Ford CEO Jim Farley Totally Regrets Ford F150 Lightning Pickup

[Sobmartin]

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a70394562/interview-jim-farley-ceo-ford-motor-company/

Not as much as I regret buying a Ford

I am so happy we bought the Lightning in 2024. Sorry that everyone after this has to deal with a lesser pickup. Farley should just retool with better batteries and a better electrical design. (Steal from CHINA)

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[CoolViper777]

The relevant paragraphs for anyone not inclined to click. Added brackets to clarify speaker.

The F-150 Lightning seemed to be selling well at first, but after you'd expanded to meet higher-than-anticipated demand, it didn't go as planned. Looking back at the Lightning, would you do it differently?

[Farley]I totally would've done it differently. I mean, look, we didn't know what we didn't know.

When did you realize you'd done EVs wrong?

[Farley]When we ripped apart a Tesla with Doug Field [Ford's chief officer for EVs, digital, and design, formerly of Apple and Tesla]. I was just absolutely flabbergasted. The Mach-E's wiring harness was 70 pounds heavier and 1.6 kilometers longer. We didn't know what was going on in [Tesla engineers' ] minds. But now we understand. They had no prejudice. We had prejudice. We'd gone to our supply-chain person and said, "Buy another wiring harness." [Tesla] said, "Let's design the vehicle for the lowest, smallest battery." Totally different approach.

I would be very surprised if they hadn't already torn apart every available EV on the market when designing the Lightning.

 

[CoolViper777]

Not every business venture will be a success.
If they never tried then we wouldn't have these awesome trucks.

I always equate it to how everyone is quick to forget how we used to have lightbulbs that draw 10x the amount of power. We only got to mass market and affordable LEDs by the CFL as a stepping stone and a few other failed concepts. Progress is a good thing regardless if the shareholders don't like it. Consumers didn't like it either, they wanted to keep their inefficient lightbulbs because they had a "better colour" and would "last longer". I'm happy that incandescent bulbs are gone, it makes life easier now and cheaper.

And yet, incandescent lights STILL provide the best lighting, and color clarity. Cheaper LEDs by comparison have poor color clarity/rendition. It's only the expensive LEDs that can compete with incandescents in this regard.

 

[CoolViper777]

The F150 Lightning failed to catch on for the same exact reason that EV's today have failed to catch on in America, except for niche markets. And that is most people do NOT have EV charging at home, and do NOT want to wait 30 minutes in line to charge their car/truck.

Yes, Tesla's are a big niche market, but still, are small sales compared to ICE vehicles. People will buy a hybrid, since you don't have to wait line to charge it. But, it a completely different mindset have an EV vehicle. And a different setup needed as well at home for it.

 

[CoolViper777]

(A) JP Morgan (analyst) is predicting $120 crude oil in the near future. Not sure the enthusiasm will hold for massive v8’s at $5-$8/gal depending on where you live.

Didn't seem to stop people from driving big V8's when gas was at $4 to $5 a gallon.

 

[CoolViper777]

I mean...

A lot of folks seem to think Farley is the only guy at all in a multi billion dollar company, and that he has dictator like powers. Hell, I only have a few guys on my team and I have been beating them up for YEARS to change their ways, Ford has 180,000 AND shareholders to answer to.

It seems a lot of folks also want Tesla like engineering, but don't realize how crappy tesla like engineering IS. Everything they do is about making it as cheap as possible. I'm not saying they are complete trash, but they are not great cars.

The point of the Lightning was to make a Truck that is electric. Vehicles like the GM entries do well, but unibody Avalanches are not exactly the rage amongst truck buyers. I think the sales numbers agree with that.

Ford "lost money" because they could, Absolutely no car is profitable if you have to roll billions of infrastructure cost into it. But our government let them write down their losses on EVs, so why not jump on it. The Lightning was just the scapegoat (since the Mach-E sells better). They were basically handed a billion dollar check, and they can just bank that and come out with something new in a year or 4, which they were already planning to do! Seriously, they got a few billion in write offs and all they had to do was end a truck they were ending anyways.

I get the bitterness, but folks need to calm down a little. And yes, Ford has made mistakes, I'm not saying they have not, but i think a lot of folks just want someone to be angry at.

Tesla is garbage cars. Look up so many problems with the large drive motors, which unfortunately like the Ford/GM 10R80 garbage transmission, is guaranteed fail, often sooner rather than later.

 

[CoolViper777]

The only regret is that the American public is and has been beguiled by the capital interests of oil.... for how long now?

Let's not fool ourselves that a viable and profitable BEV truck isn't possible. It is inevitable.

Battery tech/efficiencies in design/economies of scale will come together in a few years and instantly cannibalize the entire market including EREV.

I have a hard time believing that Ford is this naive though. I think cancelling the Lightning and this talk about EREV is just short term smiley face for the American public. The have to be hedging a future of their flagship product and protecting their market share.

What, the oil/natural gas that makes our Western life possible? That oil?

 

[Randys Lightning]

Need a new CEO

 

[Heliian]

And yet, incandescent lights STILL provide the best lighting, and color clarity. Cheaper LEDs by comparison have poor color clarity/rendition. It's only the expensive LEDs that can compete with incandescents in this regard.

Even cheap LEDs have good colour now. Expensive LEDs will give you any colour you want, so much easier too.

 

[JRDM2]

The F150 Lightning failed to catch on for the same exact reason that EV's today have failed to catch on in America, except for niche markets. And that is most people do NOT have EV charging at home, and do NOT want to wait 30 minutes in line to charge their car/truck.

It's often not that hard to add a charger at the home. Ford even offered to pay for installing one. Even if there's not a lot of panel capacity, there's chargers that can use a 20A 240V circuit, good enough to charge for a pretty decent commute while you sleep.

Supporting renters is a problem that might need policy incentives. We're not going to get that for a few years but there's still plenty of homeowners.

 

[CD4TNF]

Supporting renters is a problem that might need policy incentives. We're not going to get that for a few years but there's still plenty of homeowners.

That's what the 2nd Phase of NEVI was suppose to do. Focus on building out level 2 charging.

 

[Ventorum94]

Didn't seem to stop people from driving big V8's when gas was at $4 to $5 a gallon.

In 2022, when gas was $5+ in many parts of the country, new orders for EVs had waiting lists (not only new designs like the F150 Lightning, but even Tesla Model Y and Model 3 had months-long wait for an ordered car). I believe the price of gasoline has more to do with EV demand than climate change concerns.

 

[CoolViper777]

That's a fair point. But with the markups and wait times on EVs during that time, the savings would not materialize for a long time.

In 2022, when gas was $5+ in many parts of the country, new orders for EVs had waiting lists (not only new designs like the F150 Lightning, but even Tesla Model Y and Model 3 had months-long wait for an ordered car). I believe the price of gasoline has more to do with EV demand than climate change concerns.

 

[TwentyTwentyThree]

Didn't seem to stop people from driving big V8's when gas was at $4 to $5 a gallon.

You can’t put thoughts and prayers into a tank and make it go.

 

[Ventorum94]

That's a fair point. But with the markups and wait times on EVs during that time, the savings would not materialize for a long time.

I think sometimes it’s not the overall operating cost economics, but avoiding the recurring pain of putting more than a Benjamin in the tank. Kind of reminds you of all the other things you could do (or ought to do) with that cash. When gas was $5+, a friend in the car selling business told me that people will take on $30k in new car debt to get 10 more mpg. The math may not make sense, but the emotions do.

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