Farley Interview.......

[ka-chow]

This feels pretty softball for Joanna. And zero mention of Lightning. Stuff I've mostly heard him say in other interviews, but a couple of things I haven't.

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[Grumpy2]

I haven't listened to the entire interview, just the link above.

Very encouraging, Ford may survive and perhaps even thrive. It is "do or die" over the next few years.

There is no longer need for better aero designs, faster charging, and better battery chemistry. All of these are available in China. Improvement will come sure, but not the big ones that have happened over the last couple of years.

 

[Rice_classic]

I am not enthusiastic about Fords push to make vehicles only serviceable by dealership. Don’t John Deere my Ford.

But shareholders need those dividend and dealers won’t sell vehicles that don’t need service.

 

[Mal106]

I've heard another point of view on the dealer/service discussion. The story goes that the dealership owner doesn't sell, the service department doesn't sell, the salesman sells. They know how to sell ICE but dont know how to sell EVs. Even if they did, it's very difficult to answer those typical questions of range anxiety, battery replacement and charge time. Even if the salesman is EV savy, to convince an ICE driver takes too much time and the salesman is not paid by the hour.

I like my dealership example. The two lightnings always parked there are owned by a service guy and the finance guy.

 

[chl]

The sales manager at my nearest dealership was very gung-ho and savvy about EVs when the Lightning was first announced. But they never had anything but the high-end trims in stock, so I had to go a few miles out of town to find one when the price finally came back down to earth in 2024.

They do a good job servicing Lightnings, seem to know their stuff.

My 2012 Nissan Leaf dealership only had one EV tech and he was not 'full-time.'
But all the Leaf ever needed was tire rotations and the complimentary yearly battery check for warranty purposes for the first 8 years - never found anything unusual, just typical Li battery aging at about 1%-2% capacity loss per year, faster at the beginning as was expected.

I hope Ford's new EV truck is up to snuff and can compete head-to-head with others, but absent some major catastrophe I am in no hurry to replace my Lightning, only minor annoyances so far, and I found workarounds for those.

As the numbers show, US auto executives are paid an enormous amount of money especially compared to the average company worker or execs in other countries, and all that white-collar expense certainly has an effect on competitiveness in sales, pricing and profitability, absent subsidies, punitive tariffs and other trade policies.

Such is American capitalism.

 

[Maxx]

But shareholders need those dividend and dealers won’t sell vehicles that don’t need service.

This guy mostly agrees with you. He is saying Farley is keeping the new platform isolated from production arm of the company so when the company goes down, that part could survive. Of course anything that has an AI generated image should be taken with a grain of salt.

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