Does anyone wonder why Ford boss Jim Farley and Tesla’s Elon Musk are trying to kill each other kindly right now?
The outpouring of warm words after the launch of the electric Ford F-150 Lightning can surely only mask darker thoughts as the two prepare to battle in the lucrative US pickup market.
Tesla has the Cybertruck on its way – or at least it’s supposed to. Unveiled in 2019 with much fanfare (mostly for its looks and in part because a window shattered when Musk attempted to demonstrate his bullet resistance), its launch in late 2021 was reportedly postponed due to issues such as the getting its odd style to meet crash regulations. .
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Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, Ford (whose financial fortunes have often been pulled in recent years more by its American trucks than by all of its European operations) took a leap in confirming that the F-150 Lightning will reach buyers next year.
Potentially, both trucks will arrive in the showrooms at the same time. Order slots for both can be secured with a refundable deposit of $ 100; Musk claimed 250,000 in the first week after the unveiling and Farley declared 50,000 after just 48 hours – two solid numbers in a country where EV sales are still below 2% of the total.
Cybertruck vs. F-150 Lightning therefore has all the assets of a war, especially when you consider the money at stake, with the F-Series having over 750,000 annual sales and having been evaluated by Bernstein Research almost a decade ago. ‘a decade for making £ 35 billion before interest and taxes. Investing in new technologies will not help this return, but should prolong it.
So why has Musk fallen on his own to congratulate Farley on launching the electric Ford? I suspect that this is the start of a change in communication on the part of the boss of Tesla, as also underlined by his rapprochement with his counterpart from the Volkswagen group, Herbert Diess, on European issues.
It’s hard not to suspect that Musk now recognizes that Tesla is no longer the free-thinker upstart he once was, and that his position is most threatened by established manufacturers focusing on his space. So it’s best for him to take the lead, highlight Tesla’s pioneering position at every opportunity, and take advantage of the leadership glow.
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Source: www.autocar.co.uk
This notice was published: 2021-05-31 05:01:23
