Former Ford engineer talks about lack of parsimony in Ford Mach E. He took two of my classes many years ago at Ford
https://youtu.be/C1dQtlrI7uU
14 replies (most recent on top)
What reliability in Ford products.
Ford Quality is an oxymoron like Jumbo Shrimp.
Won’t put my wife or child behind the wheel of one.
But we exceeded our range goal that was established capriciously. Doesn’t matter that other EV’s kick our kiester. We keep living in the Ford bubble and chose not to look behind the curtain. Sad that press publishes this dribble.
- Designing is hard, judging a design is easy.
- Design iterations take time.
- Developing several concepts in parallel takes more resources
- If you are part of one of the last companies to develop an electric vehicle you are hamstrung by the hundreds of patents out there. And no, Tesla does not freely share patents
@2wer+1bnYpgPK - what a great response. As a Ford employee, let me just add a few things.
(1) If you watch the video, you will notice that it was taken recently during Covid. Yet this small company and small group of its employees are actually working together in their garage/lab doing teardowns, evaluating systems/components, working on actual cars, taking videos, etc. Where are all Ford Motor Company salaried employees? At home, watching wokeness related videos, and not touching or working on products while hoping they don't have to go back to the office for several more months.
(2) Your comment about buying the small company making the videos probably will not work. First of all, the "Business People/MBAs" you are referring to at Ford do not have the intelligence to just buy out the company. And even if they do (after one of them reads your post), they will only be buying the company in order to shut it down permanently so that it doesn't produce any more negative PR about Ford products (and yes, their contract will prevent them from creating or working for future companies that also produce any negative PR about Ford). But the Ford MBA's will not buy the company with the intent of using it to improve the quality of Ford products. In fact, the same Ford MBA's are probably right now working with a team of 50 lawyers trying to figure out how to pursue litigation of the same company for creating bad PR about Ford with the intent of shutting down the company rather than use the company for the advantage of Ford.
The thing at Ford is that we "the worker folk" continuously attempt to point out what the right thing to do however we have the most inept, greedy, and self motivated management you could ever imagine in a manufacturing company. You don't get promoted by being the top in your role, you get promoted by being a "chosen person" due to some quota, friends and family plan, backstabbing or the like. Enough years of this and you end up with the mess you have today. The "worker folk" just trying to do the best they can while not stepping on toes that will result in job loss.
So, let me get this straight -- Ford has tens of thousands of people in product development, quality, and purchasing --- thousands more working as supervisors, managers, and directors --- the company has been in business over 100 years --- the company has huge development and testing labs supposedly with decades of experience and yet Ford develops and puts into production this Mach E with all these potential quality problems. And apparently Ford has no problem with this because it only affects the customer?????
Yet some third-party company run with a dozen or so employees (apparently with some talent and desire to actually work) working out of a small garage making you-tube videos can easily identify several potential quality issues.
No employee at Ford sees any problems with this scenario?????? Oh yea, I forgot. You are all too busy being SO overworked, productive and working remotely from home or Florida, Arizona, etc. to care about quality and customer satisfaction.
Hello, is anyone alive at Ford? You think this would be embarrassing to Ford employees. But I think it is just business as usual at a company where everyone takes for granted that they should just be paid well.
Ford Motor Company--- you cannot have a head count reduction soon enough. A while back, a poster on this site said that the reduction should be 50%. And Ford employees came out from all directions to attack the 50% target and author– all saying how overworked they already are (while working from home to boot). To be honest, I was skeptical of that figure. But after reading about recall after recall since that posting and now watching a you-tube video by some ridiculously small company (especially compared to the size of Ford) about Ford quality, I am convinced 50% is the correct target.
Major hint to all the “Business” people at Ford --- all you have to do is fire most of your people and hire/buy this one small company and you will save tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist! But then is also doesn’t take an MBA either. Oh well, at least Ford is woke! You got that going for the company (for the average Ford employee too offended to understand reality – that is sarcasm).
OP: Will Poor Reliability Ki-l Ford's Comeback?
I'm guessing that is a rhetorical question. I do not see any comeback occurring at Ford.
If developing products that have weekly recalls is a comeback......then I guess, I need to stay informed on the definitions of the latest Ford buzzwords. My bad.
A simple checklist showing number of components for Mach E vs a competitor could be done by someone in Quality department. That would alert management of blatant issues like the 31 hose clamps behind the frunk.
Ford needs to get Design for Lean/ 6-Sigma going again. If executives feel Design Engineers are smart enough to do it on their own they are mistaken.
Bubblegum and bailing wire. Engineered by McGyver. Embarrassing but well hidden.
Hurry up and view this post while you can before the Ford HR moderators censor it like they have many other comments her in the past week.
Pathetic.
It looks like the engineers completed a design that met requirements just in time with no thoughts about survival in real world environment.
Consumer Reports will probably give the Mach E a black dot, not recommended,
Wow
Wizard of Oz, don't look behind the curtain.
Amateurish looking engineering at best.
Scrap if dropped?
Suggests big trouble coming using products with a history of leaking.