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A not so nice view on Hackett


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It's like clearing a log jam, once products start flowing later this year, we may find a lot more info coming form Ford, hopefully Lincoln and Ford  hit their stride and just stay in the news for the right reasons....Hackett may get some breathing space once people start to see more new products.

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2 hours ago, theoldwizard said:

Can you imagine how the thousands of engineers who work in Powertrain Engineering feel when they keep hearing that internal combustion engines are going away ?

They probably feel it's time for them to retire, sign up for training on electrified powertrains, or switch careers. :)

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5 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

The face makes it seem like you're happy people will lose their jobs. Not cool.

I'm happy that Ford with Jim Hackett's leadership is actively planning for some of the biggest changes in the history of the automotive industry. Individual Ford employees will need to decide if they want to be part of that or not.

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ICEs aren't going away anytime soon despite what some people want you to believe.   But if I was an ICE engineer I'd be learning as much as possible about hybrid and BEV powertrains. 

 

At one time there were tens of thousands of cobol programmers.

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4 hours ago, theoldwizard said:

Can you imagine how the thousands of engineers who work in Powertrain Engineering feel when they keep hearing that internal combustion engines are going away ?

Ford has already said they'll be shifting significant resources ($$$$$$) from iCE to EV's.

"Hackett said that Ford would be cutting capital expenditure on internal combustion engines by a third, redeploying that capital into electrification, on top of $4.5 billion (€3.8 billion) the company has already planned to spend on electric cars." 

https://autovistagroup.com/news-and-insights/ford-set-move-money-traditional-engine-development-ev-and-autonomous-programs

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4 hours ago, jpd80 said:

It's like clearing a log jam, once products start flowing later this year, we may find a lot more info coming form Ford, hopefully Lincoln and Ford  hit their stride and just stay in the news for the right reasons....Hackett may get some breathing space once people start to see more new products.

I've thought that all along - once the products that were already on the way actually arrive, the "Ford is dead" crowd will die down.  I agree, Hackett doesn't exactly help paint a rosy picture, as he hardly paints a picture at all, outside of this future utopia where everything runs on unicorn farts and rainbows and is this perfect transportation system.

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5 minutes ago, rmc523 said:

I've thought that all along - once the products that were already on the way actually arrive, the "Ford is dead" crowd will die down.  I agree, Hackett doesn't exactly help paint a rosy picture, as he hardly paints a picture at all, outside of this future utopia where everything runs on unicorn farts and rainbows and is this perfect transportation system.

This is Mulally 101, sell the plan and keep repeating it over and over, don't just say it once and think job done, let's move on. There was such an opportunity to talk about white space vehicles and capture people's imagination and intrigue without revealing the details but the moment was lost.

Simply bullet list the plan  and flesh out each point, they don't have to reveal everything, just get people hooked by repeating the list over and over.

1. new vehicles this year and 2020

2. White space vehicles

3. EV developments

4  AV for commercial vehicles

5 Connectivity opportunities

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1 hour ago, akirby said:

At one time there were tens of thousands of cobol programmers.

There are still COBOL programmers out there. But they are only maintaining old programs. And the programmers themselves are old, usually ready to retire soon. Even in federal government, nobody writes new programs using COBOL. FWISD taught COBOL in middle and high school business and DP classes back in the day, I took a few of those. When my sons took similar classes in middle and high school a generation later, they were taught new and different business programs.

It's a good analogy to ICE in the car industry. New ICE development will continue for a few more years. Then all of the new stuff will be electric. Engineers and techs working with ICE will be limited to maintaining existing engines.

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1 minute ago, rperez817 said:

There are still COBOL programmers out there. But they are only maintaining old programs. And the programmers themselves are old, usually ready to retire soon. Even in federal government, nobody writes new programs using COBOL. FWISD taught COBOL in middle and high school business and DP classes back in the day, I took a few of those. When my sons took similar classes in middle and high school a generation later, they were taught new and different business programs.

It's a good analogy to ICE in the car industry. New ICE development will continue for a few more years. Then all of the new stuff will be electric. Engineers and techs working with ICE will be limited to maintaining existing engines.

COBOL does still exist. Actually, it was the first programming language I learned at Eastern Michigan in the late 90's. Who knew in my early 30's I would actually use it again on the mainframe for a credit bureau? Have not touched it since. I just mainly script now in Python and write queries in SQL.

I think the ICE engineers will still have a place but it' will be retool, retire or lose your job the longer this goes. I think hybrid's will keep them around for a while but for how long is unclear.

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I was hired to do COBOL 32 years ago.  Halfway through training they said they had 6 openings in something new called Unix and only 6 of us raised their hands.   The others said they wanted job security - after all look at all the job ads for COBOL.   Then I explained to them that there might be 100 job openings but you had 10000 people applying for it, whereas with Unix you had 100 job openings but only 50 qualified candidates.   There is job security and there is job security.

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6 minutes ago, akirby said:

I was hired to do COBOL 32 years ago.  Halfway through training they said they had 6 openings in something new called Unix and only 6 of us raised their hands.   The others said they wanted job security - after all look at all the job ads for COBOL.   Then I explained to them that there might be 100 job openings but you had 10000 people applying for it, whereas with Unix you had 100 job openings but only 50 qualified candidates.   There is job security and there is job security.

My first run in with Unix. " Here are a couple of Solaris boxes. Primary and Secondary production boxes. I need you to run the checks at midnight and tell me if these startup correctly. If they don't alert production team but I am sure our clients will call and complain if they don't. I am not sure the syntax but you can try and google it. Here are some high level notes. We fired the last midnight guy and he didn't put any documentation together. See ya "  I look at clock ....11:35 PM.

Side note, I knew some Cobol guys that were making piles of cash in 98 and 99 for the year 2000 programming issues. Amazing how so many banks and large businesses were affected by that.

 

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1 minute ago, jcartwright99 said:

My first run in with Unix. " Here are a couple of Solaris boxes. Primary and Secondary production boxes. I need you to run the checks at midnight and tell me if these startup correctly. If they don't alert production team but I am sure our clients will call and complain if they don't. I am not sure the syntax but you can try and google it. Here are some high level notes. We fired the last midnight guy and he didn't put any documentation together. See ya "  I look at clock ....11:35 PM

 

What did you do for the other 25 minutes?  :lol2:

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5 hours ago, jpd80 said:

This is Mulally 101, sell the plan and keep repeating it over and over, don't just say it once and think job done, let's move on. There was such an opportunity to talk about white space vehicles and capture people's imagination and intrigue without revealing the details but the moment was lost.

Simply bullet list the plan  and flesh out each point, they don't have to reveal everything, just get people hooked by repeating the list over and over.

1. new vehicles this year and 2020

2. White space vehicles

3. EV developments

4  AV for commercial vehicles

5 Connectivity opportunities

Well, he has more or less said that.  But the way he says it, it comes out as riddles and fantasy worlds.

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We will still ICE engines for at least another 10-20 years-I do believe we are seeing the last of the major or clean sheet designs that are purely ICE and don't have a hybrid option. I don't see Ford forking over $$$ for a brand new I3/4 architecture, just improving or adding electrification to them over the next 10-20  years for example. 

Money will be spent in areas like the 7.3, where its replacing an architecture that is 30 years old and will most likely last just as long in that application or adding new power adders/transmissions to current engines that Ford has. 

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I have been retired from Powertrain Engineering for 12 years now.  I left with the "mass Exodus" just before the Recession hit along with thousands of other "white collar".

Somehow, I got on a retiree email lists that includes several middle and upper level retired management, mostly from Powertrain.  One person was an Engineering Fellow, the highest engineering rank in the Ford world.   Some of these people attend a quarterly luncheon (if it has not been cancelled) luncheon with top level management.  Management has turned over twice since then and not one of them is a proponent of Hackett.  Some have even obtained PRIVATE conferences with staffers just below Hackett.  They have all expressed their concerns about Hackett's "vision" of the future and how it seems to have no grounds in reality.

The first big issue is Hackett's willingness to think WAY OUT OF THE BOX and take "direction" from "think tank experts" like Tony Saba and his Clean Disruption - Why Energy & Transportation will be Obsolete by 2030  (Note: This version is from 2017.  He has made slight modification and repeated it many time since then.  It is long but "know they enemy" !)  Hackett seems to believe what this guy is saying.  Internal Combustion Vehicles will be banned from cities by 2030, therefore no Internal combustion Engines will be built after that.  (In a separate video from 2018 he also stated that 100% of the electricity in the US will be made from wind and solar by 2030.  There are SO MANY THINGS INCORRECT about that statement, it would take me forever to explain !)  Part of his whole premise of "electrification" of the auto industry is based on the ASSUMPTION that there will be a breakthrough in battery technology in the very near future, making batteries much cheaper with significant improvement in energy density.

Second, Hackett has no sense of "strategy".  Like coming out and announcing "We are going to make cars anymore !"  Talk about killing sales/revenue.  He could have done the same thing softer/slower be saying "We are going to emphasize on vehicle that the consumer wants !"

Third, the current/near future product line is WHAT WILL GET YOU TO YOUR GOAL !  Don't disrespect those products or the engineers working on getting them out the door !  If Bronco turns into a turd because of quality because of lack of engineering manpower (or disinterested engineers because they feel that they will be out of a job) you will know the the "root cause".

Fourth, is less tangible from the outside.  There is a SEVERE lack of low/middle level management with the talent to implement to changes required to "get there from here". Embedded control software is a big part of the current products and a HUGE part of the future.  Ii is currently mostly "ad hoc".  Defining processes and procedure and purchasing proper "tools" is a key part of this.  While they have a goal, they have no one WITH EXPERIENCE IN THE COMPUTER INDUSTRY making a road map on how to get there.  Consequently, a lot of low level management are try to "take over" with the hopes of making this their big "career move".

Edited by theoldwizard
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On 2/27/2019 at 3:52 PM, jpd80 said:

I'm sure that all of this was explained to Hackett but he didn't listen,  I'm an ideas man, don't bother me with problems....

 

Yup.......like he said, "I had already moved on."  This guy needs to move on to some social think tank, not run an automotive company. And for all those that think getting rid of the veteran leadership that is complaining (anonmously for sure) is the answer, well that is even worse. 

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15 minutes ago, kyle said:

 

Yup.......like he said, "I had already moved on."  This guy needs to move on to some social think tank, not run an automotive company. And for all those that think getting rid of the veteran leadership that is complaining (anonmously for sure) is the answer, well that is even worse. 

Veteran leadership is no good if they don't want to embrace the future and embrace change.

 

Take a step back and look at what he's doing right now.   Consolidating on small unibody, large unibody, mid and large BOF truck/suv and commercial platforms (SD, Transit) and BEVs. 

And they'll have at least one factory for each one in North America.  They still have Focus, Mondeo and Taurus in ROW - they didn't kill them.

And look at the hybrid strategy - build hybrids off the same platform as the non hybrid.  Production can be geared towards demand and engineering is simplified.   They can do 10% hybrid explorers or 90% - whatever the market dictates.

AVs are limited to commercially viable use cases and focuses on not just the vehicles but the entire service.  That's probably the only way to really make money on AVs short to mid term.

They'll have at least 2 BEVs - a sporty crossover and a truck - and probably more to come.

 

It looks to me like they'll have all the bases covered.   Need more BEVs?  Platform will be ready.   Buyers switch back to cars?   Bring back Focus and Fusion on C2.  Buyers want more utilities?   Bronco, Maverick and Puma all right around the corner.    More hybrid utilities?  Covered.   High performance vehicles?  Mustang GT350, GT500 and upcoming hybrid.  Edge and Explorer ST.   Aviator PHEV.    BEVs.

 

They're embracing electrification without having to bet the farm.   I honestly don't see the downside to this strategy.  If there is a big shift to BEVs and hybrids they will be positioned better than anyone including Tesla.  If not they have a stong lineup of non hybrids.

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1 hour ago, theoldwizard said:

The first big issue is Hackett's willingness to think WAY OUT OF THE BOX and take "direction" from "think tank experts" like Tony Saba and his Clean Disruption - Why Energy & Transportation will be Obsolete by 2030  (Note: This version is from 2017.  He has made slight modification and repeated it many time since then.  It is long but "know they enemy" !)  Hackett seems to believe what this guy is saying.  Internal Combustion Vehicles will be banned from cities by 2030, therefore no Internal combustion Engines will be built after that.  (In a separate video from 2018 he also stated that 100% of the electricity in the US will be made from wind and solar by 2030.  There are SO MANY THINGS INCORRECT about that statement, it would take me forever to explain !)  Part of his whole premise of "electrification" of the auto industry is based on the ASSUMPTION that there will be a breakthrough in battery technology in the very near future, making batteries much cheaper with significant improvement in energy density.

The thing is that the market will change, but will it change that much in just 10+ years? I don't think so...

I know there has been a lot written about how much the auto business with change in the next 10 years, with platitudes of oh the industry will change more in the next 10 years then it did in the past 100...

I think far too many people are equating what happened in Tech/IT from 1980 til 2000 with how the Auto Industry will change-but the are completely forgetting the fact that there is a pre-existing structure in place already that is "efficient" in what it does-Can it be improved? Of course, but you have 110 years or so of entrenchment built into it. Its going to take more then 10 years for everyone to replace their vehicles, given trends on how people are currently keeping vehicles, plus how are municipalities going to fund smart roads/signs/etc that is going to run BILLIONS of dollars? Its not going to happen overnight-its going to take at least 10-20 years for that to happen.  

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25 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

The infrastructure funding is a separate argument all together. I personally strongly doubt it will ever get close to finished in the next 20 years. 

U wonder if Big oil is looking to invest in recharging networks as a way of cornering the market before it gets away from them..

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1 minute ago, jpd80 said:

U wonder if Big oil is looking to invest in recharging networks as a way of cornering the market before it gets away from them..

That's the answer!   Install generators at every gas station that run on gasoline or diesel, then burn that to charge the BEVs.

That would really confuse the greenies........

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I just can't see all these mega companies sitting back and letting others take their future profits away, maybe they invest in power generation as their new "well heads" and then add charging facilities to gas stations until the TVs really takes hold

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