Extended Range battery shortage?

[s7davis]

That excuse makes no sense. California (or any other state) has no bearing on the batteries. The car is made in Mexico. Even if there were a shortage of batteries (not true from everything else we've heard), the customer's state would have no relevance to it anyway.

Your dealer is right that communication has been rather poor though.

When did you first reserve your Mach-E?

I just wanted to add remember Ford is getting their battery modules from VW just as Fisker is as well. So that might be the issue on he batteries. Also I think they are favoring International orders a bit more for holding out the tax rebate we have in the states as those cars do not count towards it. Plus it will take European orders a month or 2 months for shipping as for USA only about 2 to 3 weeks.

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[dbsb3233]

If the dealer wants to keep the car they will. There is nothing Ford can do about it..all the dealer has to say is that the customer told us they don't want the car after it already arrived. As long as the dealer refunds the deposit, the customer won't complain and Ford won't know. I doubt many dealers would find strangers to place shadow orders, but they may have their employees do so. I would imagine this sort of thing will be much more prevalent with the Bronco than the Mach E.

Ford is probably complicitly allowing this to throw the dealers a bone, more so with the Bronco than the Mach E. If they didn't want this to occur, very simply they could allow cancellation through their website/customer service hotlines.

There is probably also some sort of dealer allocation scheme going on in the background that is not publicized. They had all the dealers make investments in charging and training, and probably promised each dealer a certain number of vehicles the first year.

Ford probably can't stop it from happening, but they can punish dealers that do it by cutting back on their allocations for other popular vehicles.

While you're right that it's possible that a customer with 2 orders could end up buying one and suddenly canceling the other at the last minute, but that sure seems highly unlikely IF they really had real intent to buy 2 cars. If they ended up not liking the car after driving it, then it seems logical they'd refuse both cars, not just one.

There is no perfect scenario in any of this (other than Ford demanding the car be shipped back if not sold to the ordering customer, but that's probably too expensive). But I think we all know that someone with 2 orders canceling just one at the last second highly suggests planned intent for the dealer to snag one for inventory.

This only matters for hot new vehicles that have a reservation/preorder list, of course. Once the Mach-E (and the Bronco) are past this stage and simply become lot inventory normally, it all become moot. (At least I'm assuming they won't be relegated to being special order-only permanently.)

 

[RonTCat]

I just wanted to add remember Ford is getting their battery modules from VW just as Fisker is as well. So that might be the issue on he batteries. Also I think they are favoring International orders a bit more for holding out the tax rebate we have in the states as those cars do not count towards it. Plus it will take European orders a month or 2 months for shipping as for USA only about 2 to 3 weeks.

LOL, you might want to fact check that. Everybody knows Ford gets their batteries from Home Depot. Sheesh.

 

[ClaudeMach-E]

If you find giving your dealer 52 units and giving another dealer none when both have invested into accelerating a sustainable future I will not be able to make any sense of it for you. Not odd for me; fair is the word I would use for it. Not about you anyway, it is about Fords dealers. their clients. I am sure your dealer understands others need to survive.

But it is not about dealers it is about how Ford is scheduling construction of our Mach-E when it was supposidly a virtual line up and the fact that there seem's to be no respect for the line up priority which for me is inexplecable at the moment, like why people who ordered in september, october or even november already has a built date when some like myself who had reserved late january and ordered by the end of june are left aside, that is what is bottersome for me and others in that situation, but we are all happy for these people that is not the purpose of our rant. So yes if a dealer customers reserved and ordered their cars prior to a customer dealer that only ordered in september then why would this customer received a free pass in front of the line, because he is the only customer of that dealer?

 

[RonTCat]

LOL, you might want to fact check that. Everybody knows Ford gets their batteries from Home Depot. Sheesh.

From the Home Depot website:

 

[malba2366]

But it is not about dealers it is about how Ford is scheduling construction of our Mach-E when it was supposidly a virtual line up and the fact that there seem's to be no respect for the line up priority which for me is inexplecable at the moment, like why people who ordered in september, october or even november already has a built date when some like myself who had reserved late january and ordered by the end of june are left aside, that is what is bottersome for me and others in that situation, but we are all happy for these people that is not the purpose of our rant. So yes if a dealer customers reserved and ordered their cars prior to a customer dealer that only ordered in september then why would this customer received a free pass in front of the line, because he is the only customer of that dealer?

It is not purely first come first serve, we can see that from the small dataset on here. My assumption would be that they are doing some combination of the following:

1. Trying to get vehicles into key markets to build buzz. For example a bunch of these on the streets in So Cal/Miami/NYC/London/Paris etc.

2. Loosely following some sort of dealer allocation scheme where each dealer has been promised X number of cars during some time frame in return for making the investments to be EV certified.

3. Rewarding dealers who sell more undesirable cars, with more of the desirable allocations

4. Prioritizing shipments to countries/regions where they could potentially avoid or mitigateMPG/emissions related fines.

Of course they are trying to create the impression that they are taking reservations and processing them in a FIFO manner (like Tesla does), but they are not. I do not have any data to back up the above, and it is pure speculation...but from the oder tracking thread it is obvious that it is not FIFO.

 

[pb3]

...Of course they are trying to create the impression that they are taking reservations and processing them in a FIFO manner (like Tesla does), but they are not. I do not have any data to back up the above, and it is pure speculation...but from the oder tracking thread it is obvious that it is not FIFO.

Appreciate your analysis and I’m not shooting the messenger here. BUT what was my $500 for? To make me feel special? Because it’s not working...??

 

[malba2366]

Appreciate your analysis and I’m not shooting the messenger here. BUT what was my $500 for? To make me feel special? Because it’s not working...??

They are only selling vehicles to those who paid the deposit, but there are probably a multitude of factors determine the order in which those cars are getting delivered rather than simple FIFO

 

[JellyBelly]

Appreciate your analysis and I’m not shooting the messenger here. BUT what was my $500 for? To make me feel special? Because it’s not working...??

Of course - I would be unhappy as well if I were in your situation - hope you your production date soon

 

[Badger_Prof]

Ford probably can't stop it from happening, but they can punish dealers that do it by cutting back on their allocations for other popular vehicles.

While you're right that it's possible that a customer with 2 orders could end up buying one and suddenly canceling the other at the last minute, but that sure seems highly unlikely IF they really had real intent to buy 2 cars. If they ended up not liking the car after driving it, then it seems logical they'd refuse both cars, not just one.

There is no perfect scenario in any of this (other than Ford demanding the car be shipped back if not sold to the ordering customer, but that's probably too expensive). But I think we all know that someone with 2 orders canceling just one at the last second highly suggests planned intent for the dealer to snag one for inventory.

This only matters for hot new vehicles that have a reservation/preorder list, of course. Once the Mach-E (and the Bronco) are past this stage and simply become lot inventory normally, it all become moot. (At least I'm assuming they won't be relegated to being special order-only permanently.)

Let me offer a personal example of one person reserving/ordering two Mach-Es. I ordered two Mach-Es. A Rapid Red for me and an Infinite Blue for my son. Now that my son has learned that the Mach-E will not have a hitch option, does not have a roof rack option, and does not have the second row pass through to accommodate skis as the Model Y does (factors that matter little to me but are important to him), he is considering whether to take the blue Mach-E or go with a Model Y. I don't think any of that information about the Mach-E was available when we reserved in November of 2019. I could be wrong on that but we made decisions based on what we thought was a good set of available data. He has not yet decided if he will take the Mach-E or go with the Model Y. His plan is to drive the Mach-E as soon as one is available at a dealer and then make his final decision as quickly as he can based on what the Mach-E is actually like and how it compares (for him) to the Model Y (with which he already has experience). Because his Mach-E is not scheduled for production until February, there should be time to do the test drive, make a decision, and cancel before production of the Mach-E if that is the direction he decides to go. No planned intent to take advantage of Ford or disadvantage any other buyer. I hope that makes sense.

 

[eltonlin]

Let me offer a personal example of one person reserving/ordering two Mach-Es. I ordered two Mach-Es. A Rapid Red for me and an Infinite Blue for my son. Now that my son has learned that the Mach-E will not have a hitch option, does not have a roof rack option, and does not have the second row pass through to accommodate skis as the Model Y does (factors that matter little to me but are important to him), he is considering whether to take the blue Mach-E or go with a Model Y. I don't think any of that information about the Mach-E was available when we reserved in November of 2019. I could be wrong on that but we made decisions based on what we thought was a good set of available data. He has not yet decided if he will take the Mach-E or go with the Model Y. His plan is to drive the Mach-E as soon as one is available at a dealer and then make his final decision as quickly as he can based on what the Mach-E is actually like and how it compares (for him) to the Model Y (with which he already has experience). Because his Mach-E is not scheduled for production until February, there should be time to do the test drive, make a decision, and cancel before production of the Mach-E if that is the direction he decides to go. No planned intent to take advantage of Ford or disadvantage any other buyer. I hope that makes sense.

Makes sense. At the same time, there may be aftermarket options for roof racks (and hitches for that matter) come February that may also influence his decision as well.

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

shocking!!!!!

dangerous term to use around a BEV

just sayin'

 

[efisher]

Except that my order number has stayed the same since 6/24 despite my two changes. However the changes could have messed up my place in line (despite my reservation number).

Am I wrong in thinking that VINs don’t get assigned until production?

The VIN should be assigned when the vehicle is scheduled for production. You can call the dealer and ask them to look it up.

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