Thread regarding Ford layoffs

I heard we have best management in history. Just saying.

Bad management will continue as one weak one retires another hand-picked weaker one takes their place.

I don’t understand why ford dictated the dealers to install L3 DCFC. L2 AC charging would have been a fair compromise, especially since the volumes are low and the inventory turnover is slow.

More expensive, bad decisions:

Ford Motor Co. dealers entered last year’s NADA Show restless over an electric vehicle commitment program that had just taken effect, with many awaiting installation of costly chargers that were delayed by supply constraints.

This year, sizable checks partially covering the cost of those chargers could be landing in dealers’ accounts — part of a plan finalized late last year to reimburse them for the since-canceled program.

The automaker, in response to requests by its dealer council, is paying back retailers as much as $240,000 during the next few years for investments they made to continue selling the F-150 Lightning, Mustang Mach-E and E-Transit. There are several ways to receive the money, based on how many Level 3 chargers dealers installed or how many EV sales they record.

One option, according to a bulletin sent to retailers and obtained by Automotive News, would give dealers $10,000 per Level 3 charger installed plus $2,000 per EV retailed through 2026, up to a maximum of $80,000 for each charger. For dealers who asked for more time to sell EVs, Ford added the option of taking $1,750 per vehicle retailed through 2027, with the same $80,000 maximum per charger.

Both options would pay out up to $240,000 because Ford had required dealers to install as many as three Level 3 chargers.

A third option would give dealers immediate payments of $40,000 per Level 3 charger installed, up to $120,000. This option would not include any money back for each EV sold but might be better for smaller, rural dealerships that don’t anticipate selling many EVs in the next few years and want the money faster.

Eddie Stivers, chairman of the Ford National Dealer Council, called the payments a “welcome gesture” in response to the council’s “big financial ask” for dealer reimbursement.

“Ford has gotten a little bit of a bad rap, I believe, but when you look back, I have multiple brands, and Ford is the only reimbursement program,” Stivers told Automotive News. “It’s the dealers’ job to always ask for more, but I think it’s only fair to recognize that we made the request and they’ve acted upon it.”

A Ford spokesperson confirmed the payments, saying the first went out late last year.

Ford dealers expected to make minimal EV investments moving forward

Ford in July ended the EV retail certification program, which elicited widespread pushback from a majority of state dealer associations as well as a number of lawsuits from dealers who argued that Ford couldn’t legally withhold EVs from stores that did not sign up.

Bad management is when you purposely design Blue Cruise to cause fatalities:

The federal government is expanding an investigation into Ford Motor Co.'s driver assistance technology after two fatal crashes involving BlueCruise-equipped Mustang Mach-E vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration initially opened its investigation in April 2024 to assess BlueCruise, Ford's partial driving automation system available on certain vehicles.

"System limitations relating to the detection of stationary vehicles while traveling at highway speeds and in nighttime lighting conditions appear to be factors in collisions under investigation and several apparently similar near-miss, non-crash reports," NHTSA found.

The findings of the next investigative stage will be of great interest to the Dearborn automaker, owners of the 2.5 million Ford and Lincoln vehicles equipped with tech inside the scope of NHTSA's probe, and other companies that have rolled out automated driver features in recent years. The regulator's analysis will determine if a safety recall is necessary and could help influence the development of driver assistance features across the industry.

Ford describes BlueCruise as a hands-free driver assistance feature to "help make driving easier, more enjoyable, and less stressful." It is available on 130,000 miles of divided highways across North America, per the company. Most BlueCruise-enable vehicles also have lane-centering assist technology.

Those vehicles, according to NHTSA, use a combination of camera and radar sensing technologies to detect and classify objects as part of adaptive cruise control and pre-collision assist features. BlueCruise-equipped vehicles also use a camera-based monitoring system to make sure drivers remain attentive to the roads.

NHTSA noted that Ford, which has cooperated with the investigation, designed its adaptive cruise control feature to "inhibit any response to reported stationary objects when the subject vehicle’s approach speed is at or above 62 mph. Additionally, system performance may be limited when there is poor visibility due to insufficient illumination."

Those design choices were purposeful, Ford told the regulator, to avoid the "false detection of stationary objects at long distances."

In both of the fatal collisions that NHTSA looked into, the subject Mach-E vehicle was "traveling over 70 mph on a controlled-access highway during nighttime lighting conditions with hands-free BlueCruise engaged when it collided with a stationary vehicle."

The regulator continued: "Analysis of data imaged from the vehicles’ event data recorders demonstrates that in each incident, the driver did not apply the brakes or take evasive steering action, and no deceleration was initiated by either the BlueCruise system or PCA prior to impact."

NHTSA's preliminary investigation also identified four other frontal collisions wherein Ford vehicles, including two Mach-E vehicles, collided with a stopped or slow-moving object in a travel lane.

One of the fatal crashes, which occurred in Philadelphia in March 2024, happened with an intoxicated driver at the wheel. Investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board said they believe the other fatal crash, in San Antonio, Texas, in February 2024, occurred when a Mach-E struck a Honda CR-V that was stopped in the middle lane with no lights on.

"We are working with NHTSA to support this investigation," Ford spokesperson Amy Mast said in a Tuesday statement to The Detroit News.

The findings of the initial NHTSA probe and justification for a full engineer analysis, opened Jan. 17, are available on the agency's website.

Bad management will continue as one retires another weak one takes their place.