Well, no surprise. Or at least, it ought not to be surprising that Ford’s reveal the other day of its “Model T moment” is (sigh) another over-expensive EV; i.e., the antithesis of everything the T was and stood for.
Ford says it will offer a new mid-sized EV pick-up come 2027 and that its projected cost will be “around” $30,000.
I want some of whatever Ford CEO Jim Farley’s smoking – except I like to keep my wits about me. It is a measure of the complete disconnect from the position working and middle-income people are in to suggest that “around” $30,000 constitutes affordable. You know what was affordable? The last-generation Ford Ranger, which Ford stopped selling back in 2011. That Ranger sticked brand-new for just over $18,000. Yes, inflation. But the point remains that it wasn’t so long ago that Ford – and others, such as Nissan, GM and Toyota – sold value-proposition trucks for less than $20,000.
My 2002 Nissan Frontier stickered for just over $12,000.
These were also useful trucks that could do real work for decades. Kind of like the Model T.
Farley just doesn’t get it. Working and middle income Americans are tapped out. It is not just that they can’t afford “around $30,000” trucks – which are likely to be closer to $50k trucks by 2027 – electric or otherwise. it is that they can’t afford groceries. A small pack of hamburger that cost $5 a month ago is now pushing $10. Steaks are becoming a luxury item, as in the horribly prescient Charelton Heston flick, Soylent Green. We are suppose to be grateful that a gallon of gas “only” costs $3 now; it is the new normal.
It’s not just that $30,000 is too much. The cost of insuring a $30,000 vehicle is too much – right now – because it is based upon the potential cost of you hitting a $70,000 vehicle (probably an EV) and someone’s got to pay for that. What do you suppose the cost of “coverage” will be two years hence?
Have you checked the cost of replacing a new Ford F-150’s tail-lights? You might want to know, if you’re thinking of buying one.
Will these new “$30,000” EVs have $800 each tail-lights? It is a certainty they will not have the kind of lights the old Ranger used to have, which were simple and inexpensive sealed-beam headlights with glass lenses that never yellowed and that didn’t have to be synced with the vehicle’s ECU (i.e., its computer) in order to function.
Ford’s new device made to look like a truck absolutely will have a massive (and massively heavy) as well as massively expensive battery pack, probably of the fire-prone lithium-ion variety. Ford will likely trumpet just how far it can go – as well as how quickly it can go. But will it take any less long to recover a charge? Will it last 20-plus years, as the engine and transmission of an old Ford Ranger routinely did?
Probably not.
A Model T-ish EV would be extremely basic, light and not able to get to 60 in 5 seconds or less (as the EV truck Ford says is coming will be capable of).
The T certainly couldn’t.
The idea – if the idea is to summon a Model T moment – would be to make it affordable, whatever that cost in terms of high performance and other such irrelevances .
Ford is touting that the new device will be “universal” – which is true. A new skate, or underlying platform – onto which various body shapes can be draped. It is a scaled-up version of the toy race car sets many of us played with as kids.
Will it matter to adults?
It might not. Vehicles have become depressingly homogenous in terms of how they look; maybe it won’t matter when they’re homogenous beneath the looks. Indeed, they already are. Pretty much everything that’s a crossover – and pretty much everything is a crossover – comes with a 2.0 liter four cylinder engine. It is not much of a further diminishment to have a battery pack and motor.
But there is that pesky problem of working and middle income Americans being unable to swing it, whether it’s electric – or just boring.
Farley doesn’t get it, which isn’t especially surprising given he is paid double digit millions annually. In just six months, this guy is paid more than most working and middle-income Americans will ever be worth, even after a lifetime of working. He – Farley – does not have to care about how much $30,000 costs because to him, $30,000 is what a few pennies found under the seat cushion are to us.
Ford – the man who founded the company that bears his name – designed the T for “the great multitude,” as he called the working and middle income people of this country. A man who worked on the assembly line for Ford could own a Ford – and without having to make monthly payments on it for the next 6-7 years.
It’s a shame that the man who runs Ford today has no clue what Ford was all about. Or – worse – doesn’t care. Or has a plan. As in transportation as a service. As in, you’ll rent your ride going forward, ownership having become something for the affluent only.
. . .
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Another thing Ford Motors is probably forgetting about the model T.
As time went on, it got CHEAPER, not more expensive.
1909 it was $850, but by 1924 it was $260. It was made from 1908-1927.
So not only it should it be under 20k today, its should get down to under 10k.
If anyone needs car parts, just hmu. I get lots of them, including taillights for various trucks. I even have a sweet 3 row aluminum radiator sitting here for a 70’s Trans Am.
‘Ford’s new device made to look like a truck absolutely will have a massive (and massively heavy) as well as massively expensive battery pack.’ — eric
Although rarely used, cost per pound is one metric that can be applied to vehicles. Even the cheaper materials in a car cost something. And the higher the total weight, the stronger the propulsion, suspension, tires and brakes must be to carry, move and stop it.
It’s axiomatic that a vehicle with the millstone of a heavy propulsion battery under its floor cannot be lightweight and cheap. It makes no more sense than competing in a hundred-yard dash wearing ankle weights.
Let’s cut the b.s. — given the 3 to 5-year development time for a new vehicle platform, Ford’s latest EeeVee skate was conceived during the early days of EeeVee Fever, when ‘Joe Biden’ was just a fresh-faced lad posing as ‘president.’ Ford had NO CLUE that subsidies for battery plants and EeeVee buyers (such as the $7,500 tax credit) would be phased out in 2025.
So instead of taking decisive action and just pulling the plug on this suddenly obsolete battery-powered clunker, Lightning Jim is trying to make lemonade out of the lemons that political fate has handed him — customers be damned!
Wrong move, Jimbo. If the customer came first, you would have bit the bullet, canceled this program, and focused on cheap, analog, lightweight vehicles in the vein of the 1936 Volkswagen and the 1909 Model T. Those elemental design concepts can be updated to 2025 without the use of exotic materials, costly proprietary parts, and pervasive digital controls. But Ford no longer knows how. 🙁
Speaking of unaffordable steak, the great Ron Paul posted this: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/08/ron-paul/newsflash-governments-lie/
Great article! Thanks for the heads up!
The Ford execs at this presser should have dropped trou and, in unison, pissed up a rope. At least they’d have gotten a warm feeling out of it.
I replaced BOTH headlights on my 08 Ranger FX4 for 70 bucks and it took 10 min. This little truck has over 200k miles on it. Would still drive anywhere.Had an 88 STX 4×4 that over 300k on its og drive train when I sold it.(wish I still had it) No one who ever had a Ranger from 82 to 2011 wants a stinking Ev …… Farley needs to put down the crack pipe. Ford is dead to to me.
That was the furthest thing from a model t moment. I could hardly imagine a worse comparison. And ‘sigh’, another pickup truck. Lame. I’m sure the employees were thrilled also…not. When Ford converted the St. Louis Assembly from Aerostars to Explorers, the employees were mortified!
When my 5k mike 2018 mustang burned out a rear tail light, I spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out how to change the bulb. I finally gave up and the next day realized that the whole assembly had to be replaced at a cost of $600. Crazy.
Hi Auto,
Yup. I thought perhaps Farley had learned his lesson with the Lightning. Apparently not… As I see it, the only EV that might make some sense is a very small, very light, short-range “city” car. The Chyneese make these Ford could, too.
Farley is obsessed with Chyneeze EeeeVees. He had been conspicuously driving one around for months last year. He had F engineers strip it to the bolts to try to learn its ways. I guess that’s what he meant by “cracking the code.” What a maroon.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91216063/i-dont-want-to-give-it-up-ford-ceo-jim-farley-has-been-driving-a-chinese-ev-for-months
What an arrogant prick. As if American engineers have to learn how to make something from taking apart Chinese junk.
Though on second thought, all corporations want PHD academics, not engineers who grew up as dirty handed mechanics.
The Chinese auto industry is a pathetic joke, but at least they have a head start in the race to the bottom. It seems Farley is doing what he can to close the gap…
The code is simple Jim. Slave wages paid out, crap materials, Little environmental oversight in a cess pit of a country. Behold the Chinese miracle. Tommy boy was brighter than the dim-wit Farley.
That was the furthest thing from a model t moment.
It was barely even a “morning tea” moment.
Successful technology hardly ever comes from the top. It might be invented there, but mega-corporations rarely bet the farm on the new tech. IBM did it with the 701 and later the 360 line of mainframes. A few other examples exist, but I’m too lazy to look them up. Most companies aren’t willing to bet the dividend on rolling out a risky new tech that will cannibalize their existing products.
Ford isn’t risking much with these government mandated boondoggles. Any losses will be covered by the Too Big To Fail™ clause in the current iteration of the constitution. But even if EVs were the revolutionary new technology that will replace everything, Ford isn’t going to go all in, they’ll just hedge.
Ford just wants to make Garage Queens for the Blue Oval geeks. The irony is that their EVs are not going to last that long.
I had to go through the insurance mafia to replace my f 150 taillight 2800.00 Canadian Ponzi scheme dollars. After some reprobate backed into me and failed to mention he/she did it. My model is 2019 ,I can imagine what this years models retail for. An it had to be done as all systems were glitching.
“Look at us being innovative doing the same thing everyone else is doing!”
What a snooze-fest.
You want to see what Chris… uh I mean Jim Farley is really excited about? Selling super expensive, super exclusive cars to rich celebrities. He’ll even deliver it to you personally if you are one of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e80GvN2OcTM
That vehicle should be a mass produced $25,000 car for the everyman.
If Ford thinks announcing another EV is a groundbreaking event, they are a bit out of touch.
About $30k will end up at “about” $39k to start and over $50k with options – like an “upgraded” battery to make the realistic range (with heat or a/c) over 150 miles.
Detroit hasn’t built a car worth buying in this century.