What are they waiting for? They've just come to the realization now? Hello McFly. And why are they talking openly about it? I don't understand what this does for Ford.

 

easy for you to write on a forum. a huge public company like ford has 3 constituencies to 'please' - employees, shareholders, and customers. a company's exec team is doing a good thing if they share insight on their challenges as well as their successes and strengths. employees and shareholders need to know it's not going to be a piece of cake to turn a ship 180. as for "just do it" obviously ford is doing a ton having developed, launched and shipped a load of f150 lightnings and mach-e which is more than gm's done! an old company like ford can't change overnight, plus they have retiree benefits to fund, and unions to not upset so they strike, among other issues. tesla does not have these problems. and last, ford can't just ignore its ice vehicles which continue to pay the bills, so it's a hugely challenging balancing act.

again, very easy for you to write... the situation is enormously complex for a century old company. gm's problems are likely even bigger, but they at least got rid of a load of debt and other issues during their bankruptcy. but they haven't shown they can build ev's in any volume yet.

tesla had no baggage and strong investment, but it placed the right bets in going for scale, supply, and cost reduction as quickly as possible. and that was by no means easy, nor guaranteed to succeed. even musk has repeatedly said they almost went out of business many times. its also easy to forget tesla is not a new company any longer, it's been around 20 years.

 

Bit explained it perfectly. I have nothing more to add to what he wrote

 

Tesla has been selling mainstream cars for 10 years. Guess what Ford did when the Model S came out, did they sound the alarm bells? Nope. They went on business as usual. No foresight, no vision. NOW they are realizing oh crap Tesla is so far ahead we have to do something.

What's crazy is Tesla has published their long term plans for all to read since the company has been around. Did any legacy OEMs read it and think, wait there is something to this. Again nope. Ignored it. Business as usual. Elon has said many times making an EV is easy making it at scale is the hard part. Even harder doing it and making a profit. No legacy auto CEO listened, and all the pundits said don't worry once legacy auto gets in the game Tesla is finished.

This is a complete lack of leadership, mostly due to arrogance. Kodak all over again.

I realize the above is very harsh but it is reality.

BTW I didn't quote your entire post but I agree with much of it. I simply don't think Ford, GM etc. are doing near enough.

 

Go back 3 or 4 years and I didn't think Tesla would be where it is today. I laughed at my friends who put deposits on the Model 3 when it first came out and I snubbed my nose at it in 2021 when I placed an order for my Polestar. So now all I can do is join the crowd

 

Agree. The chances of Tesla making it were slim. Did the legacy OEMs take too long to wake up? Definitely, but hard to fault them in the early Model S days considering how many times Tesla almost went bankrupt.

 

Absolutely. Living in a tech centric area and working for a tech company, only the highly paid execs drove the Model S and X...although I loved it, I considered it a "CEO toy". Little did I know Tesla had some tricks up their sleeve

 

in related news:

Ford sees $3 billion pretax loss in its EV business this year

https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...ear-2023-03-23

Ford Motor Co (F.N) expects its electric vehicle business unit to lose $3 billion this year, but remains on track to achieve a pretax margin of 8% by late 2026, the company said.

The projected loss was revealed at a briefing for investors and analysts on Thursday to discuss details of the automaker’s new financial reporting format.

Ford shares were up 1.9% at $11.70 near midday on Thursday.

 

Optimistic, but no reason that goal is not achievable if they make the right moves cuts

 

Quick math says Ford loses $5,000 on every EV it sells. That was before they cut prices. Put another way Ford needs to reduce overhead about 20% to get near break even.

 

LOL see my previous post I edited

 

i believe it. and to do that they HAVE to automate more, improve supply chain, and redesign some of their zillion parts. basically what tesla already did, lol.

 

You're severely underestimating how incredibly tough it would be for a CEO to tell the board and stakeholders that they're going to spend enormous amounts of cash on what was then a miniscule market with very uncertain returns. They would've been removed immediately. Luxury automakers started investing in initial EV development in the 2014-2016 timeframe but had to deal with the same thing - how do I make these EVs profitable or at least lose the least amount of money. There was no gov't subsidies in sight at the time and the math just didn't work out. Tesla was completely unburdened by all of this, including making a profit for much of the last decade.

Net, I don't blame the legacy automakers at all for the decisions made. To me, ~2025 is the point where all excuses should cease. Luxury automakers will be on their on the second-gen models, mainstream makers know the playbook to bring out competitive lower cost models, gov't subsidies are in place, stakeholders/boards are largely keen on the EV future, and costs have come way down.

 

Totally on point! EV's were an uncertain future going back as little as 2019

 

Then they needed a CEO with bigger you know what. That was the CORRECT move, something they are now being forced to do but now they are chasing a moving and mature target.
This is so backwards. Tesla started from zero that is way harder than for a company that specializes in making cars. Proof is, how many financially successful new car companies are there in 2023. Name them.
I 100% blame them, they refused to think long term and instead chose to wallow in complacency. If you don't blame them for failing to anticipate the future and more importantly create it then who or what do you blame? The Sun and Moon were not aligned properly at the time?

In 2025 Tesla will be even further ahead that is the nature of how Tesla operates they are scaling exponentially.

side note: let's not pretend some auto makers did not have a first mover advantage. GM did, they gave up. Toyota had a partnership with Tesla and owned TSLA. They abandoned the EV idea and sold all Tesla shares. The opportunities were there they simply didn't have the vision to act on them and think long term.