Ford eating its own to feed EVs

They haven't figure out the logistic for optional (money) charging yet. For example, $10,000 for almost FSD, $500 for remote locking, $1000 for heated seats, $999 for wind shield wipers, $55 to open the window each time. Opportunities are endless.

I want to know who will be designing the new EV stuff. If they have 3000 extra engineers and designers just to essentially make cosmetic changes to a mature product line yearly, how many does it take to make a completely new product?

One pattern I see a lot: The BeanCount Corporation decides that senior engineers cost too much. So force them to retire and pay their pensions. Then discover they can't get anything done without them, so hire them back as consultants.

On the other hand it does show some foresight, which is not a concept that Gnatguy understands. If the currently profitable part of the business is going to go away, it's less valuable than it looks,

People who like old cars and trucks tend to prefer to buy old cars and trucks. They don't like the new gas Camaro, they don't like the new gas Corvette, they don't like the new F-150, either.

The things-were-better-in-the-old-days demographic is a difficult one to please and it might not be spending nearly as much money as a demographic as they believe they do. Ford has those numbers, we don't.

Shaking things up once in a while, to the horror of long-time supporters, often tends to be the key to business longevity. Business isn't loyal and like Dylan trading his acoustic for an electric guitar, will give the finger to the fans no problem if it feels its in its best interests to do that.

Should have mentioned the new gas Mustang too, since we're on the subject of Ford. The base model has a turbo four for goodness sake, scandalous.

I'm sorry one difference in New England is the 2022 probably has less rust. Maybe. Vehicles corrode out pretty fast up here

Spoons and hammers and chairs are at their end of engineering evolution too.

The 2022 is a newer truck.

Back in the day I traded a '80 Camaro in on an '82 Firebird. A trunk big enough for two dead mice or a hatchback? No brainer. If the new Camaro was a hatch, I'd be interested. As is, I drive a Toyota hatch. The rear seats got folded down the day I bought it and it became a mini-pickup. Unlike the Cowboy Cadillac, you don't need a tonneau cover to keep your powder dry.

That is very true. Automobiles have improved so much from when I started driving. You used to have to replace many parts on a car on a regular basis, and each time requiring a "tune up". Now it is basically plugs, an exhaust system and battery every four to six years and no real fiddling with "tune ups", all while reducing the hydrocarbon and NOx emissions. You have to hand it to the automotive engineers to have managed to tame such an unruly beast.

My first car was a secondhand 1990 Chevy Celebrity, it wasn't too bad but it didn't make you feel like a celebrity that's for sure. Had a single fuel injector in the intake manifold and its base 4 cylinder rattled its way up to speed eventually. I remember it getting stuck in the snow & ice in my driveway sometimes, like sometimes in even just a sad amount of snow, lol.

I'm too young to have ever owned or regularly driven a car that didn't have power steering. I think the Celebrity may have had some early type of ABS but certainly no traction control.

I slid hard into a snowbank in it one time, but the front end was fine and Mom & Dad didn't find out, I suppose if it had been a modern car with a plastic fascia probably would have been at least a grand in damage, so for a teenage novice driver there were some upsides like that.

The Volt feels like going from a DC-3 to a 737 by comparison to my first Chevy. My GF traded in a 20 year old Hyundai on a late model one, same thing.

A friend of a friend let me drive his '72 Super Beetle around a bit, a car from well before my time, it felt like a half-scale car, one of those cars for children they drive around a track at Disneyland, like a lil clown car

Rather, single point injection in the throttle body I think it was

Last I checked out the late-model Camaro it had a decent-sized trunk, but the rear windows were like tank slits. Pretty dreadful visibility. They've made it a little better more recently I think.

One thing Ford and GM do tend to offer is a lot customization options on their vehicles, though how many people special-order them vs just buy whatever is on the lot I don't know.

You can use their configuration to design some nice cars/grotesque monstrosities, depending on one's artistic sense:

I had fun designing it in the "sim" but at 43 I think I'm already too old to feel comfortable driving a car this flashy around town

That configuration has a V6 so the quad tips are totally flagrant and unnecessary but you can have 'em if you want.

You can factory-order some huge rip-roaring V8s for the Camaro these days but the price increases substantially until you're getting into Corvette-money and it's like why put a Corvette engine in a Camaro when you can just get the Corvette for not too much more.

Dodge put smaller V8s in their muscle cars and sold them for less money and their sales did better I believe, their marketing understood that people wanted the sizzle and didn't care so much about the steak.

with mirrors on both sides and maybe a rear view cam for parking, what do you even need a rear window for?

Ah yes, I've heard of the "Italian School" of driving: "what's in front of me is my business, what's behind me is God's business."

Bean-counter secret, the stock rear-view camera on GM products IME has low resolution and lousy dynamic range. Been meaning to try to upgrade mine for a while

I wish there is a button to enable rear view cam without putting it in 'R'. Sometimes i want to look at who's following me.

Like the model X... hit the accelerator hard and you never have to worry with what's behind you. They'll never catch up.

I think you mean not quite old enough! Wait until you hit your 50s.

Kinda like having a Tesla. It will watch over your car too!