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

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

#71

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Lvl999Noob wrote: post #61
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lamenting the difficulty of registering kei trucks is kind of rich coming from the patron saint of "the roads are horribly dangerous and we need to do everything to safen them up and drivers can bear whatever that costs" Protectionism when I don't like it, public safety when I do I guess. In any case, they're pretty easy to register if you don't lick the boot. Whatever state you're in typically isn't gonna come after…

> if you catch my drift Not OP but I don't. What do you mean? How do you make the kei truck an object they aren't in the business of taxing when they are, in fact, in that very business? Or maybe I have some deeper confusion about the issue here.

> What do you mean?

I think they mean it’s easier than many of us suspect to register an imported car as something close enough and get away with it. The most challenging bit would probably be maintenance.

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

#72

Post by JumpCrisscross »

gyulai wrote: post #60
cheschire wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you can see how a kastenwagen nutzfahrzeug is a very different vehicle from a consumer mid-size pickup, right? Sure, technically some would call the vehicle you linked a pickup, and technically German law still identifies the consumer pickup truck as a nutzfahrzeug instead of a PKW, but it doesn’t feel like you’re making a best effort to meet GP in the middle.

The distinction gets at something interesting though, and it's a weird intermingling of culture and politics. I think a truck as owned by a consumer, and as an American would understand the word, is, at least in part, a lifestyle statement derived from maybe overprovisioning on the horsepower. Such a lifestyle statement in Germany seems to be perfectly socially acceptable when it ties in with luxury and doing your "c…

> lifestyle statement derived from maybe overprovisioning on the horsepower

For what it’s worth, that horsepower is billed for towing.

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

#73

Post by JumpCrisscross »

pjc50 wrote: post #43
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…

Something I've been trying to articulate for a while is that the EV revolution is a smaller version of the phone and internet revolutions: it requires a bunch of infrastructure buildout, but it's also the result of individual consumer choices. And it's highly synergistic. But along with that, it will create "losers", existing companies whose business can't adapt to the new ways. Sears had a hundred-year start on Amaz…

> Jack Welch's "destroy your business dot com"

What is this?

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

#74

Post by throwaway2037 »

GreenSalem wrote: post #10

[flagged]

    > One must admit that Jiaqi Liang, senior director of electrical hardware at Ford's Advanced EV team went to Tsinghua University.
This is weird English: "One must admit that ..." What are you trying to say?

I found his LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jiaqi-liang-6a653b1b/

It looks like after Tsinghua Uni, he moved to the United States and attended Georgia Tech to get a Master's and PhD. Further, he has worked his entire professional career in the United States and has never worked for a Chinese company.

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

#75

Post by throwaway2037 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #29
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 is that different from what the US and (to a lesser degree) the EU tried to do? Both are examples of capitalism. Actually I know why it's different, I was just doing an online knee jerk response the difference is that western capitalism has a hands-off (but regulated) approach, letting the companies do their own thing. China and their companies are much more involved. I'm sure the US was a lot more directly invol…

    > Tesla ... are (from what I gathered) still building sub-standard cars.
I'm not here to defend Musk, but Tesla makes some excellent quality cars: Model S, Model X, and Model 3 are all very good EVs. I also expect the Semi (heavy haul truck) to be of excellent quality.

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

#76

Post by cucumber3732842 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #71
Lvl999Noob wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you catch my drift Not OP but I don't. What do you mean? How do you make the kei truck an object they aren't in the business of taxing when they are, in fact, in that very business? Or maybe I have some deeper confusion about the issue here.

> What do you mean? I think they mean it’s easier than many of us suspect to register an imported car as something close enough and get away with it. The most challenging bit would probably be maintenance.

I meant just register it in one of the slightly less than half of states that let you do that.

Even if some Karen narcs on you to the tax man unless it's an especially slow day the tax man will say something along the lines of "It's a what? We don't register those"

The registration/tax people aren't in the business of giving a shit about the nuances of the vehicle code. They're in the business of collecting money. It's not like you're dodging meaningful fees on an entire truck fleet. You're dodging what would be a zero to them since they'd never let you register it. What are they gonna do send you one of those "we believe you owe us X, pay up or we'll use the full force of the state to fucking stomp you and ruin your life" letters with X= $0. I'm sure they'll get right on that.

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

#77

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Theodores wrote: post #62
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…

Such a weird take, it sounds as if you have never read or listened to anything that the Chinese leadership have had to tell the world. Or for that matter, Confucius. Yet there is certainty of a paranoid mindset, with some 'yellow peril' going on. Hearst did well with that one! Just read their five year plans. Not the 'yellow peril' fearmongering, just go to source and make your own mind up. The Chinaman is not out to…

> internally, China is hyper competitive, with no rent-seeking class

The party elites and their families are all billionaires!

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

#78

Post by xnx »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #68
CalRobert wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds similar to the lamentations of American buyers who want Japanese kei trucks. It’s protectionism all the way down I guess. Though I see tons of US pickup trucks in the Netherlands, and have seen even lifted ones in Germany too for that matter.

> American buyers who want Japanese kei trucks. It is crazy when I hear people say they want to drive a kei truck on American roads. American SUVs and trucks are enormous in both height and weight. The kei truck does not offer the necessary crash protection.

People already ride motorcycles so why not let them drive in much safer kei trucks?

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

#79

Post by JumpCrisscross »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #68
CalRobert wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds similar to the lamentations of American buyers who want Japanese kei trucks. It’s protectionism all the way down I guess. Though I see tons of US pickup trucks in the Netherlands, and have seen even lifted ones in Germany too for that matter.

> American buyers who want Japanese kei trucks. It is crazy when I hear people say they want to drive a kei truck on American roads. American SUVs and trucks are enormous in both height and weight. The kei truck does not offer the necessary crash protection.

> The kei truck does not offer the necessary crash protection

Eh, if you aren’t doing a lot of highway driving, I think this could be fine? Especially in a city where collisions should be low speed.

Put another way—and this is a genuine question—is the person who wants a Kei truck better off spending tens of thousands of dollars more for safety rather than investing that in their health, happiness or education?

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

#80

Post by throwaway2037 »

DaedalusII wrote: post #59
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…

the ironic factor is - this is how vw itself started, as did mitsubishi etc this is called: sensible state industrial policy

Mitsubishi? I disagree. There were founded two years after the Meiji Restoration (~1870) to build cargo ships and (later) mine coal. However, during World War II, they were a huge part of the Japanese war machine.
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