I think we have to see the full verdict from Sandy M. on the Mach-e before we can be sure. Ford had onboard electrical outlets in the C-Max Energi back in 2013 which my 3 lacks today. (It is disappointing to have take an inverter with me just to power small electrical devices.) Tesla makes mistakes and Ford has made some whoppers.
As others have said, CT is not for everyone. Ford might make an OK truck for the many classic truck fans. If they can get some in show rooms, they may be able to hold their customers until they can ramp up production. It is an iffy proposition certainly, it mostly depends on the Mach-e. If the Mach-e shows some promise then Ford has a glimmer of hope IMO. That glimmer of hope likely would be a drastically different company.
On reflection, here is a mistake Sandy can solve for us. The front suspension uses a hollow aluminum casting. These are stiff light structures made of a material with no fatigue limit.
Background: Steel has a fatigue limit where as long as cycling stresses are below a threshold, the steel will last forever. No ferrous metals, aluminum, copper etc have cycling fatigue limit or lower threshold below which the part lasts forever. That means that aluminum parts will fail if subjected to cyclic loading - eventually.
Tesla is designing for 1,000,000 miles. That puts a good factor of safety on all their parts.
The Mustang has a thin walled cast aluminum tube. That is very stiff, as stiffness goes as the section height cubed. It was like 4 inches tall if I recall. Sigma = Mc/I
In the bending equation sigma=Mc/I, what is c? I understand everything about this problem except for the very last step. What is c and how do I find it? Concepts and reason Bending characterizes the behavior of a slender structural element like a beam subjected to an external load applied...
ask.learncbse.in
So where Sandy may find a problem with Ford, but not with Tesla is:
Suppose a dealer sprays undercoating on one side of a half shaft thus creating a vibration source. At how many highway miles does some attachment point to the super stiff cast aluminum beam fail?
Intuitively there is some sort of strain energy thing going on where super stiff things connect to the real world. EEs would call it an impedance match issue. Bushings can help.
His team can also calculate the miles to failure where things mount to the aluminum casting.
I feel like Tesla has it set up with matched stiffnesses from a lot of aluminum parts.
Ford has to deal with a 3x material stiffness mismatch on their aluminum beam.
This difference could show up in the stock price.
And Sandy's team has the skills and the tools to tell us about cyclic stress wear out points in each of the designs.
Ed
www.cnbc.com
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on Elon and has nothing to do with the headline. I don't know why I'm amazed, but I guess I've got a thick skin when it comes to this stuff and Tesla, but I've not seen it against Neuralink before.
