Mach-E Owner Age Survey - I know it's been done before, but let's update and include new members 😁!

[Howard]

I'm halfway through my 82nd year & enjoying my 1st Ford & 1st EV. There was a Ford motor in my Sunbeam Tiger that I auto crossed & my bride had a '69 Mustang when we married. I'll probably add stiffer sway bars to the AWD I bought since I live near the "snake" & "dragon" to keep me & the pony from leaving the preferred line through the twisties. Thanks to all of your posts that have added to my knowledge of the MME.

I took my 2023 premium MME RWD to dragon back in April; I was surprised at how well it handled. It isn't a GT350R but it did pretty good. I didn't have to utilize the pull-offs. I grew up in East TN and know the roads well (dragon, snake, devils triangle, rattlesnake, moonshiner, etc). Great looking MME.

 

[BalsaDust]

I honestly was surprised by the number of us 'senior" drivers, I was hoping there would be more younger drivers on the poll. I guess the Mustang has evolved from the "Secretary's Car" to the matured sofisticated driver!

 

[vintage seabee]

I took my 2023 premium MME RWD to dragon back in April; I was surprised at how well it handled. It isn't a GT350R but it did pretty good. I didn't have to utilize the pull-offs. I grew up in East TN and know the roads well (dragon, snake, devils triangle, rattlesnake, moonshiner, etc). Great looking MME.

I agree with Howard about the handling but it will handle better with mods.

 

[vintage seabee]

Now that you mention the SEABEES, I recently watched this episode of Mike Rowe's "Somebody's Gotta Do It" about his day working with the SEABEES.

Thanks for sharing the video. It brought back quite a few memories of my 28 years as a Seabee. Many changes is an understatement. They forgot to mention our role in the Vietnam War but those of us who were there will remember.

 

[George Knighton]

78% of respondents over 40.

And five people over 90.



I wonder whether Ford knew it was building this car for us.

 

[DadzBoyz]

78% of respondents over 40.

And five people over 90.



I wonder whether Ford knew it was building this car for us.

I think they were counting on us with the Mustang name.

 

[Spike]

I think that if there was any other CEO they would be too scared to push the envelope. Elon isn't scared of getting fired, he's not scared of government investigations and he's not scared of upsetting a large portion of the population. Anyone else would be. He's making things happen, via his leadership and employing smart people, not his own personal inventions, that no one else has been able to do in quite the same way. That's invaluable and the reason the board keeps him.

But they also wouldn't be locked into things that don't make sense, like the gull wing door on the X, that was a foolish thing to do for a fledgling car company and didn't add anything to the car. I did cost them tens of thousands of engineering hours, delayed release of the car, & thousands of warranty claims.
Or also on the X, the single post seat mount on the 2nd row. He said they would do it, so they had to do it; but it again added to the engineering time, because it isn't a desk chair it has to be able to withstand the weight of an adult in a crash with the tremendous forces on it. So they you ended up with the SUV with a second row that couldn't be folded or removed for functionality, but hey, looked cool.
After the 3 came out, he said he wanted a whole new platform for the Y, which is just foolish. They are the same size on the bottom, save money and just use most of the same stuff. He was eventually convinced this was foolish, but it took time.
His frequent lies about what the company is going to do hurt with anyone who is serious.
He spouts off and then everyone is forced to make it happen, even if it doesn't make sense.

He's a petulant child, except with money and fanboys.

 

[DevSecOps]

He's a petulant child, with money and fanboys.

And this is the one and only reason you replied to my post. In my opinion that immediately invalidates everything you say, because you say it with bias and malice.

I don't give a damn what any CEO does or how they act. I judge a product based on it's value to me and personally I prefer to spend my money supporting the men and women who make products in the USA. What a minority owner of a company does is irrelevant to me.

All companies make mistakes on vehicles. The MachE is no exception. My Rivian is no exception. You learn from your mistakes and one of the things Elon has said is that the gull wing doors was one of the worst things he's ever done. So you're faulting him for admission of his mistakes?

No one is perfect. Many CEOs do things that I disagree with, they just aren't vocal and public about it. You're letting Elon live in your head and in my humble opinion that's just not healthy.

 

[Spike]

Welcome to the legacies of federal republicanism.

Unless otherwise regulated by federal law, the States can have varying ages of majority, or different majorities for different purposes.

In Virginia, you might be an adult, depending on the purpose, at 16, 18, 21, or 25. I have no idea how we settled on 25 as the typical trust age, but there you have it.

Yeah, I grew up in CT where adulthood was pretty much 18; but I bought two cars before then. Now I am in CA and my son is able to buy. I have never heard that you couldn't buy a car till you were the age of adulthood in the state.

 

[Spike]

And this is the one and only reason you replied to my post. In my opinion that immediately invalidates everything you say, because you say it with bias and malice.

I don't give a damn what any CEO does or how they act. I judge a product based on it's value to me and personally I prefer to spend my money supporting the men and women who make products in the USA. What a minority owner of a company does is irrelevant to me.

All companies make mistakes on vehicles. The MachE is no exception. My Rivian is no exception. You learn from your mistakes and one of the things Elon has said is that the gull wing doors was one of the worst things he's ever done. So you're faulting him for admission of his mistakes?

No one is perfect. Many CEOs do things that I disagree with, they just aren't vocal and public about it. You're letting Elon live in your head and in my humble opinion that's just not healthy.

well luckily I put it at the end then

what bias do I have?
What malice do you think I have?

Am I somehow not allowed to have a negative opinion of someone because it would hurt your feelings?

None of my examples had anything to do with how he acts outside of his role as CEO or whatever he calls himself lately. Everything I said had to do with the product and how he treats the employees. Do you find it impossible for someone to be reasonable and make products in the U.S.? Because those aren't mutually exclusive.

My examples weren't mistakes, they were someone who would not listen to his advisors. Tesla majde a concerted effort to do things differently and not follow the auto manufacturer norms, in some ways that was great and brought innovation, and in someways it brought about absolutely ridiculous situations. There is seemingly little forethought and long term planning. There was till maybe the Y no real serious testing of product before it was released. So you end up with situations like someone replacing a door handle 5 times because the S wasn't tested in frozen climates. You end up with people going to their new model 3s after the rain, opening the trunk and all the water off the trunk going into the trunk. Because it had only been driven around the bay are where it was relatively dry all the time. You end up with cars that were pulled off the line for manufacturing defects being shipped out to customers before repairs because Elon tweeted that X number of cars were going to ship and the numbers weren't there.

And for the gull wing doors, he was told repeatedly that the required engineering would be tremendous, and time consuming, no reasonable person pushed it. They weren't ready when the car was released. The warranty claims were huge. And at that point it was only their 2nd (lotus made the Roadster except for the motors and battery) car, it was a fledgling company. If say Audi wanted to do it, OK, they can absorb that cost. Tesla would have been better served focusing on the car and the interface.

Elon doesn't live in my head, someone mentioned him and I commented. That is far from living in my head. I don't give a crap what he does and am glad I sold my stock long ago.

 

[DevSecOps]

None of my examples had anything to do with how he acts outside of his role as CEO or whatever he calls himself lately. Everything I said had to do with the product and how he treats the employees. Do you find it impossible for someone to be reasonable and make products in the U.S.? Because those aren't mutually exclusive.

My examples weren't mistakes, they were someone who would not listen to his advisors. Tesla majde a concerted effort to do things differently and not follow the auto manufacturer norms, in some ways that was great and brought innovation, and in someways it brought about absolutely ridiculous situations. There is seemingly little forethought and long term planning. There was till maybe the Y no real serious testing of product before it was released. So you end up with situations like someone replacing a door handle 5 times because the S wasn't tested in frozen climates. You end up with people going to their new model 3s after the rain, opening the trunk and all the water off the trunk going into the trunk. Because it had only been driven around the bay are where it was relatively dry all the time. You end up with cars that were pulled off the line for manufacturing defects being shipped out to customers before repairs because Elon tweeted that X number of cars were going to ship and the numbers weren't there.

And for the gull wing doors, he was told repeatedly that the required engineering would be tremendous, and time consuming, no reasonable person pushed it. They weren't ready when the car was released. The warranty claims were huge. And at that point it was only their 2nd (lotus made the Roadster except for the motors and battery) car, it was a fledgling company. If say Audi wanted to do it, OK, they can absorb that cost. Tesla would have been better served focusing on the car and the interface.

Thanks for the reply and sorry for being a bit harsh. I've been a bit riled up on here lately.

First of all, I'm not a complete fan of Elon. I've said before that there's a lot of things that he does that I disagree with. However I am very much a fan of his leadership style. I like working for someone who is direct and somewhat unreasonable and always pushing the envelope. I worked under Larry Ellison who, while not so publicly, is very similar and has the same leadership characteristics as Elon. I know quite a few people who work at Tesla and they are very smart and they very much love their job. Not everyone likes working with a demanding boss and when you see people complain you have to ask yourself, what kind of worker is that? I'm not saying they are all bad, but factually there's people who are very lazy and don't take critique or high pressure well. The same love/hate comments are made about other leaders with the same style. As I said, I work better under those people because their desire to achieve and wild dreams inspire me to contribute more.

A lot of the things you consider failures I would disagree on being failures in the long term. Failures are definitely necessary to have. Without them we wouldn't move forward. The first flights weren't successes but they led to what we have today. Taking an example from your list. Door handles - sure, originally they had issues. But look at all the vehicles that have gone to flush handles for aero and less emissions. While it might have been him bucking the engineers, ultimately it's now adopted by other mfgs as well. It's now the norm for EVs.

I really wish that other mfgs would be bold and take more risk. I wish other CEOs were daring and brave enough to tell their engineering and design teams to have fun and be creative. The video done by Jay Leno is actually very eye opening, there's a post on it here. They talk to the lead designer and engineer and you can really tell that they wanted to do even crazier things with the CT, but regulations held them back. It's not just Elon. He employs by far, some of the smartest people in vehicle engineering on the planet. They want the innovation, they want the craziness and they want to change the auto industry as we know it. He just let's them. I'm 100% confident that Elon doesn't come up with half the things you're talking about as failures. I honestly think that it's his team instilling these ideas into his head and saying "boss we can do this". Elon is smart, but his employees are smarter, he's just the public face behind it.

If we look at the progression of vehicles 10 years ago vs today most of what has changed is in an attempt to copy Tesla. That speaks volumes. The MachE is an electric vehicle, has an enormous screen, has flush handles, has OTA update capabilities, has a completely digital display and the list goes on. Recently they all announced they would go NACS. The guy has revolutionized vehicles and without those failures, his leadership style and him allowing his team to follow their crazy ideas, I personally believe it wouldn't have happened.

 

[TheSteelRider]

... I'm not a complete fan of Elon. I've said before that there's a lot of things that he does that I disagree with. However I am very much a fan of his leadership style. I like working for someone who is direct and somewhat unreasonable and always pushing the envelope.

 

[DevSecOps]

You had to???

 

[TheSteelRider]

You had to???

I mean, you opened the door, bowed, pointed, and BEGGED me to walk through, what you expect?

On a serious note, +1 on all points on the post. I will disagree with 1 point, well maybe not disagree since you didn't take a stance. I guess more like, point out a viewpoint. Years ago, I read "How to Castrate a Bull" which was about a CEO of a company who was very Elon-like, who upon reflection, realized after he was ousted from the company that in reality he was not a "large company" CEO and the book is his reflection of this. It's basically how I feel about Elon. In my opinion, Elon should have stepped down as CEO around about 2019-ish. He's clearly not fit to be the CEO anymore of Tesla, more like the chief engineer or something. But, I feel in the CEO role he's now holding back the company.

The reality is, if we want EVs to go more mainstream we really can't have someone like Elon being the CEO of Tesla. Even the most ardent fans really need to step back and realize how all of the "420 funding secured", over-paying for his brother's company to save it for bankruptcy, "Full self driving coming this year, no this year, no this year, no ...", telsa bots, boring bricks, ... I think you get the point. He's becoming a meme, and that meme is now being projected to the EV world as a whole. Now, other factors are at play, I will admit, but you know, least common denominator and such.

 

[DevSecOps]

The reality is, if we want EVs to go more mainstream we really can't have someone like Elon being the CEO of Tesla. Even the most ardent fans really need to step back and realize how all of the "420 funding secured", over-paying for his brother's company to save it for bankruptcy, "Full self driving coming this year, no this year, no this year, no ...", telsa bots, boring bricks, ... I think you get the point. He's becoming a meme, and that meme is now being projected to the EV world as a whole. Now, other factors are at play, I will admit, but you know, least common denominator and such.

I'll agree to disagree. I don't think Tesla would be what it is without him. YoY they increase sales. The CT has over 2M deposits etc.

The problem isn't Tesla holding back mainstream EVs, it's all the other companies that are stuck in a legacy mindset. Who's investing more in EVs and who's pulling back? I think we both know the answer.

Sponsored