Ford Slashes 3,800 Jobs, Shifts To EV’s
by Stjepan Kalinic
5 minute read
Ford Motor ($F) is cutting jobs across Europe as the third largest automaker in the United States pushes to reduce annual costs by $3 billion across its operations during the next three years, confronts higher energy prices and a declining market share and shifts its focus to electric vehicles.
The Dearborn, Michigan-based car manufacturer plans to slash 3,800 jobs in Europe as a part of the broader restructuring effort, with a bulk of cuts coming in Germany and the United Kingdom, the company said on February 14. It plans to eliminate 2,300 jobs in Germany, 1,300 in the United Kingdom and 200 elsewhere in Europe, it said.
The company is looking for “a leaner, more competitive cost structure for Ford in Europe,” Ford said. The automaker will embark on consultations “with the intent to achieve the reductions through voluntary separation programs,” it said.
Ford plans to eliminate 2,800 engineering jobs by 2025, it said. It will also cut 1,000 administrative, marketing, sales and distribution functions in Europe to create a “leaner cost structure” in Europe.
It’s actually one of the cheaper ones. I mean, the price tag on this is just over a million if I recall. What costs less than this? Only an i3 and the Mini Cooper SE, pretty much. Everything from Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz costs more. Now take into account that a high end Ford Ranger is 1.3m, this looks like somewhat of a bargain.
It comes with the ICE-rental option (for the yearly holiday) too, right @justinschoeman ?
Correct. 2 free weeks of a petrol courtesy car per year. 3 years of comprehensive insurance. 5 Year maintenance plan, warranty and on-call support. A complete, 0 hassle ownership model.
EDIT: When I looked at this, the XC40 P6 was by far the cheapest electric car in SA which you could actually use as a daily driver (instead of a city commuter). The P8 is a little more expensive, but a hell of a lot more fun. And as you say, still cheaper than a well specced bakkie these days.
The Volvo is fairly old tech - being an updated 2020 model. Most of the newer electric cars (especially those for the European market) have V2G support for power export. Just need an 800V inverter…
The market has this irritating habit of trading away the price differences, in a kind of involuntary arbitrage.
Supply and demand though. In East Germany, a second hand Trabi cost more than a new one. Because the second hand one was available now, but a new one can take up to ten years to be delivered.
I think the simple truth is that long-distance travel in an EV is not yet a possibility in South Africa. Even without load-shedding, the chargers are typically 30kW max (especially if two cars are charging at the same time, I’m thinking of the charge station in Laingsburg here). I wish people would stop doing stupid long-distance experiments to answer a question few people are asking.
We buy cars in a “last 5%” manner. We buy a car that can do everything we need, including the annual long-distance travel (which is the last 5%). Tests that show the car is bad at that last 5% is rather uninteresting to me.
It once took me, in a diesel car and no LS, 5 days to get from Pafuri to Cape Town. Jip, 5 days.
I started the “clock” when we left Crooks Corner view point.
See, we start driving at 10am ish and by 1’ish we start looking for a place to braai … 5 days of braaing.
So earing that article, I thought maybe one can do the same with an EV and take a lekker road trip. And if you get it wrong, call a tow truck, can mos just pull one behind to the next town or whatnot, recharging some wee bit on the way?
I know one guy who put his car on the train, paid a ticket on the same train, and had a fun 2-day trip back to Cape Town.
Granted, he did the “Put Foot” rally (which is more of a collection of friends running what they brought and traveling the subcontinent), and by the time he got to Gauteng, he had enough and the train seemed like a very good option.
Significantly cheaper than a tow-truck too
So yes, of course you can make it work, if you don’t care about time. On my annual holidays, I generally spend two days getting there (1500km) already, which essentially means charging ONCE per day (because the other one is overnight and who cares…). But occasionally, I also need to get there TODAY, and then a Diesel car is the best option (it goes the furthest on a tank). Then you leave at 4AM, stop only for fuel and passport control, eat in the car, and you should be there tonight around 8PM. Sooner if you disregard speed laws.
On that same topic, my dad did that too, once. He volunteered to deliver some building materials for a church, up in Ruacana, so we saddled up the Isuzu (lorry) and up we went. The entire time my dad asking me: Do you hear that? It sounds like a valve noise? And me saying: Naaah, I’m not sure I hear anything. We got there and almost back, about 30km or so outside Otjiwarongo, the weirdest sounds…
kerplink! … Brrrrrrrr (a sound similar to an exhaust brake). Dead. Engine had broken a cam follower. My dad was dead-on with the “valve noise” diagnosis.
Tow the lorry back to Otjiwarongo, but how do you get it back to Windhoek? Tow truck wants N$4000 to do it, which back in 1995 was an insane amount of money. On a whim he walked into the station… how much? N$700 sir!
Loaded it up. Excuse me sir, we have a problem. It won’t fit under the bridges! After several minutes of furious measurement, they take the wheels off and drop it onto it’s belly. It fits.
By far the cheapest way to ship a vehicle. If you have a working railway system that is.
I was just looking at what a vehicle carrier would cost. They seem to be between 4k and 8k, while driving it down should still be in the region of <3k. It probably makes sense to do that, if you have to add someone’s time to the price.
Man, I love a good road trip, I won’t complain about the time spent! Sadly we’ve not really been able to do so recently. And probably won’t for the foreseeable future. I would imagine it only being fun again when kids are a little older.
As a student, I became aware of a scheme where a dealership used students to drive cars to Windhoek (because it was cheaper). They paid back all the fuel costs once you got to the other side (just keep the slips/invoices). The deal worked excellently. Students got home for free. Dealer got cars for the fuel costs only.
The only thing that was a little iffy, is you were supposed to drive on “garage plates”, but the dealer also skipped that. Sending the plates back and forth cost more money than the occasional fine that was issued, and you only ended up with a fine 1) if someone checked, and 2) if the vehicle license had expired while it was with the dealer. So I got fairly lucky, I only once got fined once, and of course the dealer reimbursed you for this as well.
In that way, I had the opportunity to drive a number of cars, and have a number of nice road trips over the years. It was also on one of those trips that I was handed a Corolla… a boring Corolla… and round about Rehoboth area, when I had to lift my foot for the umpteenth time because it kept running away, I knew this car was severely underrated (It was the old AE110). Which is where the love affair with Toyota started…
I also had one of those. Of the 275 000km I did in it I only had to replace the starter and CVs other than normal maintenance (oil, filters, fuel, tyres). Fantastic little car.
I replaced one CV joint boot. A Clutch (because the rear crank case seal started leaking, a common problem on these), and a cracked exhaust manifold (also a common problem). That was it. Alternator, starter, Water pump, even the exhaust mufflers were totally factory original at 213 000km.
Some context is probably useful. This was the 90s. Air Conditioning wasn’t necessarily standard in cars. You couldn’t necessarily count on good handling either. For example, I had an Opel Astra on that same trip, and despite more creature comforts, it did not feel as refined as the Toyota. For me, the ability to accidentally drive a little too fast because you weren’t paying attention, because the car is just that well balanced and doesn’t get all floaty… with everything you need (a good radio, air conditioning, this was a GLE model), in a car that is also known to be dead reliable? Why buy anything else?
Who needs a shiny button if everything just worked I made tha same choice.
My GLE was also the first and last car I financed. Payed double for it after 5 years of payments. Made the calculations and said never again. It was nice that it was a car that I could easily drive to 275 000km (and more) while saving for the buy the next one. Still sad I had to sell it.
