What is going on with Maverick production?

[Starwatcher]

Do you want a $25K truck? Or do you want American made chips?

No chips means no trucks. So making them in unstable places makes no sense

Do you want a $25K truck? Or do you want American made chips?

so make chips in unstable places, and end up with no trucks. Besides, more than chips. You can’t get parts to repair damaged trucks

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[projectvortex]

By then there will be other options, like the new Toyota

You’ve mentioned a new Toyota a few times now. Can you provide links to what is coming in one year? I would eagerly take a Toyota if the cost/benefit is right. A hybrid would clinch it.

 

[Impetus19]

I bet the profit from an F150 sale dwarfs the profit from a Mav sale.

Exactly… which is why the resources are diverted there. My point is only that the supply chain isn’t hindering hybrid maverick production.

 

[projectvortex]

After reading the last several pages of this thread I never would have thought I could defend Ford for anything they do. But now I seem to be able to do so. No, the vast majority of folks here overall and in this thread are NOT Ford employees. That’s just a useful broad brush label used when lacking evidence to back up what you’re saying.

I’ve chatted more times with customer no-service than I care to think about and there’s only been low single digits when I was not satisfied with their response. Of course I mostly never liked the message but these are stay at home low-wage folks given extremely limited data so you have to cut them some slack.

Anyone who has been in sales, marketing, production or for that matter in ANY real position to know what is going the past 2-3 years would most certainly realize there have been, are and apparently will continue to be global bottlenecks for most things. Expecting Ford, or anyone, to have foreseen what was coming is quite simply asanine.

Ford HAS been exposed for their weaknesses during these global crises, as any poorly-run organization would be. In fact, they’ve probably been the single worst auto manufacturer

This being said…….

I’ve waited 14 months just to get a build date for what might be the truck that I’ll keep when all the dust settles. Do I actually believe it will be made anywhere close to the DAY of Jan 5? No way in Hades. In fact, I’m at a point now where if it gets pushed back even once more (14 times for my “scheduled” with VIN 2022), I’ll just keep driving the Santa Cruz that’s sitting in my driveway right now. I could go to any of several dealers that I found and buy one off the lot.

This process has taught me a lot. It’s only a truck, a vehicle, something that can be replaced with any number of other choices. It is indeed a First World problem we discuss here.

 

[projectvortex]

Sorry if you were being facetious, but I can save you the time. None. There is nothing comparable coming from Toyota next year.

Yeah, kind of why I was asking. Many things in this thread have been stated without proof, sources. Many here are living proof of what a debacle this has become unfortunately.

 

[gte105u]

Exactly… which is why the resources are diverted there. My point is only that the supply chain isn’t hindering hybrid maverick production.

In a vacuum maybe. If Ford wasn't making other vehicles then you are likey right there wouldn't be resource issues. But they have a whole lineup of vehicles and tough decisions to make.

So they evaluate the resource shortages and make choices on what to produce. Supply chain shortages are just one, as well as labor shortages, transportation shortages, etc. Apparently Ford has reached a sweet spot for allocations that fit their models. We may not agree, but us agreeing is not high on Ford's priority list. But they would not be having to make these either-or calls if not for the resource shortages we are seeing.

 

[ViperAir]

Uhh, not according to Apple:
[Nov 6, 2022 Apple press release] CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA COVID-19 restrictions have temporarily impacted the primary iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max assembly facility located in Zhengzhou, China. The facility is currently operating at significantly reduced capacity. As we have done throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we are prioritizing the health and safety of the workers in our supply chain.
We continue to see strong demand for iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models. However, we now expect lower iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max shipments than we previously anticipated and customers will experience longer wait times to receive their new products.
We are working closely with our supplier to return to normal production levels while ensuring the health and safety of every worker.

The CCP caused that with their lockdowns....I just ordered a 14 Pro Max, and got it with 2 days... So, stop drinking the Supply Chain kool-aid, it's all manufactured to steal more money from us....

 

[ViperAir]

Supply chain issues are still very real. Only people not involved with dealing with supply chain regularly would say otherwise. I am a VP with a commercial General Contractor. I daily deal with difficulties procuring materials. Joists are 6-8 month lead times. RTUs for anything but the most run of the mill ones are 50 weeks. Glass, 20 weeks. Switchgear, 60 weeks. Water meter yokes... they don't even know. None anywhere, haven't been in 6 months.

Just because Covid is starting to settle doesn't mean these things have gone away.

Simple economics.... Limit the Supply, and the Prices will go up with demand. Raising supply for Ford, would mean going back to the old, where they had to pay heavy incentives to sell a car. Now, they can get MSRP all day by limiting their production.

 

[RockHoundTX]

Of course. But I also fault all manufacturers for not building chip plants here. Such a vital part, and nobody had the foresight to do so. You can’t have your whole industry dependent on one place for a vital part. New plants are being built in Arizona, but the big one being completed in a year or so, was still built by Taiwan. THEY had the foresight to make one here to protect from the Chinese. Ford and others say fat dumb and happy even when they saw the problem years ago.

Perfect example of a complete lack of understanding on how things work. I have worked at TSMC in Hsinchu, Taiwan (I am actually on the cover of their 2001 Annual Report), Samsung, Texas Instrument, AMD, and others. They sell very few chips to the automotive sector. The chips they make primarily go into computers, smart phones, gaming platforms, and advanced electronics. They spend BILLIONS each year constantly upgrading their infrastructure, systems, etc.. At TSMC, their staff is highly trained, paid extremely well (way more than the average US worker), and most live in dormatories surounding the facility (which is huge). They also use a ton of toxic chemicals that the US EPA frounds upon (one of the reasons why many smaller US manufacturers were forced to move overseas). Morris Chang (the founder of TSMC) is probably the most powerful man in Taiwan and the government is behind him 100%. Contrast that to the US. Between staffing, land, taxes, lawsuites, government meddling, etc., it is really hard for a US based Fab to survive.

The chips that are going into cars are not being made at any factory that you have heard of. 90%+ of the chips in a vehicle are OLD technology that go into the 70+ "control modules" through-out a vehicle. These Fabs (primarily in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam) use 20 year old equipment to make chips that were probably first designed in the 1990s. Since the equipment is paid for and they are not doing anything new, they can crank out chips for pennies each. When the car companies cut their forcasts, these companies decided to swap out 20 year old equipment for 10-15 year old equipment so they could make stuff for cheap consumer electronics (which they could get 2x or 3x the price per chip).

With the above as a baseline, let me say that all the new Fabs being built in the US are in no way going to impact vehicle production (at least as things are now). Why? Because they are not going to make chips that go into vehicles. In order to be profitable, they needs to make chips that sell for dollars (that is what US Fabs such as TI and Samsung are currently doing), not pennies. There is no car manufacturer in the US that could keep a chip Fab alive (even if they all worked together). The only reason new Fabs are coming back to the US is that the Federal Government just had a "oh, SH!T" moment and realized how dependant it was on Taiwan (TSMC in particular). As such, the US has pledged billions of dollars and made a ton of agreements and concessons all in the name of "National Security". TSMC lost a ton of money the last time it built a Fab in the US so really does not want to be here (if you watched the news a few months ago, you would have noticed that the US lawmakers actually visited with TSMC execs before they met with the Taiwan legislature. Let that sink in.).

Ultimately, the answer for auto makers is likely to get away from distributed control modules and rely on a small number of higher power, centralized processors. For the most part, this is what Tesla has done and why they were less effected by the shortage (as long as the processor met a certain spec, they could program it). Unfortunately, this will be a HUGE shift for the established manufacturers. They will need more computer programs, designers, and lawyers (since if the software is flawed, bad things happen, and people sue. Just ask Tesla). I think most auto manufacturers are being dragged kicking and screaming in this direction as part of their EV programs (and thus why their EV programs tend to be late and underperforming). Some of this may filter back into non-EV vehicle design but that is likely way down the road (2026+ model years?). Most likely scenario is that chips/modules will become "cheap enough" again in the next year and car makers will pretend that 2020-2022 never happened.

Just wanted to give a perspective as someone who was in the industry for 30+ years.

 

[RockHoundTX]

No chips means no trucks. So making them in unstable places makes no sense

so make chips in unstable places, and end up with no trucks. Besides, more than chips. You can’t get parts to repair damaged trucks

Actually, if you know anything about the industry, making low magin chips outside of the US makes perfect sense. By using the words "unstable places", I would assume you mean Taiwan. However, very few of the chips that go into a vehicle come from there. Most come from China, Indonesia, and Vietnam (and maybe a few from Malaysia) where there is plenty of land, lax environmental concerns, and a large female labor force (interestingly, those that work in the fab clean-rooms in Asia are almost exclusively female). Even the "made in Taiwan" modules use chips that are almost exclusively made in China and then just assembled in Taiwan.

Not sure I would call Indonesia, Vietnam, or Malaysia "unstable" at the moment (all are wonderful places to visit if you have not been there). All three are welcoming to US citizens. I would normally tend to call China more "unfriendly to the US" than "unstable" since the CCP rules with an iron fist, but recent developments/riots lend to the arguement that they are "potentially unstable" right now so I will give you that. Regardless, there are a ton of very valid reasons (political, economic, environmental, social, etc.) why vehicle chips/modules are made outside of the US. Any insinuation that the US car manufacturers should have prepared for this and had a back-up in the US for all parts is rediculous (unless you are willing to pay 5x for a new car). Manufacturers that were sourcing from dozens of countries probably assumed that they were well diversified and until 2020 this proved to be correct (since most supply chain issues were regional in nature such as flooding, earthquakes, local riots, etc.). Unfortunately, this time was global and they (and everyone else) got caught with their pants down. It will be interesting to see what lessons are actually learned from this (if any).

 

[AutobahnSHO]

Great insight from many, and those who don't want to learn, won't.

 

[Raymundo76]

It proves that the Japanese are not the all knowing, infallible gods some have made them out to be. If production is important, and it should be paramount to car companies, a certain amount of stockpiling is necessary, especially high value parts. Never, in the 8 years I was at Chrysler, did we have a shut down because of lack of parts. Sure it wasn’t as cutesy and fashionable to stockpile, but it worked. My insurance agent has a customer with a Maverick needing a new grill. 8 months and the truck sits in the shop. No parts available. A stockpile should have been made by Ford.

Thanks for the reply. At this point in time, it does not seem possible to both build new Mavs and stockpile parts. This seems to be an economy wide issue and not just FoMoCo. How does the USA get out of this hole that "we" have been digging for years? On the positive side; as we speak there is a $40 Billion chip plant being built 15 miles from my house here in AZ and several more across the country. Bad news; these plants will not be online until 25 or 26. FoMoCo also is building or upgrading 5 or 6 production/parts plants. But again this will take several years. It is hard for me to just blame FoMoCo (as much as I would like to do) for not anticipating the effects of Covid and the Ukrane War would have on the worldwide economy.

 

[NoVaJimmy]

Actually, if you know anything about the industry, making low magin chips outside of the US makes perfect sense. By using the words "unstable places", I would assume you mean Taiwan. However, very few of the chips that go into a vehicle come from there. Most come from China, Indonesia, and Vietnam (and maybe a few from Malaysia) where there is plenty of land, lax environmental concerns, and a large female labor force (interestingly, those that work in the fab clean-rooms in Asia are almost exclusively female). Even the "made in Taiwan" modules use chips that are almost exclusively made in China and then just assembled in Taiwan.

Not sure I would call Indonesia, Vietnam, or Malaysia "unstable" at the moment (all are wonderful places to visit if you have not been there). All three are welcoming to US citizens. I would normally tend to call China more "unfriendly to the US" than "unstable" since the CCP rules with an iron fist, but recent developments/riots lend to the arguement that they are "potentially unstable" right now so I will give you that. Regardless, there are a ton of very valid reasons (political, economic, environmental, social, etc.) why vehicle chips/modules are made outside of the US. Any insinuation that the US car manufacturers should have prepared for this and had a back-up in the US for all parts is rediculous (unless you are willing to pay 5x for a new car). Manufacturers that were sourcing from dozens of countries probably assumed that they were well diversified and until 2020 this proved to be correct (since most supply chain issues were regional in nature such as flooding, earthquakes, local riots, etc.). Unfortunately, this time was global and they (and everyone else) got caught with their pants down. It will be interesting to see what lessons are actually learned from this (if any).

That person is just regurgitating sound bites from some conspiracy theory news program they probably watch or listen to. It's less about factual information for them and more about throwing a tantrum like a five year old because they can't get what they want when they want it. Rational people understand the reality of the situation. I'm putting them on ignore so I don't see their tantrums anymore.

 

[LSchicago]

OP, you should have gotten a couple of 45 day emails from Ford, one for each order...

One per order. It hasn't been 90 days to get second updates yet. I think it's funny that people think their trucks ordered a couple months ago should be built already, when there was a huge backlog of 22's that weren't built yet in a year or more of waiting.

 

[Starwatcher]

Thanks for the reply. At this point in time, it does not seem possible to both build new Mavs and stockpile parts. This seems to be an economy wide issue and not just FoMoCo. How does the USA get out of this hole that "we" have been digging for years? On the positive side; as we speak there is a $40 Billion chip plant being built 15 miles from my house here in AZ and several more across the country. Bad news; these plants will not be online until 25 or 26. FoMoCo also is building or upgrading 5 or 6 production/parts plants. But again this will take several years. It is hard for me to just blame FoMoCo (as much as I would like to do) for not anticipating the effects of Covid and the Ukrane War would have on the worldwide economy.

It is industry wide. However, the problem is that the “leaders” of the industry are part of a good old boy club, more interested in their exorbitant salaries and staying there, than in producing vehicles. Chip shortage was seen years ago, and should have bee planned for. Part shortages were relatively rare until the current crop of execs came in. Notice how they go haywire at the mention that they might have fouled up. Yes, there is a supply problem, created by the current crop of execs.

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