Production runs & line output guesstimates

[DaveRuns]

OK, time for version 5!

The latest news today from Ford employees, including in Cuautitlan, confirmed some new key dates and other information:

• Job 1 is now September 28
• Mass production 1 will be FCTP and company cars
• Mass production 2 will begin about a month later and will be customer units and dealer stock
• All First Editions to be built by last week of October, if possible
• Time table from the day your vin is built to arrival at dealer 3-4 weeks
• OK to buy (date customer units expected at dealers in US) is now November 23
• Assembly line rate at full production 1,300 per week and Dearborn wants them to hit it!
• Important corollary: Dearborn wants nothing shipped with anything to fix. Farley has a no excuse policy.
• Final date for conversion of First Edition reservations has slipped again to 8/14
• As far as we know, Mach E production scheduling still begins August 20
• We've heard Dutch delivery dates around the end of February

I've separated Run 1 into Job #1, FEs, and the rest of MP 2.

Job #1:
At least 2,000 cars will be produced. This includes all of the FCTP units as well as company orders. Company orders include units for final testing as well as executive orders. We know that there will be at least 2,000 units for FCTP. Let's assume 500 more. Presumably EU/UK needs dealer units, so let's still figure 500 there. Under full production of 1,300 per week that's over 2 weeks. However, we should assume slow production, so maybe 3 weeks?

First Editions:
@trutolife27's intel says "The goal is to (try) to have all the first edition built by last week of October."
That's perhaps 3,000 cars. I realize not all reservations will be converted to FE orders but I think conversion will be high. We also don't have confirmation it's 3,000. If we expect 1,000 per week (close to full production), that's 3 weeks. There are only 5 weeks between September 28 and October 30, or 6,500 cars at full production. So maybe they can get out all of Job #1 and the FEs in 5 weeks. Maybe. I'm going to assume Job #1 + First Editions will take 6 weeks. That gets all of the North American First Editions out by the last week of October, which may be what they meant.

Mass Production 2:
Pulling the above two out, this leaves 7 weeks at full production. That's up to 9,100 units. The real question is still how many units are destined for EU/UK. A full Roll-on/Roll-off ship takes about 8,000 vehicles. That would be the almost of the remainder and gets very few Premiums or other non-FE customer units to North America. I doubt that is their plan. I'll again assume 1/2 to NA and 1/2 to EU/UK. I'll also assume full production throughput of vehicles.

Line capacity is now over the needed 50,000 if we assume full production to the end.

Percentages:
We have a few more orders, but still only about 1% of possible orders out there. I don't know if that makes for a valid sample but it's getting close. Selects are up but otherwise no real change and no reason to change assumptions.

v5 Guesstimate
This brings us to the important table:

For North America, we'll assume 4 weeks delivery time (close locations earlier), meaning that by

• November 20 dealers should have their demos
• November 27 First Editions should be delivered
• December 18 should be delivery of
  • 4,000 Premiums
  • 200 Selects and
  • 400 CA Route 1s

This is a little above the high end of the estimate from @trutolife27's contact :

So reality may be lower if production doesn't meet my assumptions.

Producing the EU/UK models other than First Editions would occur at the end, giving 10 weeks to deliver them to their destinations.

What US Reservation Numbers get cars in 2020?
Now I'll go out on a limb I haven't ventured onto before: reservation numbers. We know that there were reservation numbers up into the 80,000s just before orders opened. 50,000 are being produced and orders are still being taken. Let's assume 50% of potential reservation numbers result in orders. This includes reservation numbers not assigned and reservations not converted.

60% of cars go to EU/UK, 40% to NA. That means, for example, that if 10,000 cars are produced, 4,000 US customers get cars. That means 4,000 cars means 10,000 reservation numbers.

Assuming 30% GTs in the US, the 4,000 is actually 5,200 so that brings us to 11,200 reservation numbers. But if only 50% of potential reservation numbers result in orders, that will be doubled to 22,400. Finally, reservation numbers started at 4,000. This means that US reservations up to around 25,000 might be delivered in 2020. We'll consider the First Editions (1000), Selects (200), and CA Route 1s (400) to be noise in this calculation, considering the huge assumptions. Converting that into the more meaningful reservation timestamps, that probably means any reservation made in November has a good chance of being delivered in 2020.

Now don't shoot me if we don't reach res# 20,000! There are lots of assumptions that probably don't hold. Eager people make early reservations, so they probably convert at a higher rate. if @trutolife27's contact is right with the 3,000-5,000 estimate and slow production brings us in at the low end of that scale, 2,000 Premiums becomes 2,600, becomes 5,600, becomes 11,200, becomes about 15,000, so reservations through ~ November 19.

I'm sure I have some math errors and you can definitely find holes in my assumptions. Thoughts?

As always....great work man! I can’t wait to see how close these estimates are.

 

[makooy]

@ChasingCoral i can help with the Dutch part if you want.

My order was placed at the dealer itself, not via Ford website or leasing company.
The dealer had ordered 3 cars for theirselfs for showroom/test-drive purposes and i bought 1 of them to get the car earlier then when i bought it the regular way.
I also get 3.000 euro discount due to tax-changes as you can see in the Dutch tax topic.

Im in so called Batch 1 cars - 2.000 cars for NL market which should have been here before 31-dec-2020.
Dealer estimated that delivery is end of march-2021 >> week 13
Orders above the 2.000 are in Batch 2 and will be delivered in April/May according to my info

If we reverse-calculate that:
- paperwork + transport within NL = about 2 week >> week 11
- transport from Mexico to Oostende-Belgium(where EU cars are offloaded afaik) = between 6-8weeks = >> week 3 to week 5
- Loading boat + wait untill boat is full = 1 week >> week 2-3

So simple but inaccurate guess is that my car will be made last weeks of december or first weeks of januari-2021.

I've ordered an "RWD - Standard Range - Lucid Red - Technology Pack Plus"
Which is the same as US version:
"Select - RWD - Standard Range - Rapid Red" with Technology Plus extra's as the "Premium" has.

 

[portlandg]

OK, time for version 5!

The latest news today from Ford employees, including in Cuautitlan, confirmed some new key dates and other information:

• Job 1 is now September 28
• Mass production 1 will be FCTP and company cars
• Mass production 2 will begin about a month later and will be customer units and dealer stock
• All First Editions to be built by last week of October, if possible
• Time table from the day your vin is built to arrival at dealer 3-4 weeks
• OK to buy (date customer units expected at dealers in US) is now November 23
• Assembly line rate at full production 1,300 per week and Dearborn wants them to hit it!
• Important corollary: Dearborn wants nothing shipped with anything to fix. Farley has a no excuse policy.
• Final date for conversion of First Edition reservations has slipped again to 8/14
• As far as we know, Mach E production scheduling still begins August 20
• We've heard Dutch delivery dates around the end of February

I've separated Run 1 into Job #1, FEs, and the rest of MP 2.

Job #1:
At least 2,000 cars will be produced. This includes all of the FCTP units as well as company orders. Company orders include units for final testing as well as executive orders. We know that there will be at least 2,000 units for FCTP. Let's assume 500 more. Presumably EU/UK needs dealer units, so let's still figure 500 there. Under full production of 1,300 per week that's over 2 weeks. However, we should assume slow production, so maybe 3 weeks?

First Editions:
@trutolife27's intel says "The goal is to (try) to have all the first edition built by last week of October."
That's perhaps 3,000 cars. I realize not all reservations will be converted to FE orders but I think conversion will be high. We also don't have confirmation it's 3,000. If we expect 1,000 per week (close to full production), that's 3 weeks. There are only 5 weeks between September 28 and October 30, or 6,500 cars at full production. So maybe they can get out all of Job #1 and the FEs in 5 weeks. Maybe. I'm going to assume Job #1 + First Editions will take 6 weeks. That gets all of the North American First Editions out by the last week of October, which may be what they meant.

Mass Production 2:
Pulling the above two out, this leaves 7 weeks at full production. That's up to 9,100 units. The real question is still how many units are destined for EU/UK. A full Roll-on/Roll-off ship takes about 8,000 vehicles. That would be the almost of the remainder and gets very few Premiums or other non-FE customer units to North America. I doubt that is their plan. I'll again assume 1/2 to NA and 1/2 to EU/UK. I'll also assume full production throughput of vehicles.

Line capacity is now over the needed 50,000 if we assume full production to the end.

Percentages:
We have a few more orders, but still only about 1% of possible orders out there. I don't know if that makes for a valid sample but it's getting close. Selects are up but otherwise no real change and no reason to change assumptions.

v5 Guesstimate
This brings us to the important table:

For North America, we'll assume 4 weeks delivery time (close locations earlier), meaning that by

• November 20 dealers should have their demos
• November 27 First Editions should be delivered
• December 18 should be delivery of
  • 4,000 Premiums
  • 200 Selects and
  • 400 CA Route 1s

This is a little above the high end of the estimate from @trutolife27's contact :

So reality may be lower if production doesn't meet my assumptions.

Producing the EU/UK models other than First Editions would occur at the end, giving 10 weeks to deliver them to their destinations.

What US Reservation Numbers get cars in 2020?
Now I'll go out on a limb I haven't ventured onto before: reservation numbers. We know that there were reservation numbers up into the 80,000s just before orders opened. 50,000 are being produced and orders are still being taken. Let's assume 50% of potential reservation numbers result in orders. This includes reservation numbers not assigned and reservations not converted.

60% of cars go to EU/UK, 40% to NA. That means, for example, that if 10,000 cars are produced, 4,000 US customers get cars. That means 4,000 cars means 10,000 reservation numbers.

Assuming 30% GTs in the US, the 4,000 is actually 5,200 so that brings us to 11,200 reservation numbers. But if only 50% of potential reservation numbers result in orders, that will be doubled to 22,400. Finally, reservation numbers started at 4,000. This means that US reservations up to around 25,000 might be delivered in 2020. We'll consider the First Editions (1000), Selects (200), and CA Route 1s (400) to be noise in this calculation, considering the huge assumptions. Converting that into the more meaningful reservation timestamps, that probably means any reservation made in November has a good chance of being delivered in 2020.

Now don't shoot me if we don't reach res# 20,000! There are lots of assumptions that probably don't hold. Eager people make early reservations, so they probably convert at a higher rate. if @trutolife27's contact is right with the 3,000-5,000 estimate and slow production brings us in at the low end of that scale, 2,000 Premiums becomes 2,600, becomes 5,600, becomes 11,200, becomes about 15,000, so reservations through ~ November 19.

I'm sure I have some math errors and you can definitely find holes in my assumptions. Thoughts?

Excellent detail as usual. Lets hope that you are right in your thinking. As you are more than likely to get your car (if I remember you have ordered a FE not GT) long before any of us this side of the pond I am expecting nothing less than such an in depth review of your new acquisition. Keep up the good work. We, over here, are certainly getting more valued info from you and others on here than we are from FordUK

 

[ChasingCoral]

@ChasingCoral i can help with the Dutch part if you want.

My order was placed at the dealer itself, not via Ford website or leasing company.
The dealer had ordered 3 cars for theirselfs for showroom/test-drive purposes and i bought 1 of them to get the car earlier then when i bought it the regular way.
I also get 3.000 euro discount due to tax-changes as you can see in the Dutch tax topic.

Im in so called Batch 1 cars - 2.000 cars for NL market which should have been here before 31-dec-2020.
Dealer estimated that delivery is end of march-2021 >> week 13
Orders above the 2.000 are in Batch 2 and will be delivered in April/May according to my info

If we reverse-calculate that:
- paperwork + transport within NL = about 2 week >> week 11
- transport from Mexico to Oostende-Belgium(where EU cars are offloaded afaik) = between 6-8weeks = >> week 3 to week 5
- Loading boat + wait untill boat is full = 1 week >> week 2-3

So simple but inaccurate guess is that my car will be made last weeks of december or first weeks of januari-2021.

I've ordered an "RWD - Standard Range - Lucid Red - Technology Pack Plus"
Which is the same as US version:
"Select - RWD - Standard Range - Rapid Red" with Technology Plus extra's as the "Premium" has.

Thanks. That really helps.

I expect that the EU/UK orders in your Batch 1 (my former Run 1, now FE and MP2) will be completed before the Christmas-3 Kings Day holiday period. My source in Cuautitlan indicated they are expanding the size of the parking lot, so I expect they will batch up the EU/UK orders and start moving them to the ship at the end of December. Remember they will transport the cars from Cuautitlan to Veracruz by train, then load them onto the ship in Veracruz.

 

[makooy]

Thanks. That really helps.

I expect that the EU/UK orders in your Batch 1 (my former Run 1, now FE and MP2) will be completed before the Christmas-3 Kings Day holiday period. My source in Cuautitlan indicated they are expanding the size of the parking lot, so I expect they will batch up the EU/UK orders and start moving them to the ship at the end of December. Remember they will transport the cars from Cuautitlan to Veracruz by train, then load them onto the ship in Veracruz.

Didnt't knew that the factory closes about 2 weeks with Christmas/3-kings.

I'm also not 100% sure the cars will be offloaded at Oostende-Belgium.
It can also be Bremerhaven-Germany or Rotterdam-The Netherlands.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Didnt't knew that the factory closes about 2 weeks with Christmas/3-kings.

I'm also not 100% sure the cars will be offloaded at Oostende-Belgium.
It can also be Bremerhaven-Germany or Rotterdam-The Netherlands.

I don't know this for sure but expect it will be the case. This is based on discussions on this Forum earlier in the year. When looking at how much time would be lost to COVID-19, they were able to deduct the time of the planned two-week shutdown of the Cuautitlan plant around Holy Week. Knowing the importance of Three Kings Day in Latin American culture and normal Christmas & New Years closures, I suspect a two-week closure (roughly) from the day before Christmas Eve until after Three Kings Day.

 

[portlandg]

I don't know this for sure but expect it will be the case. This is based on discussions on this Forum earlier in the year. When looking at how much time would be lost to COVID-19, they were able to deduct the time of the planned two-week shutdown of the Cuautitlan plant around Holy Week. Knowing the importance of Three Kings Day in Latin American culture and normal Christmas & New Years closures, I suspect a two-week closure (roughly) from the day before Christmas Eve until after Three Kings Day.

Best they pull their finger out and get production ramped up to maximum as soon as possible then.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Best they pull their finger out and get production ramped up to maximum as soon as possible then.

True. My estimates indicate that as long as they make ~ 3/4 line rate during September-October and are up to full line production by November, they can get 50,000 cars out by mid-July. That includes those two 2-week breaks at Christmas and Easter.

Keep the EU/UK information coming. We have only 2 non North-American orders in the order page at
https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/submitted-orders-tracking-list-enter-yours.924/
We know lots of Dutch leases were converted earlier this year but none are in this sheet. @hetgeleteken in the Netherlands and @FWE in France both have February 28 delivery dates but I don't see them in the system.

The more information we have the better the estimates will be.

Thanks

 

[GregM]

True. My estimates indicate that as long as they make ~ 3/4 line rate during September-October and are up to full line production by November, they can get 50,000 cars out by mid-July. That includes those two 2-week breaks at Christmas and Easter.

Keep the EU/UK information coming. We have only 2 non North-American orders in the order page at
https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/submitted-orders-tracking-list-enter-yours.924/
We know lots of Dutch leases were converted earlier this year but none are in this sheet. @hetgeleteken in the Netherlands and @FWE in France both have February 28 delivery dates but I don't see them in the system.

The more information we have the better the estimates will be.

Thanks

This is always fun to read, makes me even more excited about the fall - I still don't know if I will get it by December or Q1 but I just need to be ok with going with the flow - I have never had much patience (ha).

Can we get any intel regarding the difference between reservation number -which turned into an order number when a reservation is converted - and an order ID. My order ID is much lower than my order number.

 

[ChasingCoral]

This is always fun to read, makes me even more excited about the fall - I still don't know if I will get it by December or Q1 but I just need to be ok with going with the flow - I have never had much patience (ha).

Can we get any intel regarding the difference between reservation number -which turned into an order number when a reservation is converted - and an order ID. My order ID is much lower than my order number.

Sounds like a good discussion to raise in https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/order-questions.1217/

 

[hetgeleteken]

True. My estimates indicate that as long as they make ~ 3/4 line rate during September-October and are up to full line production by November, they can get 50,000 cars out by mid-July. That includes those two 2-week breaks at Christmas and Easter.

Keep the EU/UK information coming. We have only 2 non North-American orders in the order page at
https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/submitted-orders-tracking-list-enter-yours.924/
We know lots of Dutch leases were converted earlier this year but none are in this sheet. @hetgeleteken in the Netherlands and @FWE in France both have February 28 delivery dates but I don't see them in the system.

The more information we have the better the estimates will be.

Thanks

Happy to chase my dealer to see if I can find out my actual order number!

 

[ChasingCoral]

Happy to chase my dealer to see if I can find out my actual order number!

Thanks. It might have been in an email, too.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

Thanks. It might have been in an email, too.

I think the idea the number we got in the email is a delear related number is valid. I just checked the email I received again and it was when the dealer accepted the order. The number listed on that email is under "ORDER ID" and isn't found anywhere else that I can find including the Ford website. Those always refer to my reservation number/order number (10035xxx).

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

Yes, similar system.

There are a limited number of "press pool" or dealer loaners in some cases, that are made available to professional automotive journalists. Some subset of journalists are offered test drive review opportunities that vary from part of a day to several weeks. They take turns using the same cars... Write up their posts, but can't publish until the embargo is lifted. This puts them on more equal footing.

Quality and biases vary widely. So I've found it useful to read/watch reviews of other cars I've considered or owned, to get a feel for which reviewers I prefer.

One of the fun side effects of this is once in a while a review will mention some damage or something done by an earlier reviewer. ?

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

People in the Netherlands who lease their vehicles.

This is very very far off topic but one of the gf's favorite stories is how she was at a Panera Bread and overheard the following exchange:

Cashier: "Would you like that in a bread bowl or a regular bowl?"

Customer: "What's a bread bowl?"

Cashier, after a pause, incredulous: "it's... a bowl made out of bread"

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