10 min

This seems impressive, but at what size?

Hyundai claims the Ionqi 5 can do 18 minutes to get to 80% but in the real world they are not quite seeing the needed supply to achieve that.

Their LR battery is 77 kWh so about 60% of the Lightning ER. While not linear, that would mean about 30 minutes rather than our current 44 minutes. A great welcome improvement.

So for that 10 min 20-80% battery size matters a lot.

 

[Pod]

Ford is in long term. The next series of EV’s from Ford will solidify the journey. Plus, we just added a pony to our stable. Now an all- EV household. My wife loves her new ride I’m a little jealous but I’ll survive with my SR XLT

 

[02Reaper]

Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians. Ford has a lot of higher up folks making promises and a team that can't seem to meet those goals/promises. They have the union they have to deal with, but no way to trim the fat once they unionize. I believe Jim Farley has the vision, but not the backup he needs to pursue it. He is out there trying to experience the customer obstacles while the rest of the team is sitting behind a desk. Why spend all that money on a plant in Tennessee when you're just gonna let it be unionized? Why spend the money building out other plants that your current plants can support? Why redesign another vehicle every few years before you start making profit on the previous vehicle? Someone said it above.....Software is going to be what makes them or breaks them in an EV.

 

[earlyadopt]

Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians. Ford has a lot of higher up folks making promises and a team that can't seem to meet those goals/promises. They have the union they have to deal with, but no way to trim the fat once they unionize. I believe Jim Farley has the vision, but not the backup he needs to pursue it. He is out there trying to experience the customer obstacles while the rest of the team is sitting behind a desk. Why spend all that money on a plant in Tennessee when you're just gonna let it be unionized? Why spend the money building out other plants that your current plants can support? Why redesign another vehicle every few years before you start making profit on the previous vehicle? Someone said it above.....Software is going to be what makes them or breaks them in an EV.

Total agreement with all statements. Just a question for everyone, how is the average working family to justify paying higher prices because the average auto worker is paid much high wages than the average blue collar labourer ?? Generally speaking, higher wages means a big move forward with productivity. The idea that someone makes more money now because they are doing the same job as they did 5 yrs ago is insane. All they are doing is adding cost to the average house hold. If you make more than last year, you better be doing more and creating more output to match the wage increase. There will come a time that a 100% will not be enough to save the over payment of low productivity and the legacy comany no longer is in business.
I think we are pricing ourselves out of the market.
Canada just followed the US in order to protect the high wages of auto workers. I have no problem with someone making good money, I do have an issue with governments putting tariffs on products so that the bloated wages are protected. Maybe the wages need to be adjusted to the market.
Price for buying votes, funny, they bribe you with the money they take from you. Think about it, they collect the tariff, then spend that on bribing you with the very money you paid for the tariff. Sounds like a ponzi scheme

 

[earlyadopt]

Ford is in long term. The next series of EV’s from Ford will solidify the journey. Plus, we just added a pony to our stable. Now an all- EV household. My wife loves her new ride I’m a little jealous but I’ll survive with my SR XLT

Sure hope you are right. I am in the same boat of products. Love them but concerned that software improvements are slow to materialize. Ford comes out with one update (improvment) and Tesla has 4. Not fixes but updates to improve performance or add features.

 

[Grumpy2]

Just a question for everyone, how is the average working family to justify paying higher prices because the average auto worker is paid much high wages than the average blue collar labourer ??

It is simple, organized labor provides the people power to increase wages & improve work conditions better than single individuals can every do.
Our dollar has lost value since it was introduced and will in the future, each person needs to earn more money to stay "even".

 

[02Reaper]

It is simple, organized labor provides the people power to increase wages & improve work conditions better than single individuals can every do.
Our dollar has lost value since it was introduced and will in the future, each person needs to earn more money to stay "even".

But its only a one sided street. A company gives but doesn't get anything in return.

 

[earlyadopt]

It is simple, organized labor provides the people power to increase wages & improve work conditions better than single individuals can every do.
Our dollar has lost value since it was introduced and will in the future, each person needs to earn more money to stay "even".

This is how the inflation spiral happens. No new productivity to offset the increase in cost. Just pure inflation. So the coffee shop increases cost because the annual inflation is higher, the grocery store increase cost to match inflation. The auto worker says they now need more because food cost more but no one is doing more work or increasing the output, so the inflation spiral continues till a disrupter comes in and brings a new way to make cars with robots and no union. The union worker talks about the good old days when minimal work netted more money. I have worked in a union environment before. Work hard and they tell you you are making the others look bad. "Slow down so we don't make us look bad sonny boy." (This is the nice version of what is actually said)
I don't dislike unions, I am concern that they cause the distinction of a company or market and the disruptors come in and slay. All too happy to disrupt the model. IE Newspaper industry, taxi industry, soon the car manufactures (robotics to do all). Heck, just wait till AI removes all the administration worker.

 

[earlyadopt]

Hard to not agree with that statement. Looks like we are on to something!

 

[FloridaMan655321]

Total agreement with all statements. Just a question for everyone, how is the average working family to justify paying higher prices because the average auto worker is paid much high wages than the average blue collar labourer ?? Generally speaking, higher wages means a big move forward with productivity. The idea that someone makes more money now because they are doing the same job as they did 5 yrs ago is insane. All they are doing is adding cost to the average house hold. If you make more than last year, you better be doing more and creating more output to match the wage increase. There will come a time that a 100% will not be enough to save the over payment of low productivity and the legacy comany no longer is in business.
I think we are pricing ourselves out of the market.
Canada just followed the US in order to protect the high wages of auto workers. I have no problem with someone making good money, I do have an issue with governments putting tariffs on products so that the bloated wages are protected. Maybe the wages need to be adjusted to the market.
Price for buying votes, funny, they bribe you with the money they take from you. Think about it, they collect the tariff, then spend that on bribing you with the very money you paid for the tariff. Sounds like a ponzi scheme

Just need to remember, it’s not the workers fault the government (central bankers) is creating more currency units to chase goods and services. If we had sound money, there would be no reason to ‘pay more’. The reason for paying workers more is the reaction to government interventions.

 

[Scorpio3d]

This is how the inflation spiral happens. No new productivity to offset the increase in cost. Just pure inflation. So the coffee shop increases cost because the annual inflation is higher, the grocery store increase cost to match inflation. The auto worker says they now need more because food cost more but no one is doing more work or increasing the output, so the inflation spiral continues till a disrupter comes in and brings a new way to make cars with robots and no union. The union worker talks about the good old days when minimal work netted more money. I have worked in a union environment before. Work hard and they tell you you are making the others look bad. "Slow down so we don't make us look bad sonny boy." (This is the nice version of what is actually said)
I don't dislike unions, I am concern that they cause the distinction of a company or market and the disruptors come in and slay. All too happy to disrupt the model. IE Newspaper industry, taxi industry, soon the car manufactures (robotics to do all). Heck, just wait till AI removes all the administration worker.

Unfortunately, the unions keep the car makers over a barrel, Not trying to bash unions they do serve a purpose but unfortunately, you have to take the good the unions do with the bad….like protecting people that should just be fired! If they are producing more when they earn more great! If they are producing much higher quality for the increased wages that would be great as well! However, it does not seem either of those apply. They just get paid more! Where is the incentive?

 

[earlyadopt]

Unfortunately, the unions keep the car makers over a barrel, Not trying to bash unions they do serve a purpose but unfortunately, you have to take the good the unions do with the bad….like protecting people that should just be fired! If they are producing more when they earn more great! If they are producing much higher quality for the increased wages that would be great as well! However, it does not seem either of those apply. They just get paid more! Where is the incentive?

I totally agree that there are some great unions, however, their numbers are smaller than the bad ones. It's a business for god sake. The union is an intermarry that charges the employee money to negotiate hourly rates, protect the "dog f*&%k" that does not deserve it so it looks like they are good. Real sham but it is the system we have till robots do all the work.

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