Ford’s first electric F-150 delivery
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Tesla can certainly get a hold in the pickup market but man do they have one ugly truck.
It also makes me feel good to not support the Elon machine.
Edit: in some ways the traditional repair shops could be a liability if they’re slow to adapt
You're missing the biggest obstacle here after manufacturing, charging is incredibly difficult in many cases entirely impossible due to a lack maintenance on 3rd party charging stations.
Here is a Bloomberg article outlining what happens more often than not due to this [0].
After many years working for Japanese and German auto manufacturers this exactly why I argue Tesla isn't really a car company, they seem to be more of an energy and software company using cars that utilize their energy grid and technology.
What they've done under people's noses is to offset the costs of creating an ever-expanding charging network through the sell and pre-sell deposits of their cars that are always delayed yet still continue to yield seemingly obscene stock valuation in comparison to the rest of the Auto manufacturers combined.
From this POV the hype isn't so much from the cars, but rather the hype of them getting closer to disrupting all the peripheral Industries: they just got approval to provide auto insurance in more states in the US which if you've owned driven a Tesla in the Bay Area or LA it's a large expense of owning a Tesla because of how often they are vandalized or broken into. They are also able to offer more competitive rates based on actual driving metrics, which to me is an indication of where things have been going for some time in that Industry as cars became more like computers and is way more intrusive than what I can stomach.
I still think the total Cybertruck deposits were more of a meme hyhypee and marketing ploy than an actual gauge or real projection of deliverable vehicles because the sum was so low ($100). They did however, get a massive boost to their stock price and an interest free loan they could leverage so it was a total win for Tesla.
Aesthetically, it's very polarizing; I personally like it as it's Cyberpunk aesthetics are amusing to me, also the immense size of it is comical but then most 'heavy duty' trucks in the US all are.
I still remember seeing lifted Fords, Dodges doing +100 MPH in Southern Texas while driving down to SpaceX's Starbase in Boca Chica and thinking how absurd those things were (seeing literal packs of automotive dinosaurs barreling down the freeway was insane) and then I saw that gas $0.99 and figured if you could align the right incentives the Cybertruck had a real shot take at taking significant part of the Market Share once oil prices reached a realistic value: how much of that market share is anyone guess.
I'm well aware of that, which is why I think the comparison is not a suitable one. What good are truck sales if you have not ensured a way for your (ideally returning) customers to have a reliable way to charge them over long(er) distances? You just proved why the Super Charger station is the real lynch-pin in this Industry to anyone considering buying an EV.
It's putting the literal cart before the horse in terms of EV deployment.
That is what Ford is doing: https://fordauthority.com/2021/12/ford-mustang-mach-e-charge...
And it's not like CCS cars can't out-road trip Tesla cars in the US: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFQZhR-PRVo
The main issue at the moment is that the North American EV market is about one third the size of the EV market in Europe. As more CCS cars get on the road and the chargers see higher utilization the reliability will also improve.
https://accessories.ford.com/products/eluminator-mach-e-elec...
(although heard it's out of stock and has and will be for a while)
Looks incredible in the '78 F-100 they put together. MKBHD did a nice review of it too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q72dA533sCg
For me, one of the most compelling reasons to choose the Lightning over the Cybertruck is the option ($4k+ wall-mounted thing) that allows it to power your home for 1-3 days in an emergency. But I imagine that since Tesla is already in the home-power business, a similar option for the Cybertruck won't be too far behind.
Moreover the wall adapter seems slick but I’m curious how many homes are even capable of handling that dc input, but I’m not much of electrician. Regardless seems like the grid may be making a pivot towards more DC capabilities in the future
But what you bought into, and paid your $100 reservation fee for, does not exist.
Having a long life stainless steel body with low-maintenance motors, long distance battery pack, and fast charging, really appeals to the engineer in me.
The companies that aren't serious about them today are Toyota, Honda, and Stellantis.
The reason was simple. Most of the politically powerful Japanese companies are huge conglomerates who make a lot of money in heavy industry areas where until a few years ago hydrogen was an obviously better choice than electric powered motors, which meant that there was a lot of pressure on the Japanese govt to put pressure on the car industry to align in the same direction.
There is also the fact that both companies were early innovators in making gasoline engines much more efficient with things like (non plug-in) hybrid drivetrains, so they have an interest in pushing gas focused technology.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2022/0...
The fact that the Tesla forums blame my cousin for this (it’s still not clear what they are blaming him for, considering they don’t offer any suggestions about what he should do…maybe they’re blaming him for posting about it and therefore being anti Tesla?) makes it hard to believe that Tesla actually has any incentive to improve. And with the abuse my cousin received online for being horrible enough to ask folks for suggestion would indicate that many simply don’t talk about the BS a they face with their Teslas.
A large part of it is a cult. It remains to be seen how much the cultish behavior can overcome the poor quality once real competitors come into play.
I definitely wouldn't consider it normal to be left without a car if your car needs repair (at least with most established car companies).
In the EU, Model S orders have simply been halted, with the delivery dates constantly being pushed back (orders from end of 2020 have a ship date now of some time in 2022H2, but nothing firm). I know a few people who have since cancelled their orders and gotten other high-end EVs (think Porsche, Audi). Tesla absolutely will continue to lose hearts and minds over this.
I get it that the early birds had to deal with a lot of criticism when there was a chance that they were betting their life savings on a company that could disappear overnight, or during the growing pains when they were getting vehicles that were 85% complete as compared to today. That doesn't justify the backlash I get for mentioning that some Teslas will not charge at their normal rate when the temperature drops below 26 degrees, and will take days to recharge unless connected to a supercharger. I've met people who had that happen to them. But mention that online and you'll get called bad names and receive 5 articles explaining how wrong you are when you yourself have seen the vehicle stuck in the driveway because it was too chilly outside for the tesla to charge itself with the charger.
So far, Ford has talked a great game. I don’t think it’s the first truck that’s the challenge, though. The real challenge is doing so sustainably, at scale. I’m particularly curious about their ability to source sufficient battery packs.
The article was paywalled for me, so I didn’t read it. Did it discuss any of these issues?
Not sure if dealerships falls into your list somehow, but I imagine they have to be one of the most challenging aspects of dealing with this distruption. You have hundreds/thousands of physical locations ready to distribute and sell your solution to this disruptive force, but with no incentive to do so.
In fact every incentive not to: reoccurring income through maintenance drops-off significantly, tougher crackdown on mark-ups, EV savvy customers expecting no-haggle/direct-to-consumer experiences, etc...
(I know Ford has really try to crack-down on these mark-ups, but dealers still manage to demand ridiculous prices for the Raptor, Bronco, Mustang and even the new Maverick)
> The real challenge is doing so sustainably, at scale. I’m particularly curious about their ability to source sufficient battery packs.
Same. I know there's all this talk about standing-up battery factories across the US, but they'll still be years behind China when they come online. Not to mention all these factories now have to be designed, financed and built in a time of some of the most significant inflation we've seen in generations. Not to mention the need for all the raw materials that the competition years ago secured for years to come.
Tesla's decision and timeline (2-3 new factories in the last ~2 years, pre-pandemic, pre-2022-inflation) to scale up manufacturing was impeccable. Their foresight and decisiveness to secure access to raw materials, tooling (Panasonic, Grohmann, Hibar, Idra) and financing (stock, cheap Chinese loans, etc) are some of the reasons why I doubt any of the incumbents will be able to compete for a long time.
And all of this is in the past or near to completion, while others are only now starting to do something about it after years of dismissing, ridiculing and underestimating the EV competition.
While the competition worries about catching up, Tesla seems to already be thinking of what comes next and doing something about now. In my opinion the two most important Tesla products are the factories and the Tesla robot.
It's encouraging to hear about incumbents like VW building up their own "giga-factories", but I feel like they've missed the point/opportunity when I hear about them building parts of the assembly line miles/countries away. I really like one of the principles of the giga-factory that is to measure the distance atoms have to travel from raw/semi-raw form to finished product, and minimize where possible. This is a core consideration when it comes to sustainability, scalability, dependability, stability, etc...
It's also been interesting to hear about how Tesla has been able to adapt their assembly-lines to deal with the chaos and uncertainty that exists in the supply-chains they still depend on.
In order to mitigate the existing and future labor shortages (or the price of providing individuals with a livable income, however you want to view it) companies mostly have two options: outsource and/or automate. When it comes to automation, I think Tesla is not only preparing themselves with a solution to reduce the repetitive, dangerous, undesirable parts of manual labor, but also a solution for their competition and the rest of us.
I guess a third is self-driving... but I think that's really just a manifestation of something larger and can probably be rolled in as part of the Tesla Robot development... AI/ML and Dojo. All of that computer vision, training, learning, modeling, etc... that goes into the development of self-driving is going pay-off in another ways for Tesla. It will be needed for humanoid robots as well as other robots that can be designed and built to work as part of the factory.
Do we expect the incumbents to put as much effort into developing their own robotics/AI solutions, or will they just end up leveraging other solutions and companies like Boston Dynamics, Grohmann (oh wait!), AWS, Nvidia, etc? Or perhaps they'll have no choice but to go to Tesla for robots or Dojo.
yeah, yeah, yeah, i know, i sound like a fanboi. I am.
I don’t think most people understand the use cases.
How the traditional car companies who are legally prevented from selling directly to the consumer and therefore have a legally imposed 10-15% cost will compete will be an interesting question.
You'd think so, but since customer retention seems to be brand loyalty based more than actual car experience it doesn't seem to pan out that way; also the OTA updates are an interesting way of getting around those issues. Rentals are easier when you own a large fleet of them in any given state/city as opposed to relying on the 2-3 courtesy cars a dealrship may have.
As a logistics guy I've had to prep Certified Pre-owned for VW to give to buyers when we had the Diesel gate issue because I was a former tech and we had an influx of demand by people buying models/specs that were not in stock.
They gave us their Tdi, VW/BOSCH gave them a check and they turned around and put a down payment on a Golf GTI/R, e-GOlf, or Wolfsburg model that took a week to deliver.
What I saw more than anything over the years was supply/parts shortage encumbering Tesla mobile mechanics and body shops alike from fulfilling ROs. This could be anything from a windshield, bumper, or something more vital like a drive motor.
Incidentally, the major dealership mechanics were always in short supply due to the churn of the Industry (low pay and high barrier of entry and pay to play pay models) but was made even worse after COVID [0], couple this with shortages in the Global Supply Chain and dependencies on external manufacturers for ROs and things get less likely for that to occur.
Tesla has always been bad at stocking parts, but larger show rooms also function as repair bays. It's all crazy to deviate from 'what normally works' until supply chain shortages become the norm, which is something we've all been saying in that Industry was looming the entire time.
And when Tesla owns the service centers they will eventually be hugely profitable.
Service is a huge buissness, for Tesla so far its a money loser, but as their cars go of warrenty steady state this is gone be huge for Tesla.
Its and open secrete that car companies make little money selling cars and make extra margin on parts. However lots of the profit ends up with dealers.
In the run this is huge, huge deal in terms of profitability for Tesla.
I think the supercharger network might be a significant asset, but I’m not sure what about their IP is so unique. Tesla’s self driving efforts have still not recovered to the point they were about 5-6 years ago when they were forced to get rid of the 3rd party IP they were using. Their batteries are Panasonic. What else do they have? A performance mode that goes to 11?
Their drive assistence is way better then the 3rd party system was back then.
Their batteries are from panasonic, LG and CATL. In fact they are top costumers of each. And they also make their own batteries as well. Have you not updated your views from 2015?
And cells are just one part, the integrated battery system is another and Tesla is very innovative there.
That said they would not sell IP or parts.
https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-y...
But who knows, 2014 Elon and 2022 Elon seem like two completely different persons.
Its the exact opposite direction Tesla has gone in. Like literally the opposite.
And your are fooling yourself if you think non-Tesla companies have some magical manufacturing capacity.
On an individual factory level, Tesla already makes some of the most effective factories. Given their growth they are no longer a small fish, within a year or two from now they will be one of the like Top-8 automotive groups im the world.
And even if you assume the other manufacturing/markating maschines, are so good (they are not), the supplychain is not actually their for the kind of massive overtake of Tesla you imagine.
Ever BEV company is only slowly growing their volume, even VW with massive investment and huge existing manufacturing can not just make millions of BEV from.1 year to another. Let alone companies like Ford, BMW and so on.
Remember how the presenter was able to destroy its windows while demonstrating how it would protect you from zombies?
The fact that they decided to promote cyber truck as protecting from Zombies says more about Tesla and its fanbois than anything else.
When the window im the presentation split, the ball didnt go in and would not have hurt the driver. Seems to me that is the important part.
Go and try throwing large metal ball against the glass of your F-150 and see how well the driver would be doing.
I would trade my live for a borken window. Not to mention that they showed videos from backstage where the threw the ball at the door and it didn't crack.
Also its clearly not about zombies, debris hitting the glass is a real problem, both on the highway or offroading. Not to mention people smashing windows to steal shit. So clearly this is a useful feature.
And in terms of diliveries, it does matter who produces the first 1. It matter who manages to produce 300k or even 500k a year first. And Ford position on battery supply chain is way, way worse and the F-150 needs huge batteries.
Unlike Ford Tesla has actually proven the ability to produce 300k BEV a year. Ford has not even produced 300k a year BEV let alone of 1 model that uses 2x as much battery then a normal car.
It was only like 1-2 ago when the CEO of Ford said batteries were a non issue and plently were available on the open market. Since then they have realized how dumb that is and actually have made a partnership with a battery company. But they were way late on that and it will hurt their volume.
Let's try throwing a large metal ball against the glass of a Volkswagen Golf:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWzUh53H_VU
> I would trade my live for a borken window
Then get the Golf. That way both your life and your window will be unbroken.
So now you want me to not to use a car? I can't bike 60 km to work on public roads.
I'm on the defensive because in my country it's usually the politicians living in big cities that tax car ownership based on their own use case - which is being able to bike everywhere and delivering their kids to school using a cargo bike.