AD #3197 – Ford Wants to Be More Like Tesla; VW Reveals All-New ID.5; EVs Take Longer to Repair

This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.

FORD WOULD LIKE TO BE MORE LIKE TESLA
If Ford doesn’t change, Tesla is going to crush it. That’s essentially the message that Ford’s CEO Jim Farley delivered to 20,000 of the company’s employees in a virtual town hall meeting. The Detroit Free Press got ahold of a copy of the presentation and here are the highlights. Farley pointed out that if Ford wanted to have a trillion-dollar market cap, its stock would have to trade at $250 a share. Instead it’s at $18. He pointed out how easy it is to buy a Tesla. Thanks to very little complexity, it only takes three or four clicks to configure a vehicle and place an order. He talked about how Tesla maximizes the use of every single electron in the vehicle, and is doing it better than any other automaker. He talked about Tesla’s obsession to improve the customer experience, to address quality based on data captured from vehicles, and to reduce the bill of material based on how people actually use the vehicle. Those are just some of the highlights, and you can find more details in the link to the story that we’ve included in our show notes.

EXECUTIVES AWARE OF TESLA THREAT
Here’s our Autoline Insight. Senior executives like Jim Farley at Ford and Herbert Diess at Volkswagen are very aware of the threat that Tesla and other EV startups pose to their companies. They also know that many people in their companies don’t believe in that threat. So they’re laying out the facts, even the ugly truth, to convince their people to unlearn 100 years of traditional automotive processes and learn to move much more quickly. Will they succeed? That remains to be seen. While most of the EV startups could fail, several traditional automakers are probably going to go extinct. And Farley and Diess want to make sure their companies are not on that list.

FORD MANDATES VACCINE FOR SALARIED WORKERS
Speaking of Ford, it’s mandating that most of its salaried workers in the U.S. be vaccinated against COVID-19, unless they have a religious or medical exemption, which they’ll have to apply for. Employees have until December 8. After that they’ll be put on unpaid leave for up to 30 days. None of this applies to hourly workers. While the UAW is encouraging workers to get vaccinated, the union opposes a mandate. Ford isn’t the only automaker in the U.S. to require vaccination, Mercedes-Benz USA is mandating salaried employees must be vaccinated by January 4th. And we expect almost every other automaker to follow suit

Be sure to join us this afternoon for Autoline After Hours when we have Dan Cook, the CEO of Lyten coming on the show. That’s the company that could have a significant battery breakthrough. Dave Tuttle, a research fellow from the University of Texas and Christie Schweinsberg from Wards Intelligence will also be on the show. So join John and Gary for some of the best insights into what’s going on in the automotive industry.

VW REVEALS ALL-NEW ID.5
Volkswagen continues to build out its ID family of electric vehicles. It revealed the all-new ID.5 and ID.5 GTX, which is the all-wheel drive model. You can think of these like a fastback version of the ID.4. But beyond the new roofline, they feature a new bumper design with less body color, fully painted door panels and a spoiler off the rear to add to its coupe-like appearance. As you might expect, the interior, which is largely the same as the ID.4 as well, offers less room because of the more aggressive roofline. There’s about 12mm or almost half an inch less headroom for back seat passengers and luggage volume is rated at 549 liters or 19.4 cubic feet. Power for the ID.5 is fed through a rear mounted electric motor, while the GTX features a dual motor setup. VW says all ID.5’s will have a large, long-range battery and in the ID.4, the large battery is a pack with 77 kWh of usable space. The EPA rates the RWD ID.4 at a maximum of 260 miles or 418 kilometers and the GTX version at up to 249 miles or 400 kilometers. With slightly better aerodynamics we assume the ID.5 should have more range. Although, that’s not the case with the Audi e-tron and e-tron Sportback.

HYUNDAI TEASES SEVEN CONCEPT
Speaking of a family of electric vehicles, Hyundai is going to show off the next model in its IONIQ lineup at the LA auto show later this month. The concept, which it just calls SEVEN, is a preview of the IONIQ 7, a larger battery electric SUV. There aren’t a whole lot of details to go on at the moment, but based on previous teasers and its other IONIQ vehicles, the SEVEN looks like it’s going to have an interesting shape for an SUV.

LEXUS EXPANDING PERFORMANCE F BRAND
Lexus is racing into SEMA with a lineup of cars that feature all the things you expect to see at SEMA; big wheels with low-profile tires, big brakes, big spoilers and wings and heat-treated exhaust tips for good measure. But it also revealed it’s evolving its sporty F brand. Instead of just F SPORT and F, there will be four tiers; F SPORT Design, F SPORT Handling, F SPORT Performance and F. F SPORT Design will have sporty and unique styling. F SPORT Handling will build on Design with sport-tuned suspension. F SPORT Performance continues to build on the other two and will include even more upgrades, including the powertrain on some models. And lastly, F will be the creme de la creme of the brand with all the performance goodies possible. Lexus says there’ll be more details coming soon.

AUDI A8 GETS SLIGHT REFRESH
The Audi A8 got a slight refresh. The base of the grille is wider, the bumper is more sculpted and there’s a corner element that cuts into the headlamp assembly. The lower air vents are more upright with a chrome accent bar that curls around them, like a handlebar mustache. There’s some other minor changes as well, but one thing we find interesting is that Audi brought back the Horch name for a super luxurious version (pictured) exclusively for the Chinese market. Those four rings in Audi’s logo represent the original four companies that merged to eventually become Audi. And Horch is one of those four companies. Its first model launched in 1901.

ALL-NEW JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE PRICE
Jeep announced pricing for the all-new Grand Cherokee. It starts just over $39,000, including destination charges, for rear-wheel-drive models with the V6 engine. While the top trim, with 4×4 and the V8 engine, costs nearly $30,000 more at about $68,500. Interestingly, Jeep is charging more for the two-row Grand Cherokee than the three-row Grand Cherokee L. Pricing for the Grand Cherokee L ranges from $38,700 to $67,000.

EVs TAKE LONGER TO REPAIR
Electric cars are easier to assemble than ICE cars. But they take longer to repair after they’ve been in an accident. That’s according to CCC Intelligent Solutions. It says an ICE car that gets in an accident but is still driveable takes an average of 7.3 days to get repaired. But an EV takes 9.7 days. That’s from the time the repair starts until it’s completed. If an ICE car gets in an accident and is not driveable, it takes an average of 14.2 days to fix it, while an EV takes 23.5 days. Parts and labor currently cost more when fixing EVs because of their electrical complexity. It takes technicians longer to figure out what’s going wrong. But as more EVs are on the road the techs’ learning curve is expected to improve, and those EVs should get fixed faster.

But that’s it for today, thanks for watching.