Ford EV will gain access to Tesla Superchargers and come with standard NACS ports starting 2025!

[EVSport7]

nah. ford will be competitive on the 2nd gen purpose built lighting. this deal was made because they're paying attention to their customers complaints, namely CCS fast charging. ford could build the worlds greatest EV but its all for nothing if you can't charge the thing on the road.

many potential buyers opted out of their lightning purchase solely because of the ongoing CCS charging issues.

I'm hoping to be around the same time frame for getting either a CT or one of the new T3 Fords, so if Ford does their homework then it should be a very good option

 

[HaulingAss]

I'm hoping to be around the same time frame for getting either a CT or one of the new T3 Fords, so if Ford does their homework then it should be a very good option

Homework is only less than 10% of the battle. Manufacturing efficiently is *hard*.

Except for the minority of buyers who don't care much about price and value for their money.

 

[cvalue13]

many potential buyers opted out of their lightning purchase solely because of the ongoing CCS charging issues.

this may or may not be true - I wouldn’t know how to scope it. Certainly haven’t seen evidence of it on the lighting forums? Though that’s an admittedly skewed pool.

but, where then is an unskewed pool of information?

In any event, to the extent it’s true, I just don’t understand where these “many” come from, to be “backing out” of a purchase (as opposed to having never considered purchasing in the first place).

don’t get me wrong, CCS isn’t great (some regions worse than others), but how many people need regular CCS charging when they fill up at home daily? I suppose people who can’t charge at home, people who drive for a living, people who live in remote areas, and people who have crazy commutes?

but why were those folks buying in the first place? To “back out” after ordering/purchasing seems odd.

Relatedly, since there’s often chatter here about the floods of Lightning’s on dealer lots, I was curious how one might know that and if it’s evidenced in online sales platforms.

*an initial caveat is needed* - what became obvious on the lightning forums is that the Ford BEV online ordering process has a strange glitch where ordered vehicles show up on the ordering dealership website as “for sale” when actually earmarked for a client. So, even the below figures are unreliable and skewed, because “for sale” units scraped by these apps aren’t necessarily for sale.

So for now, looking at only used units

nonetheless:

CarGurus: 28 used Lightnings for sale

CarMax: 3 used Lightnings for sale

Cars.com: 406 used Lightnings for sale

AutoTrader.com: 528 used Lightnings for sale


Ford’s sold about 20,000 units.

 

[kev12345]

Judging from what I’ve seen in the lightning forums, I could take an educated guess the main reason for reservation holders not converting to orders was due to the massive price hikes and unavailability of the lower trims (XLT and Pro models). Secondary reason would be the reports of range loss in winter and towing and the unreliable CCS networks.

I have no idea if ford plans on building more lower trim trucks but at least they’re addressing the range issues with a better charging network.

 

[Luke42]

Yes, it fixes the charging and that was a real problem. A Ford EV still won't have as short of Supercharger stops as a comparable Tesla (due to battery thermal considerations and the higher electrical consumption per mile), but it will probably be more than adequate, and the reliability of the new chargers will be more than welcome.

But my main point was that it doesn't address the high cost of Ford EV's (which is completely disguised by the fact that Ford sells them in low volumes at a huge loss). It's not clear how you think Ford becomes competitive in their second generation EV's because there is a huge gulf of a gap to make up, much bigger than I think you realize.

How do you think Ford suddenly becomes competitive when they lose a huge amount of money on every EV currently? Incremental cost improvements of one generation will not come close to closing the gap.

Are you saying Ford has the resources to sell EV's in high volume while losing over $5K on every one? Or do you think Ford will be able to sell their next gen EV's profitably in high volumes? Because I don't even see how that's even something they can dream of.

Tesla and other EV makers are not standing still either, Ford would have to improve the amount of value they can offer for the dollar at something like 6X-8X the rate Tesla is improving in order to catch them in one generation but I think they might be able to just about match Tesla's rate of improvement in terms of value offered and that is only due to the fact that Ford's first generation EV's were so expensive to build and I know Ford is trying to minimize that as much as possible. It's easier to decrease the cost structure of manufacturing/design/sales/distribution when there is so much room for improvement, but then incremental improvements become increasingly more difficult.

Simply matching Tesla's rate of improvement doesn't get Ford to where they need to be in order to offer the kind of value Tesla can, at least not in a sustainable manner. Losing money on every vehicle is not sustainable in high volumes.

The funny thing about automotive accounting is that it has to be based on the number of units you expect to sell - in order to provide any actionable information.

If you change that sales-expectation number, everything else changes with it.

This is a business where you spend a billion dollars and then make it back $30k at a time.

The profit and loss per vehicle reported depends entirely on sales *expectations*.

...And, in this case, how you define a model... Is the F-150 Lightning an F-150 or is it a Lightning? The answer to that question defines what the P/L looks like.

When you zoom out, though, Ford wouldn't build the Lightning if they didn't think they would make money or mitigate a risk somehow or other.

Also, I've driven th F150 lightning, and found it to be a great vehicle. I'm glad it exists.

 

[cvalue13]

I could take an educated guess the main reason for reservation holders not converting to orders was due to the massive price hikes and unavailability of the lower trims (XLT and Pro models).

which can all be for *unusual* reasons when it’s a loss-leading, low volume vehicle.

one way or the other, Ford understood the results Of raising prices and skewing trim levels in an environment of tripling interest rates

 

[AlDente]

I'm hoping to be around the same time frame for getting either a CT or one of the new T3 Fords, so if Ford does their homework then it should be a very good option

I think Ford is serious about EV's and Farleys recognition of Tesla's dominate position in the EV space was refreshing. Tesla needs real competition and the Cybertrucks success or failure is a big deal. It's the trade off of high margins to influence the investor class, vs affordability that will dictate demand. They can sell 200K of them at almost any price but as an investor I'm a bit conflicted. Bottom line is I want a Cybertruck and I'd like affordability over exclusivity. It needs to be affordable or I'm very confident in saying, it will be in Model X territory sales volume wise ...

 

[HaulingAss]

The funny thing about automotive accounting is that it has to be based on the number of units you expect to sell - in order to provide any actionable information.

If you change that sales-expectation number, everything else changes with it.

This is a business where you spend a billion dollars and then make it back $30k at a time.

The profit and loss per vehicle reported depends entirely on sales *expectations*.

...And, in this case, how you define a model... Is the F-150 Lightning an F-150 or is it a Lightning? The answer to that question defines what the P/L looks like.

When you zoom out, though, Ford wouldn't build the Lightning if they didn't think they would make money or mitigate a risk somehow or other.

Also, I've driven th F150 lightning, and found it to be a great vehicle. I'm glad it exists.

I'm familiar with corporate accounting practices and I understand that assigning an average loss per EV of $58,000 (as the media has done) is not all that meaningful because that number can move rather dramatically with increases in volume. But I don't see how it can move by even $50K, which would still put every EV at an average loss of $8,000 per unit.

When Tesla released the Model S, they knew it would be a low-volume car but they designed it so it could be priced such that it would be profitable (even if corporate overhead left the overall company at a loss most quarters). Ford is not even close and analysis by Munro and Associates shows just how expensive these cars are to build and how many generations they are behind Tesla.

EV's are not like gas cars when it comes to design considerations due to how inexpensive and lightweight a steel gas tank is compared to the cost and weight of a battery. This means every design decision that costs a tiny amount of efficiency gets amplified in terms of having to add a little bit bigger batter (to achieve the same range specs) and that requirement compounds the cost/weight penalty because a heavier battery needs a tiny bit more battery to achieve the same range spec.

It's like a reiterative downward spiral where every small loss of efficiency compounds itself in cost/weight through multiple iterations of becoming heavier and needing a slightly bigger battery to make up for that. And this can be seen in the size and weight of the battery Ford needs to move the much smaller Mach-e the same distance as the much roomier Model Y. Really, the Mach-e is more comparable in people and cargo capacity to the much less expensive Model 3 (with the biggest difference being the Model 3 doesn't have a hatchback). Even if the comparison is limited to the roomier Model Y, the Mach-e compares very unfavorably in terms of battery weight and cost.

But the difference is greater than a superficial analysis of battery size/range/interior space would indicate because Ford put little skinny tires on the Mach-e in an attempt to increase range to an acceptable level without making the battery even larger than it already is. And that comes with a handling and safety cost and is a major reason why the Mach-e fails the moose avoidance test miserably while the Model Y passes it with flying colors.

I'm sure Ford knows they have to increase the efficiency and reduce the weight and cost to build of all their EV's, and that increasing volumes alone will not be enough. But I think Ford's corporate structure, and the processes design decision have to go through, are literally incapable of catching up to the design process enabled by Tesla's corporate structure and the way different departments are able to work together as one. This has huge implications in terms of cost to produce and is why Tesla is winning the EV value proposition.

Higher volumes alone, cannot turn a pig into a lean, mean fighting machine. A wholistic ground up redesign is needed and the embedded culture at Ford is literally incapable of matching what Tesla has done in this respect. Even Tesla has used a reiterative design process to arrive where they are today and the best Ford can do is to copy what Tesla came up with in 2017 and release it in 2024 or 2025. By then, Tesla will be 6-8 years ahead. But even Ford's copy of a 2017 Tesla will not be 100% as good because they will miss some of the minor details of what makes the Tesla head and shoulders above a Ford EV.

It is essentially impossible for Ford to catch up to Tesla but Ford has one saving grace. Specifically, the demand for EV's is growing exponentially as people figure out how good an EV can be. If Ford can make their EV's almost as good as a Tesla put into production 6 years previous, they can probably sell a lot of them, even at a relatively high price due to a shortage of EV's and the IRA tax credits (assuming they get their EV lineup eligible with the full credit).

But don't mistake that for being competitive with Tesla. Ford EVs will not reduce the growth of Tesla's annual production by even 1%. Elon knows this which is why he is not worried about granting Fords access to their Supercharger Network.

And don't mistake it for being profitable, as volumes increase, Ford can perhaps get to the point where they can sell EV's in volume without a big loss from every EV, but there is a larger problem lurking under the covers. Currently, Ford makes all of their profit from their ICE vehicles. As those sales decline, and as people find out how much better pure electric vehicles are, they will become increasingly undesirable.

Personally, I think it will be like a switch was flipped and only oddballs and special use cases will still want to invest money in buying a new ICE vehicle. As sales collapse, decreasing volume efficiencies will require the price of an ICE vehicle to be much higher than that of a comparable EV, causing ICE sales declines to accelerate further. That means profitability of ICE vehicles will go from good to negative suddenly, without obvious warning, as prices are slashed to move unsold inventory. Ford, and Ford dealrships, have a loss sharing agreement. That means a dealership can buy Ford vehicles at the current pricing scheme without worry because Ford has agreed to cover their asses if they have to slash prices to move inventory. At some point in the near future, this will cost Ford many billions of dollars because Ford is ill-equipped to forcast when the demand for expensive, new ICE vehicles will suddenly crater. This will happen almost as certainly as the sun will rise. And it will happen long before Ford EV's are generating positive income.

People make the mistake of thinking manufacturing is easy, and all manufacturers are roughly equal in their ability to manufacture and design vehicles profitably. Or worse, that a manufacturer's ability to manufacture efficiently is relative to how many years of experience the company has. But two vehicles from two different companies, vehicles with nearly identical specs, can have vastly different costs to produce. Which impacts how much they can be sold for and what kind of volumes each model can reach.

People also make the mistake of thinking a good vehicle will sell well and a poor vehicle will sell poorly but that's ignoring the cost to produce and how much it can be sold for which is very important as you get down into the mass-market vehicle price range. If the poor vehicle can be sold for only $3,000 cheaper, there is a good chance it will outsell the superior vehicle simply because of the $3,000 price difference. And those higher volumes will allow further volume efficiencies (relative to the lesser selling vehicle) that make the cheaper vehicle that much more competitive. This is why price to produce is so important and Tesla has a huge lead here due to the unique way they approach the process of designing and manufacturing and selling cars. Ford is ill-equipped to catch up.

I have no ill-will towards Ford, I've owned two myself, an F-150 currently, and my family has a long history of owning only Ford's going back to the Model T. I learned to drive in two Fords, one A/T and one manual. But I have to call it how I see it and the problem is that Ford has become fat, lazy and complacent over the years. Not just Ford, all legacy auto companies. Because they all relied on extremely high volumes to cover up their lack of design and engineering excellence, their lack of manufacturing efficiency and their lack of efficiencies in marketing, distribution and selling.

All of those inefficiencies push the price of a car too high, but consumers had little alternative, so they were none the wiser. Over a century of manufacturing experience was touted as the reason why Tesla could not compete with legacy auto and would shortly go bankrupt. But it looks to me like the very thing that was touted as legacy auto's unassailable advatage, will be the ball and chain that eliminates any chance they might have of being able to keep up with the rapid pace of innovation happening at Tesla. Legacy auto is structurally incapable of doing that.

 

[charliemagpie]

Tesla is installing 1 new Supercharger every 12 hours right now. That rate is accelerating.

Hard to say what the structure of the Ford deal looks like, but Ford customers will be paying through the Ford app so a lot of this is going to happen behind the scenes.

Musk is pretty good at making money on everything coming and going so I wouldn’t worry too much.

I think it was Teslike, or Merrit which posted this 12h figure ( or was it 13?)

I have seen it oft repeated, .. One every 12hrs is ~730 stations per year.

From the Investor Deck we can see 1202 stations built in 2022. We have also been told the network is growing about 30% per year, I checked.. it has been over 30%.

@30%, we should expect around 1560 extra stations in 2023...

One every 6 hours ! it is growing twice as fast as what's going around.

Or were they talking US ? they didn't say.

 

[azjohn]

I feel way more comfortable buying an EV other than a tesla now. If ford can sell the lightning cheaper than the cybertruck I’ll go for it.

2025 will be the year when GM and Ram will have models in addition to an improved Ford truck

 

[firsttruck]

2025 will be the year when GM and Ram will have models in addition to an improved Ford truck

Yeah, GM will have 50 models but only ship 10 units of each and lose $10s of thousands on each unit.

 

[Crissa]

Yeah, GM will have 50 models but only ship 10 units of each and lose $10s of thousands on each unit.

Do you really think they'll sell fewer than they do now, and their margins won't improve?

That's TSLAQ level doubt.

-Crissa

 

[Ogre]

Do you really think they'll sell fewer than they do now, and their margins won't improve?

That's TSLAQ level doubt.

-Crissa

GM has spent 5+ years making a lot of noise about EVs and has had very little success.

I honestly don’t know what to expect from them any more because they haven’t remotely hit any of their own targets or goals or even gotten close.

3 years ago nobody would have guessed they would be struggling to produce 2,000 Ultium based vehicles a year, but here we are.

I don’t know where they are going to be in 3 years, but their track record is quite bad lately.

 

[Crissa]

GM has spent 5+ years making a lot of noise about EVs and has had very little success.

I don’t know where they are going to be in 3 years, but their track record is quite bad lately.

I don't think anyone does, but they're actually putting wheels to the road with their own supply chain now so... I'm thinking the Bolt was more like Tesla with the Model S and today it's more like GM is Tesla just starting Model 3 production. Those first nine months were really bad.

-Crissa

 

[Greshnab]

GM has spent 5+ years making a lot of noise about EVs and has had very little success.

I honestly don’t know what to expect from them any more because they haven’t remotely hit any of their own targets or goals or even gotten close.

3 years ago nobody would have guessed they would be struggling to produce 2,000 Ultium based vehicles a year, but here we are.

I don’t know where they are going to be in 3 years, but their track record is quite bad lately.

Wasn't it the head of GM that said they don't think they will actually make money on ev's till 2030...

If so the expectation would be several different models each with limited runs and low production numbers to serve as test beds of various configurations for ev's.. so a pickup, probably an SUB, and a sedan .. MAYBE a compact/economy car but those tend to lag as test beds due to the low profit margin on them.

They will use the next several years in order to come up with ideas for what will and won't work in an EV.. then around 2026-2027 finalize a design or two working towards releasing those in numbers/price breaks that will be profitable around 2030...

I AM just guessing here.. but that sounds like the most reasonable play... make enough to do a THOROUGH vetting of the parts.. and come up with a design you can actually produce and make money with... make enough of each design to provide a broad base.. but not enough to hit your profits to hard.