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Ford CTO Raj Nair on the future: Ford will look very different in 10 years


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Absolutely. I live in rural, northern Michigan and could give two hoots about anyone claiming 300 miles/charge for an EV. The figures some OEM’s quote are always for Southern California or Florida, not someplace where it actually gets cold. From what I’ve read, batteries can lose up to 40% of their charge in cold weather. Until the battery companies can supply batteries that can give a 300 mile range at zero degrees, not many people up my way will be interested in an EV.

 

 

I'm not sure about that...in all seriousness, if you even drive 50 miles to work one way (for example and provided that you have the ability to charge there), why would it be such a concern? Long distance driving of 150 miles plus should be covered under most supercharge stations anyways. For most commuters a range of 260 miles (standard Tesla S battery), would be about 150 miles on a charge in very cold conditions.

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In order for true EVs to become more viable there will need to be major upgrades to the supporting infrastructure and that means not only charging stations but electric power plants to feed those stations.

 

EPA regulations have strangled the development of new electric power sources other than wind and solar as well as the maintenance of the existing fleet.

 

Wind and solar will have a hard time replacing fossil fuel power plants at the scale necessary to replace the entire ICE fleet with EVs and nobody seems to want a nuclear power plant in their backyard not to mention all the issues with storing the spent fuel. The current administration's desire to bring back manufacturing jobs will further tax the power supply resources.

 

ICE/electric hybrids still make more sense for the foreseeable future.

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The wheels fell off sales when Ford revised the fuel economy on C-Max

after lots of owners could not easily achieve the official mileage claimed.

 

That did a lot of damage to C-Max's credibility when it was revealed that

Ford just copy paste Fusion's data without actually checking the validity.

 

Fusion hybrid sales didn't seemed to have been affected by the MPG issue.

 

I think it is too convenient to blame the MPG restatement for C-Max's falling sales. Fusion hybrid and Energi benefited from the overall marketing that Ford spent on Fusion. C-Max had to sink or swim on its own. If the car was known as Focus hybrid or Focus Energi, things may have been much different.

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Fusion hybrid sales didn't seemed to have been affected by the MPG issue.

That's because C-Max used Fusion's data for validation, the C-Max has a different roll down value that Ford over looked.

C-Max directly compares to Prius, there's nowhere to hide on that one..

Edited by jpd80
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Fusion hybrid sales didn't seemed to have been affected by the MPG issue.

 

I think it is too convenient to blame the MPG restatement for C-Max's falling sales. Fusion hybrid and Energi benefited from the overall marketing that Ford spent on Fusion. C-Max had to sink or swim on its own. If the car was known as Focus hybrid or Focus Energi, things may have been much different.

 

Fusion hybrid's numbers also weren't as drastically re-rated. C-Max went from 47/47 to 45/40, then again to 42/38; Fusion went form 47/47 to 43/41. Not to mention Fusion has offered a lot more technology that C-Max hasn't.

 

You can believe that, but if you look at the sales numbers, they were pretty strong and consistent around 3,000 or so a month (give or take a few hundred) up until the numbers were revised, then there was a drop, the numbers were revised again, and numbers dropped again to the current ~1,500/month level. I'll have to make a chart later to show what I'm talking about.

 

I really don't think the Focus name would've helped, especially with the transmission issues/reputation it's gathered (many probably wouldn't realize it'd be a different transmission, and would just lump it in with Focus).

 

As for advertising, they advertised C-Max HEAVILY for a while (many ads citing how it got better ratings than Prius V) up until the re-rates.....thats when advertising dried up (they could no longer advertise the better economy), and sales too....so I guess there's somewhat of a case to be made there, but still.

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I wish they'd buy CNH back. I don't know if it's a good business move or not--I just want a modern successor to my venerable old 8N, 861, 960, and 4000...

 

 

I just got in from mowing the back 40 with my Ford 445 loader tractor. 35ish years old at this point, nearly 8000 hours on the clock, and new tractors still have nothing on it. Best $6500 I ever spent.

You guys will relate to this. started as a little kid on "N"s. Then worked my way through college running among other things an 840 with a driving front axle. Back in early mid -sixties there were no factory four wheel drive loader backhoes other than big buck Dynahoes, but this little Ford could work. the driving front axle was made by a company called Elanco- we had a 14' hoe, York rake, and brush forks in addition to the regular loader dirt bucket. It was a 4 speed with a shuttle stick-4 speed forward-reverse. No torque converter-all gears so you had to stop before using the shuttle stick. I saw a restored 841 with that axle at a truck show last year and think I have a picture of it-I'll see if I can find it and post. Elanco is long gone out of business.

 

I had a friend who sold yellow Deeres. In my mind I would take a Deere TLB over a Cat today, but this guy would always say, ounce he lost a customer to Ford, he would never get them back.

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There was another that has balloons in a small town, but I can't seem to find it.

Never said they didn't run ads, only said I never saw one. Until today, I'd never seen any ads for the C-Max. No TV spots, no print ads, no billboards, no nothing.

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