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How do you design a $30k electric pickup? Inside Ford's skunkworks

arstechnica.com

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Re: How do you design a $30k electric pickup? Inside Ford's skunkworks

#31

Post by mschuster91 »

seydor wrote: post #25
cbg0 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China, being a superpower, has a vested interest in bringing other superpowers down a peg as well as increasing other countries' dependence on China. Their state has a serious incentive to ship out cheap cars to destroy the automotive industry in the US and the EU for example. When that happens they can double the price on all their vehicles and you can't restart your car factories to compete with them again until ye…

How come this price hike hasn't happened with solar panels, inverters, telecom equipment, batteries etc. It's been a while that such industries in europe have become obsolete

> How come this hasn't happened with solar panels, inverters, telecom equipment, batteries etc.

It actually began a few months ago regarding solar panels and batteries [1].

[1] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/china-...

Re: How do you design a $30k electric pickup? Inside Ford's skunkworks

#32

Post by Cthulhu_ »

graemep wrote: post #26
vsgherzi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is concerned about Chinese EVs taking over the market. For good reason they’re not happy bad and they’re extremely cheap. I’m no economist nor moralist so I can’t say if banning Chinese evs are the right move or not but I can understand the US wanting to try to create its own market before getting destroyed by the competitor. I don’t think it’s fair to say that speaks to the quality of the US alternatives. The…

There is a national security and sovereignty issue that the European countries (and others) not facing - its similar to dependence on American clouds etc. A lot of these vehicles rely on OTA updates or are controlled through apps. This essentially means the manufacturer controls them. Imagine the consequences if half the vehicles in your country stopped working, or became unsafe? Do you really want to hand this power…

No, but at the same time, the established car manufacturers are very protective of their own stuff so they are disincentivised from e.g. building a car that works offline. John Deere is infamous for this, locking down their machines to the point that they would become scrap if the company ever went under (for example).

But it's all capitalist forces, because while in theory new companies could start that make basic / offline / affordable / maintainable / reliable cars (and tractors, and everything else), there is simply not enough demand making them non-starters.

It's like people (on here) asking for open phone platforms or phones with smaller screens; they're a minority. Most people do not care.

Re: How do you design a $30k electric pickup? Inside Ford's skunkworks

#33

Post by cbg0 »

seydor wrote: post #25
cbg0 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China, being a superpower, has a vested interest in bringing other superpowers down a peg as well as increasing other countries' dependence on China. Their state has a serious incentive to ship out cheap cars to destroy the automotive industry in the US and the EU for example. When that happens they can double the price on all their vehicles and you can't restart your car factories to compete with them again until ye…

How come this price hike hasn't happened with solar panels, inverters, telecom equipment, batteries etc. It's been a while that such industries in europe have become obsolete

Solar panels, inverters and batteries are not critical infrastructure and I'd wager the jobs impacted are considerably lower than the automotive industry.

Re: How do you design a $30k electric pickup? Inside Ford's skunkworks

#34

Post by Cthulhu_ »

mft_ wrote: post #4
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need Ford per se, but you do need an experienced manufacturer to take a concept car to mass production, and you need mass production to make something affordable.

I'm watching Slate [0] with interest; they aren't following a path according to your assumptions. [0] https://www.slate.auto/en

Would be interesting to follow, but as of now they look to be in a startup phase still. Car companies take years to establish themselves. This one seems close though, they say they will do their first deliveries later this year.

Re: How do you design a $30k electric pickup? Inside Ford's skunkworks

#35

Post by pjc50 »

seydor wrote: post #25
cbg0 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China, being a superpower, has a vested interest in bringing other superpowers down a peg as well as increasing other countries' dependence on China. Their state has a serious incentive to ship out cheap cars to destroy the automotive industry in the US and the EU for example. When that happens they can double the price on all their vehicles and you can't restart your car factories to compete with them again until ye…

How come this price hike hasn't happened with solar panels, inverters, telecom equipment, batteries etc. It's been a while that such industries in europe have become obsolete

Really this is conspiracy level thinking. It's not like there's no car industry in the EU, it's just that it's grown in the low-COL areas like Slovakia and not in high-COL areas like Germany.

Chinese imports and local manufacture should be able to compete in the "free market". It's just that that term has been heavily debased by idiots misusing it, like everything else.

Re: How do you design a $30k electric pickup? Inside Ford's skunkworks

#37

Post by XorNot »

culopatin wrote: post #19
GreenSalem wrote: post #10

[flagged]

Even if objectively one could agree that currently the products from china are better than the US ones, all the “China so good now” stuff is starting to sound like straight up in your face propaganda.

Or just objective reality? I've been shopping EVs lately and both Tesla and BYD have compelling offerings.

One things for sure: somehow Japanese cars aren't in the mix at all (the experience of trying to even see the bz4x at a Toyota dealer felt like the dealer was unhappy I was even there to see it).

Re: How do you design a $30k electric pickup? Inside Ford's skunkworks

#39

Post by AngryData »

cbg0 wrote: post #21
GreenSalem wrote: post #10

[flagged]

China, being a superpower, has a vested interest in bringing other superpowers down a peg as well as increasing other countries' dependence on China. Their state has a serious incentive to ship out cheap cars to destroy the automotive industry in the US and the EU for example. When that happens they can double the price on all their vehicles and you can't restart your car factories to compete with them again until ye…

I don't believe at all that China will always be cheaper. And in many cases I wonder if that is even true right now. Labor costs aren't what is keeping US manufacturing cost high, it is capitalist's demands for high and ever increasing profit margins and managerial bloat. Labor is only a small part of the cost of a vehicle. Workers wouldn't care if company profit margins were smaller or if the vehicles they help manufacturer are sold for less than the maximum possible, but the c-suites and investors do.

Re: How do you design a $30k electric pickup? Inside Ford's skunkworks

#40

Post by gyulai »

I live in Germany and am sure as hell that I will never be driving a $30k electric pickup here. They'll make sure nothing like this ever becomes legal to import or drive on German roads until after there's a German car brand on it, and it costs 10x that while being identical, just to subsidize lots of local jobs that are low-wage, high-tax, and taking away manpower from other sectors/fields where it's more needed.
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