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

[highland58]

Actually, I sincerely agree with that. Grabber Blue and Cyber Orange do not appeal to me in the slightest. Which is why they offer cars in different colors apparently.

It can be argued that 2 shades of white, gray, and black are not really colors - perhaps in future years there will be more real colors...

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[janitorjim]

It can be argued that 2 shades of white, gray, and black are not really colors - perhaps in future years there will be more real colors...

technically there are no colors only different wave lengths

 

[highland58]

technically there are no colors only different wave lengths

I would like Ultra-Violet please.

 

[ChasingCoral]

technically there are no colors only different wave lengths

And I'm definitely not on that white-gray-black wavelength.

 

[agoldman]

There are two types of hot car drivers. Ones that like the darker or blacked out everything look, and ones that like bright colors. Everything else is boring. Actually I like both. Going for the bold contrast of the Grabber to start, but may change up to Dark Matter for the GT next year.

 

[dbsb3233]

even at 1300 per week from the start of customer car production

I'd take that 1300 number with a grain of salt too. That might be a good estimate for the early going but if they're able to secure more batteries (and any other needed parts) to produce more than 50k, I have little doubt they'll expand the lines as necessary. Just because there's no C shift planned now doesn't mean that won't change for January.

 

[RonTCat]

It is not confirmed yet but it seems silly to me to offer 2021 MME GTs for 3-4 months at most before switching them to 2022 MY.

Depends on the emission credits needed for 2021MY.

 

[RonTCat]

I'd take that 1300 number with a grain of salt too. That might be a good estimate for the early going but if they're able to secure more batteries (and any other needed parts) to produce more than 50k, I have little doubt they'll expand the lines as necessary. Just because there's no C shift planned now doesn't mean that won't change for January.

Yes. Rate and flow of batteries dictates everything right now, but... It would be hard to get much capacity increase unless you talk to ALL the supply base. You have already told everyone 50K/yr. If the next supplier, say Borg, says it will max out at 55K motors/yr with current tooling, now you have to tackle that issue. Plant labor is way, way down the list of things to worry about.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

There are two types of hot car drivers. Ones that like the darker or blacked out everything look, and ones that like bright colors. Everything else is boring. Actually I like both. Going for the bold contrast of the Grabber to start, but may change up to Dark Matter for the GT next year.

<----- Boring. Infinite Blue.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

Yes. Rate and flow of batteries dictates everything right now, but... It would be hard to get much capacity increase unless you talk to ALL the supply base. You have already told everyone 50K/yr. If the next supplier, say Borg, says it will max out at 55K motors/yr with current tooling, now you have to tackle that issue. Plant labor is way, way down the list of things to worry about.

What we know seems to indicate that Ford has sold around 60% more cars than planned. And that the 50K was a limit due to batteries. All of which leads to at least the following possible scenarios. None of which are the most likely:

1. Ford has obtained enough parts for their orders and they'll arrive in a timely manner. If that's the case they might add a third shift, part delivery warranting. If we figure 1300 per week for 2 shifts, for 3 shifts that would work out to not quite 2000 per week. Just call it 2k. 80,000 MME's equals 40 weeks of production. Subtract 8 weeks in 2020 and that means the last MME rolls out no earlier than August 15, 2021. That's optimistic though.
2. Ford has enough parts but they'll be steadily arriving over time. In that case, they probably won't add a third shift and just keep on producing cars as scheduled. In that event with 1300 per week and 8 weeks of production this year, that rolls production into 2022 by a couple of weeks (Late January 2022).
3. Ford has yet to obtain the parts needed and can't. There will be no third shift and they'll build more cars whenever as the 2022 MY parts arrive.

In the latter 2 scenarios production for 80,000 cars goes on until sometime in 2022. Realistically those are 2022 MY cars and might have to be dealt with that way, which would mean the downtime for the minor changes likely for MY 2021 to MY 2022. Plus there's the issue of getting folks to agree to a rollover to 2022 delivery. That might mean refunding some orders, something they probably don't want to be in a position to require from their dealers, plus it just looks bad.

Realistically, Ford is going to need to explain how they're going to come up with 80,000 cars and most of us are going to have to adjust our expectations for delivery to a significantly later date. I personally no longer expect to see my MME until August 2021 or later. Whether I'm willing to wait that long is another question altogether (and one I do not have an answer to).

The 4th scenario is that the 80,000 number is wrong. In which case I hereby officially invoke the ghost of Gilda Radner:

Pilots are just engineers* moving at 500 mph. This is what I do.

*merdicore to bad engineers.

 

[zhackwyatt]

There are two types of hot car drivers. Ones that like the darker or blacked out everything look, and ones that like bright colors. Everything else is boring. Actually I like both. Going for the bold contrast of the Grabber to start, but may change up to Dark Matter for the GT next year.

Boring? Clearly you didn't read my post here: https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/infinite-blue-metallic-mach-e-club.564/post-31446

 

[RonTCat]

What we know seems to indicate that Ford has sold around 60% more cars than planned. And that the 50K was a limit due to batteries. All of which leads to at least the following possible scenarios. None of which are the most likely:

1. Ford has obtained enough parts for their orders and they'll arrive in a timely manner. If that's the case they might add a third shift, part delivery warranting. If we figure 1300 per week for 2 shifts, for 3 shifts that would work out to not quite 2000 per week. Just call it 2k. 80,000 MME's equals 40 weeks of production. Subtract 8 weeks in 2020 and that means the last MME rolls out no earlier than August 15, 2021. That's optimistic though.
2. Ford has enough parts but they'll be steadily arriving over time. In that case, they probably won't add a third shift and just keep on producing cars as scheduled. In that event with 1300 per week and 8 weeks of production this year, that rolls production into 2022 by a couple of weeks (Late January 2022).
3. Ford has yet to obtain the parts needed and can't. There will be no third shift and they'll build more cars whenever as the 2022 MY parts arrive.

In the latter 2 scenarios production for 80,000 cars goes on until sometime in 2022. Realistically those are 2022 MY cars and might have to be dealt with that way, which would mean the downtime for the minor changes likely for MY 2021 to MY 2022. Plus there's the issue of getting folks to agree to a rollover to 2022 delivery. That might mean refunding some orders, something they probably don't want to be in a position to require from their dealers, plus it just looks bad.

Realistically, Ford is going to need to explain how they're going to come up with 80,000 cars and most of us are going to have to adjust our expectations for delivery to a significantly later date. I personally no longer expect to see my MME until August 2021 or later. Whether I'm willing to wait that long is another question altogether (and one I do not have an answer to).

The 4th scenario is that the 80,000 number is wrong. In which case I hereby officially invoke the ghost of Gilda Radner:

Pilots are just engineers* moving at 500 mph. This is what I do.

*merdicore to bad engineers.

1300 is close to a typical US or European assembly plant's DAILY production. Unless you are body or paint automation constrained, it is easy to turn up the production rate. You don't have to add a shift, just add more people and rebalance a person's job. Each person gets a smaller chunk of work, but less time to do it, i.e. "speed up the line".

By your number, 1300/80hrs = 16.25 vehicles/hr. Most plants run at about 60, some up to 90+. 16 is almost a boutique build rate (the robots are complaining about how slow things are running, lol).

There will be zero problem maintaining that production rate if you have parts, and even if you idled the plant for month you could easily catch back up to the original schedule.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

1300 is close to a typical US or European assembly plant's DAILY production. Unless you are body or paint automation constrained, it is easy to turn up the production rate. You don't have to add a shift, just add more people and rebalance a person's job. Each person gets a smaller chunk of work, but less time to do it, i.e. "speed up the line".

By your number, 1300/80hrs = 16.25 vehicles/hr. Most plants run at about 60, some up to 90+. 16 is almost a boutique build rate (the robots are complaining about how slow things are running, lol).

There will be zero problem maintaining that production rate if you have parts, and even if you idled the plant for month you could easily catch back up to the original schedule.

I wouldn't know. Just going by what I've read here and over there. And since the report was Ford is hoping to produce 10,000 customer MME's in the 8 weeks of 2020 customer production well... that's close to 1300/week. Anything else is a bonus. But it still begs the parts issue IF they're oversubscribed by 60%.

 

[dbsb3233]

This whole production/delivery prediction game strikes me a bit like trying to bet on football games when all we know is how good each team's FG kicker is. As the saying goes... a little knowledge can be dangerous.

There's just so many factors we don't know, and even the ones we think we know are anecdotal 2nd hand reports that seem spotty. There's just so many holes. And it keeps changing. And sometimes it doesn't even seem to add up.

It's fun to speculate on it, but I'm becoming less and less confident that we have enough info to really be able to make accurate conclusions.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

This whole production/delivery prediction game strikes me a bit like trying to bet on football games when all we know is how good each team's FG kicker is. As the saying goes... a little knowledge is dangerous.

There's just so many factors we don't know, and even the ones we think we know are anecdotal 2nd hand reports that seem spotty. There's just so many holes. And it keeps changing. And sometimes it doesn't even seem to add up.

It's fun to speculate on it, but I'm becoming less and less confident that we have enough info to really be able to make accurate conclusions.

Yup.

the only part of the information that genuinely concerns me is this:

"The orders are not For 2022. ... With the actual orders in for 2021 ford knows they can not make enough in 2021 to fill them all. Hence a person said in the call that 2022 is already really at half capacity, with the run times, and supply issues at the plant. The demand is more than ford expected."

Emphasis added.

Right now, they can't fill the orders they've taken. What happens down the road is another story.

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