Update on Mach-E launch progress from engineering friends in Mexico

[janitorjim]

I served twenty years in Navy (Submarines). We had several sayings....of which the first is pretty appropriate.

1) "When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout."

2) "You can expect what you inspect."

1 - got me out of many bar fights in my 20s, Now it is just gets people calling 911 for a elderly psych eval

2 - I expect the NFC east needs to go back down to the minor leagues of football

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[FPLiptak]

Plaignez-vous, on devrait dire quoi nous les européens qui devions être livré en même temps, nous ne sommes toujours pas passés de réservation à commande. Pour moi malgré une réservation FE je ne l'aurai sûrement qu'en mars, et si tout ce passe bien d'ici-là, avec la deuxième vague Covid je suis un peu moins optimiste.

We pay more than hybrids who pay more than ICE cars for registration

Here in Utah there are extra fees for HEV, PHEV and BEV vehicles.
These are the 2020 registrations fees
Base Registration $44
Hybrid Vehicle +$15 (2021 $20)
Plug-in Hybrid +$39 (2021 $52)
Battery Electric Veh +$90 (2021 $120)

But there are additional fees
My wife's Lincoln MKZ Hybrid $196.75 (includes $110 county fees)
My Chevrolet Bolt $311.75 (includes $150 county fees)

There is also a move to charge additional fees for gas taxes next year.

 

[Daniel M]

Here in Utah there are extra fees for HEV, PHEV and BEV vehicles.
These are the 2020 registrations fees
Base Registration $44
Hybrid Vehicle +$15 (2021 $20)
Plug-in Hybrid +$39 (2021 $52)
Battery Electric Veh +$90 (2021 $120)

But there are additional fees
My wife's Lincoln MKZ Hybrid $196.75 (includes $110 county fees)
My Chevrolet Bolt $311.75 (includes $150 county fees)

There is also a move to charge additional fees for gas taxes next year.

There's nothing like the wonderful idea of raising taxes EVERY year

 

[eastern refugee]

I don’t know the specifics about Cali except BEV cars pay an additional $100 in fees because they use the roads but the money cannot be collected at the pump like every version of ICE can. DMV fees in Cali can be as high as 85% of your monthly car payment. After a few years it drops to roughly 50%. At least that is how mi e seem to go.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Way to miss the point. Cute. Where was it said in any of my few posts here "I want to get my car first?" Critical reading is your friend.

Apparently, some do not understand what a few of the Ford "insiders" have been saying. Awhile back @trutolife mentioned the production rate for cars at the Cuautitlan Stamping & Assembly plant was 124 cars per week. Per week. Sometime after that, an update mentioned a somewhat higher number along with information about slowly ramping up production. All understandable, and in fact, proper but it is slow. Now, we're finding out that FCTP cars are rolling over into MP2. Plus, we're getting late November build-weeks for real customers, e.g those who are not on Ford's internal leasing programs, VIPs, or large corporate customers. That leaves 5 weeks or so for real-world customer car production. At a substantially slower rate than full production.

It should be painfully obvious to people that full production rates will not be achieved until sometime in January 2021, after the return from the Christmas season plant shutdown. We're going to be lucky if we see a total of 2,000 real-world customer cars produced this year. That includes MP1 and MP2. And I'd bet we don't see anywhere near that number either. A literal handful of each trimline will actually be delivered by year's end to meet the PR claims of late 2020 delivery.

And that's why Ford needs to communicate a fair bit better with the customers who have lined up with 60,000 USD (and more) to buy a MME. Production isn't going to resemble normal for quite some time and delays have the potential to be significantly longer than the already changed delivery targets. We're being prepared for it by apparent employees of Ford instead of by Ford Motor Company. That's not a good way to communicate.

Guilty as charged. My early guesstimates were based on overly optimistic rates. You will note that each one came with the weekly rate assumptions, etc. I did dial that back with more recent updates that production was still in the 100s. However, I am still getting some optimistic projections from a source in Cuautitlan that indicates 200-300 per week now and thinking they will reach 1000 per week much sooner than you do @Flydivesurf.

You may be right that the plant may only get out 2000 customer cars in 2020. I'm hoping my source is right and they'll be at 1000 per week soon. Of course, while my source is inside the plant, different people are seeing different parts of the operation and have different perspectives on both current rates and the potential for accelerating the rate.

I haven't called my projections guesstimates for nothing!
Besides, aren't Mach Es supposed to have great acceleration?

 

[eastern refugee]

In Cali there is a twist I read on the CARB here. If you have say 3 people living in a household and your total adjusted tax income is $86,000 or less which with Covid having an economic affect you can receive an extra $2500 in rebates bringing the total up to $4500 plus the electric company rebate. I am not saying Covid was a good thing but if you can utilize it then maybe it makes it just a little bit better.

 

[janitorjim]

Besides, aren't Mach Es supposed to have great acceleration?

well I was going to say it accelerated at the speed of light but then it would be a Mach c (lowercase)

 

[MerryBrown]

Much of the information you’ve provided in the last few months has been top-notch, and we’re all truly grateful. However, your defense of Ford is lacking in one main area that has NOTHING to do with COVID - communication. Many of our issues and questions could have easily been addressed with timely emails explaining decisions, processes, timelines, and just regular updates in general. Instead, they leave people floundering and left to come up with answers ourselves—Which causes further debate. Yes, they’ve done a good job with explaining car features, how the car was designed, etc...but that’s not our question. The questions we have surrounding logistics, no one has even bothered to address. Don’t talk to me about “what other companies have done with their rollouts”. Ford shouldn’t be on par with other companies, the aim should be to surpass them. Again, this is all in their control, yet they have failed. If they communicated with us, at least we would have been able to understand. In the age of rapid global communication, Ford needs to comprehend that we want information on a more rapid basis.

I am also frustrated by the lack of communication from Ford Corporate.
I am deeply appreciative of the information we have gotten from the Ford folks who have been willing to share what they know.
I am not sure we would hear a whole lot more from Ford directly because usually anything from Corporate has to go through all the lawyers and that takes forever so by the time the information makes it out it's old news.
I think what we are getting here is a lot more up to date.
I also don't think any company was prepared for Covid-19 and everyone is learning as they go. In most cases it has been a Very Rocky learning curve. I don't know about the rest of you but I feel like a lot of days we are paddling as fast as we can just to keep from drowning. I imagine Ford is having the same issue.
We have several guys on this forum who are supplying info that seems to track with each other. I imagine that info is pretty accurate even though it's not coming from the guys in Dearborn directly. Have any of you stopped to consider that maybe the folks in the Corporate offices are happy to have this forum giving us this information so they have some kind of outlet?
Granted it's a rough way to do it and the threads go off on tangents. When I was talking with my sales dude I mentioned that I found out about the X plan on the forum. He said, "Oh yeah, those guys know more than we do!"
Maybe instead of beating up on the guys supplying us with the information we are getting, we support and thank them and spend less time trashing the company they work for? Just my two cents.

 

[jeffdawgfan]

I figured the number 1 saying on a submarine would be "don't open the windows"

Subs are crewed by stupid people. That is why they don't put any windows on them. Who would volunteer for duty on a ship designed to sink. We were about as dumb as guys that volunteer to jump out of a perfectly good airplane and get shot at while they parachute to the ground.

 

[timbop]

Subs are crewed by stupid people. That is why they don't put any windows on them. Who would volunteer for duty on a ship designed to sink. We were about as dumb as guys that volunteer to jump out of a perfectly good airplane and get shot at while they parachute to the ground.

I know you're being facetious and self deprecating, but in fact I believe that people like you are far better than the average person. The majority of people think "me, me, me" and are deeply concerned with money and comfort, and don't really worry too much about other people - especially strangers. You took bad pay and severe personal hardships for no appreciation.

Truly: thank for the sacrifices you made serving your fellow citizens.

 

[dbsb3233]

Yes, when they announced the car in November 2019 that was probably their plan.

And appeared to be confirmed here too as late as last week... before it apparently turned out to be wrong... maybe... or maybe not... flip a coin at this point.

 

[TheLight75]

I'd rather get a rock solid one in the second week of January rather than have stuff fall off driving it home in December.

Remember: It’s not a Tesla!

 

[dbsb3233]

The reality is the tax incentives should be a BONUS and not THE reason to buy the car

Why would anyone not consider one of the cost components like that?? Arguing that it's a small % of the total price, I could understand. But completely ignoring that it's clearly part of the total cost consideration makes no sense to me.

 

[Flydivesurf]

Guilty as charged. My early guesstimates were based on overly optimistic rates. You will note that each one came with the weekly rate assumptions, etc. I did dial that back with more recent updates that production was still in the 100s. However, I am still getting some optimistic projections from a source in Cuautitlan that indicates 200-300 per week now and thinking they will reach 1000 per week much sooner than you do @Flydivesurf.

You may be right that the plant may only get out 2000 customer cars in 2020. I'm hoping my source is right and they'll be at 1000 per week soon. Of course, while my source is inside the plant, different people are seeing different parts of the operation and have different perspectives on both current rates and the potential for accelerating the rate.

I haven't called my projections guesstimates for nothing!
Besides, aren't Mach Es supposed to have great acceleration?

I've been lurking here for quite some time. I only created an account to get a question answered, which ironically got answered by the time I finished registering.

My concerns are not with people trying to predict when their new car or MME is going to arrive. That's normal (more or less). What concerns me were the unrealistic expectations that were being raised on this forum for quite some time, which has inevitably led to the somewhat more recent ratcheting down of expectations. The quotes about how fast Ford has recovered from this pandemic led people to believe deliveries were going to be substantially normal or at a reasonably acceptable version of pre-pandemic normal. All of the information on this forum that is provided by insiders is done so with the tacit approval of Ford. None of the insiders are proving information that isn't authorized for dissemination. And they've said so.

When that's followed up with information about car show cars being built to drum up new future business while pushing back FCTP and real-live customers, many of whom are just 2 1/2 weeks from year wait, it lends credence to a "getting back to normal" mindset of doing business. There is no normal any longer. Take care of your customers with cash in hand before building cars for orders that aren't going to materialize for a couple of years.

More importantly, though I see this forum (and others) slowly devolving into a Mustang Mach-e version of the Tesla forums. If you don't like it, go buy something else. Tesla has its radical fanbois –those of us who have owned Tesla's can certainly tell you that. Elon! Elon! Ra Ra Ra! We don't want to go there, do we?

As for your work @ChasingCoral. I'm certain it's very appreciated. I've enjoyed looking at it to see how your guesses compared with my dealer's guesses. The first time I saw it, however, I was fairly convinced a fair number of people were not going to read the disclaimers, fine print, and exceptions.

Things are going to be slow. So far they're in keeping with what my dealer (Ford Country, Henderson NV) warned me what was likely going to occur with this car and its production. But really, can we have a bit of honesty about the situation? Oh, you want your car first? Oh, I'm sorry you have to wait a whole extra month. Fanboyism is Fanboyism regardless of who's making the BEV.

My apologies for the rambling dissent. I was up very late last night reviewing a huge Appellant's Reply Brief that was filed in a copyright case I'm involved with.

 

[Jimrpa]

What was ever promised to anyone by ford here right now on the mache that has not been delivered? When you order the mache it gets a build date you get an email. when on its way they will let you know.
Logistics is none of anyone's concerns. When I order a box of crayons for my kids do I worry, well what's the logistics. When you order who tells you the logistics? maybe we need a ford mache tracker like papa johns pizza. Really come on. They can't get into that because that can change at a minute's notice.


What you have is people wanting and trying to figure out info. Ford is not out here promising you anything than saying no then yes.
Available Starting Late 2020 is what was promised before covid. And as long as a shipment makes it this year to be sold then they upheld their end.
It is a brand new vehicle. Everyone can wait tell one is on the lot to go and test drive and find out about it research it then makes a decision and order one. Well, then you have to wait on your mache. It is a chance you take with anything you try to buy that is a new product and in high demand.

Phones, electronics, even new food. Do I get to go damn you taco bell for making a brand new taco and not letting more info out first and allowing me to try it first. Now it gave me the shits and I'm mad.

About the other companies roll out, well you're right.....they are not delaying like the rest. Good point, glad ford didn't push things back as the others did. Amazing job ford sounds like dave thinks so too. Pat yourself on the back.

It is more people wanting to know each and all the tidbits of anything going on. A company cant say each and every little thing, as things change and happen rapidly in the world.

The number of messages I get in my inbox dear lord, I try to address as much as I can. And I understand you said it's not me but ford. To me, this was so easy a process. Did I have to go to a dealer to order no? Put the order in got the email.
Got an email when it will be built. when it arrives I get another email. So simple no back and forth. Now if I'm scared I might not like the mache then I need to put on my big boy pants and decide to wait till it's on the lot to test drive.

This is a forum, all it is about is debate, talking, questions, what-ifs. The mache could come out and be a big pile of junk. It could come out and be great. I don't know, no one knows. Everything we buy is the chance we take.

Really, people, I mean really what is so delayed or wrong that is so bad? You want them to rush it out and send out a bad product to be fixed later? You need to know each and everything process about it.

Bill handmedowns is putting the fluid into your reservoir today at 11:22am. Toddbighandswillams just finished putting in the rear taillights at 12:42 pm. todd has a steak taco for lunch right before he put them in. Yes, we made sure todd washed the grease off his hands from the taco before putting them in. Pushmybuttonjolt just finished installing the start button at 1:57pm.

Everyone in the world keeps saying I just want to order a car let me know when it's ready and then i just go and pick it up. They wanted less info about buying a car. Now they are switching to it and people are not happy?

Many of our issues and questions could have easily been addressed with timely emails explaining decisions, processes, timelines, and just regular updates in general.

You order the mache it, fords website lets you know when and how. There is nothing more that they promised from the start that has changed. The fact of the matter is most people are just worried about buying a car they have not seen or missing out on tax credits this year.
I would say that is 90% of the people's gripes.
No where did it say everyone would get it this year. No where did it say when you order that was your spot in line to get built.

What you have is people thinking things are done a certain way then when they are not they get mad and rant. Again if anyone is worried, then wait and test drive it then order. They cant tell each and every process and timelines because there are so many players involved it changes each day all the time. SO info put out one day could be wrong the next.

Our expectations as a county sometimes are so out of control it's like spoiled kids. And that is not with just ford but with buying things in general. When covid hit and there was not certain items on the self people lost their damn mind. Over toilet paper really.

I myself like the simpleness of it. I looked up about the product, I configured the product, I ordered it, they let me know when it's here, I go buy it. Simple no drama, no wife drama lol.
I go on about my day. This is not a car already made or been made. This is not a car on dealers lots.

? well said! I have a very tiny amount of extremely dated insight into the complexities involved in the logistics of one of the world’s largest and oldest auto manufacturers, and pulling off the Mustang Mach E in the timeframe this team did, given some of the constraints and new things they were dealing with (for example, I’m reminded of pintos from the early 1970s that caught fire under certain conditions. I’m sure the team had to consider battery cell containment in catastrophic failure events!) Then, on the eve and f launch, just as they’re beginning to ramp up a global supply chain and weave their way through various unexpected governmental trade barriers, they get hit with a global pandemic and the economy completely crashes (there’s a big difference between “the economy” and what TSLA and FAANG are trading at ?) I’m very impressed with how well Ford has done (despite the failure on the seats ?) and can’t wait for my Mustang Mach E. I’ll continue to sit patiently and look at my marshmallow, knowing my patience will be rewarded ?

Edit: I do want to add that while I have a sort of fondness for Ford, I certainly hope I’m not a “fanboy”. I have several friends who are Tesla fanboys and I kid you not, these guys are literally cult members! I had to tell one buddy of mine that I was going to report him to the SEC for not having his Series 7&66 if he didn’t stop hyping TSLA to us. (I was kidding him ... sort of ?) Seriously though, these guys will tell you that Tesla deliberately designs the roof to come off as a feature, or that the owner didn’t operate the roof properly, or that it was fake news, or (and I always love this one) it was actually a stunt by an anti-Tesla group, trying to make Elon look bad!
If I ever veer in Tesla fanboy direction, threaten me with a an aluminum block Chevy Vega ?

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