TO FORD: To Dealer:

[baseballchamps]

I think you wrote into the quote - asking if Ford invested in chips instead of Rivian? They did. A business can operate on multiple fronts at the same time, that is typically how a business grows. Here is the link:

literally titled Ford and GM getting into chip development

That article was in November and a joint venture with GM. Where's the follow through? Talk is cheap!

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[atomguy245]

would it make any difference in your reasoning that Ford started the Maverick program internally a good 1-3 years BEFORE COVID? When there was no such thing as global shutdowns of factories, cities, countries- and of course no supply chain issues with a robust global economy and supply of goods uninterrupted. Then the world as we knew it turned upside down and changed everything. I don't see how Ford or anyone else could have foreseen the resulting chaos and prepared for it to keep launching multiple new innovative products like business as usual. And they are not alone in this dilemma.

So Ford is incapable of reacting to the crisis that developing during Maverick development? Is Ford product planning so inert that they essentially ran off the cliff knowingly? I'm imagining Ford execs in a conference room shrugging their shoulders say "well, we locked in these option packages 2 years ago. We can't get the parts to make them like this anymore, but oh well, run with it."

 

[TheGriffin1313]

Its a sellers market and all the adages of customer satisfaction etc are all out the window. Until supply starts to meet demand we must expect this type of rollout in any product till the situation on the ground changes.

 

[skadizzle]

Ford's biggest portion of blame in all this is the stupidity of following their outdated & non-applicable allocation system for paid customer orders. Inexcusable ignorance. Everyone understands the supplier constraints, production issues, high demand, yada yada yada. Most reasonable people can accept, and deal with, delays based on (mostly) uncontrollable circumstance. Unfortunately, Ford is largely responsible for creating all their bad press from their own ignorant actions. Could've been 99% avoided had they followed the simple FIFO-based-on-constraints production model FROM THE BEGINNING.

And the greedy unethical dealers are just adding fuel to the fire with their shady actions on customer orders. It's obvious the games many are playing, jacking up prices when a customer Mav finally arrives.

Add these two together, and it's a BIG public perception hit, mostly deserved.

As a shareholder, I'm embarrassed, and pissed off, and that was reflected in my proxy.

And even more disappointing, it seems the Lightning intro will be a bigger shit-show than the Maverick.

Yeah, I hate to beat a dead horse, but there is absolutely ZERO reason why there are still June, July, even August orders at this point unscheduled other than Ford screwed up with their allocation system. Even if someone had every option ticked, I guarantee there is at least 20-50 trucks built after them that had several of those items. Sure it might've taken a few months to get through, but between December and now is six months (just for hybrids) which is plenty of time to get three months worth of orders scheduled regardless of constraint items.

At some point Ford should've stopped and been like what old orders do we have outstanding? Okay, let's hold the next hard top for this guy, hold the next Lux chip, etc. until they have everything and then move on. Ford is just going down the list and going "Lux chip check, 360 check, Oh you need a bed extender, nevermind just give everything to the next person and we'll come back to him.

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