How Ford burned $12B in Brazil (2021)
reuters.com
reuters.com
> The study was commissioned by Brazilian auto industry group Anfavea
Nothing that comes from Anfavea is trustable. It's a crooked association of a few automakers that will try to push the government to give every subside to them and tax the other ones to the brim.
The article tries to justify Ford Mexican cars low sales numbers in Brazil using every flawed argument Anfavea uses. For instance:
> On Thursday, Ford launched its new Bronco Sport SUV in Brazil. Made in Mexico, it is exported to the U.S. where it starts at $26,820. In Brazil, where per capita income is much lower, Ford said the Mexican-made car will retail for $48,000.
The key point here is "starts". Ford only imports top of the line cars in Brazil. I just searched Bronco Sport prices in Mexico in 2021, they started at $30900 up to $40000+. That $40000+ version was (still is) the only one sold in Brazil. 20% over the retail price in Mexico is not great, but far away from what the article tries to imply.
I imagine the Bronco was selling way above the Commander price point with less features.
But the real story now is that Chinese makers (BYD, Chery) are expanding rapidly. BYD is selling people on both electric and gasoline cars. Chery has a partnership with CAOA to produce cars in Brazil. Stellantis also builds cars in Brazil. It seems that the best way to sell to the market is to build there, and keep the costs down while hitting the right price point.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/03/01/byd-slavery-...
For example, the Japanese discovered that importing Ford cars from Japan was cheaper that manufacturing those in Japan, including all the shipping cost.
The same happened in Russia, Germany and most places of the West world.
The new manufacturing method was a revolution that have generated trillions.
He used to be into making cars too but that clearly fell off the wayside
I must say he redeemed himself tiny little bit in my eyes when he blocked russian use of starlink in their war in Ukraine, I didn't register any apparent reason apart from stopping murdering of civilians by russians, but thats been happening during whole war in non-trivial numbers. But he also famously sabotaged their naval drones mid attack by disabling all of them during early phase of the war, to not sink half of black sea naval fleet at one go, so... a complicated, highly unreliable person.
I think everybody can easily find deep flaws in him, be them personal or professional (ie he is POS father based on many accounts for example, thats not flying with most parents that know this). Then it matters if folks have firm hard-to-bend moral values or are more flexible with them. Based on experience most people are quite a bit flexible, otherwise they would have to hate themselves too a lot.
maybe I just don't understand, but something seems off with this statement?
The future is going to be interesting. :/
If you can charge while you sleep, you would typically have enough capacity to make it through a normal day?
Yes, there are probably exceptions but if you're not a commercial driver and drive >250 miles a day, that sucks....
At that rate, you're adding time really quickly as charging might take 8 minutes but getting to and from the charger easily adds another 4 to 8 minutes. At that point you're talking about adding about 10 to 16% to your total time taken
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Transit_Courier#Tourneo_C...
Also our electricity rates fluctuate based on the underlying wholesale rate. It's going to be clear and sunny tomorrow at midday. Sure would be nice to be able to set my car to charge at midday when the price is single digits cents per kw, or maybe even negative. Instead I'll just have to drip it in with the higher rates at midnight-6am and know tomorrows cheap rates will average out to a much lower cost.
TLDR: definitely useful even for people who charge at home.
You talk about rates, but if you care about that, this is a no brainer. You can go to that super charger and charge in 10 minutes. You'll just pay triple your home rate though? So if you care about cost, you would never charge anywhere else.
Also, you say you need 2 days of charging to recoup 40 to 50% of battery (assuming you don't typically charge to 100 which you shouldn't). This implies you charge from a normal outlet. That's fine and I've been doing that for years, but if charge time was an issue you could have a level 2 charger at home and cut that time in 4 or something with not that big of an expense.
Anyway this wasn't meant to be a debate about rates. Just that "nobody that charges at home would want this" was an overly reductive claim.
Likewise? If you're in the cold part of the US I can totally see your comment. But just saying, there's not that many people living there. Density wise thats really sparse. Most people live in much better climates, Europe has 1.5x the number of people of all the US and no climate that is remotely the same.
If it doesn't work for you because you're in a remote area that does get really cold, I can totally see that. But I do think that makes you the exception, not the rule. For the US, California has been setting the rules for cars for years, because that's where a lot of the customers are whether you like it or not
I’m guessing it’s an American thing too though, we can drive many more hours and no one is driving straight 4, let alone 5 hours going 75+ mph in an EV because no one is going to run their battery down to zero. On top of that Americans really don’t like taking long breaks on road trips because that only extends the trip that in a fuel vehicle can, well, could commonly be 6-20 hours driving in the past.
All the winning we are doing over here is quickly changing the mobility of American though. But that’s a whole different and interesting topic because it has major implications for America’s survival as a single entity that people overlook. America has held together to a large extent precisely because Americans could afford being mobile during the American century, i.e., the glue that kept the country together and made it feel like it belonged to us, an actual nation. That glue is breaking down for many reasons, one being expensive, impractical mobility.
For your road trip example let's say we take a 1000 mile trip. With an EV that can be done in 6 legs (sandbagging it), maybe even 5 or 4 now. So that's 5 stops, over 16 or so hours of driving. If you average charge takes 30 minutes (sandbagging it) instead of 10, that adds 1 hour and 40 minutes or about 15% of total time. And this is pretty much worst case.
I would think that's perfectly acceptable, but that's just an opinion. It'll give you time to go to the bathroom, stretch your legs, have a bite etcetera. If you're going to be peeing in a bottle and eating while driving, yes you can do it in less time.
I would strongly suggest, the next time you do one of those trips. Time how long you actually spend at a stop, it might not be far off the 15 minute mark on average
I get it. There are worst case scenarios but you buy a car for the rule, not the exception.
I owned a 2013 leaf with a range of 65 miles or so, without fast charging port because it was air cooled. So this wasn't a proper first/only car. But it worked like a charm for my daily commute...
Did I drive 80 with it? No, 65 which was the speed limit anyway.
Did I do road trips with it? No, we used the other EV for that
It's just like software guys. There's no solutions, only tradeoffs
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troller_Ve%C3%ADculos_Especiai...
https://open.spotify.com/album/2I4uGgkMgN3UGE8ZQjCMjB?si=qdG...