Ford to build 600k EV's/yr by end of next year and has 2nd EV truck in the works

[Throwcomputer]

Four years is just marketing hyperbole. Who knows?
Tesla is on the rev-limiter at 900K and while there's little doubt Texas will ramp up, Ford is capable of building a million vehicles as a matter of regular business. What Tesla gets built in China and Germany goes to China and Europe. Tesla Texas is 10 million square feet of expectations. So Tesla, Ford and GM all start from about the same unknown production capacity for the US market.
Musk has said '22 is "production" and '23 is "new models" … so hopefully Tesla cranks out well over 1 million in '22, but '23 is also the (latest) promise for Roadster and Cybertrucks … that's two lines, nothing in common with the Y, so all new. It took two years (generously) to get the first Y out the door of Giga-yeehaw and the Y is the vehicle they know best. It's possible for Tesla to build a line in one year in China … but in Texas?

Given that a vast majority of Tesla's "lines" are automated.. I don't see how the build timeline of a line for Tesla is any different based on location.. China vs Texas. Its the same machinery being installed in a different building regardless of whether that building is in China or Texas. This is not as much the case for Ford. Ford has yet to finish building the structure in Tennessee. They are also a sizeable amount behind in the optimization of their lines, just from the lack of giga casting.. nevermind the brainpower behind the automation design and software involved in Tesla's factories. Ford has generations of experience building lines and manufacturing vehicles. They can make up a decent amount of ground in a quick amount of time, but they still operate as a legacy corporation which involves a much slower organizational shift towards cutting edge processes all around. This will have an effect.

Ford CEO did not specify if he meant 100% of those EV targets for the US market or if he meant worldwide. I assume worldwide. With that assumption, Berlin and China factories play into the math.

900k current production is redline for Tesla last year, not this year with 2 new giga factories just starting early in this year. Yes they may not ramp to 100% capacity of those two new factories in the year, but their expected capacity is nowhere near redline for the near future.

 

[Cybertruckee]

It looks like F150 Lightning will be first in market meeting their release goal this summer with the first 1,800 trucks.

They even have announced closing of new orders unless customers are willing to wait 2 years.

Still I told my dealer I'm not in a hurry and take my early next year after they've resolve early kinks and tech issues which I anticipate will be many as the previous EV releases..

 

[Technolust]

They are claiming to be gunning for Tesla's EV market share.. specifically the leader in EV Truck market share.

Have a second EV pickup truck model in the works separate from the F-150 Lightning.

600k EV's by end of next year.

2 million + EV's a year within 4 years.


While I find it a bit of saber rattling and exaggerated goals/braggadocio which I highly doubt they will be able to meet those goals, it is a good thing for us who want the CT! Tesla actually has the capability to meet 500k+ CT's a year in the next 2-3 years, and more importantly, Musk wants this truck to be the top selling truck.. not just EV truck, so this bodes well for even more affordable CT prices since they actually have the margins to produce them in numbers at affordable prices. Ford does not.

Btw it's hilarious and delusional he thinks they will be the biggest ev manufacturer when they plan on producing 2 million EVs a year in 4 years. Tesla produces over a million a year now.. before giga Texas and Berlin started deliveries or ramped to full production. Tesla will be producing at least 3 million (modest estimate) EVs a year within 2 years. Basic math failure on Ford CEO's part.

I just don't see why anyone would buy the lighting. It starts at $75,000 on the ford site. CT starts at $40,000.... Seems like a no brainer to me.

 

[Throwcomputer]

I just don't see why anyone would buy the lighting. It starts at $75,000 on the ford site. CT starts at $40,000.... Seems like a no brainer to me.

It starts at 39k, but to get any serious range you need to spend at least 75k. So yeah, not really competitive for the low end range.

 

[Ogre]

I just don't see why anyone would buy the lighting. It starts at $75,000 on the ford site. CT starts at $40,000.... Seems like a no brainer to me.

If all of the options were on the table and available to buy today the whole decision making process would be easy.

The reality is just much weirder and more complicated. Do you have a reservation for one or the other or both? If you don’t have a reservation for both you are looking at a ~3-5 year wait for the Cybertruck and can’t even order the Lightning.

If you have a reservation for the F50 and if your number gets tapped and you can configure your truck then you’d be crazy not to unless your Cybertruck reservation is quite low.

 

[Clustertruck]

Given that a vast majority of Tesla's "lines" are automated.. I don't see how the build timeline of a line for Tesla is any different based on location.. China vs Texas. Its the same machinery being installed in a different building regardless of whether that building is in China or Texas. This is not as much the case for Ford. Ford has yet to finish building the structure in Tennessee. They are also a sizeable amount behind in the optimization of their lines, just from the lack of giga casting.. nevermind the brainpower behind the automation design and software involved in Tesla's factories. Ford has generations of experience building lines and manufacturing vehicles. They can make up a decent amount of ground in a quick amount of time, but they still operate as a legacy corporation which involves a much slower organizational shift towards cutting edge processes all around. This will have an effect.

Ford CEO did not specify if he meant 100% of those EV targets for the US market or if he meant worldwide. I assume worldwide. With that assumption, Berlin and China factories play into the math.

900k current production is redline for Tesla last year, not this year with 2 new giga factories just starting early in this year. Yes they may not ramp to 100% capacity of those two new factories in the year, but their expected capacity is nowhere near redline for the near future.

The difference between Shanghai and Nevada and Germany illustrates how labor laws, environmental laws, regulators, licensing, all the bureaucracy weighs heavily on the time line. Maybe Giga NY is the example to inform expectations for Austin.

Investors are worried that Tesla will lose momentum while Musk works on his marketing machinery – I think Musk will be able to allocate his attention to Twitter without fumbling the Tesla, Space balls, etc.

Ford's four year plan says they expect to be at the front of a race that is on its first lap in 2025. Who knows where the market will be in 2030 when EVs are most or all of the production from most manufacturers.

We're yet to see how Berlin and Austin ramp up. Q1 results suggest Tesla has the supply side in control, but that doesn't mean they can scale up. FWIW, castings don't make the production line faster, they're not the limiting factor, they just make it cheaper and simpler with more profit.

What we've seen of Ford and GM at each of the big launches (e.g. Corvette, Mach-E) has been snafu. That's the question: can Ford split off its EV business and reinvent itself to build vehicles with the quality and performance and in the high volume production at a price point required to compete with Tesla, BYD, CATL, XPeng and eventually Toyota and VW. The Ford CEO has to say he's aiming for the top of the podium … not a lot of point in telling the team, "we're hoping for a top 10 placing" (and not another "did not finish.")

 

[jerhenderson]

They are claiming to be gunning for Tesla's EV market share.. specifically the leader in EV Truck market share.

Have a second EV pickup truck model in the works separate from the F-150 Lightning.

600k EV's by end of next year.

2 million + EV's a year within 4 years.


While I find it a bit of saber rattling and exaggerated goals/braggadocio which I highly doubt they will be able to meet those goals, it is a good thing for us who want the CT! Tesla actually has the capability to meet 500k+ CT's a year in the next 2-3 years, and more importantly, Musk wants this truck to be the top selling truck.. not just EV truck, so this bodes well for even more affordable CT prices since they actually have the margins to produce them in numbers at affordable prices. Ford does not.

Btw it's hilarious and delusional he thinks they will be the biggest ev manufacturer when they plan on producing 2 million EVs a year in 4 years. Tesla produces over a million a year now.. before giga Texas and Berlin started deliveries or ramped to full production. Tesla will be producing at least 3 million (modest estimate) EVs a year within 2 years. Basic math failure on Ford CEO's part.

where are the magical batteries coming from for this prediction? they can't even make 10k MachE per month.

 

[Ogre]

We're yet to see how Berlin and Austin ramp up. Q1 results suggest Tesla has the supply side in control, but that doesn't mean they can scale up. FWIW, castings don't make the production line faster, they're not the limiting factor, they just make it cheaper and simpler with more profit.

It takes 45 seconds to make a casting. That replaces 300+ welds plus all of the steps to create those stamped parts they are welding together.

It shaves a hell of a lot of time off the production time. Just saving the time it takes to move from one station to the next is a huge savings. It also saves a lot of real estate which means they can build more in a smaller facility.

That's the question: can Ford split off its EV business and reinvent itself to build vehicles with the quality and performance and in the high volume production at a price point required to compete with Tesla, BYD, CATL, XPeng and eventually Toyota and VW. The Ford CEO has to say he's aiming for the top of the podium … not a lot of point in telling the team, "we're hoping for a top 10 placing" (and not another "did not finish.")

I don’t see how Ford pulls enough batteries out of a hat for high volume production. Right now they‘ve produced I think 37,000 Mach Es in a year. That’s about 3 GWh of cells.

Assuming the above estimates are correct on mix.

150,000 F150 Lightnings — 27 GWh. Almost 10x their previous year’s battery consumption.
200,000 Mustang Mach E — 17 GWh.
100,000 Transit Vans — 4 GWh Assuming a fairly small pack for these low range vans.
150,000 Other EVs — ~10 - 15 GWh

So Ford needs to dig around in all their employees couches and chase down about 60 GWh. Roughly 20x the cell production they‘ve ever sourced In 20 months.

They need to do this in a market where GM, VW, and Stellantis are scrambling for cells as well.

 

[Ogre]

where are the magical batteries coming from for this prediction? they can't even make 10k MachE per month.

It would be very interesting to see BYD get some blade cells into some of these vehicles. The Transit Vans would work well.

Or perhaps Ford will co brand some BYD cars.

 

[Cybertruckee]

If you have a reservation for the F50 and if your number gets tapped and you can configure your truck then you’d be crazy not to unless your Cybertruck reservation is quite low.

This is me. That's why I have the luxury of telling my Ford dealer to put me at the end of the queue.

By that time Ford would have resolved all the tech issues and I would have a feel of the secondary market for the F150 Lightning.

 

[Sirfun]

So Ford needs to dig around in all their employees couches and chase down about 60 GWh. Roughly 20x the cell production they‘ve ever sourced In 20 months.

They need to do this in a market where GM, VW, and Stellantis are scrambling for cells as well.

Hahaha, add a few more players to that list.

BMW
Mercedes
Polestar
Kia/Hyundai
Nissan
Toyota
Rivian
Lucid
And all those Chinese manufacturers

OH, also Tesla may need a few batteries and raw materials as well.

Yeah, Ford's gonna kick ass a take names later. NOT!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Crissa]

Four years is just marketing hyperbole. Who knows?
Tesla is on the rev-limiter at 900K and while there's little doubt Texas will ramp up, Ford is capable of building a million vehicles as a matter of regular business. What Tesla gets built in China and Germany goes to China and Europe. Tesla Texas is 10 million square feet of expectations. So Tesla, Ford and GM all start from about the same unknown production capacity for the US market.
Musk has said '22 is "production" and '23 is "new models" … so hopefully Tesla cranks out well over 1 million in '22, but '23 is also the (latest) promise for Roadster and Cybertrucks … that's two lines, nothing in common with the Y, so all new. It took two years (generously) to get the first Y out the door of Giga-yeehaw and the Y is the vehicle they know best. It's possible for Tesla to build a line in one year in China … but in Texas?

-Crissa

 

[Clustertruck]

-Crissa

My reading of the sentence "In the next ~12 months, Tesla will be delivering vehicles at a 2.5M annual rate" is "some time in 2023 Tesla will hit 500K vehicles per quarter."

That makes some wild and unknowable assumptions (raw materials, supply side logistics, any forestalled production shortages that Tesla has pushed into Q2 in order to make Q1 look as strong as possible.) Hopefully Musk is not so hell bent on Twitter that he has once again taken Tesla into shallow water. I certainly don't like the recurring event of him doing something outlandish and my portfolio taking a punch in the kidneys, but I do not see this acquisition of his primary marketing platform as outlandish other than the incomprehensible dollar amount.

It's interesting that Musk has the cycles (and the squad of tax lawyers) to make a $5.7B donation to UN World Food as part of a complicated tax strategy ($11B?) while presumably already having Twitter on the radar. It's fun to characterize the whacky billionaire would-be Tony Stark as an impetuous attention whore … I don't think that explains how he has built Tesla, SpaceX and other corporations while

By definition, as a "forward looking discount mechanism" the market has already factored continued outsized production increases into the price this month (somewhere between $700 and $1000, trading $850 after hours as I type.) The "fire sale" this week is the (anticipated) selling that Musk has done to ante up for the bankers in order to fund the acquisition … I don't pretend to fully comprehend what it means to conduct a $44B takeover … or a $44 takeover for that matter … but the price of $TSLA near term reflects risk, not value. I'm adding to my position by selling puts below $800 confident that in 50 days, the market will have fully priced in this event and returned attention to quarter-by-quarter performance.

 

[HaulingAss]

I have my doubts as well, but at least he is giving Tesla credit for being #1.

Keep in mind Ford already has the capability to build a crap ton of F-150 bodies and beds as they are identical to the ICE F-150's. The only real thing that might hold them back is battery production.

In 4 years I bet they at least have a good chance break the 1 million ev's per year.

OK, then. Should we give Ford credit for admitting that water is wet too? Of course Tesla is the EV leader, I don't know what's wrong with our own President!

The problem with Ford having the capability to build a crap ton of F-150's is that they are really crappy trucks. People don't know this yet but they will realize it when the Cybertruck is available to try out. And this is coming from someone who owns a Ford F-150 since it was new over 11 years ago! They are outdated crap and have only barely changed in decades.

I have a hard time taking Ford's Lightning seriously because:

1) It's almost just like the ICE version. That's just dumb. The most significant difference other than EV vs. ICE is the rear now hos a coil suspension.
2) Ford is refusing to release the Payload capacity of the extended range version.

Sure, you can read auto rag articles that claim it's 1800 lbs. but that's not Ford stating it as the actual payload, it's just auto journalists repeating Ford's payload targets. If you actually go to Ford's website and try to find this info it says "unavailable'. And for a truck that has already entered general production, that's unacceptable.

Why doesn't Ford want to tell us what the official payload capacity of the 320 mile version actually is?

 

[HaulingAss]

The EV truck market is definitely a smoke 'em if you got 'em situation. Whichever one you can get between now and whenever, just buy it. The upside of basically any EV truck wipes out the downside at this time.

I'd say the only real risk is if the vehicle has some massive, unforeseen, first generation vehicle killing "oops!". But, that goes for the CT as well.

I think the elephant in the Lightning room is the Hwy range. I predict it will be more disappointing than people are preparing themselves for if they drive the Lightning at the same speed as I see most F-150's driving on the Interstate (typically around 75-80 mph). 320 EPA miles will likely be around 220 miles from 100% to 0% making the normal useable range even smaller than that unless Lightning drivers slow way down below the speeds they are accustomed to driving their ICE trucks at.

In contrast, my 2018 Model 3 Performance (with 18" Aero wheels) covers around 280 miles at 75-80 mph which is not a lot less than the EPA rating. If I slow down to 65 mph I can match the EPA rating.