Right, Ford, well done

[altivo]

And today (see previous post) Ford sent another e-mail message saying they are pushing back production of my truck from the week of April 25 to the next week, beginning May 2.

They only have to do this two more times to end up with a nine month delay from ordering to production, and ten months to delivery. It is pretty obvious that Ford Motor Company should hire some new market analysts and production planners.

Comments

[hrrunka]

Modelling themselves on the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation?

[altivo]

I doubt that any Ford execs know a thing about that Sirius. SiriusXM, the satellite radio people, yeah.

Some of those guys clearly have their heads in outer space or have been smoking some bad stuff, though. The supply chain shortages that they are blaming for their slow output this year have all existed for over a year and are projected to continue for another year or two at best.

They unexplainably assumed that offering a hybrid for just $20K wouldn't produce huge demand, and even when the demand was apparent they waited too long to cut off the order queue for the first year. I did get in well under the wire and they have promised repeatedly to get my truck built this year. For what that's worth... Some of the later orders are almost certainly going to be postponed until the 2023 model year.

[hrrunka]

Just something about marketing departments at old established corporations, I guess. I'm sure Douglas Adams had some real-life examples in mind... ;)

[hrrunka]

Ford featured in an article in The Register today. Seems they've got production problems with various models. The headline's "Ford to sell unfinished Explorers as chip shortage bites". https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/14/ford_chip_explorers/

[altivo]

Yes, that is a circulating story here as well, though Ford hasn't exactly issued a public statement on it. Supposedly they notified dealers. The story goes that they are going to sell vehicles that do have all the safety features in place, but may not have things like remote start/stop or zone climate control (front vs. back seats, I guess.) Some say that the reason Ford was very late in starting to build the hybrid Mavericks was the shortage of semiconductor chips. Simple things like nand gates, supposedly. Certainly a hybrid needs a lot more automatic functionality than a conventional ICE power train.

On the other hoof, my order was for a very stripped down, basic truck. No luxury features, other than their "co-pilot" system that warns you of someone in your blind spot or approaching from the side as you back out of a parking spot.

It seems odd that we aren't hearing much about problems in the cell phone or computer manufacturing field. If things are that short, those surely must be affected.

[hrrunka]

I've been hearing a bit about chip shortage problems in the amateur radio world, particularly from kit producers and smaller-scale maufacturers. The computer world seems to be suffering a shortage of GPUs (crypto-mining induced), and of small things like Raspberry Pis. Maybe mobile phone-related chips get priority in manufacturing?

[altivo]

Mmm, you're right about Raspberry Pi. I definitely have noticed their prices slipping upward at a greater pace than inflation. In fact, that curtailed my tinkering with them after the model 3. I kind of quit following their developments then.

I'm hearing (second hand, I don't mess with Windows any more) a lot of complaints about the hardware demands of Windows 11 and how difficult it is to meet them. That might curtail Microsoft's attempts to control the universe a bit.

I suspect the US is going to have to get back into the chip manufacturing business. Dependence on offshore sources has turned out to be a serious (Sirius?) mistake.

And today's Ford Authority news does validate the rumors about chip shortages and production issues at Ford.

[hrrunka]

The Meteor Network folks have been complaining about Pi4 availability for a few months now. One of the Pi shops over here did have stock at one point last week, but only for a few clicks. Stock is still to be found, apparently, in New Zealand and some parts of Australia...

In related news, my meteor camera captured faint traces of aurora a couple of nights back. Did you see any over your way?

[altivo]

I had hoped for a glimpse but we had clouds, which is what usually happens here when there is a potential aurora. No other reports have surfaced from this latitude though, so probably there was nothing. I have been privileged to see the aurora a very few times, all of them when I was in Michigan.