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Ford Makes $29B Commitment to Electric and Self-Driving Cars

caranddriver.com

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Re: Ford Makes $29B Commitment to Electric and Self-Driving Cars

#81

Post by radium3d »

ogre_codes wrote: post #27
prostoalex wrote: post #7

It seems like I’ve seen this movie before. A large automotive consortium puts out an optimistic press release announcing its full commitment to EVs https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1086902_volkswagen-will... Then it turns out that the primary cost contributor to an EV is the cost of batteries. Automakers being relative nobodies on the lithium market, they are paying retail for it and passing the mark-ups to you,…

> The large company discontinues the vehicle lineup, citing overrun cost issues and market disinterest for EVs save for a few Tesla fanboy diehards. We're at the bottom of the hockey stick here. There is no "discontinued lineup", in 10 years if you don't have a viable EV platform, you are closing your doors. It might be sooner than that. By the time Ford even starts to see return on their $29B it's likely to be a who…

Lucky for ford they heavily invested in Rivian early on and are likely learning a lot from their cooperation together

Re: Ford Makes $29B Commitment to Electric and Self-Driving Cars

#82

Post by pmorici »

pokerhobo wrote: post #77
friedman23 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of uninformed negativity is why I'm loaded up on GM calls. GM btw, has no debt (at least in the way you are thinking).

GM has about $100B in debt https://www.benzinga.com/news/20/09/17407586/a-look-into-gen... . Help me understand how I’m misinterpreting this.

He probably means that a lot of that debt is related to loans and leasing.

Re: Ford Makes $29B Commitment to Electric and Self-Driving Cars

#83

Post by throwawaysea »

Ralo wrote: post #32

I've been a car guy since my teens, and have nearly everyone around me be some sort of mechanic but I've wondered a couple things about why electric vehicles will have mass appeal. Most electric vehicles seem to have their value based in the battery pack, but these batteries packs have a life span of 10~ years, right? Do these vehicles have zero value after ten years (assuming the batteries are bad then), high mileag…

Car and Driver found that their Model 3 lost 7% of its battery life in just 24K miles: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35203450/tesla-model-3-ba...

Re: Ford Makes $29B Commitment to Electric and Self-Driving Cars

#84

Post by totalZero »

rlonn wrote: post #66
totalZero wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is a cash takeout, the IV will go down. If there is a share component to a hypothetical acquisition, the IV will potentially increase. However, I'm not sure how likely that is. Just be aware that your Vega p&l could be negative, so extremely long dated calls with a lot of Vega may need a big gap between a cash takeout price and spot in order to be profitable.

This reads like finance buzz bingo

I'm just saying that long-dated calls can lose money in a cash acquisition.

Re: Ford Makes $29B Commitment to Electric and Self-Driving Cars

#85

Post by Qwertious »

natch wrote: post #64
justapassenger wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla’s are famous for not being repairable by 3rd party shops. You lack documentation, software, getting parts is PITA, and Tesla will happily disable features in your car, if you repaired it in a way they don’t agree with (like disabling supercharging on salvaged cars).

Tesla is just going through the growing pains of ramping production so their repair story is still a work in progress at the moment. They make it work as needed, but it’s not always ideal nor as widely available everywhere as people hope yet. It will get better. Disabling supercharging for DIY battery fix/hack jobs I assume is done to protect the network so that other cars are not impacted by a potentially incorrect…

>I believe it’s usually a heathy practice in life to look for the straightforward explanations that don’t assume bad motives in the part of the actor you are looking at.

I hope that you balance it with a healthy skepticism of a publicly traded company's justifications for their profits.

Tesla sells heated seats etc and when you buy it, what you get is a software update enabling the existing hardware - it's artificial scarcity done for business reasons, i.e. their add-ons business plan is built around preventing users from controlling their own hardware. This does not bode well for independent repair.

Re: Ford Makes $29B Commitment to Electric and Self-Driving Cars

#86

Post by [deleted] »

justapassenger wrote: post #30
cookiengineer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This so much sounds like all the PR stunt cars that renault put out. You literally have to lease a battery on top of the absurd prices, and you cannot get it changed for free, even when you lease it. Which makes all their cars basically useless after a year of usage, because the batteries are embedded in their chassis. Every time I compare European manufacturers to Tesla and Nissan, they are such a bad joke. Nissan h…

While praising Nissan, you know that they’re basically owned by Renault? And didn’t Renault start selling cars with batteries, without forcing you to lease them, years ago? Or are there still some markets where they don’t do it?

[deleted]

Re: Ford Makes $29B Commitment to Electric and Self-Driving Cars

#87

Post by Animats »

They slipped another year? "During its announcement, Ford also reminded us that the electric version of its cash cow, the F-150, is slated to go into production in mid-2022. Not the 2022 model year, which begins in September of 2021.

Jeep pulled that stunt. 2018: “In addition to the all-new mild hybrid Wrangler, a full plug in electric Jeep Wrangler will be available in 2020”. That slipped to 2022. Worse, "2022 will introduce electric powertrain that will be available exclusively on the Rubicon trim level.", which means paying at least 75% more.

I was ready to buy one of those. My existing Jeep Wrangler is coming up on 15 years. But no. They're pushing "mild hybrids" this year, which will be obsolete before they are fully debugged.

Re: Ford Makes $29B Commitment to Electric and Self-Driving Cars

#88

Post by clouddrover »

ogre_codes wrote: post #36
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are more right than wrong in your prediction, but “over the next two years” seems so incredibly optimistic that I’m inclined to call it naïveté instead.

Within 4 years, Tesla is going to be selling EVs for $25k. The Cybertruck is 18-24 months out. Rivian is going to be launching their electric truck in the next 18 months as well. That puts Ford's front line vehicle squarely in the headlights. If Ford can't mass produce EVs at a reasonable price in the next 2 years, things are going get increasingly ugly for them. Not end of line in 2 years, but it's just going to get…

> Within 4 years, Tesla is going to be selling EVs for $25k.

GM is selling EVs for $25k right now. The Chevy Bolt probably is the best EV for the money in the world today.

The Renault Zoe and the VW ID.3 are not too far off that price and are strong sellers in Europe. A smaller battery version of the ID.3 is coming out this year.

Re: Ford Makes $29B Commitment to Electric and Self-Driving Cars

#89

Post by petre »

justapassenger wrote: post #30
cookiengineer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This so much sounds like all the PR stunt cars that renault put out. You literally have to lease a battery on top of the absurd prices, and you cannot get it changed for free, even when you lease it. Which makes all their cars basically useless after a year of usage, because the batteries are embedded in their chassis. Every time I compare European manufacturers to Tesla and Nissan, they are such a bad joke. Nissan h…

While praising Nissan, you know that they’re basically owned by Renault? And didn’t Renault start selling cars with batteries, without forcing you to lease them, years ago? Or are there still some markets where they don’t do it?

They pretty much gave up because of consumer choice and environmental bonuses lowering the price gap between diesel and EV. As if someone looking to buy an EV would get a diesel instead? They still offer it for Twizy though. A coworker bought a Twizy at battery rental price with env bonus. What's the point of offering a lease if getting the env bonus requires ownership of the battery? At first I thought the rental thing was a intended to extract more revenue from the customer when in fact it was an incentive to lower the upfront price and get more adoption.

https://www.electrive.com/2020/11/14/renault-drops-battery-r...

Re: Ford Makes $29B Commitment to Electric and Self-Driving Cars

#90

Post by Qwertious »

Ralo wrote: post #70
tourdownunder wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but an electric vehicle isn't something that can be casually repaired right There is aftermarket batteries to put life back in a Nissan leaf. > can our grid handle that? Not in the few hours of peak though there are charges that understand the time of day costs and will only charge in certain times when the grid is cheaper. Some electric vehicles such as the Nissan leaf also have V2G which will help the grid in tim…

>It already is. That's my point though, it currently is. There's no massive load, its not the majority. If the world switches, cities will be needing to do massive power overhauls and use more resources. This will be translated into electricity rates/taxes increasing. Will it be translated to the rate of gasoline? Who knows. I feel like batteries are right there , and this tesla push for electric cars is giving batte…

>If the world switches, cities will be needing to do massive power overhauls and use more resources. This will be translated into electricity rates/taxes increasing.

From what I've heard, it'll need to increase by about 5%.

Specifically, from what I've heard from ~6:20 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QLLYauN7sY .

I don't have numbers, but increasing the grid by 5% doesn't sound catastrophically impossible. Not compared to shipping truckloads of fresh petrol to every town on the planet on a weekly basis, at least.

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