Assimilator

The Hybrid power plant is STANDARD for all UIs? It does stand to reason that like other similar systems, the Hybrid drivetrain is part of the AWD system. That's a big deal and exactly what we were promised...but it's like they want to sweep it under the rug. They must be concerned about Department orders as Taurus is dropped and just want to get this out there. Have to admit however, I hate those taillights...did they really need to keep the same design?

It uses a larger screen but the same software and aspect ratio as a Transit Connect or EcoSport. It's still very much a modular component, it's designed to scale as opposed to the very specialized integrated systems in most luxury cars which are low volume and high dollar and were designed for a luxury car interior and features. I think it's a smart business model for Ford since it increases quality and availability of the feature, but for Lincoln it continues to make Lincoln look a step or two behind.

This is integrated or floating?

I don't know how this conversation derailed toward Saturn but I JUST watched a pretty good video on the subject.

Ford and FCA have long struggled in these tests and part of that is the extreme age of their technologies and platforms, and part of that is just prioritization. Ford and FCA just keep their platforms around for WAY too long and keep updating the tangibles instead of the foundations. Hopefully this will change in a few years but even their newest products have been underperforming in these tests so I'm not sure Ford has been able to crack this code yet, but they have to be getting closer. Ford is definitely a company that benefits from closer scrutiny because they like to cut corners, especially on safety engineering. The 2015 F-150 actually had optional structural safety members that weren't disclosed to the consumers which the IIHS revealed and it made a massive difference in the test and it motivated Ford to make them standard. I don't mind if Ford is not interested in meeting the IIHS tests, I just want to know about them since it's something I do care about. It's one of the reasons I only buy Lincolns since they tend to be the only Ford products that score well but I suspect Ford will always be something of a struggler when it comes to IIHS testing since they take a very reactionary position instead of a proactive one. I think their priority has always been NHTSA and what their customers care about, which may not be safety score related.

They Henry Ford Museum is probably enough museum for Ford, it's one of the best in the country anyway.

Transit Connect is also a fleet product, you won't find dealerships stocking Transits either so it's not about walk-in availability. I know they are trying to sell a "Wagon" version of them but that appears largely to be done to appease regulations which apparently didn't work.

New MKC prototypes are running around and I got a much closer look at them. The design is very similar to the Aviator, especially the greenhouse. The belt line or window-sill is more horizontal and straight with larger windows in the back quarter very similar to Aviator. The sheetmetal is less sculpted than the current MKC, more linear without that 'rump' design on the current car and Nautilus. It has the same character line as the Aviator running above the door handles to the back. From the rear quarter view it actually has that 'arched' appearance of the Mercedes GLC. The front end also has that Aviator fascia with a slightly less tear-drop shape to the headlights with complex reflector style LED fixtures. The rear still has a clamshell design, it looks more like the newest Audi Q5 or Q7 designs, wider and more lean, sharper creases and flatter surfacing with less bulbous proportions. The proportions are much less cab-forward and longer, but it's also not a huge departure from the Escape prototypes...architecturally speaking. But I swear it looks longer to the point I'm willing to believe it's stretched longer than Escape by may be an inch or two. All in all, it's quite an amalgamation of recognizable German design cues, it's kinda funny because I immediately thought it was a half dozen other vehicles at first. But it's going to be sharp!

Well...not exactly. It has just been blended into the instrument panel which is still a floating design. The BIG difference with Mercedes and just about every other luxury carmaker that is that Ford & Lincoln relies entirely on a touch interface instead of the hand controller. So in order to keep the display at a reachable distance while elevating it to a more usable position, it needs to come away from the dashboard and closer to the user. This also means they don't have to increase the size of the display. There are a few alternative innovations from Audi with the Q8 being the latest example of a split screen design, but you also have 3 separate displays in the car which is a bit of a mess IMO. The Instrument panel becomes a more important interface in this setup since it's closer to the driver's line of sight. Range Rover is also doing something similar. But I think we can all agree that Lincoln's solution looks pretty dopey in comparison. Part of this is that Lincoln relies entirely on a scalable head-unit design from Ford and can't fund it's own custom solution.

It appears not to have a prominent floating display.

But where is Michael Bay going to shoot his next movie?

What's always been a little confusing about the prototypes is that it looks like it has the same taillights as the current vehicle, which essentially it does...broadly speaking.

This is the best look yet at the new 2020 Explorer, revealing some details about the final design's sheetmetal and greenhouse. The design is not a huge departure at first glance but it does take on the more dramatic and bolder proportions of the CD6 RWD platform. The Clamshell hood is gone but the distinctive greenhouse is still there, just toned down and swept back. The fascia looks somewhat similar to the current Expedition and Explorer, more horizontal and wrapped around as opposed to the shield grille of the Aviator. https://www.carscoops.com/2018/06/2020-ford-explorer-already-looking-bigger-brawnier/ There are far more photos at the link but one of them reveals something completely trivial but interesting to me which is the standard LED headlamps of the new Nautilus which haven't been seen yet. They look really sharp!

Ford's first real-world AV has just been announced and will be delivering Food orders in Miami. This will help prepare them for their purpose-built 2021 AV. https://www.autoblog.com/2018/06/11/ford-self-driving-food-delivery-van/

I think this is great but that also seems to suggest that Ford's new campus is being scaled back since it was originally designed to be the home of the Mobility Future...but bow this is the new home.

For a long time GM and Ford were fairly close on Full-size truck sales with GM overtaking Ford in aggregate if not in nameplates at least half the time over the past 20 years. The current situation is very unusual with Ford's huge commanding lead and focus on F-150 innovation, the 2015 was a moonshot that worked brilliantly. Now that the competition is responding, you have to wonder what Ford's next big move will be to get ahead again. It's obviously crucial to be the leader with so much profit on the line, but they have to get the rest of their unprofitable business in order so they can benefit from it.

They only sell a couple hundred MKT's a month in total (sometimes less than that), and a fraction of those are Town Cars which aren't high-ticket items to begin with. Once Explorer/Aviator come online and Taurus is dropped, every component in the MKT and Flex bill be orphaned without a volume product to support them which almost certainly decreases profitability. The longer you hold onto something, the less profitable it becomes. They need to get rid of it either way so they can sunset their old stuff, right now the Flex and MKT likely exist because of UNIFOR contracts. Flex with a Mark Fields pet project, that product lost its only champion. They have more stuff coming anyway.

The Co-Pilot360 branding is confusing obviously, some think it's the 360 Camera. But CP360 is here to address regulatory and competitive pressures. Ford has been criticized for trailing the industry with standard automated safety features so now they are making a comprehensive suite of safety tech standard on all vehicles to cover both the new regulations and get ahead of their competition with standard features like standard BLIS and Cross-Traffic (at least until they do the same thing in a year or two). I couldn't be happier, Safety is top priority for me and Ford has been trailing in this area for far too long so I'm glad to see them addressing this. We just need to see improvements on crash worthiness scores which should hopefully be solved with all the new models. Hopefully we'll see Ford make this a consistent focus.

They still sell a mountain of bare-bones F-150 fleet trucks, I think a big part of the ATP increase has less to do with Luxury F-150s and more to do with SuperDuty work trucks which add to those numbers significantly. The ATPs really skyrocketed with the new SuperDuty which is something that GM and RAM are still trailing. I have no doubt both RAM and GM can match the F-150 ATP's (and probably sales volume in GM's case), but it's the SuperDuty that's going to be a tough one to crack...especially since an update is supposedly coming for those and GM is a bit further behind.

The deposits are for the dealer's benefit, it's just a weeding tactic to make sure they have a sale instead of a fantasy order. Most of the time they can sell whatever the customer builds regardless, especially if it's hard to get which was the reason for the order. I never put deposits down for my Lincoln orders but I did when I was a new customer at my current dealer. I did have to get a deposit back at a Ford dealership after ordering an Explorer which I gave up for an Lincoln MKX instead (although it was literally the next day so the order never went through anyway). You're entitled to your money back whether the order is built or not. Most of the time they can't recall the order once placed, that system is a mess.

They may also have a facility for retrofitting products that come off the assembly plant. The Transit Connect isn't exactly a big seller so I'm not sure if local production makes much sense but that might change with AV. It all seems like a big gamble right now.

That is one shoddy concept build.

I'm not sure how many Midsize RWD utilities Ford can sell, if Edge moves to CD6 it would mean ALL of their vehicles above Escape will be RWD standard which makes it a terrible proposition for anybody concerned about all-weather traction that doesn't want to spend for AWD. I'm really curious to see what happens with Explorer but it seems like this is going to be targeting a smaller crowd than today with a preference for more premium shoppers.

The thing about Tesla is that every decision looks like a bad decision until it's not and at what point does your patience run out to see if these are all good decisions in the end? I see a ton of obvious issues with their business strategy. Building capacity for sales based on the hype or pre-orders...but what happens when those pre-orders are filled or cancelled when the pricing reality becomes apparent to people who expect to pay $35,000 for a car that is actually twice that at check-out. What about their other high-margin products which are now old news and they don't have the money to update because they used it to spend on other things? There is just a massive amount of uncertainty piling up right now and they've done an incredible amount of damage by biffing this launch and failing to deliver on promises. Tesla's existence is remarkable because it's business model would never work at any other company, it's something powered by vision and hope instead of profit and results. They are reckless in more ways than one, from "Auto Pilot" to delivery times. I'm generally not a cynical person but even I don't like the lack of common sense here because it has the potential to ruin something that is making a difference...and dear God their fans drive me insane which is another turn-off. Tesla fans think the other car companies are lazy and evil. It's that cultish thinking that is also unsustainable.

Galhotra, before he left Lincoln, said that the SUV transition in China is happening quicker than the US so they likely see things changing there as well. I know the Ford Taurus has been a failure in China with sales falling under 1,000 a month and shrinking rapidly. The reality is that Ford probably saw this happening before Continental landed but crossed their fingers and hoped for the best. They just had bad timing. I suspect Ford just wants to get rid of all the CD4 cars and move onto their new platforms as quickly as possible which are more cost effective and can be fitted with their all-new Hybrid power-packs. And while they are at it, get rid of the underperforming products and move over to utility form factors for all.