Munro is not happy with the Mach-E, back in Tesla fanboy mode

Chuck

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I think I'll be glad that Ford uses "off the shelf" parts when a repair is needed. My car won't be in a shop for 8 months waiting for salvage parts to be available like Tesla owners.
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timbop

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it doesn't matter if a model appears to be losing money
What? The assertion is that Ford would save as much money as Tesla does by designing custom assemblies for the Mach E. That assertion is based on the premise that Tesla realizes an actual savings; if their cars are more expensive AND losing money then the premise doesn't hold.

It was @timbop that compared it saying other vehicles were similar, not me. I was asking which ones.
Who was repeating @RonTCat who mentioned that theor hybrids have had the same system/design since 2005. Presumably that's the fusion and focus hybrid variants; I'm not a Ford historian so I don't know the specifics. Ron is an engineer for Ford, so I trust him to know
 

JoeDimwit

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No. You don’t get to put words in my mouth and then argue against them. That’s not how this works. Ford put the parts where they needed to put them, and then designed a system to allow access. Besides, why do you care how many covers the service tech needs to remove in the event your vehicle goes in for service?
 

available_username2

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I decided to take one for the team here and 1.5x'd my way through his long-winded video. It all came down to:
a) There's lots of parts;
b) That's more parts than Tesla;
c) More parts = bad;
d) The purpose of my company is to tell other companies how to package things more cheaply;
e) I used to work at Ford. A long, long time ago.
f) Did I mention I used to work at Ford?

I will humbly admit that I am not engineer, and certainly know next to nothing about packaging, heat exchange systems, designing reliable mechanical systems, etc. However, I will say I've learned nothing of use in this video.

YMMV, I guess.
I like how his qualifications are he used to work at Ford in the 80s. When they were world renowned for quality manufacturing
 

jlauro

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No. You don’t get to put words in my mouth and then argue against them. That’s not how this works. Ford put the parts where they needed to put them, and then designed a system to allow access. Besides, why do you care how many covers the service tech needs to remove in the event your vehicle goes in for service?
I care if it's something that should be user serviceable, and the 12V battery is something that should be.
 


jlauro

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I see this 12v thing again and again and am puzzled. In all my EV's number of times 12v battery replaced, zero. Yes my 12 year old volt still has the original 12v battery. Never had to change one. Never had to jump one either. Number of time my Tundra 12v battery changed in 9 year 5 times! Number needed jump start, more than a dozen. EV's are just different IME.

Maybe Ford knows this folks. Just a thought.
We have already had people with 12V charging issues due to the cold weather. Part of this was firmware issues, but obviously Ford didn't know the battery as well as they thought. You could say it was a software failure, but it still required a hardware fix if it failed, showing it should be easier to access.

I have had batteries last close to a decade, and I have also had to replace the battery in my Dodge charger about ever 4 years. Due to the chemistry of 12V batteries, you should expect to be replacing them every 3-6 years. Until these have been on the road a lot, or Ford explicitly states the 12v battery should last longer, I am not expecting anything different than most 12v batteries.
 

TheCats

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Munro has a long history as a design consultancy. His videos were only occasionally produced, and only lightly watched, until the Model Y and pandemic arrived simultaneously. He went from running a narrowly-known competitive analysis firm to being a YouTube, uhmm, celebrity. (I don't want to be rude and call him a "social media influencer". He's not selling cosmetics and scarfs.)

The integrated drive unit was designed and manufactured by BorgWarner. BorgWarner subcontracted the design of some subsystems to specialty firms, with the gearbox, thermal control/cooling for the IDU, and gearbox done in-house. The HVAC and battery cooling were done elsewhere, with Ford piecing the system together. That diffuse design responsibility resulted in the odd component stack, and unique coolant hoses with 'T' connections.
 

jlauro

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No. You don’t get to put words in my mouth and then argue against them. That’s not how this works. Ford put the parts where they needed to put them, and then designed a system to allow access. Besides, why do you care how many covers the service tech needs to remove in the event your vehicle goes in for service?
Even if I never want to service the vehicle myself, I care because typically half the cost of the repair is labor. I want it to be easy to service to keep repair costs down. Why should replacing a part take several hours when the vehicle can be designed a little better so it only takes under 30 minutes for common parts that need replacing? Are you suggesting that Ford designed it that way to keep their service centers busy and to discourage customers from doing any maintenance such as replacing the 12v battery?
 

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Munro has a long history as a design consultancy. His videos were only occasionally produced, and only lightly watched, until the Model Y and pandemic arrived simultaneously. He went from running a narrowly-known competitive analysis firm to being a YouTube, uhmm, celebrity. (I don't want to be rude and call him a "social media influencer". He's not selling cosmetics and scarfs.)

The integrated drive unit was designed and manufactured by BorgWarner. BorgWarner subcontracted the design of some subsystems to specialty firms, with the gearbox, thermal control/cooling for the IDU, and gearbox done in-house. The HVAC and battery cooling were done elsewhere, with Ford piecing the system together. That diffuse design responsibility resulted in the odd component stack, and unique coolant hoses with 'T' connections.
You seem to be "in the know" on this stuff which is new to the rest of us. Here is the question we all want to know: Are those coolant hoses likely going to stand the test of time?
 

noway

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Going into some tehnical stuff about the coolant hose mess... but possibly a necessary mess? Could it be different components requiring different temperatures, not just as with an ICE where 95 degrees is "perfect!" for everything?

As far as I can see from Internet searches Tesla is putting the whole cooling system into one circuit with the battery in a subcircuit to allow different parts to be heated or cooled, but using the same circuit, more or less how a "normal" ICE cooling works, but it is more complex with the heat pump design. This might be totally wrong.. I have nowhere to verify.

Ford has not done so, they have used one circuit for only the electronics (inverter and charger) and the motors, only cooled by a radiator at the front, and no valves or anything, just a plain circuit. No resitive heating in this circuit.

Then there is another circuit which is a lot more complex going through the battery, the cabin heater, a resitive heater element (PVC) and via a cooler connected to the refrigerant circuit of the air conditioning system. This circuit is driven with two separate pumps and has two valves, one of them being a 4-way valve and the other more or less a "thermostat" for allowing coolant to circulate via the refrigerated cooler if the cabin heating is not removing enough heat to cool the batteries.

The second circuit can go into different modes modes:
1) The cabin is heated only using the PVC heater, the battery has circulating coolant via different cicuit, but without heating.
2) The cabin and the battery coolant circuits are connected and both are heated via the PVC element, or the cabin is being heated by the battery heat alone
3) The cooler is enabled via a separate valve, allowing air condition compressor to refrigerate the coolant, in theory allowing the batteries to be kept at a lower than ambient temperature.

As far as I can see the valves are not On/off, they can be regulated so combinations can happen.

The air conditioning system seems to be very "standard", but with an additional bypass for the water-to-refrigerant cooler.

I can not find anywhere the two ciruits are connected, meaning the motor heat is just thrown away, regardless of the other circuit.

All from the Ford documentation, which is at least in the EU available for a fee via ETIS.
 

Birger

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I think I'll be glad that Ford uses "off the shelf" parts when a repair is needed. My car won't be in a shop for 8 months waiting for salvage parts to be available like Tesla owners.
There are really bad stories on Tesla and repair. But after owning an early Model S for well over 7 years and being in the Tesla community all that time, it's not the norm.

We now switched to the beauty to the left here about 10 days ago. And it's going into the Ford dealer a second time on Monday. I did not have that on the S with Tesla. And frankly, the SW quality and usability sucks on the Mustang compared to Tesla. I am looking forward to the promised OTA capabilities, because they are needed.
 

Birger

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I like how his qualifications are he used to work at Ford in the 80s. When they were world renowned for quality manufacturing
He quit Ford and started a good business on his own.

" His first major success came while still working with Ford Motor Company on the Ford Taurus. Sandy was given the opportunity to deploy his new design methodologies on the Ford Taurus, which was transformed into a high value, high return on investment vehicle. So impressed with the results, Ford deployed the process on all new vehicle development programs. In five short years, Ford closed the market share gap to rival General Motors by a whopping 50 percent. "

I think he knows a tad bit more about manufacturing than most of us.
 

theo1000

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I have had batteries last close to a decade, and I have also had to replace the battery in my Dodge charger about ever 4 years. Due to the chemistry of 12V batteries, you should expect to be replacing them every 3-6 years.
I'm not sure this computes. How is your experience on the dodge charger relevant to this discussion. EV's run different.

The 12v battery drain was purely software and electronics. After the update the issue has essentially disappeared. I am very confident I will not be replacing it every 3-6 years.
 
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jlauro

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I'm not sure this computes. How is your experience on the dodge charger relevant to this discussion. EV's run different.

The 12v battery drain was purely software and electronics. After the update the issue has essentially disappeared. I am very confident I will not be replacing it every 3-6 years.
It computes because AFAIK the 12V batteries are the same lead-acid chemistry as in ICE vehicles. What makes you think they will last longer? Do you have anything that indicates a longer expected lifecycle besides your experience with a Chevy volt?

PS: I hope you are correct and they last 10+ years... that said, it will not surprise me if they don't.
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