Ford to launch Maverick EV (I hope this is true)

[Msjulie]

FORD TO LAUNCH MAVERICK EV​

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I get that most MTC members hate and despise BEVs. You be you. But this news nugget may dissuade me from updating my Maverick with another ICE version this fall.

I don't hate BEVs, like you I would hope if Ford does release a Maverick EV that it's a quality vehicle and (sigh - much as I despise Elon these days ) uses the NACS charging standard to make longer trips more convenient

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[Ozarkbeard]

...we need to find a battery with minerals we have here in the U.S. ..

https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-...reasure-usgs-uses-machine-learning-show-large

 

[Phimosis]

I know you're trying to be helpful, but you live in an area of the country that gets rain 1.8 days a month. You also live in an area that pays out the wazoo for electricity at ~$0.40/kwh (I choked just writing that!!).

Most of us live in much more varied climates with many more days of cloudy, rainy weather and pay 1/3 of what you do in electricity.

If I lived where you do I'd 100% before solar.

My electricity provider, SoCal Edison charges me $.24 / kWh. Last year it was $.22, but it looks like the price went up at the beginning of the year. 90% of my electricity usage is off-peak or super off-peak. Even in the summer, my thermostat is programmed to pre-cool my house between 2.30-4:00 pm so that the AC is rarely on between 4-9pm, when electricity is at peak price. My EV charger knows when the cheap prices are, based on my zip code, so it doesn’t start charging until 9 pm.

I use 18,500 kWh per year. At $.24 per kWh, that is $4,400 per year. When you factor in taxes and monthly service charges, and that 10% of my electricity use is at peak pricing, my annual electricity bill is over $5,000 without solar. With solar, my annual bill is $0.

Even though California is sunny, it’s only 57% more Sun hours than the cloudiest places, like Seattle. Basically, you just need to buy 57% more panels if you live in Seattle.

Z

The above table is “hours of peak sun” first column is maximum, meaning in the summer time, second column is minimum, meaning winter time, and the third column is the annual average. So in my case, I have a 14.4 kw system and it shows 6.14 hours of peak sun in the summer in Los Angeles, which means my system should make 92.16 kWh per day on sunny summer days (14.4 x 6.14).

My highest production day for 2024 was in late May and the actual number is right on the predicted value. So you might ask, why is my highest day in late May? Why not June or July? The answer is that solar panel efficiency goes down as temperatures go up. The sun hours peak on June 21, but the ambient temps are lower in May

 

[Phimosis]

One thing a lot of well-intentioned ICE folk on MTC miss is that Ford competes in a global market. The US market right now is around 17 million units a year. The global market is almost 90 million units. Volume is everything in the global market - if you don't have scale, you become a small boutique maker like Ferrari. That doesn't mean you don't make good money. It just means you sell to a niche. You're small and irrelevant.

The market in the developed world is going BEV in a big way. If Ford and the other USA OEMs don't move to BEVs, they become uncompetitive on the global market because they will lack the scale needed to compete.

You have to spend money to make money. You can call it a "loss" all you want, but it's an investment in the future. Ford "lost" $1.5 billion developing the Maverick. And it takes years of sales to recoup that R&D investment - they're probably just starting to make real money on a program basis now. But once you recover your investment costs, then you're printing gobs of money.

So Ford, please keep "losing" $5 billion a year on BEVs. Because I want to be able to buy a Ford in 2035, not a BYD.

%

Most people don’t understand the economics of large businesses.

In my experience, the majority of US lay people think that the solutions to complex business problems are simple, straight forward, single steps, that only require average intelligence to successfully execute, to outmaneuver the competition and achieve market dominance.

Then when a CEO makes the wrong bet and it doesn’t pan out, all of the arm chair quarterbacks come out with “I told you so”, like they think they are smarter than the CEO and would have made better choices if they were in charge of the company.

Moore’s law was originally posited to describe the timeline of doubling computing power and the halving in manufacturing costs, but the basic tenet applies to auto manufacturing as well: the larger quantity of something you produce, the lower the cost per unit will be. The converse is also true: the lower quantity of something you manufacture, the higher the cost per unit will be.

So, when Ford brought out the F150 lightning, saw that it is selling like hotcakes, while they were losing money on every unit they sold, what did they do? They raised the price. Twice. When the lightning came out in 2021, the “Pro” work truck started at $39,000. By 2023 the lowest price lightning Pro was $51,990. Instead of making the F150 lightning into the best selling truck in America, they made it into an exclusive boutique product. By significantly lowering demand and lowering production volume, they effectively increased how much money there were losing on each item sold.

Hopefully Ford has learned from this mistake: they need to make sure that the next EV they roll out can be mass produced at a price that the market will want. Then they need to crank out millions of them to decrease the cost per unit and make it profitable.

 

[bbhaag]

I too, have an $400 Emporia charger, but I had an electrician install a NEMA 14-50 plug in, with a 50 amp breaker and the appropriate sized wiring, for $600. Then it’s 3 screws to mount the wall charger next to your outlet plug.

In this configuration, it can supply 40 amps, or 9,600 watts at 240 volts. According to National Electrical Code rules, a 14-50 plug, 50 amp breaker and appropriately sized wiring can operate at 50 amps “intermittent”, which in NEC terms means “loads expected to last less than 3 hours”. Since EV loads frequently go longer than 3 hours, they are considered to be “continuous” loads and are restricted to 80% of their maximum rating, out of the box. However, the Emporia charger is rated for 50 amps continuous, which means that if you have it hard wired to a 60 amp breaker and larger wiring, it will operate at the 80% duty cycle, 48 amps, or 11,500 watts continuous.

When it comes to efficiency, you have about 5% thermal loss in the car onboard charger, where the AC to DC rectification happens. And you have about 5% thermal loss in the battery while it charges.

Side note: the EVSE, electrical vehicle supply unit, or Emporia wall unit, it’s just a fancy, web connected power switch and just passes current through with negligible thermal loss.

My daily electrical use in winter, according to my trip computer, is about 33 kwh per day. My Emporia charging logs shows that it sent 37 kwh to my car, so 10.8% thermal loss, meaning the power company is charging me 10.8% more than what my car says that I added.

So 4 hours of charging at 9,600 watts.

My commute is all freeway at 80 mph, so my consumption is 350 watt hours per mile. When you see manufactures talk about miles of range added per hour, they are going to be using the city EPA consumption, which will be around 250 watt hours per mile, in order to make the charging rate look more palatable. But for freeway only, expect 320 to 350 wH/mile.

But I don’t actually have to pay for this electrical use, because I make 21,100 kWh (21.1 MWh) per year.

Even in early Feb, I’m making 52 kwh on sunny days. Last week we had a storm and it went as low as 20 kwh with dense cloud cover.

As mentioned in an earlier post in this thread, I have a 14.4 kw Tesla system from Tesla.com/energy, 36 panels x 400 watts. It was $33,600, which was $23,520 after the 30% tax credit for solar installations.

I LOVE my Emporia charger to! I hardwired it on a 60A circuit two years go when I bought my Mach-E and it has been rock solid. I don't have all the fancy solar stuff integrated like you do but I still love all the info it provides during charging and after it's done charging.

I'm only two years into owning an EV but honestly I don't know if I'll ever go back.

 

[FreedomPenguin]

my average electricity bill is like 62 a month. So would probably double but cheaper than gas

I LOVE my Emporia charger to! I hardwired it on a 60A circuit two years go when I bought my Mach-E and it has been rock solid. I don't have all the fancy solar stuff integrated like you do but I still love all the info it provides during charging and after it's done charging.

I'm only two years into owning an EV but honestly I don't know if I'll ever go back.

are they a lot of fun to drive? How much $ do you spend a month on electricity you think? How much would that be in gas if was gas.

I’m assuming I’d save hundred a month, 1200 year

 

[Scott Asheville]

Found a nice description of EREV today and thought the link would help. There are a lot of interpretations of what a EREV is on this thread.

https://www.motortrend.com/features/what-is-an-erev-extended-range-ev/

 

[Scott Asheville]

>> are they a lot of fun to drive?

Yes. Flat out superior experience to any ICE vehicle. Silence. Instant torque. No maintenance to speak of. Most BEVs can be (and are) remotely updated and constantly improved at no cost to the owner.

OTOH, it's fair to cite some common criticisms. They often do poorly in extreme cold, towing scenarios, finding working chargers aside from Tesla's network, purchase cost, etc. We can be BEV fans and acknowledge some attributes need work. It'll take a few years to reach a point where most people look at ICE vs BEV with no incentives and choose BEV.

Also, being a BEV fan doesn't necessarily mean hating ICE vehicles. People assume liking one means hating the other. I love BEVs. But I also love rowing the manual transmission in my Miata, and the sound of a Dodge muscle car winding out on the highway. Who wants to be in a world without those sensual pleasures when the urge calls?

There's room for both. Most people have 2+ cars at home anyway. BEVs vs ICE becomes this stupid culture war for people who love fanning the flames. It's stupid on both sides.

 

[Ozarkbeard]

My electricity provider, SoCal Edison charges me $.24 / kWh.

Ouch. My Co-op rates are under 12¢ per kWh.

We do not have time of use rates, but I wish we did, to encourage conservation during peak usage times.

 

[FreedomPenguin]

6.5kwh here.
I looked at interior photos of mach e, god dang that screen is huge, that would annoy me to no end, (im sensitive to light) if that was a regular small screen that would be a winning daily car to me.

 

[dalola]

6.5kwh here.
I looked at interior photos of mach e, god dang that screen is huge, that would annoy me to no end, (im sensitive to light) if that was a regular small screen that would be a winning daily car to me.

lol... you can turn the screen back light down, or even off. It's no more annoying than any other screen, from a light standpoint.

 

[FreedomPenguin]

lol... you can turn the screen back light down, or even off. It's no more annoying than any other screen, from a light standpoint.

They have a 23 premium rwd standard grabber blue Mach e 31k 9k miles,

won’t lie. If it was 27-28k I think I’d buy it today then pay 2500 for granger 10 year/100k for peace of mind.

How’s the sound system sound in 10 speaker with subwoofer? It has the option on it

It says 247 miles range, but if it’s degraded do you think itl always be over 200 miles?

 

[dalola]

They have a 23 premium rwd standard grabber blue Mach e 31k 9k miles,

won’t lie. If it was 27-28k I think I’d buy it today then pay 2500 for granger 10 year/100k for peace of mind.

How’s the sound system sound in 10 speaker with subwoofer? It has the option on it

It says 247 miles range, but if it’s degraded do you think itl always be over 200 miles?

We have an extended range AWD, and range can vary from 150 to over 300 miles. EV's are very sensitive to trip conditions on many levels, so it's something you need to understand before jumping in, or you will likely be disappointed.

 

[Phimosis]

Ouch. My Co-op rates are under 12¢ per kWh.

We do not have time of use rates, but I wish we did, to encourage conservation during peak usage times.

Couple of things to unpack here. Ozark electric cooperative gets 50% of its electricity from coal, which is cheap, but dirty. In California, 0% of the electricity on the grid is from coal power, so they use natural gas, which is more expensive and they are deploying tons of solar panels and batteries, which is also expensive, at least on the up-front purchase.

In your billing structure, you guys get hit with a “demand charge” of $3.75 / kWh of peak demand during the billing cycle. To explain demand, for example, I have a EV charger that draws 10 kW. My AC draws 4kw and everything else in my house combined uses up to 2 kw, so my peak demand is 16 kw.

So an average bill for me is 1,500 kwh x $.22 per kWh + $35 for monthly connection fee = $365. We don’t have a demand charge.

if I was connected to Ozark Electric, the same bill would be 1500 kWh x $.089 per kWh generation charge + 1500 kWh x $.007 “power cost adjustment” charge + $37.50 monthly facilities charge + 16 kw demand charge x $3.75 per kW + $8.55 per month for security lights = $250.05.

So I pay $115 per month more for electricity in California, than if I was in Arkansas. Is that really the straw that breaks the camels back? Well, not really. The median mortgage payment in LA county, where I live is over $5,000 per month. The power bill becomes a smaller fraction of your overall budget and is just an annoyance. But that is why I got 36 solar panels. Now my electricity bill is $0 for the last 2.5 years.

 

[Ozarkbeard]

Couple of things to unpack here. Ozark electric cooperative gets 50% of its electricity from coal, which is cheap, but dirty. In California, 0% of the electricity on the grid is from coal power, so they use natural gas, which is more expensive and they are deploying tons of solar panels and batteries, which is also expensive, at least on the up-front purchase.

In your billing structure, you guys get hit with a “demand charge” of $3.75 / kWh of peak demand during the billing cycle. To explain demand, for example, I have a EV charger that draws 10 kW. My AC draws 4kw and everything else in my house combined uses up to 2 kw, so my peak demand is 16 kw.

So an average bill for me is 1,500 kwh x $.22 per kWh + $35 for monthly connection fee = $365. We don’t have a demand charge.

if I was connected to Ozark Electric, the same bill would be 1500 kWh x $.089 per kWh generation charge + 1500 kWh x $.007 “power cost adjustment” charge + $37.50 monthly facilities charge + 16 kw demand charge x $3.75 per kW + $8.55 per month for security lights = $250.05.

So I pay $115 per month more for electricity in California, than if I was in Arkansas. Is that really the straw that breaks the camels back? Well, not really. The median mortgage payment in LA county, where I live is over $5,000 per month. The power bill becomes a smaller fraction of your overall budget and is just an annoyance. But that is why I got 36 solar panels. Now my electricity bill is $0 for the last 2.5 years.

Ozark electric cooperative is in Missouri.
Ozarks electric cooperative is in Arkansas.
I am not on either one of those electric cooperatives.

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