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Ford: "We can build a car like Model S"

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on cc today in response to question, ford has bought a model s and driven it. they took it apart and put it back together and drove it again. they are confident that they can build it. thought this was funny. issue isnt can you build it but if you can design and engineer one. their stating that it drove again seemed funny. a successful experiment in model kit building
 
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/10/24/ford-tesla/17827533/

Not much detail. The Ford CEO said the company is "considering" building a Tesla-like automobile. This is like the previous statements by GM that they would form a committee to evaluate Tesla. It could be months or years before Ford makes a decision, and then they would have to develop an EV platform from scratch (assuming they don't attempt to shoehorn an electric powertrain onto a Fusion platform).

Ford would still face the steep obstacle of battery costs, and lack of a Supercharger network.

Seems to me like Ford is just trying to cover its bases with investors because they don't want to appear oblivious to the competition. As a general matter, car companies almost always buy and disassemble competing vehicles. I'm sure Ford has purchased, taken apart, and driven everything from a Toyota Yaris to a Mercedes S class and beyond.
 
yeah. meanwhile they can't even sell any of their Ford Focus Electric's ...."only about 4,000 units of the EV have sold since the sales debut in December 2011." Ford Focus Electric 2015 Gets Big Price Cut -- Down To $29,995 From $35,995 | CleanTechnica

Well Ford has spent close to zero marketing the Focus Electric. I have a few friends with LEAFs and they had no idea that Ford sold an electric vehicle. I think Ford only wants to sell a couple hundred every month, keep volume low until they are sure their EV is solid.
 
Last night there were CARB-ZEV hearings in California. As usual, most of the manufacturers pleaded that ZEV regulations ought to be pushed back (in some cases as long as eight years) or diluted (for instance, having a 11-mile PHEV count as much as a 40-mile one).

One of their arguments was that they CANNOT build a reasonable ZEV without investing massive amounts of time and money. I almost shed a tear.
 
Last night CARB's meeting was about the intermediate sized OEMs.

Like Subaru,Mazda,Mitsubishi,Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes,BMW etc

At least Mitsu has the 30 AER Outlander PHEV and Mercedes has the B-Class, BMW the i3, Volvo the XC90

The ones that are really screwed are Subaru,Mazda, and Jaguar Land Rover.
 
on cc today in response to question, ford has bought a model s and driven it. they took it apart and put it back together and drove it again. they are confident that they can build it. thought this was funny. issue isnt can you build it but if you can design and engineer one. their stating that it drove again seemed funny. a successful experiment in model kit building

I replied in the News thread, but I think my comment is more applicable to the Investors forum.


It's telling to me that a CEO of a company would spend even 1 second in a quarterly conference call discussing company performance, to talk about how the CEO's company could do something similar to what some competitor is doing if they wanted to, but don't (want to that is).

The only competitor / competition that a CEO should be talking about during a conference call is somebody that you compete with broadly and deeply. Intel and AMD, Apple and Samsung, Ford and GM. And only to talk about how existing products compare better and worse.

Talking about a pipsqueak competitor, at least based on unit volume, who has a product that you have nothing like, just emphasized what you can't do in the first place. Saying you can disassemble and reassemble it strongly suggests that Ford employs mechanics and engineers. That's a relief.

More completely, either Tesla is a full competitor of Ford's, in which case the air time is reasonable. Also in this case, the comments made by Ford's CEO emphasizes what Ford doesn't do and Tesla does, instead of emphasizing what Ford does and Tesla doesn't (offer a full range of cars, cheap to expensive, range of use cases).

Or Tesla isn't really a competitor of Ford's (which I believe to be the case today), in which case Ford's CEO should spend exactly as much time talking about Tesla as they talk about Ferrari or any other boutique manufacturer that isn't really a competitor of Ford's. In this case, an EV related question provides an opportunity to talk about the overall scale of EV's to Ford's overall business, or where the CEO sees the EV contribution to the product mix in the future, and on and on. But the one thing Ford's CEO doesn't do, period, is talk about how the company could compete with some pipsqueak if they felt like it, but just doesn't feel like it.


Not that I'm a CEO, and not that I've ever done a quarterly conference call, but my immediate thought is to figure out how I'd have turned the question into one about EV's in general, and from there into a discussion of what Ford products there are, what Ford IS actually doing, and what Ford DOES actually have in the work and is ready to talk about.

This comment makes me happy I'm not an investor in Ford - as a shareholder, hearing my CEO talk this way would make me crazy. (Or sell).
 
yeah. meanwhile they can't even sell any of their Ford Focus Electric's ...."only about 4,000 units of the EV have sold since the sales debut in December 2011." Ford Focus Electric 2015 Gets Big Price Cut -- Down To $29,995 From $35,995 | CleanTechnica

Its their crappy dealer network. Before buying my Roadster I was in the market for an electric vehicle, called the San Jose Ford dealer which was the #1 dealer for the Electric Ford Focus in the country. They said they didn't have any in for me to look at at the time, but then said, how about a nice gas Focus. I said NO, I don't want Gas. They said they'll call me when they get them in. Did I get a call ever, No! Did I get spam on sales for their Gas Ford Focus, YES! I never got an email for an Electric Ford Focus. Ever. After that I blocked them. Dealers suck!

And "they" wonder why they have poor sales!
 
Taking a car apart and analyzing it is common practice in the car industry. All manufacturers do that. Nothing unique here. Ford can build a Model S type car if they really wanted it. Just a mater if they want to commit to spending the money on developing it. So far none of the big players showed any interest as they are selling quite well doing their ICE cars. Why spend a lot of money on a product that has little potential to sell. Tesla's sales numbers are still peanuts compared to ICE cars. What makes Ford and the others nervous is how much attention and positive reaction Tesla is getting from the public.
 
Taking a car apart and analyzing it is common practice in the car industry. All manufacturers do that. Nothing unique here. Ford can build a Model S type car if they really wanted it. Just a mater if they want to commit to spending the money on developing it. So far none of the big players showed any interest as they are selling quite well doing their ICE cars. Why spend a lot of money on a product that has little potential to sell. Tesla's sales numbers are still peanuts compared to ICE cars. What makes Ford and the others nervous is how much attention and positive reaction Tesla is getting from the public.

Tesla is dominating the world's automotive media. The CEO of nearly every major car manufacturer mentions Tesla every time they are interviewed. Tesla's sales numbers may be small, but they are casting a very long shadow.