Good idea just stay close to home so that you don’t get stranded without a way to charge your car, or at least map your trips out very carefully so you can find someone to charge your car.
Andy
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I’ll put it a different way Andy. And maybe you can give an honest answer rather than a stupid swipe. If Tesla did do all those things mature car companies do, how much would that impact Tesla’s production numbers? Or profit margins?
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LOL it’s funny you get so mad when someone uses your own techniques against you.
If your talking about supplying parts for their vehicles at a reasonable price? Not much. But if your talking about all the stupid things auto companies do like tying themselves to dealerships? Why would they do something stupid? They are disrupting the auto business not trying to copy them. It’s the Legacy auto companies that are trying to get to the Tesla model not the other way around.
Andy
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There is a one sentence line in the Q4 report that states "Our next generation vehicle
platform is under development, with additional details to be shared at Investor Day (March 1st 2023). "
Worth noting that the Mach-E went on sale in Dec 2020 while the Model Y in Jan 2020, so within the same year. Yet in 2022, Mach-E US sales was about 40K units while the Model Y US sales reached 250K. Meanwhile, the Mustang ICE had its lowest sales ever in 2022 (48K units), declining 9% from 2021.
One could make a narrative that the Mach-E is significantly cannibalizing sales from the far more profitable ICE version, creating a disincentive for Ford to ramp up Mach-E production at a rate that would be competitive with the Model Y. That would be an example of the disadvantage faced by legacy automakers.
Alternatively, Ford could be trying to make as many Mach-Es as possible, but for all its ICE infrastructure is just not as good as Tesla at mass producing EVs. Again advantage Tesla.
Possibly related to this is that Ford’s debt to equity ratio according to Macrotrends is around 2.0 while Tesla’s is near zero (0.4). It seems remarkable to me that Tesla is growing sales and expanding infrastructure as quickly as it is without taking on a big debt load. Tesla’s debt to equity ratio is unusually low for the auto industry.
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Absolutely not. Sorry, the two are Mustang in name, but are completely unrelated cars in very different market segments. There is no way the Mach-E is cannibalizing sales of the ICE version.
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Or, more likely, it could be that Ford is starting production slowly to make sure they’re not selling defective products and owning a costly recall later. Of I course those with twinkles in their eyes will pick the gloomiest scenario for Ford, not remembering that in its first year Tesla sold 937 cars. Not 937,000, a total of 937. The next year wasn’t much better. In fact they didn’t break into the big numbers until 2015 or ‘16.
Or, maybe they’re making sure they have the process right. Amazing possibility.
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Shouldn’t say that out loud. A big selling point of the Mach-E is the Mustang brand. Probably why they didn’t call it a “Fiesta Mach-E”
Are you actually suggesting that a legacy carmaker might find mass producing EVs challenging? Who would have thought?
You do realize that Ford has been building cars for a long time right?
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Not EVs. See the difference?
Mach-E US sales was about 40K units while the Model Y US sales reached 250K.
It was still the #3 best selling EV in the US last year, beating out the model S (not that they are competitive vehicles).
No reason to assume a narrative when there is easily obtained contrary data. The vast majority of Mach-E sales are to people that are first time Ford owners.
https://fordauthority.com/2022/11/majority-of-ford-mustang-mach-e-buyers-are-new-to-brand-evs/
Snip:
For starters, a whopping 73.3 percent of Ford Mustang Mach-E customers in the U.S. are new to the Ford brand, a staggering statistic in a hotly contested market.
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Supposedly Ford was going to make it a Focus first, I believe. They realized that didn’t have any pizazz. So… Mustang it was! And boy, does it infuriate the Mustang die-hard crowd. Not just that it is electric, but it is 4 doors too! The horror.
I’ve wondered why the Mach-E is 4 door honestly, if called a Mustang. And I wonder if they simply needed a bit more wheelbase for the battery, and so 4 doors it was?
Any rate, the Mach-E and the Microbus (to be available soon?) are my top two choices, if I were to buy today.
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Yup, I was just wondering whether you and others who seem to think that ICE makers can easily transition to BEVs did.
Ford’s goal is to reach EBIT margins of 8% for their EVs by 2026. Tesla’s 2022 EBIT margin was 16.7%. So even after another three years of effort, Ford will still not be close to where Tesla is today in EV production efficiency.
That difference between EVs and ICEs is huge.
Meanwhile, there are growing rumblings of a Generation 3 Tesla platform optimized for its gigafactories that will cut production costs in half. Development is supposedly ongoing with introduction scheduled for 2025.
If that is true, certainly a big IF but not out of the realm of possibility, then Ford will actually have lost ground in three years.
Probably related to this and, in fact, necessary for it to happen are estimates that Tesla’s capital expenditures for batteries is as much as 70% less than its Korean and Chinese battery competitors. This is due to Tesla’s massive expansion of facilities to produce its own battery cells. Significantly lower cost batteries would be a huge advantage over the Chinese EV companies, let alone the legacy automakers
.
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Also we don’t know how much Nevada gave them to build the second plant yet.
Andy
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On the parts discussion…
It’s infuriating that it takes MONTHS for common body part / simple collision repairs because Tesla chooses to put the vast majority of its production into new cars. They’re on a growth trajectory. And openly I don’t know what the state of repair rules are for them (knock on wood) - there are only 3 Electrified Garages on the east coast, and regular body shops can or can’t touch them? And the dealerships/service centers are few & far between. I’ve been fortunate to not be commuting these last 3 years. It’s a risk we all take when we bought the car, but the hope was they’d bring up the service level over time. Not yet.
FC
'19 Model 3 standard range +
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Price cut on the Mustang Mach-E extended to China
[(Ford discounts Mustang Mach-E electric SUVs in China | Reuters)]
"Ford said in November it was accelerating Mustang Mach-E production and targeting a global annual output rate of 270,000 by the end of 2023, including its China production. It builds the Mach-E in Mexico and China.
"Ford sold 39,458 Mach-Es in the U.S. last year, 45% more than in 2021.
“However, Mach-E sales last year in China, the world’s largest auto market, were minimal - just 7,782 units. Tesla sold 455,091 Model Ys in China in the same year, according to data from China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).”
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