Ford CEO traveled to China.

[UncleDave]

Farleys not a dummy, but he surrounded himself with guys he believed in that were just plain wrong. A common failing.

The US manufacturers outside of Telsa didn't take the challenge seriously enough and believed many of the things that you can go back in time here and read. "It's easy, anyone can do it."

He started coming around on this, but it's really fair to say he was late. Way late.

He absolutely understands the need for unified control, now. Many claim ford has stolen (still uncompetitive) supplier code.

He eventually commented on the F150 they dont design and build the whole vehicle, they buy hundreds of sub assemblies and they all do stand alone work while not talking to each other.

He also acknoweledged late that charging was a holistically hard task and being competitive was not going to be either cheap or easy.

Sadly for Ford his epiphanies and trip were a decade late.
He should have been the first guy to trip an electric car back when it was once an elite experience.

I think they will get it together, and I hope they will get it together. I'll be rooting for Ford to give us competitive choices.

 

[loneryder]

The bigger point is, do we wanna compete? I sure do. The answer is support of higher education and hard work.

They have dumbed down public education for decades and now we are seeing the results. NASA can't even get those astronauts back from the space station.

 

[edyvw]

They have dumbed down public education for decades and now we are seeing the results. NASA can't even get those astronauts back from the space station.

They can. Boeing cannot. Space-X would not be what it is without an educational base. So you have one company that does things well, and one that does not. It is not education in this case; it is decades of hubris, arrogance, and mistreatment of workers. Boeing could employ those same engineers.
The problem with higher education is not that simple.
1. Since 2008, states have greatly defunded higher education. Universities must be productive and cannot invest in programs where there is no interest. I run a department at university, and my university only gets 8% of its budget from the state. If I do not have enough students, I have to fire people. So, we must do things the community needs.
2. I cannot offer a program that won't employ students. So, if basic manufacturing is in China, people don't need those degrees. Tim Cook recently said that he could fill a few stadiums with engineers specializing in toling, etc., in China, but not the US. That is bcs. China dumps huge amounts of money into engineering programs and has an excess of engineers. Here, it is a very tight balance between available jobs and the number of engineers coming out of universities. People must take loans, and you won't take a loan for a job that does not exist.
3. If states pick up more tab, invest more in education, and therefore lower the cost for individuals, then you would have more people looking for degrees that might provide them jobs. They can take a chance. But, as long as the average student has to spend $40-60k on education in an average school, they will go for something that can secure them a job. Make education free like in China; we won't have issues producing engineers like on conveyor belt.

 

[PandaBear]

China is a manufacturing powerhouse. China is our enemy.
Regarding software, we need to educate more people or cede the world to China.
I get the feeling many do not understand the importance of software, in particular AI.

There is, thankfully, a current trend to being Semiconductor Manufacturing to Arizona and other US cities via the CHIPS and Science Act. Progress has been delayed; you know why? There's not enough qualified talent, among other things.

There is not enough qualified talent if you don't pay enough.

I can tell you we have enough US semiconductor talents, but many smart people decided they can switch to software and make 2x as much, so they left. The opposite is true in Japan, S Korea, and Taiwan, that's why their fabs are better.

You get what you pay for no matter where you are. The best engineers in India eventually move to the US because we pay them better and they get recruited or transferred here, and then they make market rate here instead of the 1/3 to 1/4 they have to put up with. It is our job to make sure the things we hire them to build has enough profit margins to support their careers over the competitors.

 

[PandaBear]

They have dumbed down public education for decades and now we are seeing the results. NASA can't even get those astronauts back from the space station.

Boeing and NASA, SpaceX has no such problem.

 

[PandaBear]

Jim Farley must be the dumbest CEO in the history of CEO's.

First he spends billions of shareholders money on building a Mach E, then is shocked on how it actually works because he never used an EV before. So he makes a video about his stupidity.

So now he finally gets off his duff and goes to China, the place that makes and uses the most EV's on Earth. Just now he gets around to going?

How is this guy still employed. He clearly has pictures of someone.

Ford is a family business. The shares you trade on NYSE is not the same shares the family is holding in terms of voting power. Meta and Google are similar as well.

 

[PandaBear]

It just seems obvious that smaller electric vehicles are the future. No matter who likes it or not. I see people daily driving, Silverados and f-150s and even duallys sometimes. Not towing. Just driving to work. I do the math in my head. It's got to be.... $300 a month over what a basic commuter car or even a fancier sedan would cost them? Just because of ego or pride or whatever? It's pretty strange in my opinion. I'm not too proud to drive a crappy electric commuter car for A fraction of the money.

We love to buy what we dream of when we can afford to, but not what we need. Until we have some financial struggle people will waste things (entertainment, food, automobile, energy, vacation, etc) for quality of life. This is why we are no longer buying small sedans when interest rate and oil price are low. If everyone is willingly buying small cars the economy is likely in trouble.

 

[PandaBear]

I keep reading that they're barely making money. Employees are barely making money.

Lots of factories are closing there, and the ones surviving are likely making money by helping the wealthy people smuggling money out of the countries (sell stuff cheap on Temu and Aliexpress, collect money in the US and bill the wealthy people, wealthy people pay their bills in China to the factories with up to 20% premium).

 

[PandaBear]

I don't know about that. TSMC doesn't design chips. A lot of their machinery comes from a lot of OEM's, like ASML and your old friends Lam . There operationally efficient - but like most manufacturers they rely on OEM's, machine builders and integrators to build the system for them

TSMC design transistors that can be manufactured with their lines. You need to tune them just right so it can be build. The circuits are designed by wiring these transistors together, sometimes bigger circuits are bundled together into an IP block that customers would wiring together. When you use TSMC you have to use their transistor layout and you can design how you wire them together and it becomes your design. You can bring your design from one fab to another but you have to tune them all over again.

This is why if you look at the chips you see a lot of rectangles inside other rectangles, those "rectangles" are IP they either carry over from a previous gen chip or a licensed IP from another company. Almost everyone is licensing the NEC USB IP from decades ago and never touches it, because it is proven and even if there's a bug everyone has it and will be compatible with each other, and it is already very cheap after the initial investment is already all paid off.

This is one of the reason why you can't just bring an Intel CPU and drop the tape out at TSMC and start making chips in a week. I think AMD tried moving their design from one Global Foundry node to another and not tune them, and gets only a small amount of improvements. When they tune it is when they significantly speed up.

 

[Trav]

China is a manufacturing powerhouse. China is our enemy.
Regarding software, we need to educate more people or cede the world to China.
I get the feeling many do not understand the importance of software, in particular AI.

There is, thankfully, a current trend to being Semiconductor Manufacturing to Arizona and other US cities via the CHIPS and Science Act. Progress has been delayed; you know why? There's not enough qualified talent, among other things.

The other things are a big problem, there is no shortage of qualified talent it is more like there may be a shortage of talent that meet or are willing to work under the criteria specified in the bill. Any more is too political. JM2C

​

 

[PandaBear]

You built up their economy, they did not save the Soviets from collapse. I think that is the deal the US made.

However, it's not only about costs. If it was, any country where labour is cheaper would be able to replicate China's success. I don't think they will be able to. It's not only your money, but Chinese people producing the results.

China has a lot of factors that are not present in other countries like excellent STEM education, lower corruption, better infrastructure, and brutal east Asian work culture like in Korea and Japan. I don't think Indonesia and Thailand can seriously replace China.

It is not even clear if the semiconductor onshoring will work. I saw articles that the US government is debating whether they should legislate the use of Intel's foundary services.

It started with Japan.

Avoiding political discussion as much as possible and here is what I know:

Nixon basically started the movement of divide and conquer of the Soviet / CCP alliance, by giving a path for China to trade and became a manufacturing hub. At one point even accepting China sending in war planes to the US for electronics upgrade (a small amount only, like 5 units). Are they enemy or allies depend on when and who you ask. What China was is like what Vietnam is now. What China is now was like what Russia was back in the late 80s I guess. They didn't have better education back then, but they have cheap labor and will take jobs at much cheaper cost and they use the money to modernize. This is similar to what Japan was doing and currently what S Korea is at.

Strictly financially speaking, US would not allow China to take over the world financially, just like Japan right before the Plaza Accord. Even if China is peaceful they are too powerful financially, and would be 10x worse than Japan before their financial market collapse and send them back into the lost decades. They have to be stopped, no matter how nice and peaceful they are, to make sure we are not losing our place in the world.

USSR reformed too late and they collapsed, China was lucky as they reformed early. Vietnam seems to reformed just in time as well and avoided Cuba's fate.

 

[UncleDave]

There is plenty of talent here - where the traditional are lacking is in their compartmentalized approach to design engineering and problem solving. They are stuck with historic architecture that has to change in the EV landscape to be competitive. The managers need the whole company focus vs -the assembly guys can mack together anything - it's everything upstream.

Having separate teams all stopping at a hard boundary - engine, cooling/ transmission/ HVAC across multiple in and out of house parties vs a group working on a holistic problem is why a machE has something like 14X the thermal hardware the class leader has.

When you cut 50 guys loose in the "what if" questions vs. assign 3 guys inside a braking "box" - they come up with different solutions.

Sandy munro talks about the engineering silos and how the octovalve got made with an entire company team vs a department solving an engineering problem. He lays all this out.

 

[PandaBear]

There is plenty of talent here - where the traditional are lacking is in their compartmentalized approach to design engineering and problem solving. They are stuck with historic architecture that has to change in the EV landscape to be competitive. The managers need the whole company focus vs -the assembly guys can mack together anything - it's everything upstream.

Having separate teams all stopping at a hard boundary - engine, cooling/ transmission/ HVAC across multiple in and out of house parties vs a group working on a holistic problem is why a machE has something like 14X the thermal hardware the class leader has.

When you cut 50 guys loose in the "what if" questions vs. assign 3 guys inside a braking "box" - they come up with different solutions.

Sandy munro talks about the engineering silos and how the octovalve got made with an entire company team vs a department solving an engineering problem. He lays all this out.

Sandy is not taking the risk of running a giant legacy company. He does not have to take the consequence of a company taking too much risk and fail.

Let's say Ford spend billions to get a new foundation for EV, and it couldn't sell. This is basically what Rivian is now. They didn't fail but they didn't make money, and could go out of business (Rivian may if miracle doesn't happen soon).

Ford did the safe thing: reusing current design to reduce risk. Sure they look like a mess but even if things fail they are still managable. Tesla almost went out of business a few times and Elon had to pump and dump dodgy coins and flame throwers to help it, and got himself almost banned by SEC for shady market manipulation. You really think anyone else in the auto industry can do that?

 

[PandaBear]

You built up their economy, they did not save the Soviets from collapse. I think that is the deal the US made.

However, it's not only about costs. If it was, any country where labour is cheaper would be able to replicate China's success. I don't think they will be able to. It's not only your money, but Chinese people producing the results.

China has a lot of factors that are not present in other countries like excellent STEM education, lower corruption, better infrastructure, and brutal east Asian work culture like in Korea and Japan. I don't think Indonesia and Thailand can seriously replace China.

It is not even clear if the semiconductor onshoring will work. I saw articles that the US government is debating whether they should legislate the use of Intel's foundary services.

I am confident Vietnam can (they have very good work ethics and motivation), but not sure about any other countries at the moment.

 

[4WD]

That seems to be the popular opinion. But the reality is far more complex. A commuter car is not a good fit for me. Even my Jag F-Type does long road trips. I'm retired and still drive a lot.

We were in a horrific crash recently with my older F150. Unlicensed dump truck driver that should not be here. Cars are now quite unsafe due to not just the size of vehicles on the road, but the staggering number (in the tens of millions) of unskilled, unlicensed and uninsured drivers.

Here is what my entire neighborhood seems to do:

I've owned my 2024 F150 for 8 days now, and so far I've made 6 cargo runs. It gets used to move stuff and I've already scratched the tailgate up. I am not alone in this either. Pickup truck owners tend to use their trucks more than people think. I can't be without one. And I really don't like trucks. I'm a sports car guy.

What I get a kick out of is boats like that are pulled by 350/3500’s with Farm Truck plates here

 

[Brons2]

They can. Boeing cannot. Space-X would not be what it is without an educational base. So you have one company that does things well, and one that does not. It is not education in this case; it is decades of hubris, arrogance, and mistreatment of workers. Boeing could employ those same engineers.
The problem with higher education is not that simple.
1. Since 2008, states have greatly defunded higher education. Universities must be productive and cannot invest in programs where there is no interest. I run a department at university, and my university only gets 8% of its budget from the state. If I do not have enough students, I have to fire people. So, we must do things the community needs.
2. I cannot offer a program that won't employ students. So, if basic manufacturing is in China, people don't need those degrees. Tim Cook recently said that he could fill a few stadiums with engineers specializing in toling, etc., in China, but not the US. That is bcs. China dumps huge amounts of money into engineering programs and has an excess of engineers. Here, it is a very tight balance between available jobs and the number of engineers coming out of universities. People must take loans, and you won't take a loan for a job that does not exist.
3. If states pick up more tab, invest more in education, and therefore lower the cost for individuals, then you would have more people looking for degrees that might provide them jobs. They can take a chance. But, as long as the average student has to spend $40-60k on education in an average school, they will go for something that can secure them a job. Make education free like in China; we won't have issues producing engineers like on conveyor belt.

Fantastic points.

Side note, I never paid more than $700 a semester to go to the University of Texas in the early 1990s, taking a full time class schedule. Sure there were other expenses like books, housing and food. But Austin was a small town back then coming off of the S&L crisis of the late 80s and housing was cheap.

Nowadays, going to this school for 4-5 years is probably a $200-$250K endeavor. I can't say that I would recommend it to my kid, and that's unfortunate. They say they want to be "the worlds most impactful public research institution". I say hogwash to that, they need to educate the next generation of workers for this state at a price people can afford.

 

[edyvw]

Fantastic points.

Side note, I never paid more than $700 a semester to go to the University of Texas in the early 1990s, taking a full time class schedule. Sure there were other expenses like books, housing and food. But Austin was a small town back then coming off of the S&L crisis of the late 80s and housing was cheap.

Nowadays, going to this school for 4-5 years is probably a $200-$250K endeavor. I can't say that I would recommend it to my kid, and that's unfortunate. They say they want to be "the worlds most impactful public research institution". I say hogwash to that, they need to educate the next generation of workers for this state at a price people can afford.

The best school is the local state college down the street.
The cost of education skyrocketed for numerous reasons:
1. Lack of funding from states.
2. Students want all the amenities: Fancy gyms, fancy dorm rooms, etc. That costs A LOT of money.
3. We have to be compliant with various laws, acts etc. well, that costs money.
Don't get me started about delivery and that everyone wants it online, regardless that it is a crime against their future. However, while I am absolutist when it comes to in-person education, I had to argue for my programs to go also online because I don't want to let go mom of two small kids bcs. we don't have enough students.
So, comparing higher education in China and here is bit simplistic. That being said, the US makes 50% of world innovations. Here is good example: Russia innovates on par with Austria. Basically they have same number of patents. Alabama has same number of patents as Austria and Russia! The Chinese problem is innovation. Yes, they innovate, but I don't know how many times I said this: totalitarian regimes are really, really bad at innovation. You cannot innovate as much as free societies because of one simple reason: innovation requires freedom of expression. Ford CEO is looking that from his perspective and he is worried about his company. Looking from the perspective of country competition, I am personally worried about the Chinese recession, which is coming. I am worried because their recession will be our security problem for two reasons:
1. They might try to "export" crisis, meaning do something dumb in regard to Taiwan or the South China Sea.
2. If the crisis is really bad, I don't think CCP is as safe from political earthquakes as people since Tienamen Sqeuere only knew of economic progress. Once progress stops, they will question the CCP and the political system.

So I would not worry about China as a competitor to the US. But there is no doubt that some of companies are at danger from competition originating there.

 

[Brons2]

The best school is the local state college down the street.
The cost of education skyrocketed for numerous reasons:
1. Lack of funding from states.
2. Students want all the amenities: Fancy gyms, fancy dorm rooms, etc. That costs A LOT of money.
3. We have to be compliant with various laws, acts etc. well, that costs money.
Don't get me started about delivery and that everyone wants it online, regardless that it is a crime against their future. However, while I am absolutist when it comes to in-person education, I had to argue for my programs to go also online because I don't want to let go mom of two small kids bcs. we don't have enough students.
So, comparing higher education in China and here is bit simplistic. That being said, the US makes 50% of world innovations. Here is good example: Russia innovates on par with Austria. Basically they have same number of patents. Alabama has same number of patents as Austria and Russia! The Chinese problem is innovation. Yes, they innovate, but I don't know how many times I said this: totalitarian regimes are really, really bad at innovation. You cannot innovate as much as free societies because of one simple reason: innovation requires freedom of expression. Ford CEO is looking that from his perspective and he is worried about his company. Looking from the perspective of country competition, I am personally worried about the Chinese recession, which is coming. I am worried because their recession will be our security problem for two reasons:
1. They might try to "export" crisis, meaning do something dumb in regard to Taiwan or the South China Sea.
2. If the crisis is really bad, I don't think CCP is as safe from political earthquakes as people since Tienamen Sqeuere only knew of economic progress. Once progress stops, they will question the CCP and the political system.

So I would not worry about China as a competitor to the US. But there is no doubt that some of companies are at danger from competition originating there.

Good points. 1 and 2 is easy for anyone to witness in action. 1, by paying attention to the leg. 2, by visiting campus. I hardly recognize my former school anymore when I go and visit. It's gone way upscale.

As for 3, FERPA has been around since the 70s. What else are we talking about?

UT-Austin is the "local state college" for anyone living within 50 miles of Austin. And if you make a bigger circle, A&M and UTSA are not much cheaper. I'm personally recommending the local community college for as many credits as you can, they are making it free somehow. Higher local taxes I guess. I'd pay a half cent more sales tax for it, no problem.

 

[edyvw]

Good points. 1 and 2 is easy for anyone to witness in action. 1, by paying attention to the leg. 2, by visiting campus. I hardly recognize my former school anymore when I go and visit. It's gone way upscale.

As for 3, FERPA has been around since the 70s. What else are we talking about?

UT-Austin is the "local state college" for anyone living within 50 miles of Austin. And if you make a bigger circle, A&M and UTSA are not much cheaper. I'm personally recommending the local community college for as many credits as you can, they are making it free somehow. Higher local taxes I guess. I'd pay a half cent more sales tax for it, no problem.

Numerous other compliances. I mean, that is staff issue. I have to go for everything to them bcs. there is just too much.
Number 2 is biggie actually. The more I think the more I realize in what financial hole many universities got trying to keep up with competition when it comes to facilities.
Not sure about UT prices (expect for UT Austin to be expensive) but we are very competitive and cheaper than for profit schools like Phoenix, CTU etc. and we are state school. Everyone has issues now in higher ed. There is demographic cliff which means that due to low birth rate 18yrs ago, there is drop in enrollment. I would say around 1000-1500 colleges won’t survive this cliff. But it seems that FL and TX are in particularly tough situation. Last two years whenever we open job position, 60-70% of applicants are from there. FL is particularly bad.

 

[Brons2]

But it seems that FL and TX are in particularly tough situation. Last two years whenever we open job position, 60-70% of applicants are from there. FL is particularly bad.

There is a robust economy out here in Texas, but it's really not available to most young people and a lot of the general public. A lot of jobs really don't pay good here as compared to other places. It was an ok tradeoff when housing was cheap in Texas, but now it's not.

Then there's the oil companies and tech industry.

Young people are only walking into cush jobs out of the top MBA and engineering schools and even then only if you graduate at the top of your class. My little sister works for one of the major oil companies and she recruits the elite Texas MBA schools school on behalf of oil company XYZ, in addition to her other job duties. Talking UT-Austin and Rice basically, A&M to a lesser extent as they are not as well regarded as the other two. I haven't asked, but I'm pretty sure they aren't taking anyone below 90th percentile in their graduating class. But, if you are one of those top people you can get a starting offer well into six figures with a sizable signing bonus that will get you set up in a really nice apartment in the Houston area to start your career along with furniture and a car and other niceities that you need to live, before you even spend your first day in the office.

I don't know what my sister makes but I'm pretty sure it's absolutely absurd. Nevertheless, I can't really complain, I'm not doing bad in my Cybersecurity career, it's above most fields. Just not oil company good. My one mistake in my career path that I've always regretted was not biting the bullet on the extra two years and going back for a computer science degree instead of attempting to make a career in the tech field with a liberal arts degree. It would have gotten me much farther down the road faster and it was cheap in the 90s. I just didn't realize how cheap it would turn out to be at the time.

Anyway, with more people unable to afford college, there is less upward mobility than ever.