BusinessInsider: Ford CEO says taking apart Tesla and Chinese EVs was 'shocking' and pushed him to shake up the automaker

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The only thing shocking here is that he was impressed by taking apart a model 3. Teslas are not well made.

Business Insider is a trash publication.

It's a lecture in how simple and slim you can build a car that actually moves okayish.

He's impressed because they're better made than Fords.

Pure clickbait

Surprised good or surprised bad, make sure you copy the good things not what more to cheap out on

That’s quite an interview teaser. I’m interested in what he was shocked at. Shockingly simple? Shockingly poor assemble? Shocking ingenuity? Shockingly bad QC? This could mean anything.

I mean, maybe that’s what he was shocked at. Maybe it was shockingly poor quality control.

What was shocking that they found? The battery?

Luckily it's not their views put forth, but rather Ford's CEO.

This has been widely disseminated in the auto industry. Starting with Tesla (and the Chinese EVs that copied them), the entire design of the car was rethought from the ground up. Much less wiring, genuine innovations like the octo valve, etc). There are lots of research papers on this topic, [like this one from MIT](https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/107365)

He said these things 7 years ago.  Trash publications rehash 7 year old news.

Did you read the article or just criticizing the title? Farley explains it.

Did you read the article?

Let's read the article. > Jim Farley said the "shocking" realization of how far ahead Elon Musk's automaker and China's EV upstarts were pushed him to overhaul the company.

> Jim Farley said the "shocking" realization of how far ahead Elon Musk's automaker and China's EV upstarts were pushed him to overhaul the company.

Bullshit insider

Was just joking

I can't get over that the CEO of Ford is Chris Farley's cousin

Ford makes shit vehicles

And now it'll take them 10 years to catch up to a 2017 Model 3.

There was something to this effect in The Telegraph like a month ago. A fact finding trip to China left the American auto execs shaken, that they realize they cannot match the level of customer amenities because they just don’t have the understanding of how to make the facilities to produce these cars. Whereas it is my understanding that Tesla has got a jump on other manufacturers by thinking about how to manufacture - having the right robots, how to make a simple stamped undercarriage type of thing.

The article doesn’t mention a lot of specifics either. The only specific I saw was that the Tesla had much less wiring - approximately 1 mile less of wiring in fact. Which, I get it, is great, saves weight and so on, but doesn’t seem like a particularly strong moat for Tesla because it should be one of the things that are easier to replicate as opposed to things like revolutionary battery chemistry or more efficient electric motors or something like that. And it doesn’t say anything about what they uncovered about BYD.

Yes but they are taking electrification seriously and have done work on battery tech like fluoride ion. They’re at least aware that they are in a hole

Why does Ford's CEO keep getting headlines? Specifically useless headlines. Does every other auto CEO just say nothing?

[deleted]

Wiring is surprisingly difficult to shrink, because it requires a complete redesign of the vehicle.. everything has to move. There is also a lot of energy losses with wire length.

In which ways? They're made in fundamentally different ways, but that doesn't automatically make one better.

Tesla probably had this advantage because their vehicles are designed from the start to be electric vehicles whereas for many of the major manufacturers they adapted ICE vehicles into BEVs. But I still think that if that's the only major technical advantages that Tesla had it is not a big moat, it could have been something far more difficult to replicate. And besides, there's always a trade-off. It's not like Ford's designers decided to make their wiring extra long, just because they wanted to put some extra pounds of weight on their cars,

Can you imagine them reverse engineering a 2017 then when they finally copy it all they take apart a 2026 and gasp again.

A lot of Sandy Munros videos deep dive into differences.

Easiest way is to switch from 12V to 48V systems. Optimize for 48V after that instead of wasting money optimizing the legacy 12V stuff.

I'm guessing the real problem is that these traditional automakers want to electrify an existing car and change up the shape a bit, instead of building an EV from the ground up.

So shaken up that they are back where they started

His name is Tommy too, Tommy Boy, Callahan auto parts

it‘s brand from Axel Springer which is the News Corp of Germany.

Farley says the right things that make it sound like he's aware of reality. I wonder if he will be able to execute against that knowledge.

Toyota CEO said the same thing when they took apart the tesla model y

Sandy Munro has stated that this comes from Teslas ability to put engineers with different responsibilities together in one room, so that they can come up with the most beneficial solution. This is the real strength, and what other car makers struggle with.

😂😂😂😂 Yep, it'll be crazy. It takes these auto companies that aren't virtually integrated too long to make the needed changes to compete with Tesla and the Chinese EV companies.

I laughed.

It's not really easy when you buy all your electronics from external suppliers, and either have to pay a premium, or to use converters at every plug... It's a good start though.

It says they are going to have a $30K mid-size truck EV in 2027. Great idea but I’ll believe it when I see it.

And you know this based on your experience with a brand spankin' new 2026 Model Y??

BYD are tesla clones

His name is Jim Farley

> Starting with Tesla (and the Chinese EVs that copied them), It’s amazing how common this reductionist line of thinking is.

Not surprised they were shocked. My EV drives like no other car I've ever driven. Completely different experience. I can't really imagine ever going back to a ice car.

Go lookup Sandy Munro who does car teardowns professionally for car companies and used to work at Ford. He has consistently said the design of the model 3 since the beginning was really well built from a design perspective and years ahead of a lot of American automakers, and the competition mostly being chinese. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lqzrrH5IOL8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Munro

Unless they're made in China, then they're really well made.

He’s been saying the same thing for the past 5 years. Meanwhile they keep cutting launching and production of Ford EVs.

Is there any reason why Ford can't do that? And do we know for a fact that they haven't always been doing it because it just seems like common sens that the various subject matter experts would collaborate, rather than everyone silo-ing into their particular field. And again, if that's the only advantage Tesla has, then it seems to me that it should be easily solvable when they design their next platform, especially considering that there is a very clear and specific metric for success that the Ford executives can give to their engineers: "*Decrease our wiring by 1 mile (hint: that consultant we hired said that at Tesla they managed to achieve this by putting all of their engineers in one room, maybe try that)*".

It’s amazing how common CCP apologists/bots crop up on Reddit.

I was wondering if I was the one going crazy here. I thought this was something discussed years ago.

We’re talking about cars hun.

Sandy has worked for Ford, and he says that the leadership has always been conservative, refusing to change policies or try new things.. they've been trying to change the way legacy carmakers does things for decades. He's also stated that tesla and the Chinese are so far ahead by now, that only bailouts will save legacies.. as an example, it takes VW 40 hours to make a car, tesla 10.

How is this reductionist? This is a factually correct statement. Tesla was the first company to build the skateboard battery layout, induction motors, and software first design at scale proving economics. China has made a lot of great innovations to different pieces, but EVERYONE copied Tesla in the fundamental architecture pattern.

Good you’re up to speed. See the conversation is about the fact China doesn’t invent anything. All of their car/EV manufacturing is stolen western IP.

Well no shit. They didn’t think to take one apart like… ten years ago???

Honestly I love my Mach E and the only problem I’ve had with it is that if you even look at the paint funny it scratches

CATL would disagree.

They hit similar announcement goals with the Hybrid Maverick. But those prices lasted about 10 minutes. It’ll be a $45k or more EV truck when it gets to the point where almost anyone can get one. But there was a brief moment in time when you could order a 40mpg Maverick for $20500 out the door. I ordered mine that year with every option they offered for the hybrid for $32000.

Same here I’ll always have at least one EV. I might have two if Ford actually releases a smaller EV truck.

It’s been 8 years since the Model 3 came out, where are the changes Jim?

I think you’re upset by China’s success. I hope your mental well-being recovers from this one day.

There were prior skateboard designs for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. I don't know how much those inspired the Tesla design, but it seems likely.

Funny enough, this makes perfect sense to me. My dentist attended Marquette the same time as Chris Farley. Dentist called him a “rich kid” as he drove around in a BMW his parents bought him (yes I’m aware of the irony given the post). Now I’m obviously not denying Chris Farley’s talent, just thought of it as an interesting tidbit that registers here.

That has nothing to do with the article, the point that is being make here, or what people discovered on teardown.

Refreshing to see a CEO have this level of honesty instead of the usual *"we're the best and others are crap"* discourse.

No worries. When I read the article I got shocked as well. There is just something static about the auto industry that makes this so completely unsurprising.

A bunch of baby rattles in the Tesla...

lol missed the reference and a good movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Boy

I'm very familiar with Sandy Munro. I watched a whole lot of his videos prior to buying my Model Y. My gripe with his perspective is that it caters to the manufactures, which is to be expected as that's what his business model is and really the purpose of his shop. There's nothing wrong with that, but people take his enthusiasm and correlate that to a positive for the consumer in just about every instance. I have my opinions on what I liked about Tesla's manufacturing and then what I still think Ford and the others do better as its more beneficial for the end user. I understand that not blindly worshiping all things Tesla isn't a popular take around here though, so I can understand why I'm getting downvoted for questioning an unsubstantiated blanket claim.

Exactly.

I understood the reference, it just sounded like you were stating a fact

Give the guy a break. It’s pretty much impossible to transform a large business to a new technology platform. Especially one as complicated and old as auto manufacturing

> How is this reductionist? This is a factually correct statement. Tesla was the first company to build the skateboard battery layout, induction motors, and software first design at scale proving economics. China has made a lot of great innovations to different pieces, but EVERYONE copied Tesla in the fundamental architecture pattern. Well for starters, the first "skateboard" concept was done by Nissan Leaf in 2010. Tesla massively improved on the design. The problem with the statement that "EVERYONE copied Tesla" is that they didn't. Form follows function and it completely ignores other automakers' parallel development chain in Hybrids as well as individual innovation by, particularly, Chinese automakers. There are too many people who think that BYD became a major EV force thanks to Tesla carving out a development path to copy. The reality is that BYD's development path is actually rooted in its hybrid DM-i series lineage. There's plenty to praise Tesla for, but if their "fundamental" innovations would be so easy to copy, all global automakers wouldn't have any issues making good EVs. Instead, they continue to struggle despite the "formula" being relatively simple.

Tesla doesn't stamp the *chassis* parts, *only the body panels*. They use "Giga casting". It saves work days of welding by having several large cast pieces that everything bolts to. Italic words added for clarity

Yeah, that ship is entrenched and won't turn on a dime. If he could do it in 5 years he'd be better than Steve Jobs type of execution. Heck, if he can do it in 10 I'd be amazed. Honestly, if he can do it before Ford goes bankrupt or bought out I'd be impressed.

If more people knew about the octo valve, they’d be more blown away than half the other stuff Tesla’s do. That engineering is flat out amazing. Whenever people hate on Elon (which I understand; I’m not a fan) and ask how I can still drive a Tesla, I tell them that he may be the face, but there are a ton of passionate and intelligent people behind him who probably feel the same way. The octo valve is proof of this.

In a decade we'll be like NK or Russia driving only domestic cars that don't have any competition and thus don't have to innovate. 2035 ads: Buy the redesigned dodge ram (just a refresh), Power Brakes, Power Steering, Ignition Lock, Apple play and AA require the 'Tech Package' upgrade for $3,500 And it gets 19MPG!!!!

They do both. The outer body panels are still stamped, in all but the cybertruck..

You sir understand the innovator’s dilemma. That’s valuable knowledge applied to the stock market

But don't they have the breakthrough solid state battery tech since 2016? Every time I read an article about that, all it says to me is 'buy another Rav 4 while we figure out this electric car stuff'.

Same goes for GM, VWG and Toyota. Munro said Toyota will be a rebadged BYD in some time. Hence the BZX4 collaboration with Subaru, completely designed in China, some say by BYD.

Dealers who flat out refuse to discuss EVs, many will die on that hill rather than sell electric cars. 2 years ago, my state was offering a 4k inventive. All GM dealers had a 4k 'EV PREP FEE' or split the 4k with a 'SAFETY CHECK'.

ford is a legacy automaker left in the dust.

Cybertruck exterior panels are absolutely stamped. It was a challenge to overcome because of the hardness of stainless steel.

It's one thing to havea breakthrough in technology, it's another to be able to bring it to market in mass.

If only I could reliably apply it successfully.

You should see what Rivian is doing

Try as he might I think they are cooked. Very difficult to transition from ICE to EV even though Reddit said for years the OEMs would be coming for Tesla’s lunch any day now

Yeah, there's an entire supply chain that needs to essentially evaporate for this to happen. That's an absurd number of job losses and some crazy disruption. Could be fun if you're the "hold my beer" type of CEO and up for impossible challenges.

Not to mention the union

It's happening in insurance now. Look at lemonade

Tell me what are they doing? Because Tesla does not really advertise the octo valve thing. So I’m assuming that whatever you’re referring to is rather niche as well.

The undercarriage is what the commenter specifically mentioned and it is not stamped. Yes they stamp other parts but the chassis is a front and rear casting bolted to the battery frame. Then the body panels however they are made (usually stamped much like other manufacturers) are attached to that. The floors of most other cars are dozens of stamped panels that are welded together.

The above commenter was talking about the "skateboard chassis" which Tesla does not stamp. They Giga cast it and then attach the stamped body panels to that. The floor pan alone on most other cars will be made of several dozen parts.

Big Tom Callahan's son

Bingo. Every strategy change at Ford has to include a discussion with the Union. And guess what simplification of the manufacturing process does? Yep, it lowers manufacturing jobs. Tesla doesn’t have a union, but some of those discussions still happen. It just all started with a different baseline of employees. And growth in yearly deliverables negates any direct need to do large scale layoffs even if you come up with some significant manufacturing improvement.

In addition to ICE automakers relying on the supply chain they are also stuck with dealers. Replacement even 50% of Ford’s ICE vehicles with BEVs and the dealers go bankrupt. It will be extremely difficult if not impossible for traditional automakers to make the change.

The super manifold v2 is another absolutely mind blowing advancement. Hating someone because of their politics or being rich is so dumb / immature anyway. No single person I can think of in my lifetime has created more technological progress or brought so many ideas to life

Lucid is also doing nice things but, from the cost point of view Tesla is way better, and we are able to see and understand some of it thanks to Munro and others.

Just a fact Tesla makes incredibly advanced cars, not just from a software pov but a hardware and manufacturing pov as well.

I don’t think Lucid can break into the mass market anytime soon but Rivian will. Monroe has some Rivian teardowns if you are interested

Yes, the problem with lucid is mass production and cost, before running out of money. I remember some lucid regarding the powertrain but none regarding the car structure or architecture, i night have missed it!

Thanks for the paper but its a whole lot of nothing

It’s a big club… and you ain’t it. -George Carlin The Farleys have generational wealth, not at the billionaire level, but still quite wealthy.

Look at the aion hyptec HT, looks kinda... FamYliar!

No. GM conceptualized the idea in 2002 with the AUTOnomy concept, but your point stands, Tesla used the same structural design with S, X 3, and Y.

He makes car parts for the American working man, because that’s who he is, and that’s who he cares about.

Crazy that we now just all agree that Tesla and thr Chinese are better at building cars and pushing manufacturing innovations than Toyota and co when a couple of years ago everyone was saying that Tesla doesn't know how to build cars and lagecy auto makers will destroy them once they are going to make EVs

>stuck with dealers Downright hostile dealers in some instances. Placing fee after fee on EVs as to push potential buyers into ICE vehicles. In my home state, it was the dealer coalition pushing for higher EV registration fees, and they won, now my state is second highest in the US for EV registration.

It is more than that. Tesla has rethought the whole business. When I picked up my Model 3, I spent a total of 15 minutes at the dealership. This included handing over the title to my old car and financing the new car. I had done everything through the app ahead of my pickup. My appointment was at 2pm and I was out by 2:15. I scheduled the whole afternoon off, now what do I do?

I thought Toyota was chasing hydrogen engines.

For 8x the price

How do I read such websites without all the frustrating Ads screwing it up?

They have hydrogen engines for some Motorsport demos, you don’t want that as a customer car, Engineering Explained has done a video. They are apparently still working on hydrogen fuel cells, those are better served in marine applications. Trying to build out hydrogen fuelling infrastructure to be ubiquitous for cars will be slower than battery advancements.

100% agree

i don’t know my i thought he was related to seth mcfarlane

there needs to be a dealer and fuel station team but that’s unlikely

a LOT of people think "why fix what ain't broke" when it comes to car design, therefore new = bad

Agree, GMH used a skateboard chassis on the all electric Ecommodore around the same time. Built with help from CSIRO

TIL! 🤯

Please explain what rivian is doing??

You know how you can get a good look at a steak?

What about Saturn?  It's hard to bring a disruptive product to market when it's embedded in the legacy company operations and business processes.  So you do it at arms length, away from the cash cow products that suck up all the capital investment because the near term ROI naturally drives investment decisions that way

Except Toyota actually partnered with Tesla to build a California Compliance RAV4 that was powered by a Tesla drivetrain back in like 2014 or something. Apparently Toyota learned nothing.

Don’t forget about the compliance RAV4 that they built using Tesla’s powertrain back in 2014, yet Toyota is still “figuring out electric”

“Ford CEO” “GM CEO” these no names have half assed their companies into the dirt. Legacy auto should have took apart a Tesla 18 years ago and realized if they don’t innovate they are done. Too late now he couldn’t even make the Lightning work. This is a story that plays out time and time again. These high-powered high paid CEOs have yet to learn the lesson.

Imagine it took this long to realize your user interface strategy needs to be centralized. No I don’t want a huge dial right beside my center console that will toggle some useless visual around the speedometer

Yes thanks for the clarification - my point was that there’s far less interaction and assembly, the thing is in a few pieces instead of many all needing to be fitted together like a puzzle

Competition is good.

But I don't want all of those customer amenities.

If you just see a picture of an octovalve vs what Ford did with the cooling system in the mach e, you'll see why they are so far behind in the EV space. The Ford design has a million rubber hoses, pumps, valves etc to do the same job as a lighter and more compact system with probably 1/5 the parts count.

You start wearing down your tires quickly😜

Reminds me of MontanaSkeptic. Nothing Tesla did was innovative, the designs were awful, he was a fraud, the company wasn't really making money, it's all fake. The oems could easily copy what they were doing. 15 years later and it's only the Chinese copying Tesla. LoL The guy lost millions shorting Musk

I feel the same way. All those smart people making better cars and reducing the impact to the planet. Heroes.

Are we shaking it up like removing middle management or are we shaking it up like mass layoffs?

Yes it's why companies create separate divisions. But those divisions lose money in the beginning. The main business doesn't want to keep funding that especially if it takes years. It has shareholders to keep happy who are used to fat dividend checks. You basically have a company that has one foot in one foot out. You can't do that. Have to go all in and face your death head on. Most won't do that. This is the innovator's dilemma.

This is a big fat duh! Fire all MBA CEO!

Meanwhile some legacy manufacturers are still moving away from AA and ApplePlay. They want to make that marketing and ad money, not Google or Apple. I'm ok with that idea, as long as it's not a program written by an intern. Toyota had a thing called Entune or something like that (on my prius). It was a ghastly program with no intuitive interface and required a ***precisely 8gb memory stick*** to update, even though the update was considerably less than 1gb. Anything larger or smaller and the update would fail.

When you put your money into engineering and stop trying to be so greedy on the profit side, it’s crazy what you can accomplish.

The problem is the buyers IMO. If Fords entire lineup went EV only right now even if they somehow were as good as a Tesla or whatever I bet their sales would plummet and profit would crater into the earth. This problem is essentially what will end up killing a lot of major OEMs.

When I got my M3 in 2018, my friend kept sending me videos on how it was a junk car. One video was of a Ford employee pointing out how "stupid" the design and manufacturing was. One instance he was pointing to the wheel well, "they made this two parts, it should be a single frame'. I was mad for having a brain...bish, new car, new company, electric computer car vs gas explosion car. Ford has been making cars with the same idea for a century. A new company BETTER not be using ancient methodologies to make their new cars! It was so infuriating to have these videos sent to me in earnest and the video be composed of "This isn't how we make cars, so it must be bad and stupid design"

Was.

LMAO the cars are mostly produced in Mexico

that was all before he switched to the dark side - now the clever people that did all the great things have mostly left Tesla ... there has not been any great new invention in the last years

The pain I see when people can't adapt to 1 pedal driving and hold mode.

I’d buy an R1S over a model S any day for about the same price (and I did 😂).

> "We now know that the EV market in the US is totally different than we thought," said Farley on the "Office Hours" podcast, adding that US consumers are more interested in affordable electric models than a "$70-80,000 electric vehicle." It took 8 years to get this insight.

You could do it in 5… But the moves you have to make in year one means you won’t have the job by year two.

Should have used the insulated pliers.

FSD? They seem to be focused on AI and Robotics now.

The Mirai fuel cell car is on its second generation The car technology is mature, but noone will build the fueling infrastructure, which means the Mirai is a dead end

My man, Toyota built rav4 EVs in 1997. They just dont care to build electric cars

Telsa has good EV technology, Toyota is still better at the actual building of cars

If you wear the proper PPE taking apart an EV will be less "Shocking"

I know. We live in crazy times. Elon really is a modern day Henry Ford and folks can't see past what he posts on X.

The Bz4x is an awful car and certainly not better than any tesla

I said build, the japanese built BZ4x is leagues ahead in build quality, fit finish and paint quality To rephrase, a Tesla is a more technologically advanced car but the Toyota is better built car

Yeah I definitely disagree here

You could be right. The redesigns are garbage. I strongly feel Tesla took off because their cars didn’t look like EVs (remember, during that time they all looked kinda odd). The headlights for the model 3 refresh were not good as they don’t fit the surrounding panels and they removed the fog lights entirely making that whole area look naked. And the new model Y just looks bad. I know you means the internals and in coating car design from a tech standpoint, but I guess time will tell when the next gen rolls out.

This also reminds me of Space X engines. Clean design, efficient vs old-school mess

I can get a good look at a burrito by sticking my head up a donkey’s ass, but I'd rather take a cocinar’s word for it

That's the advantage of having a CEO with the power and vision to turn on a dime, and not need to have every major decision reviewed and approved by multiple levels of management and unions.

Okay?😭

Not making a profit?

He just NOW took apart a Tesla?? Hopefully this is a very old article.

The problem of efficient wiring was solved over 10 years ago. It's just they took an existing car and slapped an EV motor unit.

I work on teslas for a living, I have also worked on ford evs. Take the frunk out of a model 3 and the frunk out of a Mach-E and tell me which car was actually thought out. It’s such an insanely unbelievable mess under the mustang frunk because they don’t have anything like the octovalve. There’s 47 diverter pumps and 1100 hoses just right there under the frunk. People love to hate Teslas but don’t genuinely know anything about them, after being sent to school for them in California. They are probably one of the most impressive vehicles on the road technology and engineering wise, no this isn’t Elon glaze it’s appreciating the cars themselves

You know everyone calls him Tommy after that Blue Oval City hullabaloo.

“…and unions.” You nailed it with that one. You can’t sweep the floor without the union getting involved.

Whoosh

Problem is he’s basically spent the last 12-18 months saying this and sulking about it. And imo realizing this only recently is kinda wild. Tesla has been doing this for over a decade now. I think a lot of this is actually due to the fact that pickups are still their cash cow and they’re somewhat isolated from the EV problem for now, at least in the pickup format Americans are used to. Making full-size pickups into EVs is basically an exercise of compromises, they become too heavy and/or the range isn’t there, and/or they’re too expensive. Plus culturally pickup owners mostly don’t trust/like/want EVs. The other part of the problem is parts manufacturers. Wholesale switch to EVs means you’re going to decimate the parts suppliers and I think automakers are too closely tied to parts makers, from a practical and relationship standpoint. Being asked to make decisions that will wipe out parts suppliers that might also wipe out entire towns is pretty heavy stuff, and in some cases those suppliers will still be needed for making the ICE cars they want to keep selling.  So I think US automakers have preferred instead to go the slow bleed route and hope the govt will just isolate them from further EV competition than Tesla. It’s also a mindset switch to go from automaker to tech/software company. IMO that’s what really makes Tesla standout and no one seems to be able to match it in the US. Rivian being the closest. I think if you look at China it seems like the traditional automakers and parts suppliers in the US are the horses when the Model T showed up.

Some of these predictions are just so dire. It doesn’t really reflect reality. Tesla is still sold in the US and it gets you 95% of the best of everything out there. Arguably charging tech is a little behind but they’re the most efficient EVs (maybe Lucid has an argument) and the supercharger network is the best charging experience so it matters less. We just don’t have 20 EV makers releasing new models every year to choose from. It’s not some starved market for competition overall though. Also I think in 10 years it’ll be more likely that we just skipped EV ownership adoption and started shedding cars completely. Move to robotaxis for daily commute and keep a car for shuttling around kids. Probably won’t have a need for 2-4 cars per household. Why have a $1000 payment + $200 insurance + $200 fuel + $100 avg maintenance monthly when you can just take a $10 ride each way for work and not take the depreciation hit?

And? The only real difference is that people not wealthy (not in the club) have a chip on (our) shoulder that takes decades to unlearn.

Yeah I wish it were that simple. The wealthy have been engaging in class warfare against the rest of the population for decades now, and successfully at that. Not to mention that this country is supposed to be a meritocracy. Having two prominent people like that from the same family is a strong argument that it’s not.

I mean it’s setup like a joke but I don’t get it. Idk what a cocinar is

I am not sure the rich have been engaging in class warefare for recent decades as much as the not wealthy.

Yeah not sure what you mean by that. They basically run the government, and have been paying progressively less in taxes and benefitting from more loopholes over the years while at the same time whittling away at government services and exporting jobs overseas under neoliberalism. If the less wealthy have been doing warfare, they’ve done quite a poor job of it. (Also I know the mods here dislike off topic discussions so this is the last i’ll say on the subject.)

That’s why they’re more reliable

But a 62 year old in Nebraska comments constantly he doesn’t want an EV so surely no one does,

Yea because ford is known for their reliability lol

Yes, for their new Hindenburg line of cars.

The BZ4x is certainly a worse EV design than Tesla, but I’m not sure you can make the case that the manufacturing quality of the BZ4x is worse than a Tesla.

The 1st gen RAV4 EV was built in Japan from 1997-2003. The 2nd gen RAV4 EV was built in Canada using Tesla components from 2012-2014.

Not to mention hydrogen will embrittle that infrastructure so it would have to be replaced frequently

Third generation now.

Cybertruck panels are made with a brake press, which is a different machine than a stamping press.

I'm going off this: https://leandesign.com/cybertruck-hfs-panel-stamping/ Beyond that, how does one press a curved panel on a brake press? None of the CT panels are perfectly flat.

I wasn't aware of any of the stamped parts. One of the claimed major benefits of the stainless material was supposed to be the lack of a stamping line. But this is the machine referenced in the article which I was referring to as a brake press that does all of the sharp bends on the Cybetruck: https://www.trumpf.com/en_CA/products/machines-systems/bending-machines/

Octo valve, could I have a short version definition of this device?

I read somewhere that new machinery had to be "invented" to accommodate making the body panels. Not sure what that actually means, but it was not an out of the box process to accomplish, apparently.

In the Munro video they talk about a novel method of applying a hardened aluminum-bronze coating to the tooling so it doesn’t mar the stainless. It needs frequent touch ups and rework. That doesn’t sound particularly cheap to me.

Agreed, and I imagine in some time, getting replacement body panels will be literally impossible.

It’s a part of the heating and cooling system that handles both climate control inside the car and maintaining the temperature of the battery. But instead of a ton of hoses, it’s a single piece making it very efficient. Watch a more detailed explainer on YouTube. It will fascinate you. I watched a three part series where someone explained the engineering and I thought it was cooler than anything else in the car.

Nobody makes cars for the American working man. They make them for the EPA then try to sell them to everyone else.

Thanks, it’s like when I saw him land those two rockets safely that I thought why didn’t NASA do that. Chances are it was his engineers that came up with that. He is a busy man.

It’s basically why I stick with Tesla over other EVs. Their engineering is solid and the legacy carmakers have a lot of catching up to do. Even Rivian isn’t there yet with an octo valve equivalent.

No they are not. Only the maverick and Bronco sport (which are the same vehicles) of F150s.

Years ago I read in a book about a conversation between the Ford CEO and Bill Gates. The story went along the lines of Bill Gates describing a new car to the Ford CEO if they had only done to cars what he did to computers. The Ford CEO simply asked, "What about the blue screen of death?" Bill Gates replied, "Wouldn't it be great if after a car crashes, instead of getting towed to a garage, that you could simply get out of the car, close the window, turn off the car and restart?

They did.  The article is referring to what they found back then.  So It has been ~ten years and still have not applied those learnings effectively

The article is new, but the teardown was a decade ago.

I don’t know but I’m gonna take the butchers word for it.