No Mach-E Production Scheduling This Week (01/10/2022)

[atacama]

I think it is safe to say that the full value of the current tax credit will be available through the end of the year. Ford is roughly at 157K vehicles sold as of December 31st. That leaves 43K left. Ford sold roughly 30K last year. Even with MME production ramping up, and the forthcoming Lightning, I don’t se them hitting the phaseout trigger until Q3 at the earliest, which means that Q4 retains full value of the credit. Unless something really weird happens, in 23 weeks you should have your MME, long before the phaseout trigger is hit.

Ford was at roughly 157k vehicles at the end of 2021Q3, not the end of 2021. If you look at the IRS site and scroll over to the right, 21Q4 is not yet populated, and the 2021 cumulative sales figure is the sum of quarters 1-3. So estimating when Ford hits 200k EVs sold requires estimating MME sales plus Lightning and Transit EV sales that are supposed to start in spring. Given all the MME production issues we’ve seen, it’s not a bad guess that the other EVs will start rather slow, so there’s a decent chance Ford won’t hit 200k sold until 22Q3, which would trigger a credit reduction to $3750 starting 1/1/23. But it could also easily be 10/1/22 when it drops to $3750. See this thread for more.

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[PupSideDown]

There are a number of ways to track the progress of your MME as it winds it’s way through Ford‘s production and delivery systems. This website has links to those trackers and instructions on how to use them. If you look up above, across the masthead of the site is a link called “Trackers” that takes you to the list of those. A lot of them require a VIN to use. You don‘t get the VIN until you have a production week scheduled, unfortunately. depending upon how you ordered your car, you may get an e-mail from Ford that has the production week and VIN in it, or you might have to bug your dealer for it. I got mine from Ford because I configured and ordered everything online.

You may have already answered this question, so apologize in advance. I really appreciate all the tracking tools, but not sure how to interpret the Module Build Data. My order was scheduled for production week of 1/3/2022, and I can see a long list of BCE Modules, but no PCM Modules. There is an option to download a file, so not sure if I should do that each day to compare progress. It is very encouraging to see evidence that my MME is in production (order placed 7/10/2021), so enjoy following the process. Thanks for your feedback. This forum has been very helpful.

 

[FLmac]

I also am uncertain of the greater meaning of Av8tor's "no scheduling this week" comment on this thread.

Ford schedules new cars for production on Thursday. If you don’t have a production date yet Thursday night is when the Magic 8 ball of the Ford computer scheduling happens.

For this week there is no scheduling. There is no point in calling Ford, calling your dealer or obsessively checking your Ford account for a production date.

For me, it means a week of not really thinking about it until next week when I will dread Thursday but have a small glimmer of hope that my Magic 8 ball will say “It is decidedly so.“ instead of “Outook not so good.”

I‘m on week 12 and there’s only been scheduling on 6 weeks. I guess the problem with ordering before the holidays.

 

[devmach-e]

Ford was at roughly 157k vehicles at the end of 2021Q3, not the end of 2021. If you look at the IRS site and scroll over to the right, 21Q4 is not yet populated, and the 2021 cumulative sales figure is the sum of quarters 1-3. So estimating when Ford hits 200k EVs sold requires estimating MME sales plus Lightning and Transit EV sales that are supposed to start in spring. Given all the MME production issues we’ve seen, it’s not a bad guess that the other EVs will start rather slow, so there’s a decent chance Ford won’t hit 200k sold until 22Q3, which would trigger a credit reduction to $3750 starting 1/1/23. But it could also easily be 10/1/22 when it drops to $3750. See this thread for more.

I’m looking at https://www.irs.gov/businesses/irc-30d-plug-in-electric-drive-motor-vehicle-credit-quarterly-sales which shows that Ford had ~149K cumulative sales as of the end of 2021Q3 and a steady ~7.5K worth of sales each quarter last year, which is why I estimated that they would be at 157K on December 31st. In the first half of the year, I don’t see them doing more than about 25K worth of MMEs for the US. And I’m highly suspicious that “spring deliveries” will be a lot closer to June 1st rather than the end of March for the Lightning or Transit EV vans.

Update: Apparently Ford sold 8285 MMEs for Q4, so that puts the estimated cumulative sales closer to 158K. Perhaps they’ll break 30K MMEs in the first half of this year. As long as they cross the 200K threshold after July 1st, it means the full value of the tax credit remains through the end of the year.

 

[Phil-Springs]

Anyone understand why the Select and California Rt 1 have only 20+ week delivery predictions vs 28+ for the others?

 

[devmach-e]

You may have already answered this question, so apologize in advance. I really appreciate all the tracking tools, but not sure how to interpret the Module Build Data. My order was scheduled for production week of 1/3/2022, and I can see a long list of BCE Modules, but no PCM Modules. There is an option to download a file, so not sure if I should do that each day to compare progress. It is very encouraging to see evidence that my MME is in production (order placed 7/10/2021), so enjoy following the process. Thanks for your feedback. This forum has been very helpful.

I put in various VINs of actual on-the-lot MMEs at local dealers around me, and none of them had PCM modules listed. I’m not entirely sure how to interpret the BCE data, either, but seeing ~900 listed makes me think my MME was being assembled last week…

 

[PupSideDown]

I put in various VINs of actual on-the-lot MMEs at local dealers around me, and none of them had PCM modules listed. I’m not entirely sure how to interpret the BCE data, either, but seeing ~900 listed makes me think my MME was being assembled last week…

Thanks. I was a little worried that the absence of PCM modules might be a bad thing, but glad to hear it probably doesn't mean anything. When scrolling down the long list of BCE modules, I notice that most have information in all 3 columns, and a few have only 1 or 2 columns populated. I am assuming that all the modules need to have all 3 columns populated to be a completed assembly. Of course, that assumption is not based on any actual facts, just a guess.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Anyone understand why the Select and California Rt 1 have only 20+ week delivery predictions vs 28+ for the others?

I don't know if this is the reason or not, but it's possible. I searched the AsBuilt data for the following VINs, as well as pulled their window stickers. These vehicles are all available in the Los Angeles area (except the last one because I was looking for a Customer-ordered Rt.1). Using the data from the AsBuilt and Window Stickers, I have a small table that includes the number of modules and order date vs ship/delivery date.

The Select with the larger number of modules took some time to be shipped/delivered. The fastest ship/delivery was the Rt1, then the Select with no extras. Then the Premium and finally the GT.

This is a very, very small sample size. My hypothesis before gathering these data is that delivery times has to do with the number of computer chips that are needed to complete the build. These data aren't perfectly correlated with that hypothesis, but neither can we rule it out yet.

The GT is a special beast. And there are likely factors other than simple module count that impacts this, but it's interesting...
And the Dealers seem to get their vehicles earlier than customers do.

To really test this, we would need to have data from many examples of each trim level, with and without added options, and for Dealers vs Customers.

Trim	VIN	Number of unique modules	Number of non-blank/non-0 module codes (3rd populated column from AsBuilt)	Window Sticker last updated	Order Date	MSRP	Dealer or Customer order
Select + O	3FMTK1SS2MMA36069	1793	760	01/09/22	05/28/21	$49,235	Dealer
Select	3FMTK1RM8MMA58309	849	373	01/06/22	11/23/21	$43,995	Dealer
Rt. 1	3FMTK2R70MMA57235	952	393	01/06/22	12/13/21	$51,500	Dealer
Premium	3FMTK3SS4MMA58585	1002	502	01/08/22	10/13/21	$52,040	Customer
GT	3FMTK4SE9MME01102	992	404	01/09/22	07/20/21	$61,000	Customer
Rt. 1	3FMTK2R72MMA57852	952	393	01/12/22	10/15/21	$52,740	Customer

 

[Bigfeets]

Ford schedules new cars for production on Thursday. If you don’t have a production date yet Thursday night is when the Magic 8 ball of the Ford computer scheduling happens.

For this week there is no scheduling. There is no point in calling Ford, calling your dealer or obsessively checking your Ford account for a production date.

For me, it means a week of not really thinking about it until next week when I will dread Thursday but have a small glimmer of hope that my Magic 8 ball will say “It is decidedly so.“ instead of “Outook not so good.”

I‘m on week 12 and there’s only been scheduling on 6 weeks. I guess the problem with ordering before the holidays.

I see. (I am day 35 of predicted 196-day wait.) I hope that I have earned some advantage with the "Magic 8 ball" by "dumb luck".? Maybe it's just the opposite, IDK.

My order came from California which has 50 2022 orders (dated between 1 Oct 21 to 8 Jan 22) entered in this data base, but only 17 from next closest State, Florida. (Could be Californians just participate in online forums more than others.) Does that mean More Orders=More Deliveries, or would each State be considered equally by the computerized allocation algorithm? California is also a ZEV State with incentives for electric vehicles (sadly, not a sales tax exemption), but Florida is not a ZEV State. Would Ford's "magic 8 ball" favor the ZEV States?

My experience with a randomly chosen dealer is neutral, so far, but I was asked to pay a higher deposit than some other folks, which apparently earned me no advantage with the dealer's priority number. Dealer assigned priority 19. Also, I see the week (17-24 Oct) of your order has 30 folks from ~15 States registered in the "those who wait" database. While the week of my order (5 Dec-12 Dec) has about 10 folks from ~5 States. Noone has entered an actual build date, yet. I'm guessing that means NO 2022 order (filed after Sept 30 2021) has yet been scheduled. It's really hard to tell from this limited data how well Ford is dealing with the 2022 MME supply/demand issue.

Maybe Ford doesn't want customers to know too much about how they decide who to serve when demand exceeds supply. I'm not wanting to be too cynical or grumpy and I think I do this by being informed, so thanks for the comment.

 

[Bigfeets]

I’m not sure what you mean by a “semantic matter”. The reality is that the plant was not ”idle” last week since I, and other people on this forum, clearly have MMEs that went into production last week. There’s nothing ambiguous about it. We have the various tracker data to prove it, plus previous posts that describe the process of making the car And how it relates to that tracker data.

Again, Sir, I used "idle" because that was the status of the Cuautitlan Assembly plant given on the FordAuthority.com link I provided. I don't know what idle means to them (lights off, nobody present? or subassemblies/modules loaded and ready, robots armed, humans fully staffed, but the line is not yet cranking out units?) I also don't know what the reality is of "you and others being told your order is in production" on any given day whether the plant is "idle" or not, and what it means that FordAuthority.com says the plant was in full production on 10 Jan. That is a semantic quandary facing all of us poorly informed about the "reality" of Ford MME production.

I'm not sure why your tone is huffy and focused on my use of one word. However, be sure and provide any lecture you deem appropriate regarding your own experience with MME ordering and delivery.

As for my concerns about the Federal tax credit, I have been awakened to Ford's approaching the 200,000 cap and likely consequences, by others on this Forum. I thank them. My continued concern (because the Fed tax credit is a factor in my decision to order an MME) is that Congress might enact a cap on the EV sale price to eliminate the Fed tax credit on "luxury" EVs, such as Premium MME with extended battery. There are various opinions on whether this may happen or not. That too, I personally hope to avoid if Ford delivers an MME close to or before their predicted delivery date. Day 36 of predicted 196-day wait.

ps semantic- relating to meaning in language or logic
here is the line from FordAuthority.com plant status report for week of 3 Jan 2022

Ford Mustang Mach-E

Cuautitlan, Mexico

Idle

January 10, 2021

January 3, 2022

They apparently have typo on the Jan 10 "startup date".
I'm glad you're going to get your MME before 196 weeks. I'm hoping the same for me.

 

[BTRYPWRDPONY]

Ford schedules new cars for production on Thursday. If you don’t have a production date yet Thursday night is when the Magic 8 ball of the Ford computer scheduling happens.

For this week there is no scheduling. There is no point in calling Ford, calling your dealer or obsessively checking your Ford account for a production date.

For me, it means a week of not really thinking about it until next week when I will dread Thursday but have a small glimmer of hope that my Magic 8 ball will say “It is decidedly so.“ instead of “Outook not so good.”

I‘m on week 12 and there’s only been scheduling on 6 weeks. I guess the problem with ordering before the holidays.

I'm on week 21 today, still no production date. It's going to be a while.

 

[Av8tor]

I've been watching the industry, just before the end of December, China went into a major lockdown for COVID in several cities. This was a do not leave home, or goto work type lockdown.

That might be why the supply chain is getting worse.

Wall Street Journal:

China’s recent Covid-19 flare-ups are prompting factory closures and clogging up ports, heightening fears of global supply disruptions. The world’s third-busiest container port of Ningbo-Zhoushan, near Shanghai, risks worsening backlogs after more than two dozen Covid-19 infections were confirmed in the surrounding area. In August, the port was temporarily closed after the detection of a single case.​

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[Edit] Added Source URL:
China Covid-19 Lockdowns Hit Factories, Ports in Latest Knock to Supply Chains - WSJ

 

[Bigfeets]

I've been watching the industry, just before the end of December, China went into a major lockdown for COVID in several cities. This was a do not leave home, or goto work type lockdown.

That might be why the supply chain is getting worse.

Wall Street Journal:

China’s recent Covid-19 flare-ups are prompting factory closures and clogging up ports, heightening fears of global supply disruptions. The world’s third-busiest container port of Ningbo-Zhoushan, near Shanghai, risks worsening backlogs after more than two dozen Covid-19 infections were confirmed in the surrounding area. In August, the port was temporarily closed after the detection of a single case.​

Were you intending to infer that the cited Chinese events may make US deliveries of MME worse? or is this a general/global concern?
While Ford just started MME production in a Chinese assembly plant, then shut it down due to pandemic impacts to battery assembly plant (also in China), neither of these two things would likely directly impact MME deliveries in US and Europe, right? (The Cuautitlan, Mexico, assembly plant is the sole source of completed US-delivered MME and the batteries pouches are produced by a Korean company at a plant in Poland. IDK where batteries for US marketed MME are assembled. Other locations than the Cuautitlan final assembly plant produce "modules" or subassemblies for US-marketed MME, such as notorious, recalled rear seatbelt anchor produced at Hermosillo plant.) Clearly, any supply chain delays have the potential of again slowing MME deliveries in the US, but events in China aren't currently doing so (assuming no subassemblies for US-marketed MME come from China). Is there more to this?

 

[Av8tor]

Chips - microcontrollers

Wall Street Journal:

The global semiconductor shortage is worsening, with wait times lengthening, buyers hoarding products and the potential end looking less likely to materialize by next year. Demand didn’t moderate as expected. Supply routes got clogged. Unpredictable production hiccups slammed factories already running at full capacity.​

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What’s left is widespread confusion for manufacturers and buyers alike. Some buyers trying to place new orders are getting delivery dates in 2024, said Ian Walker, operations director at electronic-components distributor Princeps Electronics Ltd., which helps companies find chips.​

Wait times for chip deliveries have continued to climb above a healthy threshold of 9-12 weeks. Over the summer, the wait stretched to 19 weeks on average, according to Susquehanna Financial Group. But as of October, it has ballooned to 22 weeks. It is longer for the scarcest parts: 25 weeks for power-management components and 38 weeks for the microcontrollers that the auto industry needs, the firm said.​

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Global Chip Shortage ‘Is Far From Over’ as Wait Times Get Longer - WSJ​

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