Bullshit. 15 years and they are just now integrating basic Tesla software features into their product lines. Excuses.
Dude is stilling talking about Extended Range EVs when China is charging cars in 9 minutes
This CEO is the real comedian not his late family member. Bro set so much money on fire and now it's even embarrassing to watch someone drive a mach e or f150 lightning
Ford and Jim Farley deserve credit for forcing the entire legacy US auto industry to abandon CCS1 and switch to NACS. It's the only thing the legacy American auto industry has gotten right when it comes to EVs, and even that came 12 years too late.
Reminds me of when Toyota engineers tore down a Model Y in 2023 and were [amazed](https://insideevs.com/news/655087/toyota-engineers-after-tesla-model-y-teardown-work-of-art/). Saying it's "a work of art"
I loved my lightning. Such a good truck. Same bed and cabin as a regular f150. Such a good work truck. Way more utility than my current Silverado ev. Wish Tesla would make a more usable truck
what's wrong with the Silverado EV?
Yes the cyber truck is suck a cringe magnet. I hate that its the same company as my model 3.
Bill Ford Jr. was pushing EVs way before Elon was an investor in Tesla. They kicked him out cause they thought it was the wrong move. They were wrong. They have had some horrible CEOs since
If only the CEO of one of the world's largest automakers paid attention to the endless discussions of Tesla's engineering since 2018. Couldn't turn my head online without seeing Sandy Munro talk about their advances or hear Elon talk about wiring harnesses like 50 times on earnings calls to crickets from analysts.
These assholes just tried to retrofit their parts into an EV drive train. Doomed from the beginning.
They just found out about Tesla last month.
I feel like some of his statements are so honest about his and the company’s stupidity that it is fitting he is related to Chris.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they literally ignored them until they made a truck.
lol only took 20 years
Bro why is this guy always being quoted on click bait articles ? Everytime I see him it's always some open mouth over the top statement. Ford and Tesla make different cars who cares
And they still haven’t hired any decent software leadership.
Did you get rid of it?
I take it. You saw the latest video with the car charging with 1,600 mega jiga biga watts? Fucking amazing?
1.61 jiga biga? Great Scott
Lmao The charger just discombobulates the electrons when connected by all computer!
When this baby hits 88kWh you're gonna see some serious shit
What the hell's a jiga biga watt?
Where we're going, we don't need EVSEs
For those out of the loop- they cancelled the lightning not because it wasn’t selling or wasn’t a solid vehicle (it is). It’s because it was maintenance free. Their whole model is to make money off of service and maintenance. They make basically none on the lightning. Car sales bros hated it. The lightning is actually incredibly well built. Is the software shit? YES. But this is a truck and it happens to be electric and it’s phenomenal. Source- have had one over two years after having an S and then an X. I absolutely love my lightning and despite its software flaws I won’t be getting rid of it anytime soon. You know what else is great about it? That insane battery degradation teslas have? Not on the lightning. 1 percent for me after 50k miles. There other owners that only have 1.5 percent lost after 125k miles. I’m sure I’ll get downvoted. But it’s important to have other context. Also Farley can go to hell. He’s an idiot.
Sandy Munro was saying that all along.
I’d argue the Silverado EV has way more utility especially with the fold down cab wall. The range in the Silverado EV is huge too could tow much farther than the f150 lightning. What makes the f150 lightning have more utility than the Silverado EV?
I hadn’t heard of it until Biden finally said the word Tesla /s
Fun fact, Ford Motor Company makes zero dollars on vehicle maintenance. All that $$ goes in the dealership pockets.
But reddit armchair engineers said they're literally taped together trash heaps?
Have a buddy who works in tech stacks at GM and I chirp him all the time lol. Legacy auto is an odd culture. In his true core he believes the equinox / sierra UI is superior to Tesla
What a loser
> "But if he came back to the company now, he'd be up all night. … He'd be working on the next EREV [extended range EV] before our team was. What is considered “extended range” we’re already in the 300-400 mile range. Is he talking about overland trucking or something because current range seems to cover 80-90% of users
Btw, where IS Sandy these days?
End users don't inspect frame welds (or the lack thereof). Engineers don't care about shitcan interiors and panel gaps for days. Different priorities for different audiences, both can be true.
NACS was proprietary until 2022 though, so it’s not like was really an option before that point.
If Ford made me CEO they’d sell twice as many EV’s. Just saying
It was an option prior to then, tesla offered NACS access prior to then on the premise that the other oems helped foot the bill for the SC network, shockingly(/s) everyone said no.
NACS itself did not exist until 2021, but it would have been possible for other automakers to use the Tesla connector before then. Yes, the Tesla connector and protocol were proprietary, but a term such as "proprietary" does not exist in a vacuum. Some negotiation took place at some point which resulted in NACS being opened to other automakers. That negotiation should have happened much sooner, and it didn't need to wait for NACS to exist before happening.
Exactly. Dealers have no incentive to sell so away it goes.
Can’t really blame them when thats the deal offered. Help cement and fund the success of the closest thing the big three have had to competition in 50+ years or use something else… pretty obvious choice at the time. Once it became available for other automakers to use, moving to NACS was the smart and choice. No other charging station or network ever came close.
The article literally answers your complaints, the Toyota engineers are talking about how different the current model Y is from previous years' model Y. But you'd have to read the article you have opinions on first to get that.
Well, from the OEM's standpoint why would they listen and follow a little startup.The world is supposed to follow them afterall.
 Jigga who?
True. At least Ford's CEO acknowledged it: >*Farley pegged a Tesla teardown as the moment he and others at Ford fully grasped the issue: a baked-in engineering bias toward combustion engines as a default.* Unfortunately, the Ford corporation turns slower than a fully laden super giant oil tanker.
You replied to the wrong person.
I am in Europe, I have a Tesla Y , I did not have to service it with Tesla to have the warranty valid and I could order it directly from Tesla so I have not yet went to any dealership whatsoever...
Teslas have been around for a long time. Averaged data over 12+ years with multiple battery chemistries shows an early hit in battery degredation of 3-5% that then flattens out for the remaining life of the car. But more recent Model 3 and Model Y data don’t seem to show that same early hit and there is single-digit degredation into the 100,000 mile range. The F150 Lightning is averaging 2-3% loss in that same range which is good, but it’s a very tiny dataset. And Ford’s battery warranty isn’t as robust as Tesla’s either. Anyway, absolutely none of this is remotely “insane” degredation. Teslas have never had a reputation for “insane” or even significant battery degredation and on the whole they have blown away expectations.
Well range extenders are still quite popular in China. Li Auto ridiculed VW just yesterday because they said some years ago the tech was outdated and now had to reintroduce it due to popular demand.
+1 to everything you said, but I also wanted to say the original comparison is likely apples and oranges. LFP batteries have very low degradation. LFP batteries are what Ford primarily uses. Early and long range Tesla batteries are NMC (nickel based), which do exhibit more degradation than LFP. It's likely the guy you're replying to saw some comment comparing a best case LFP to a worst case NMC and took it as gospel, not understanding Tesla also uses LFP where it can and both Ford and Tesla use NMC on long range vehicles because of the required energy density. The idea that Ford batteries are better than Tesla batteries is comical though. The gap is very small, but Ford's suppliers are not better.
Every other month there’s a shill post about how buttons are coming back and everyone wants buttons
Nothing the engineers said contradicts what the buyers have said. But surely you knew that already, being as knowledgable as you are.
You all do know these are comments he made years ago and talking about when they tore down a tesla YEARS ago and what they were shocked at learned. It is not new just every article repeats it like it is new.
No it was more than that. It was offered with a massive poison pill that required them to pretty much give up access to all their patents and IP. That poison pill made damn sure it was never going to happen as they were not going to give up all their IP.
In the US most states require by law that vehicles are sold by non-manufacturer owned dealerships. Tesla gets creative sometimes to avoid it here, like point of sales sites on tribal lands (which can be exempted from some state laws).
These speeds require the right infrastructure or else they are pointless.
I have heard of it some states in USA require dealersips, dealership has no value to Me, the first EV i looked at had a mandatory service that was required of Me . (I am an Engineer I have a Master in ee).
So we are pretending that the Lighting didn’t suffer from not being able to travel long trips?
Considering the quality of the legacy US automakers EV offerings and technology up until very recently, their IP was/is very likely worthless slop anyway lets be real.
Not sure why that should be celebrated. Pretty much everywhere outside the US, Type 2 and CCS2 are the standard.
The first Tesla teardown Toyota did was a Model S: they laughed. It was a joke with both the sub assembly design and quality. But damn, did Tesla ever learn fast. They ran so hard for so long to catch up to Toyota that the dust blew up, and blinded them so they didn’t realise they were actually half a lap In front…
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Unpopular opinion but NACS is a much better connector
Still think it was the right choice for the US. Not because NACS is better, but because it was more prevalent. Having the US segregated into two different standards wasn’t really helping end users. Not really a problem outside the US since Tesla had later entries in those markets and simply adopted CCS.
Its smaller and easier to handle but, its not better, at least not in places that have 3 phase power.
It is the most advanced vehicle on the road. This is the nonsense he is talking about.
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Exactly, here it would be a pain in the ass with the slow charging at home.
No, top the trim is glued on and did come off of some of the first delivered vehicles but I have not seen anything like that happening in literally two years since then. The trucks seem to be pretty well built.
NACS is only relevant to North America, which doesn't have 3 phase power in normal households. It makes no sense to base your choice of charging connector on 3 phase power support in a country where 3 phase power is not available.
I know right. My car is currently charging at 10.5kw and my charger can do up to 22kw, if the car could take it.
Frankly anybody that has had a real job that involves new product start up realizes that there are glitches. That is why you avoid day one products.
They make material profits on parts.
That’s a fair point, however dealerships are not obligated to use Motorcraft parts, especially outside of warranty work. Most manufacturers these days build vehicles using a “just in time” parts supply system. Meaning they do not warehouse parts much beyond what is needed to keep the factory running building vehicles. It’s a problem now as a customer’s vehicle goes in to a dealer for a part replacement and it sits in the shop for weeks waiting on part availability. The factory doesn’t want to sell the part as it means a new vehicle isn’t getting built on time. It’s much much more profitable to sell a new vehicle to a dealership, than to sell them a new bumper trim. Magnify that issue in the thousands and now you’re affecting quarterly reports.
to be fair, that statement from Jim is already now what, five or ten years old? This sub resurfaced this old news, because it feels good. When in reality, that Tesla engineering advantage was back in 2018. These days are long gone. Now unfortunately China is leading the pack.
This seems to be a bit of a problem with Ford. I've heard Jim Farley talk before about expecting mainstream customers to pay premium prices and not investing in better battery chemistry [25:45 - 29:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGx7AyD9okg&t=1851s) I keep thinking, "I, and thousands of others, could have told them that!"
Glue is light. Glue is cheap. Glue is fine unless you are driving it into trees.
In France, Tesla achieved the #1 spot for reliability beating the previous winner which was Toyota. I'm into my 7th year and the thing still looks and drives like new with 115Ks on it.
I have a 2019 base model 3, 80k miles, 86% battery health Fixed the back seat rattle with some transpore (medical) tape Besides a couple flat tires (which could happen to any car) it has NEVER put a foot wrong I take excellent care of it, which helps, but this is easily the best car I’ve ever owned. Driving it until it dies. Wish the paint wasn’t so damn soft 🙃
I’ve driven a few different Teslas in my city, but my city gets pretty cold -30 to -40 and those cars are not meant for temperatures this low . The doors don’t close properly everything rattles and it takes forever to charge. I’ve not had those experiences in Chevys Toyotas Fords, so they may be works of arts, but only in warm climates
Because he was annoyed that everyone knew who Elon Musk was, but no one knew who the CEO of Ford was. So he has a PR team insert his name into clickbait headlines so that eventually everyone will know Jim Farley.
That’s the issue with “legacy” automakers and forcing them to switch over their business output in just a few years. They spend more on healthcare for retired employees than they do on cars. They have to squeeze in completely new designs and manufacturing processes into existing infrastructure, and clearly that extended all the way down to the design process.
Ford are way behind the curve. Back in 2018, Porsche were seen to be testing their Taycan prototypes on public roads against a Tesla Model S that they had bought. The Porsche boss had previously acknowledged that they had underestimated the threat from Tesla and lost sales to them. Around the same time, some German guy was suing Mercedes, because they had rented his Tesla Model X via Sixt, taken it on race tracks in Germany and Spain - and had disassembled/reassembled it (badly). I think some big name automotive manufacturers are not destined to survive, because they have come to EVs too late and in an unwilling and haphazard way.
6 years in myself. All I’ve ever had to do for the car is change tires. I changed my brake fluid for fun once. It’s been great. 🤷♂️
This is why I say I like Tesla’s better than other car manufacturers EVs. They all seem to try to put an electric powertrain into an existing gas car. What they should do is rethink their EVs from the ground up. That is what Tesla did, but Tesla had the advantage of not having to deal with the legacy baggage.
Hopefully in retirement. His videos got worse in the recent years.
“Insane battery degradation”? What?
My 2021 M3, with less than 50,000 miles on it has had multiple fails. The recent compressor failure a couple of months ago caused the car's electrical system to malfunction and brick the car. Cost me money to tow the car and $2500 repair since Tesla wouldnt cover it under their warranty.
I wanted to trust the thoughts he expressed in this article until “extended range ev” Like Tesla or not, I like Tesla but I know many people that also hate Tesla for various reasons, doesn’t matter why. Regardless full Ev’s are the future imo, anyone talking hybrids is still speaking corporate speak or stuck in the past.
BS. God forbid these massive corporations favor collaborative innovation with the pioneering among them in the interest of the consumer. The time to set aside profit, recognize the value of tapping into existing infrastructure, and do the right thing was long before it occurred. Show up late to the game, demand everyone play with your ball, and bring no skill to the court.
Yeah but I heard one of them caught fire once maybe something something door button /s
So is jimmy going to redesign all their EVs now?
Says everyone that ignores a startup
>God forbid these massive corporations favor collaborative innovation Collaboration is literally the exact opposite thing a company is supposed to be doing, competition
Exactly why I did not buy a Lightning. It seems to me the battery was an afterthought.
I love humility like this.
Nah. It didn’t sell well enough and it cost too much to make.
Damn, sad to hear, I really enjoyed the early teardowns. Did they get more rambling?
To be fair this is old, not so many positive stories unless you rehash the old ones.
I think there’s two different aspects there. There’s base engineering and then there’s manufacturing. There were plenty of corners cut in manufacturing in different eras of Tesla‘s existence. Panel gaps, paint defects, cheap “leather”, plastic every where…. Which is all really different than the battery tech, the drivetrain, and Superbottle.
Teslas UI is so strong, it's been copied by Greely and BYD. The screens look almost identical.
Certain infrastructure demands collaboration. Cars don't have interchangeable engine parts between different manufacturers, but the fuel inlets are all standardized so that they work at all the gas stations, the width of all cars is within a certain range that fits in a highway lane, etc.
Imagine waiting until 2023 to do a tear down on that. Wild.
Yet the reality for most EVs sold in China and around the world is nowhere near that. The cars and the infrastructure generally don’t allow the majority of EVs on the road to do that. This is the equivalent of using a 911 GT3 Nurburgring time to approximate the performance of a RAV4.
Maybe the standard range models had that issue. My extended range gets 250-270 highway range miles. Thats just about exactly what model y and 3 get…
TIL fords CEO is Jim Farleys cousin. 🤯
whcih is why tesla not having dealerships was the masterstroke for tesla's to thrive.
Changing brake fluid is important because it is hygroscopic and will cause issues eventually so you should flush every 3 years or so
Have moved from a Tesla to a much cheaper Chinese EV. I will never go back , but I will get a much better Chinese EV in 18 months. The rate of development is phenomenal.
did it about 3 ish years ago. Probably due for another. The color still looks good. 🤷♂️ I’ll get to it this summer. 👍
This isn’t just ford, it’s every legacy automaker. Obviously they want to integrate into their existing production lines, use the same tooling, same automation lines and philosophy, existing engineering processes etc. To put it simply, they wanted to take an f150 or a Corolla and just put some electric motors and batteries in it and call it a day. Even when they learned that wasn’t ideal and created new models/platforms for EV cars, they didn’t want to fully re-invent the wheel and still used a lot of components and processes from their existing catalog. Tesla and later BYD were always destined to pull ahead being pure EV companies. Theres also dozens of market factors at play that made it an uphill battle
👍 color could be a good metric to judge but they also have test strips that you dip in and will change red depending on copper corrosion level. They also have electric meters that will tell you water percentage but I’ve never used one of those
Agree, but the lightning turned out to be a pretty great truck.
Same - 6 years, and only needed to change the tires. I did back into a post in a parking garage and it ripped off my side mirror, but that was my fault, and Tesla came to my house and replaced it.
Wait. There are test strips?? That’s brilliant. Thanks for the heads up! 💪
This is why consultants make so much money.
Yea the ones I use at work are from BG and they test the coolant and brake fluid but I just looked them up and they look expensive but I’m sure you could find some cheaper. Coolant can also go bad only has such a long service life and you don’t want you system getting corroded inside or something but a lot of coolants have 10 or 100,000-150,000 mile year life
No shit bro. I sold my ford lightning for a Tesla. I’m the biggest Elon hater, but hot damn, ford software SUCKS. I can’t see myself living without a tesla now.
The quote comes from an interview in the current edition of Car and Driver.
What’s sad about this is Tesla had a 5 year lead on everyone in EVs and it’s effectively gone now. Elon deserves credit for building a bleeding edge company but also deserves blame for truly fumbling a game changing company by being dumb.
And you need it in context. That quote even if made in again in a more recent interview is referring to something ford did near 5 years ago or more.
Not all startups are successful
But what about Mary!?
Yes, and everyone else was 'collaborating' on CCS. I'm glad we're all on NACS now because I definitely think it's superior, but as a Tesla owner in the US I thought for sure I'd be the one using an adapter to charge at CCS stations in the future rather than the other way around. I always thought about it this way, thinking about a future where every new car sold is electric... Tesla is One company. In the future, if Every car was electric, what market share could 1 company, Tesla, hope to have? Even if they sold 30% of all new cars, which is about double the current 'top' manufacturer's market share, that Still would have meant that 70% of all new cars had CCS, so any new infrastructure was probably going to favor CCS. And Tesla already does CCS in other markets, so I thought for sure that 10-20 years down the line the US would be on CCS and tesla would cave and I'd need an adapter. How surprised and delighted I was when Ford announced their NACS partnership and started the mass movement to NACS. But it's not what I expected and I definitely see why manufacturers didn't chomp at the bit to make a deal with Tesla. They just hoped 3rd-party charging infrastructure would pop up better than it did.
Stop using the “J Word” please. This is a “family broadcast.”
The legacy automakers were too clever for their own good. They thought that by joining forces to push an awkward and unwieldy connector, they could slow down EVs just enough to make EVs fail, or at least delay EVs enough to give them more time to pad their profits from the sale of gas cars. To be fair, they probably did succeed in achieving some delay, but the standard they chose was so bad that it sabotaged the entire charging infrastructure landscape. There's actually no real difference between NACS and CCS1 in terms of compatibility with other markets. Both NACS and CCS use the CCS protocol under the hood. The only difference, and it is a big difference, is that the NACS connector physically doesn't suck.
A work of art!
How do you think it is done? They still aren’t making EVs profitably. Everyone in the US is cancelling most of their EVs. Tesla is moving on from consumer cars being a main focus. Smart on their part.
I know nothing, but it seems to me like maybe Ford would have torn apart a Tesla BEFORE starting this process.
Teslas are extremely well engineered but inconsistently manufactured. Much better now than in years past
Side story. I got called for a sr leadership role at their EV division. I said why wouldn't they hire someone internally with their big bench strength. The exec recruiter said no no, they only want to hire people outside of Ford as they're trying to do things differently. Cool cool. Then nothing. Weeks and weeks. I reach out. "Sorry, no update". Two months later I get a message saying they filled the role. Yes, dear reader, they hired an internal person.
Toyota and Tesla also partnered on an EV RAV4 in early 2010s, the Toyota engineers worked very closely with the Tesla folks.
I love how honest the Ford CEO is. But frankly the problem with Ford (and most traditional automakers) is the lack of vertical integration. Ford and other legacy automakers are constrained with designing cars because they use a lot of different suppliers, all with tech stacks managed independently.
My 21 Model 3 dual lost the HVBP at 30,000 miles. They covered it as happened in 24 but sold it before the bottom fell out on Tesla’s. I will get downvoted but it was not a good car. Too many bad things to go into but it was a lot.
Before I bought my Model Y.. I test drove EV's from legacy automakers. They all felt like heavier, more unweildy gas cars. You could literally feel in the handling and suspension that they were just slapping EV shit into their existing platform. Then I test drove a Tesla and you could instantly tell how different it felt. It felt like I was driving a rocket ship from the future. It was immediately obvious who was 5 years ahead, and who fully embraced EV from the ground up. I can't even imagine someone deciding on a Ford, Chevy or Cadillac EV after test driving both.... at least in 2021 when I made my purchase. Things might be a little different now, but I have my doubts. I think Tesla is innovating faster than everyone else. I haven't even driven a Juniper Y.
They had to tear apart a Tesla to learn that?
Yeah I was a few months past the 5 year warranty window. Also I find it weird to be downvoted for telling my experience with my Tesla which I still own. People want to believe their own narrative I guess. https://preview.redd.it/usjssfat3gng1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=39e1f3998347d0a782475014d9ddec3c397cd35c
They used wood blocks to support a cooling condenser because they couldn't source the parts needed.
Isn't that what early Tesla did too.
Proof right there. I know my experience was in the minority and I was a big fan until I owned one. Service did me right but if I didn’t have a center close to where I lived it would have been a shitshow I’m sure.
"superbottle"??
This is often the case for market disruptors, especially when it involves a tech change - legacy players have a sunk cost fallacy with their existing infrastructure and processes. It’s often simply not feasible for them to pivot because it would be extremely costly and upend majority of their workforce.
4 years in on my model y - one new 'main board', one new 'light stalk' (main light, indicator) repair and replacement car covered under warranty
You are late to the party. Now it's been replaced by the Octovalve.
It happened because Biden passed subsidies for ev chargers to use a standardized plug, so Tesla quickly got around to standardizing it so they could get ev subsidies and expand the supercharger network.
What are these words???
Consumers love buttons.
https://youtube.com/shorts/3Ihnt4WEGsI?si=kXveBYgn1-RamIGX
Not great enough for them to continue to make it
I have nearly had My model Y for 4 years, I bought it made in China, I have not had any problems with it yet.
'18 M3, have only ever changed the tires and air filter, and runs perfectly. Seems like you had a faulty model.
Looks like the recent videos show other people on camera which is great.
Bought a M3 in the last year... Build quality is amazing. I heard those issues happened before, but it looks like Tesla's manufacturing has really stepped up. When it comes to materials, Tesla is going to go with light weight + durable every time. That's what makes a battery last and what allows you to go 350 miles on a charge.
It may look good at the reservoir but doesn't mean it's good at the caliper end. Brake fluid doesn't flow in a circuit, it mostly only moves back and forth. Even a partial bleed does wonders.
The model 3 is the loudest car I’ve been in in the last decade. They are trash.
Bingo! This is how politicians finesse people with too much screen time and not enough understanding .. you’re spot on! 🎯🎯
What a weirdly passive aggressive comment.
Loudest how?
You’re the one claiming the entirety of Reddit is wrong so it seems appropriate to point out that the article doesn’t contradict the common complaint you brought up yourself.
Yeah I’m hoping I don’t have any other major issues. Otherwise I like the car and enjoy driving it.
I bought a Model 3 in 2018 and a lot of the cosmetic/external facing parts had lots of issues and corners cut. Even things like my driver seat was installed incorrectly and they didn't connect the lumbar support adjustments, the panel gaps were really bad and the speaker was delivered with a crack in it. Other than those issues it ran very well and was fun to drive.
One of the rear bushes on mine went causing it to fail the WOF last year. Took it to Tesla and they did both sides for $500. Can't complain at that price.
This is supposed to be one of the first things you do in R&D if you are going after a competitor.
Yeah no. Maybe the older, early models, but definitely not the new Highland (ane Juniper) refresh. Sound insulated glass, increased sound deadening throughout the cabin, and adjusted aerodynamics, make the cabin very quiet, on top of being an EV.
No shit....
They should fire all their engineers. Everyone knows they didn’t design them right and had known for years.
Remember opening your boot and having rainwater fall inside? Remember the cybertruck hood that could crush your finger? Remember the weak and small armlinks of the cybertruck? Those are all examples of piss poor engineering. There’s more.
extremely early...yes. Pre-Musk perhaps?
It was worst during their first ramp up. Especially the model 3. The later designs got more and more full castings and was made of less and less parts, so less risk of a part being slightly out of alignment fucking everything over. Also less rattling because less parts joints .
No, that are mostly piss poor design. They skipped the design process where designers, engineers and design engineers, material engineers, production engineers and so on was developing a few prototypes and then a focus/test group where these small issues was worked out. They just went straight from designer to engineer and then had no process for adjusting design.
This seems to be a common reaction for this dude. Recently said similar things after seeing Chinese EVs.
Lol welcome to Reddit lately. Everyone at each other’s throats for zero reason.
Engineering is one of the coolest things you can do imo
Ford originally tried to throw in their lot with Electrify America when the Mach E was introduced. Another network owned by a plucky little startup- or at least that's how the experience may have felt in 2019. In reality, this venture was the result of billions of R&D by VW. It worked so well that Ford wanted to jump to NACS within 2 years.
Indeed, and I feel like that was peak corner cutting build it in a tent times.
Sounds like they got better as they went along.
This is about the most sane take I've seen on the EV connector wars yet. Well done.
Ford is working with Chinese companies to co-brand Chinese vehicles as Fords.
I think most traditional automakers (GM, BMW, Ford, Jaguar, Nissan) were initially reluctant to design an EV from the ground-up, instead choosing to bolt (heh) EV powertrains onto their pre-existing ICE/hybrid platforms and hoping the public accepts it. In theory it was a sound idea- avoid costly R&D on a risky-yet-completely-new drivetrain while being able to capture some of the growing interest- or in GM's case, grab just enough CAFE incentives to offset their profitable, yet horribly inefficient SUVs and continue the status quo. The result were vehicles with unbalanced driving dynamics, underpowered motors, awful range, poor thermal management, terrible price premiums (over their ICE counterparts), weird/quirky (often tall) proportions... ie- seemingly halfassed products that didn't cater to anyone. And the market noticed. Then there's Honda and Toyota- hybrid tech pioneers who squandered their tech lead and ignored the BEV segment entirely chasing incentives from a Japanese govt hyper-fixated on hydrogen for some reason. Absolutely and incredibly stupid. Porsche was probably the first traditional automaker who designed an EV completely from the ground up. The Taycan seemed like the first decent competitor- assuming you disregard the state of VW's charging network.
He said the same thing of the Chinese EV’s. Anyway, he has a new architecture coming out, so we’ll see what they end up doing
I still don't understand how they managed to literally burn 20 billion and come out of it with nothing. No tech, no factories, nothing.
They said that in 2023 they were amazed at how the internal parts changed while the exterior remained unchanged
I have a 5C chinese EV. The charging is absolutely insane. Even on "only" 400kWh chargers the 10-80% charge time is 12 minutes.
I haven't changed my brake fluid, but there's nothing stopping me. I did change my cabin air filter. That was not as simple as my Elantra or my Toyota, had to take the side out of my interior console. And I replaced the wiper blades, which was trivial. Now they don't smear my windshield when I drive into bright sunlight and under bridges.
Charging has been solved for 10 years already. "Charging in 9 minutes" is a gimmick. Might have some practical uses down the line, but its not needed for EVs. I've been driving a Tesla in Norway for 7 years now. The only time I have to charge on the road, is when travelling more than 200km. The charge time is always lower than the time I will spend going to the toilet while the car charges. I will literally travel through several countries on like 120 minutes charge time. But most of that time is spent on the toilet, eating, or actually just taking a break because driving for an entire day is hard. The limit is where chargers are available. Not the technology itself.
Just an FYI - there's electronic brake fluid testers that are like $10 on amazon. Tests the moisture content and will let you know the moisture content between 0% and 4% range. Anything 3% and above, should be flushed/changed.
This felt like something I read 8 years ago except this is actually 2026
Daily driver is a 2018 M3. I had a 2025 M3 for the day recently while mine was getting some work done. The build quality HAS GREATLY IMPROVED. All the little things. High touch surfaces are just sturdier now. Smoother. No rattles. Made me want to upgrade, but ultimately decided to run this bitch into the ground.
That makes a lot more sense, reading about it they were amazed by gigacasting and structural battery pack changes underneath. Pretty cool.
Was he in charge when they designed the MachE and Lightning?
No need to have a go at fake leather. Nobody wants real leather in cars, it's uncomfortable, difficult to maintain, and appalling for the environment.
It was more the specific fake leather they used for a bit.
How's the battery life? I have a 2018 M3 LR with 66k miles and the battery life is down to 250 fully charged.
I'm not anti-union, but most unions here are very anti-change. I think Ford's management is problem #1, but the inability to make quick decisions and implement new ways of doing things is at least partially the fault of heavy unionization.
muppets
The thing is, when the cars were new they had a set Wh/km value set which is how the range is calculated. In mine it was 147Wh/km which translated to 499km at 100%. Based on that number the battery capacity was 73.4kWh when new. Over the first few years they kept tweaking the typical value first to 152Wh/km and then 157Wh/km (the dashed line on the energy use graph) and as a result the 100% range dropped first to about 483km and then down to 467km and this wasn't battery degradation, it was just an adjustment to the range estimate to make it more realistic based on the actual numbers coming from the fleet. Since then, my car has dropped it's 100% range down to 437km (although it really needs a recalibration) but that means the true battery state of health is 93.5%, not the 87.5% it would be based on the original 499km range. I'm happy with that and expect the car will continue to do what I need it to do.
You can charge at 11kw here too (Canada), it just requires shelling out for wire that’ll support the 40A load. (My car charges at 11kw). That said, even the more normal 7kw is fine, I think. Vast majority of my at home charging is overnight.
Yup yup. He was actually very supportive of Tesla and their approach and tried to mimic them…but I think had no real idea what they were doing or to what scale. He tried to do ground up stuff but I think was too stuck in the “system”
Billions of r&d from their punishment for their diesel problems, didn’t their investment decline after they paid up?
200km might be far in Europe but that won’t even get you from Austin to Houston. 9 mins would be a game changer here in Texas.
It’s one of the few ev vehicles from a large car manufacturer that I appreciated when I saw it. It’s truly an EV with a proper frunk. So many EVs from regular car markers are literally just a repurposed ICE with zero frunk and the worst layout of components. And here he is saying they still did it wrong even though it’s better than many.
From the article, the tesla engineering was things like making the floor out of the battery pack thereby eliminating 250 pounds of structural pieces, etc.
They’ve had lots of time but failed to adapt. Bring on the foreign competition.
I worked at Tesla before Model 3 launch and left a few years ago. The difference in build quality between the first couple of model years vs. the 2025+ refresh is night and day. Hope you have a chance to drive the latest version.
Real talk... Huston to Texas is only 250km... You literally don't have to charge on that trip. 9 minutes doesn't matter because you can charge while parked in Houston.
Is this a post to pump the stock again after it’s been down 10% from its peak?!
Cheers, mate. I appreciate the explanation.
You shut up, you! /s
The “tents” (which still exist iirc) are irrelevant to quality - they don’t affect that or security. There are the same structures in downtown SJ and others that have been up for decades without issue. They were sprung up to allow rapid scaling at a plant they took over that wasn’t big enough to handle the growth. Waiting almost a year to get concrete walls vs rigid steel and a thick membrane for the same end-use in *2 weeks* makes that math easy to grasp. Was a very prudent move. Their corner cutting and lack of good stage 1 quality control were the issue. Pushing issues down-line to service centers was definitely a pain for customers
I wanted to buy a ford truck but I can’t afford to have a piece of shit. I bought a Tacoma. It’s terrific. Used of course.
Tesla always had the lead at that time in battery and electric drive chain. The poison pill would’ve applied to their entire car not just e drivetrain things. That would’ve included things like brakes, suspension, cooling, safety equipment, software, etc. there are still things that all the manufacturers patent that are sub components of automobiles that would be valuable to build off of. You might laugh at the term software, and that laughter is definitely valid on their entertainment system. But software also covers things like micro controllers for braking and active suspension.
What is with the abomination of rear suspension /drive motor placement in them? It is so poorly packaged from a ground clearance and aero standpoint, massive units hanging down...Compare to a Rivian, Hummer, etc...Lightning looks like an absolute retrofit
I had a 19 model 3 lr, and had the front control arms and struts replaced 3 times before 85k miles. I'm an engineer but not a car engineer, and it seems that suspension isn't a trivial thing in an ev, especially when payload is a factor. It does look weird and bulbous but it rides great, better then an ice f150.
Its so much unsprung weight by the looks of it which seems like it would be bouncy. I guess the weight because the batteries dampens the ride probably
Except that teslas better at sub components too, well they weren't in 2013 for suspension parts iirc, but tesla figured all of that out within a few years without any of legacy autos IP anyway. Its still a bigger loss for them because they failed to grasp an early shared technology path and we would all be better if the western EV auto industry as a whole took things seriously and progressed much faster. Imagine a market where the technology legacy auto offered that didn't come until around the same time as 800v packs came out in like 2016-17 instead.
Actually fake leather is worse, it has a shorter life span, doesn’t breathe, it’s made from oil and is not biodegradable, releases microplastics and because it wears down faster you have to replace it more often so it has a higher carbon footprint and uses way more chemicals in production. But it’s cheaper to make so they greenwashed it and called it vegan leather to make it cool and hip.
Farley also drove a Chinese EV for a while before tearing it down to find similar eye-openers. Ford’s Model E lab is comprised of a lot of young engineers and a few Tesla transplants. Ford’s 2028 Ranchero EV (or whatever it’s going to be called) should be an exciting step forward for them. It looks to be about the same size as a Model Y if it were converted to a pickup (which I’ve longed for). Sandy Munro had a hella time dismantling a Model Y because of the integrated structural battery. Combined with giga casting it’s not as repairable a vehicle as it could be. Designing an EV to be as cheap to manufacture as possible while giving customers a great driving experience tends to leave ease-of-repairability off the feature list. That should come back in as battery costs drop and production volume increases, but I’m not counting on Musk to have the same enthusiasm for pushing the physical technology advances, his focus is more on the Robotaxi and FSD.
If you go to the ford lightning sub Reddit you’ll see why…
100% grade idiots. Even 1st time entrepreneurs know to always know what the competition is doing!
Wee-woo! Moron opinion alert
I would only buy a vehicle with real leather. Guess I'm a nobody.
Brother you have no idea what 9 min charging would do for the world if you think it's a gimmick.
That works on small countries. 120 min doesn't get me from a major city to another in the same state.
120 minutters of charging converts to something like 20 hours of driving. I don't know why it's impossible to spend 2 hours resting on a 20 hours drive
It wouldn't really do anything. I literally charge at home. I still need to go to the toilet and eat when driving far too. Batteries have 500km range now. If I have to spend 9 minutes or 30 minutes charging after driving 500km, it makes no difference... As I said, it will have other uses. I literally said that. But for personal vehicles, it is a gimmick, as the technology is already good enough. It like the same reason why manufacturers don't just double the tank on cars. We just don't need that much fuel.
I know my new i4 is behind the times compared to my old Teslas. It’s really too bad my most recent Tesla was such a piece of shit and the support system from Model S days is long gone. Lucky to get a loaner when your car strands itself under warranty. So bad I can’t give them money any more.
that is great that you charge at home. Open up your mind a little more about what it would mean if EV's could charge in the same amount of time it takes to get gas.
Like your typical American sedan.
My model 3P+ was delivered September 12, 2018. No issues. Most of the "panel gap" complaints were from Ford execs looking at loss in bonuses, imho ... The only design defect is that the windshield drains right onto the left front suspension u-joint. Bought a syringe and grease gun 1 year ago to fix the problem for $25.
Generally they're talking about the cyber truck there
My apologies my brain completely erased the "charge time" from your sentence earlier. Disregard my ealier comment.
That's exactly when they had the opportunity to do so, right around 2016. I think we'd see a much different landscape if Trump hadn't won in 2016. There was a plan for 60 billion in investments in renewal energy, about a quarter of that was earmarked for charging networks. If she had won and Tesla had opened up the standard then to win the charging network subsidies like they did with the biden contracts, we would see a much different landscape right now.
Little surprised that people knock the early teslas—-the first viable EV for public market—-obsessed engineers/designers on every early manner of innovation always wants to make it better and, if they don’t, it goes away. Love my Tesla, hate him. Sigh.
Agreed. People can’t separate. 200k+ employees, literally allowed all other EVs to be possible….1 guy does stuff they don’t like and the rest is meaningless. 2 things can be true at once.
Maybe a bit but it picked up as it’s become a real revenue driver for them
Come to the US. 200km one way is a routine afternoon drive for a lot of folks here in the Midwest. I’m sitting here charging (for the second time from under 10% to over 80%) on a 600 km Saturday drive that I routinely do that only goes between two not very big states. This is in relatively efficient EV without pulling a trailer. Probably a 3-5 charging stop drive if I had a trailer. Even with optimal charger placement and pull through chargers knocking 10-15 minutes off a charging stop or removing one altogether would be pretty huge. It’s hard to describe to Europeans what driving is like here unless you’ve done it. No offense, but what’s practical do most people in Scandinavia is different than what’s practical here.
> I’m sitting here charging (for the second time from under 10% to over 80%) on a 600 km Saturday drive that I routinely do that only goes between two not very big states. I am wondering though. How much driving time is this? 600km would take me approx 10 hours _driving_. I would _also_ spend at least 30-40 minutes eating, toileting, and getting water or something at a store. I would also _likely_ spend 20-40 minutes getting groceries on the other end of the trip. What happened here when we went electric, is just that all these places, where we would already be stopping before, just became charging stops as well. So the total travel time really didn't change.
Did you see the face he made when he took a bite too? You could tell he was barely interested in actually tasting the car.
It’s a 6 hour drive in an ICE nonstop which I have done on many occasions. That’s not speeding really even. Speed limit is 112km/hr. In good conditions in a model Y LR it’s probably 6:30-6:40. I’ve had it take up to 8 in my Q4 in the winter. People make this sort of drive here very routinely. I’m not saying most people as much as I do but if you live in an even bigger more empty state even this drive isn’t much.
Still find it pretty wild (and uncanny once you know) that Chris Farley’s cousin is the CEO of Ford.
Can you explain this in more detail? Is the amazement in that the exterior was designed in such a way that it could stay the same while internal would be reworked?
It was the heat pump and octavalve that impressed the Toyota engineers
You are welcome to try and work as a traveling salesman and get back to me
You know people have other driver habits and patterns than.. you?
Everyone loves saying how the build quality of Teslas sucks. When that was 10 years ago.
The cybertruck certainly didn’t help their image any
Yes, but also no, I'm moreso saying that if investment was initiated by legacy auto industry 2012-13, we would've had actual good product on dealer lots by 2016-17. Instead, EV tech languished for the better part of a decade outside of teslas investments because EVs are just a fad and nobody wants one /s.
Lol my brake fluid has not been changed for at least 15 years on my car.
This is untrue. The auto industry has analysts and consultants like CareSoft who were explaining what Tesla was doing starting about 4-5 years ago. Autoline After Hours has hosted CareSoft and gone through the issues in person. Farley himself discussed why Ford COULDN'T compete with Tesla on Fully Charged 2-3 years ago. He has been caught lying about all of this for some time now. You can find all of this on Youtube.
They didn't. They just didn't admit their failure until more recently. Same with Farley, see my comment.
Bombed.
lol that is funny you must not give a shit about your vehicles but everyone is different 🤷♂️ brake fluid is hygroscopic so it naturally absorbs water and that can cause brake pistons to seize. Also the water can evaporate under heavy braking potentially causing you to loose braking performance. Not doing regular maintenance usually leads to larger vehicle repairs, which is fine with me since those usually pay me better
I have a Model Y and a Mach E. I like my Mach E too, don’t get me wrong but it’s absolutely a Ford Edge with some EV shit slapped into it
They are still one of the most unreliable brands.
They don't even sell cars with that option any more.
I happen to own a 2024 MY, love the tech, my wife and I love the car overall, but yes, even in 2024 the build quality of the fit and finishes reminds me of a cheap 90's car. It squeaks and rattles everywhere. I haven't had the pleasure of sitting in a juniper yet so I can't comment on that except to say it seems to be a much higher standard. I want a suv that uses the Tesla tech and Rivian exterior and Interior. That car would be amazing!
Yeah same. I got my first Model Y last August (AWD Juniper). The way it handles and the EV tech integrates with the car feels like they were made for eachother. I also rented a Ioniq 5 and MacheE for a week and they just clunky and unintuitive and a decade or more behind the Tesla. With how good FSD is that also puts them behind another decade or so. It isn’t just a ground up redesign that is needed for legacy manufacturers to succeed it’s a ground up restructuring of how departments in a car company work. You need the departments to work together and be able to iterate on the fly with how fast the tech is advancing.
How did it take almost 20 years? Tesla has so few actual parts to break or go wrong, yet it does so much more than any Ford.
I disagree, having to slot in two connectors increases cost and you should aim for a global standard if you can. CCS is slightly heavier but it isn’t a big deal. It is also more open. Car manufacturers tried to globalize CCS but Tesla did an end run around them in NA with the charging stations.
It would have been two connectors anyway. CCS in North America is different from CCS in the rest of the world. (Edit: well, actually it's three -- China uses a different connector. Four if you count CHAdeMO. One global standard was never achievable.) There is literally **no reason whatsoever** to prefer CCS over NACS in North America. None. You're also wrong that CCS is more open than NACS. It's not. Both are SAE standards. Both use the exact same CCS protocol. Only the shape of the connector is different, and as I said already, it would have been different from the rest of the world anyway.
What does this guy make a year again?
Yeah, my two things at once are i love my Tesla, hate Elon.
I don’t know if any of you has seen the car care nut’s YouTube channels review on the Tesla cyber truck. He is a former Toyota mechanic and goes into an amazing technical review of the super manifold. He says that is the number one engineering innovation that no other company still can match.
Like they’re just doing this now?
I got the 2024 highland refresh and it's been amazing. Had a 2022 loaner recently while they were fixing a sensor issue. Much clunkier ride, worse road noise, and all around lower quality. I would not have bought the 3 if I were in the market before the 2024 refresh, so I get what people say when they trash the build quality.
Well…the fit and finish of teslas aren’t great. They feel kinda plasticky and cheap, and there can be random rattles at times. At the same time, the car feels like it’s two generations ahead of any other car. The handling and driving experience is fantastic… It’s almost like the car anticipates what you want and does it for you. I don’t think about unlocking the car, I just walk up and open the door. I don’t think about locking the car, I just get out of it and walk away. I love my model y, I hate Musk…and in 10 years I’d probably still buy another Tesla if they stay this far ahead. I really tried to avoid buying a Tesla , but they are so much better than any other ev out there and they’re relatively cheap.
I love teslas because my 65 year old Ford is not good for the environment. I think it balances out
Has he been asleep. Why didn’t he do that 10 years ago?
You have one?
The crazy part to me is that they were entering a new market for them but didn't study how the competition in that market did things even just to know how to beat them.
Yea, 23 Lariat.
The Chinese OEMs have copied Tesla almost perfectly. I expect in the next year or 2 any advantage Tesla has will be gone because Tesla essentially gave it to them by starting the whole supply chain in China.
5 year??? I had this experience with the latest Volvo. Never again!!! If the manufacturer gives something like only a 5 year warranty, then they're not comfortable with their product, which means I'm not comfortable with their product! Had that lesson with the latest xc90, and never again. One of the driving forces of going with a Kia ev6 electric this time, was just that! Lesson learned from a low manufacturer warranty! One of the driving forces behind going with a Kia is that for 100k... I don't have to care! Hmm... I guess I'm surprised they only do a 50k mile warranty! I thought it'd be more!?
Is this a real article? The URL in the end says "source chatgpd"?!?
Do you know how sources work in urls? Start there. Then look at how ai bots work.
Dodged a bullet
Hard to change from what your brand is built on. Ice engines.
Same here. Great fun car to drive but holy shit there’s a ton of squeaks and rattles. Also the horn sometimes decides it doesn’t want to work unless the incredible Hulk is trying to use it.
Yes! I've said this for a while now. If Tesla wants to exit the car game for robots, at least license and maintain the software. I would dig a Cadillac Optiq with Tesla tech.
Farley is all talks! Learned the hard way after loosing lot of money ! This and PFE are absolute unadulterated CRAP! Be careful with your money!!
I would get a Tesla if they had a gas model
I think being called «sane» on Reddit is rarer than having a cake day. Thanks! 🙏
My panamera had the best leather seats ever. Fucking dream seats... i still think about them
The big manufacturers didn’t take Tesla seriously until around this time. Source: My cousin was part of the engineering team from Ford who tore down the model Y on site at their R&D facility…..
Nobody thinks they “designed” the Ford lightning wrong. They priced the ford lightning wrong. Majority of the base model trims sold but dealerships customized and mostly asked for the fully loaded ford lightning then marked it up.
They had to price it the way they did because of how it was built. You don’t think those are linked? He said the way they built them meant they couldn’t make money on them at sellable prices
So dealerships having a 10-15k mark up is just so they can make money? Selling at MSRP isn’t enough ? Now that you explained it I get it now.
That was a jerk move. Sorry just ignore that response.
They didn’t always have markups. Only early on and if they made enough volume would bring that down. And it did.
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