Does This Complicate Fain's Negotiations -- Maybe A Strike At An F-150 Lightning Plant Is Just What Ford Needs -- October 13, 2023

Locator: 45769FORD.

Local Chevy dealers knocking $10K off the Silverado, Octobe4, 14, 2023.  I'm thinking inventory.

The emperor wears no clothes, February 18, 2023: link here.

For sales, mixed but better, June 5, 2023: link here.

Infrastructure lacking, August 19, 2023: link here.

Slashes prices on the F-150, August 25, 2023: link here.

Stealth launch, September 13, 2023: link here.

Does Ford have a problem, September 21, 2023: link here.

A theme that started to develop just about around the time the first strike action started was that there was a surplus of F-150 Lightnings and sales were beginning to slow ahead of winter.

I asked whether a strike slowing F-150 Lightning production was necessarily bad.

Today, in The WSJ, about the time UAW president Shawn Fain was spelling out new strike tactics, this story appeared: link here.

Ford Motor is considering cutting a work shift at the plant where it builds its electric F-150 Lightning pickup as demand for the EV truck falters, according to a memo from a United Auto Workers official.

The official, who leads the union’s local chapter that represents workers at the truck factory, said in a letter dated Tuesday that the automaker was considering canceling the shift and indicated that it was looking to build more gas-engine trucks instead.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that our sales for the Lightning have tanked,” the union leader wrote in the memo, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The electric truck, which first rolled off assembly lines in April 2022, has been a central part of Ford’s EV strategy and its debut was a move by the company to capitalize on its brand popularity with pickup-truck drivers.

A Ford spokeswoman declined to comment on the possibility of eliminating a shift at the facility, and said there are some shorter-term schedule changes as it works through supply-chain disruptions and quality checks.

Sales of the EV pickup, which initially had long wait lists, have sputtered in recent months. Ford recorded a 45.8% drop in U.S. vehicle sales of its electric truck in the third quarter. Production of the vehicle halted over the summer as the Lightning plant went down for a scheduled six-week expansion. The factory came back online in August.

The company said that a temporary shutdown of the factory limited deliveries this summer, and the facility is now ready to increase production to meet customer demand.

The company has twice increased its output targets at the Dearborn, Mich. facility, to an annual production rate of 150,000 vehicles. Late last year, Ford added a third shift at the plant to meet its factory output goals.

More broadly, Ford has recently walked back some of its earlier EV ambitions. Company executives said in July that Ford would now produce 600,000 EVs annually by the end of 2024, extending the previous delivery target by a year. Ford also backed off a previous goal to produce two million EVs by the end of 2026.

“We expect the EV market to remain volatile until the winners and losers shake out,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told analysts on an earnings call in July.

Much more at the link, confirming a dismal outlook.

Generally when I think of Farley and Ford, I think of Ballmer and Microsoft. 

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Politics

For the record, Peter Zeihan and I are on the same page of music when it comes to thoughts on Donald Trump.