Tesla announced a new vehicle manufacturing platform, or New Generation Vehicle, that is more efficient and, according to them, enables costs to be reduced. Tesla's next-gen vehicle allows a 40% reduction in manufacturing footprint in the factory and a 50% reduction in cost, the company said.
https://www.thestreet.com/technology/tesla-unveils-new-vehicle-manufacturing-platform-to-cut-costs-by-50?
While Tesla is showing the "New Generation Vehicle" platform, Ford has stopped the production of Lightning and Mach-e for battery issues, and, if memory serves well, we are still "working" on the second generation of EVs (to be released in 2025).
Ok, they got a new vehicle platform (a couple of years ahead of us), but we can beat them in the factories, right? We have been producing cars for 117 years, after Old Henry revolutionized the work in a factory. We should be leaders here, so let's see.
https://dmexco.com/stories/gigafactory-opens-what-tesla-can-teach-us-about-digitalization/
Oh, my! Tesla is already a showcase project for Industry 4.0, using AI and its own cloud. Since last year! What Ford has been doing last year? Well, Ford was busy last year laying off the chief architect of the "Factory of the Future", disbanded the team of infrastructure architects, and allowed newcomers to take over the most important parts of the project: edge computing, distributed computing, IIOT and the implementation of industry 4.0 standards. Oh, we are using Google's cloud (since we cannot have our own) and if we can find some intelligence around, artificial or not, it should be assigned to the id--ts at the top of the company, since they have none.
Let's summarize it. Tesla is making already a profit, while Ford is losing money with every BEV that sells. Tesla already reduced the prices of its vehicles, and with the new platform, they can reduce the prices even more and eliminate the competition. (Farley said publicly that Old Henry did that too, but he forgot to mention that it worked very well for Henry, so it should work very well for Musk too). We are at least 2 years behind Tesla, we keep burning cash in silly projects, while not paying attention to our bread and butter (ICE).
When are we going to realize we are NOT even competing with Tesla? There is not a chance we can beat Tesla at its own game. Why is the BOD and the Ford family allowing the ruin of this company? Sometimes I feel like a sane guy in a nut house, surrounded by crazy id--tic people that call themselves "people leaders", but cannot find their own behinds with a flashlight and a map.
I have had enough. Time to cut my losses. Things are only going to get worse in this company, and I am praying that I'll receive a good offer tomorrow, I may be even tempted for a less than fair offer, and I'll be leaving this dumpster fire behind. Cannot wait.