Dan Roth  0:00  
This is like a special mass in the church of Sunday podcasting.

Unknown Speaker  0:05  
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Unknown Speaker  0:57  
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Dan Roth  1:33  
Welcome to a special episode of wheel bearings. We're talking about the Mustang Mach E. I am Dan Roth from Forbes. 

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40  
I'm Sam Abuelsamid, from guidehouse insights,

Rebecca Lindland  1:43  
and Rebecca Lindland, from Rebecca drives.

Dan Roth  1:45  
So yeah, there's an electric Mustang. That's not a Mustang, but in an entirely new signpost for Ford vehicles to come from what it sounds like. And they're keeping it kind of under wraps, or they've kept it kind of under wraps. But now we can finally talk about it. So let's let's let's talk about it. What's the sort of biggest Let's start with the number one kind of takeaway? What's the biggest impression that you've wanted to tell people that you've had to kind of sit on about this, the the Maki, and Sam, I guess it's kind of directed to you, because I think Rebecca and I are on the outside looking in, and you've had a little bit more access?

Rebecca Lindland  2:24  
Yeah, it's actually driven, which is exciting.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:26  
Yeah, actually had the chance to drive it a couple of weeks ago, over the past two or three weeks. I think. By the time you hear this, it will be in about three weeks since I drove it. Ford's been doing a tour, they've been doing some regional media drives around the country, because what's going on COVID are limiting the number of people at each event they're not rather than the only if only a handful of people are flying in most people are our local that are getting to drive it. And so I drove it here in Michigan. And I found that it is more in a lot of ways, both more and less Mustang like than I expected. Yeah, I actually I had the opportunity to ride in one last year at the LA Auto Show, when they first unveiled it, they did a big background or event. They're in LA at the Hawthorne airport, which is happens to be also, you know, adjacent to a little rocket company called SpaceX,

Dan Roth  3:30  
it was a great middle finger to them.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:33  
You know, when when they when they did that event, you know, there's this big hangar there at the airport, which in the past has been used for all of Tesla's product unveils. That's that's where Tesla does their big shows when they unveiled you know, the Model X and then the Model S or actually, I don't think that the model is there. Maybe they did, I can't remember. But they did. They certainly did the model three and the y and the Roadster and the semi. All at this place is big hangars. You know, on the other side of the wall that hangar is the SpaceX factory and offices. And, you know, they took us for a ride. You know, we went out from the hangar drove out onto the road, basically around the entire factory, you know, so we got to see, you know, the first Falcon that they actually successfully landed after a launch. It's it's parked there on the corner in front of the building. And I like to think that, you know, Ilan was sitting there in his office looking out at us as we drove by fuming. But, you know, so that was my first opportunity to write it. We didn't get to drive them. But you know, we could we could tell if there was something or something good there.

Dan Roth  4:45  
Well, I think you're going back and reading your your piece on Forbes about it. Your impression that it's more it's Mustang like and not Mustang like, was something you noticed then too. So that seems like it's a sort of through lines. through the whole process or through the whole program?

Sam Abuelsamid  5:03  
Yeah, you know, it was, it was an interesting decision on Ford's part, you know, to, to call this a Mustang, you know, because back in January 2017, you know, I distinctly remember this because I was actually boarding a plane to fly to CES. And I got a notification on my phone, as I was standing in the aisle on the plane waiting to get to my seat, about a press conference at Ford was going to do that morning, you know, like two hours later, at the the flat rock assembly plant where they build Mustangs. And it turned out later that what they had announced, you know, Mark Fields was still or Mark Fields was still the CEO then. And they he announced that they were going to build a 300 mile crossover 300 mile range crossover EV, and it was going to be produced at Flat Rock alongside the Mustang. And obviously, some things changed. After that. A few months later, fields got fired, Jim Hackett was brought in. And you know, one of the things that Hackett did fairly early on, you know, the start started off when he first came in, basically reviewing all of the programs, all the product programs at Ford, some were far enough along that they couldn't really make any significant changes, like the Explorer program. But others, like the Mustang, like like this electric crossover, we're still fairly early on, and it created this idea of T Madison, this, put together this group, that something that hadn't really been done at Ford before, which was, or at least not not quite like this. To take, you know, they knew that they were going to be introducing some new technology. And they put together this team from across a variety of different functions from engineering and marketing and, and manufacturing, and everywhere else, you know, to look at, how do we actually make a business out of a viable business out of selling ease? Because that's something that really, except for sort of Tesla, at that point, nobody had really done is pretty successful business, out of EBS, and, you know, they, they looked at all kinds of things, and they, they obviously took a lot of lessons from Tesla. And, you know, one of the big things they figured out was, okay, if we're going to sell ATVs, they need to be appealing to customers. Like, you know, it can't it can't be something like, you know, like the Focus Electric, which was, you know, they took a standard focus, they jammed a bunch of batteries, I knew it and an electric motor, and, you know, created something that was electric, and, you know, it was okay, but didn't get anybody particularly excited. Yeah. And so how do they build a business, you know, out of producing and selling TVs? And, you know, they looked at what Tesla did, and they basically brought in all you know, everything that Tesla everything they thought Tesla had done, right? You know, because at that point, what they had was a design for a crossover. That was a lot like an escape, but battery powered, instead of internal combustion. Yeah. And they, they scrapped that whole thing. Yeah, they obviously kept some of the technology that they developed the battery systems and the motors and things like that. But they scrapped the entire vehicle program, they went from what was a front wheel drive, electric crossover, which, in a lot of ways is very much like what Nissan's launching next year with the ARIA. And they said, okay, we need to create something that's going to get people excited to buy this thing. And they decided, Okay, we're gonna do that. What's our most exciting brand, our most exciting icon? Mustang? How do we make a Mustang that is electric, and is going to appeal to people like performance and style, but also, you know, maybe want something a little different from a traditional Mustang. And what they came up with was the Maki.

Dan Roth  9:13  
So I'm Rebecca, you're the analysts. It this to me, like what Sam is recounting. While it's being kind of presented as a revolutionary shift in thinking for an automaker and it it may be, but it also seems like kind of obvious to me on the outside looking in and you're you're used to looking in to other companies on a regular basis. So like, you know, putting a little skunkworks team together like a platform team. That kind of seems to me like the way I imagine product development happens anyway, so clearly, I misunderstand how that happens, but also like the idea of they went from grudgingly building a thing to saying, wait, let's let's use this is like a blueprint for successfully selling anything right? Like, make a thing people want make it easy to use and make it special. Like,

Rebecca Lindland  10:10  
right. I mean, a lot of what he described reminded me of what GM did with Saturn years ago, decades ago. Yeah, right. It's the same idea. Pull them out of all the bureaucracy and the constraints and the processes of a legacy manufacturer. And just let them go let you know free rein on creativity, a non judgmental zone. You know, just being able to, to brainstorm and free think and what if, you know, just endless what if scenarios, what if this? What if that, I think that one of the major errors that we have made as an industry is to not understand that an electric vehicle is not a substitute for a car. It is a technology device, and understanding the technology adoption curve is absolutely critical. And we looked at this back in 2012, to 15, when we did the National Academies, barriers to electric vehicle deployment. And I have to give a shout out to a professor there, Jackie Moore from the University of Montana, she's super smart on this kind of stuff. And she was one of the another committee member with me who we wrote the the chapter about consumer adoption. And you've got to understand the mindset of innovators, which is only about one to 2% of people's mindset on a general basis. This is not confined to the US, this is just in general on a global basis. And then you're looking at early adopters, which is actually like maybe 234 percent. I mean, it's really, it's pretty, I think we're up to like maybe 11%, when we get when we combine the two. So it's a small percentage of the population that are looking at buying an Eevee. And you've got to respect that you have to respect that they are different than mainstream. And so I think that this was a really smart move by Ford. To do this, and more companies need to do this. When it comes to product planning. More companies need to hire futurists. You know, Ford has a great futurist named Sheryl Connelly, and she's been there forever. And you know, how big her team is?

Unknown Speaker  12:37  
One Why her?

Rebecca Lindland  12:39  
Connelly?

Dan Roth  12:42  
Yeah, I mean, it's, um, and it was interesting, listening to your interview with how Ty Tang, Sam, the things that he said and will obviously put that in, but the things that he said about how they found success really reminded me of how the top of the original tourists found success. It was like, we just got a bunch of really smart people from different disciplines, put them in the basement. Yeah. And let them go. And, you know, that's, I think that's almost when Ford does its its best work. And I feel like we've kind of kept people waiting a little.

Sam Abuelsamid  13:21  
If you work at Ford, if they tell you to go down to the basement, that's actually a good thing.

Dan Roth  13:26  
To go to a

Sam Abuelsamid  13:30  
basement, that's your opportunity to really do something special.

Dan Roth  13:33  
You've got a 5050 shot you they're coming out live or

Rebecca Lindland  13:39  
just to clarify, I'm sorry, just clarify just when I pulled up. So innovators are two and a half percent early adopters are 13 and a half percent and then early majority is 34. And late majority is 34 of the technology adoption curve just so we just so our listeners, so you're talking about 15% of the population you are we were probably somewhere between those early adopters and early majority right now.

Sam Abuelsamid  14:00  
Well, to give you an idea where we stand right now with ease in the US market so far through the end of November in in the us this year. Evie battery V's represent 1.67% of sales. That's what we're not even out of the innovators yet. Okay, we're exactly we're barely barely halfway through the innovators.

Rebecca Lindland  14:24  
And hybrids and traditional hybrids, like you know, full hybrids like the Prius. We're still in that single digit range. Oh, yeah. You know, so 96% of people are picking something else they're picking internal combustion engines.

Dan Roth  14:36  
See, it's interesting because I feel like the the purchase decisions and the the purchase behavior is lagging sentiment. Everybody loves CVS everybody wants to talk about because they're, they're kind of cool and slick. And anytime people find out that we write about cars, you know, they want to talk about what's the newest stuff out there. So they, they want to ask, you know, what do you think of Tesla and you know, how about the Knew whatever Evie is in the news lately in the lucid air, or, you know, something like that. That's a constant source of conversation now. So it's, it's interesting that they haven't really tipped over into buyers yet. But I mean, interesting in the sense that, like, there's just probably isn't product there for?

Rebecca Lindland  15:17  
Yeah, that's the right, the right product, isn't there

Dan Roth  15:20  
for change that the right,

Sam Abuelsamid  15:22  
that's exactly what Ford's trying to do is, you know, the right product, but there's also a whole lot more, especially around EBS. You know, I mean, with with internal combustion engines, you know, the vehicles that we have, you know, there's some common, you know, common elements, you know, regardless of whether you're talking about a subcompact car, sports car, full size truck, you know, they all use an established infrastructure and, you know, coming up with a different product, you know, a different product variation within that spectrum of vehicle types is one thing, that what team Edison had to do, you know, as part of that, how do we build a successful Evie business? was also looking at how they tried, they looked at all the aspects of what it's going to take to transition from ICS to EBS. And, you know, a big part of that is charging, you know, how do we, you know, what they looked at all the pain points for consumers that are considering EBS charging is obviously one of them. So, as the retail process, last on the, you know, the last episode, we talked about GM, you know, and how they're going to handle sales of the Hummer, you know, by basically doing that all online, and the dealer only comes into it at the very last stage, you know, as part of the development process. And this is, actually, this is part of what Ford has done with with the machi. So, when you, when you if you want to Maki, I don't think Ford is going quite to the same extent of, you know, no inventory for dealers, no allocations. But, you know, right now, if you want a Maki you go online and order it, and you know, you put in your location, you you select the dealer nearby, that's going to handle the delivery and service and everything. So that's, this is the first time that Ford has done the online sales model.

Dan Roth  17:18  
So like, yeah, I

Rebecca Lindland  17:20  
think remember how, how, I'm sorry, how Chevy put one volt in each dealership. Hmm.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:26  
Yeah. And, you know, I think, you know, Ford actually, you know, eventually, you know, once they have sufficient inventory will have, you know, they will have some Maki's at dealers. But initially, it's, you know, it's going to be, you know, cars going from the factory to the dealer, straight to the customer.

Dan Roth  17:46  
That's, um, it's so from a dealer perspective, that's hostile.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:51  
It's, it's hostile from for the dealers. But at the same time, you know, what their, their focuses on is on the customers, because one of the things that we've heard, and I'm sure you've heard this many times over the years, Rebecca, is, you know, people that want to actually want to buy an Eevee going into a dealership, and this is, this is a big part of why Tesla decided not to do franchise dealers, and why a lot of other startups are not doing franchise dealers, you know, they, when you, when you've got a dealer, whose business relies on, you know, trying to upsell you, and, you know, getting service contracts, and all this other stuff. They, they have traditionally been very reluctant to actually sell DVDs to customers, you know, people go in, you know, we've heard all kinds of reports over the last decade of people going into a dealership and saying, I want to buy that volt or I want to buy that leaf, you know, or whatever else it might be, or 500 e, and the salesperson pushes them over towards, oh, you should buy this SUV instead or this car, you know, that they might have a higher profit margin on or, you know, expected

Rebecca Lindland  19:04  
your repairs.

Sam Abuelsamid  19:07  
And so I think this is, this is part of how manufacturers are trying to both work with their dealers, but also get past that problem. And actually, you know, in a way, the pandemic has actually worked to their benefit to shear because people still need to buy cars. But you know, doing online sales, people have gotten more accustomed to doing the online sales and they've actually moved, they've, they've moved the dealer network towards the online sales model, and that minimal contact or, you know, transaction. So I think it's actually worked to their benefit as we move into this Evie era. And so this is this is gonna help and then you know, the other side of that is the charging component, you know, trying to take the friction out of charging that's that's the other big complaint that consumers have is how how do they how are they going to charge the things. And so Ford is actually the first manufacturer to roll out an Eevee that has this new standard called plug in charge. That it's it's an ISO standard, I think it's 16 558, or something like that

Dan Roth  20:16  
just rolls up.

Sam Abuelsamid  20:17  
Yeah, it's called

Rebecca Lindland  20:20  
my phone number.

Sam Abuelsamid  20:22  
electrify America is the first charging network to deploy it fully across their network. And it's, it's kind of like, if you think back, you know, 1015 years ago with your cell phone plan, you know, if you went, you know, outside of where your carrier had coverage, you know, you ended up roaming on somebody else's network. And it used to be, you know, a big hassle, you know, to roam on another network. But with plugin charge, it's going to make it a lot easier. And so what you'll do, when you have a car that supports plug in charge, is when you get it, you will set up your, you know, there there be an app in the vehicle. In this case, you know, the Ford pass out. Yeah, and even even before you take delivery, you know, when Ford will contact owners, you know, you create your account, your Ford pass account. And as your car is built, and it's getting ready to be delivered, you can put in your payment information in there and pair your phone with the car before you even get it. And then when it's you know, when you get your car and it's time to charge, you just pull up to a charger, plug it in, boom, you don't have to mess around, you don't have to touch the screen. You don't have to find your little dongle, your little NFC or RFID card, you know from chargepoint, or Evie, go or whoever and tap it on there. You just plug it in, it communicates with the car, authenticates it, and charges and does the payment automatically. And so these are the sorts of things that team Edison did, in addition to the actual product development is all the all the other ancillary stuff around an ecosystem that makes it more challenging to own an Eevee?

Dan Roth  22:05  
So quick check, okay, okay. Please, I was just gonna, you know, sort of move us to we've, I think we've we've talked about a lot of the sort of around the kind of walked around the car, you know, like, we talked about a lot of the issues, but I want to make sure that we talk about how it is to drive. So I feel like we got a little sidetracked. And, and so this is all great. These are, this is good thinking about how to actually use the thing, once you've bought it, but what's going to make people want to buy it? How does it? How does it drive? Because the last, you know, we started off talking about your writing the prototypes? How about your writing the production? Or the pilot cars? What did you What did you

Sam Abuelsamid  22:53  
these are, these are production production cars, they've been the job. One was, I think, October 2016. So by the time you hear this, you know, they will have been in production for about seven weeks, you know, vehicles are on trucks, on trains on boats being shipped to dealers, both here, across North America, as well as the other. We've already seen photos of Maki's on boats to be shipped to Europe. So, you know, they there they are in production. The and and probably by the time you hear this, first customers will have received their cars, or be within a couple of days of receiving your cars.

Rebecca Lindland  23:38  
And so how are they taking delivery of them.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:40  
So the the original plan for deliveries was you know, you'd go down to the dealer and you pick up the car, they hand over the keys and, and and then you drive off. I think, you know, with what's going on with COVID you know, it's probably going to be more like it's probably going to be a mix of that. And you know, some of what they've been doing all year long. With you know, maybe having delete dealers actually deliver the car to your home, you know, do a contactless handoff that

Rebecca Lindland  24:10  
they are running through the dealer network system,

Sam Abuelsamid  24:11  
the actual dealer the actual final transaction with you know, the delivery is being handled by a dealer. And, you know, so all of that stuff is you know, as it traditionally has been or

Rebecca Lindland  24:24  
Okay, so now back to Dan's original question, what's it like to drive?

Sam Abuelsamid  24:29  
So, you know, just a few things before I get into that, you know, the vehicle itself.

Dan Roth  24:34  
Oh, we're gonna keep you waiting.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:38  
Okay, so as I was writing up my report on this, I went back and I pulled up the specs, you know, because what one of these you notice when you walk up to the thing is, despite it being a crossover, it's actually not that tall. Yeah, I mean, it's compared to a traditional Mustang.

Dan Roth  24:52  
I can relate. It's tall.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:54  
Yeah. But it's

Rebecca Lindland  24:56  
much taller on TV. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:58  
But it's, you know, it's not You know, compared to an the closest thing in the Ford lineup today would be the edge, you know, their mid size crossover. And compared to the edge, you know, this thing is, what? Six and a half inches lower the roofline? Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  25:14  
Because the edges are I mean, I when I saw the marquee at the LA show, it didn't. It didn't remind me of the edge.

Sam Abuelsamid  25:21  
No, just so much. Sorry. It's so the roofline is five inches lower than the edge. The ground clearance, you know, so this is not an off road SUV. Yeah, the ground clearance is 5.7 inches, which is less than half an inch more than a Mustang coupe.

Rebecca Lindland  25:38  
Yeah, because the sport truck i think is like 8.7 or 8.9. Yeah, that's it. We're across

Sam Abuelsamid  25:43  
all just for perspective. Yeah. So I mean, yes, you do sit up taller than you do an A traditional Mustang. But it's not that much. You know, so it's two and a half inches lower, you know, the ground floor is two and a half inches less than an edge st.

Rebecca Lindland  25:58  
And is this is the battery pack flat on the bottom

Sam Abuelsamid  26:01  
is flat Flat under the floor. So there's a flat floor inside the cabin. It's a five seater. And, you know, you get in, you know, you look at it, you know, they've done a really good job, you know, from a design wise, I think, you know, trying to imbue it with Mustang design cues, you know, like, especially you look at it and profile, you know, they they've done, you know, the two tone thing with the, with the roof, you know, when you actually look at where the roof is, it extends back horizontal a little further than you might expect. But the way that they've, you know, the body color paint, it gives it that sleeker fastback look more like a coupe. But inside in the backseat, and I sat in the backseat for a bit at the event, you know, as we were getting locked through on the sink for entertainment, you know, on 511 I had lots of headroom in there, lots of legroom, so, I mean, this is this is my passenger vehicle.

Unknown Speaker  26:56  
It doesn't look like you would

Sam Abuelsamid  26:58  
Yeah, no, it doesn't but but it's it's got lots of room back there. So driving it, you know, the the standard configuration, the base configuration is rear wheel drive, instead of front wheel drive, like they're originally planning, and then you can get a dual motor all wheel drive setup. And the standard battery pack is like 78 kilowatt hours, and then 98 kilowatt hours for the extended range. The the, we drove two different variants, you know, they had an autocross course setup, where we drove rear wheel drive standard range model. And then for our road drive, we use the had the first edition, which is extended range all wheel drive. And they did, I think, a really amazing job really kind of giving this thing a Mustang feel, you know, the, the way this thing responds, you know, when you're cornering, you know, you can with, you know, you know, modulating the accelerator, you know, you can you can get the attitude of this thing to change, you know, you can, you can actually get the back end to come around a little bit, you know, if you lift off, as you go on into a corner, you drift it? I don't, I think what the base model, I don't know that you could drift it, I think when they get the GT next summer. Yeah, I think that one, you, you probably will be able to drive probably

Dan Roth  28:18  
have a button, right.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:22  
Yeah. But with the rear, the rear drive version, I mean, you can definitely get the back end to come around pretty easily. And so it's, it feels really responsive. Yeah, and then on the road, you know, with the all wheel drive version, the you know, again, you know, it, it feels really good, you know, the, the all wheel drive version has more powerful motor in the rear, you know, than in the front. For for the current ones that are available. When we get to the GT next summer, it will actually have the same motor front and rear and that's going to be like 480 horsepower total, between the between the front and rear, I think it's like 360 for the versions they have right now that they're that they're launching with. And then 260 for the rear drive version. You know, so its rear, you know, rear biased, you know, in terms of its torque delivery. And, you know, clearly it's not, you know, it's not a sports car, but it is a lot of fun to drive. And they they did a great job, you know, and last year in LA I, you know, I talked to Dave parsec, who is the director of the icons group at Ford, which and that the icons group is the group that is responsible for Mustang, Bronco, and GT. And, you know, and so that means Mach II is part of that because it's part of the Mustang family. And you know, Dave, Dave was formerly the chief engineer so you know, to to former Mustang chief engineer That were a key part of this, you know how, as the Global Head of product development at Ford now, and Dave is director of icons, you know that we're both overseeing how this thing would, would come out. And you know, it, it absolutely has some of that Mustang character to it. Clearly, you know, the absence of a V eight engine. You know, it's it's gonna be a very different character. We've

Dan Roth  30:25  
got the soundtrack though, right, like little electronics.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:28  
I mean, it's got this electronic rumble and there's there's three different driving modes. There's what they call whisper mode. There's the other unbridled is the top of the sport mode bridled.

Unknown Speaker  30:47  
I prefer a response about

Sam Abuelsamid  30:48  
Yeah, well, that's, that's gonna be in the GT.

Dan Roth  30:54  
On that horse theme is strong. They're unbridled.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:58  
Right? And can gauge gauge is kind of the default mode. So there's whisper

Dan Roth  31:03  
like that. But that's only when you auto cross, right.

Sam Abuelsamid  31:13  
So when you when you put it, you know, in whisper mode, it's obviously very quiet. And then it gets a little bit louder and engaged mode, and unbridled. You know, it, they wanted to have some Mustang character. But, you know, clearly, you can't just use a standard v eight soundtrack, you know, I mean, that just would not feel authentic, you know, so it had to feel authentic to, to what it is, which is an Eevee. So it's got, you know, this kind of this synthetic Rumble, That actually sounds, I think it sounds right, it feels really good. It's, it's, you know, it's a rumble, see, does

Rebecca Lindland  31:48  
it bite,

Sam Abuelsamid  31:51  
you know, it's literally a synthetic sound. But, you know, it's, they've done a really good job of matching it to what the vehicle is doing, you know, in terms of, you know, the torque response, when you're, you know, when you're accelerating, you know, it comes up louder, you know, when you back off, you know, so it's, it fits, they've done a really good job of fitting it to whatever the car is doing at that moment in time.

Dan Roth  32:16  
Well, I think that's, that's an opportunity for them, you know, looking holistically, and at the future, as technology advances, that's something that they could offer users a way to add their own sounds. I know, we've talked about that before it, but that's, like, that's, I'm sure that's something that they've, they've thought about, oh, yeah. And it's another way to increase affinity for the product, which they kind of need to do like that's going from grudgingly building compliance cars to product that people love, how do you give them ways to love the product, and that's something that,

Rebecca Lindland  32:48  
so talk to us a little bit about the giant 15 inch screen that is in the middle with a knob going on?

Sam Abuelsamid  32:57  
With me? So So I mentioned once or twice over the years, how much I despise touchscreen, a little bit that said, you know, this one, actually probably works about as well as any I've ever used. Wow, yeah, saying something. Yeah, you know, and a big part of that is, you know, the software and the user interface that they designed. And, you know, this, again, this was part of this program, they, you know, they decided they were going to put this big screen in there. And then they spent a bunch of time, you know, and and they, they adopted, you know, a lot of, you know, the Silicon Valley technology kind of approach to the the user interface design.

Dan Roth  33:42  
So what you end up with, and this way, we're at the Silicon Valley approach user interface design, so actually, like, let's not consider consequences,

Sam Abuelsamid  33:50  
like No, well, not, not all, in terms in terms of, you know, kind of the Agile software development and going through Sprint's, you know, and, you know, putting together stuff and testing it, you know, a lot of rapid iteration, you know, and doing user testing, so they actually combined it with what they, you know, traditionally do, and then brought in, you know, some new things, you know, in terms of the, you know, the user testing with this, and I think what they came up with actually works remarkably well. So it's a it's actually a different interface, even though it's, it's based on the same hardware architecture as what's in the new f 150. You know, it's synced for the user interface is completely different. This is a user interface that they designed specifically for this kind of portrait orientation, rather than the landscape and they, you know, talking to, to the team there, they said, you know, they they've played around with this kind of layout for a landscape setup. It doesn't really work there. It's this really only works in a portrait. So I think what we're going to see is some different, different approaches on you know, depending on how the screen is oriented The type of vehicle it is not every Ford is going to have the exact same user interface, which is fine, I don't think that that's necessarily a problem, I think this one works really well. And when you look at the screen is basically three primary zones. The bottom zone, the bottom left corner of the screen, is reserved for primarily for the climate control. And that knob. And the knob, you know, is interesting the what they did with that, you know, rather than pass a hole through the screen, try make a hole through the screen and have an electrical connection through there. The knob is, as you mentioned, glued onto the glass. And, you know, there's a capacitive surface on the on the back of it. And when you twist it, it's basically the same thing as if you just had if it wasn't there, and you just had your finger and you're drawing circles on the on the screen. So it's essentially doing the same kind of thing. So there's a capacitive interface on the back of that, that moves around in a circular pattern against the screen. So you know, that keeps it mechanically fairly simple. You don't have wiring going through there. And it's it's very relatively easy to change what it does if you need to.

Rebecca Lindland  36:16  
So it's multifunctional.

Sam Abuelsamid  36:19  
It's not it's really it's

Rebecca Lindland  36:21  
really, I mean, does it interact just with h fac, or does, it's

Sam Abuelsamid  36:24  
just the volume control,

Rebecca Lindland  36:27  
it's just the volume control. And then

Sam Abuelsamid  36:28  
in the middle of it, you know, because it's a ring in the middle of it, you know, is basically the on off for the display. So you're actually touching the touchscreen there when you when you tap it. So if you want to turn it all off, you turn it off from there, right? Okay, so it's not multifunctional, it's not a jog dial, it's just a big volume knob, which I think is great. It works really well. Right. And then on either side of that you'd have your climate controls. The next zone up is the the card carousel. And I'll come back to that in a second. And then the top zone, which is like the top, I'd say 60% of the screen is, you know is whatever app you're using right now, whether that's the navigation or the media interface, or, you know, the the charging interface, whatever it might be, and then you know, or the phone, then that that app carousel, that card carousel shows three cards on there, which are your three most recently used apps. And then you can swipe across to get the next three. When you so if you're if you've got the navigation in the main zone, and you want to get to your Android Auto or Apple CarPlay interface, tap on the that card, and the to swap places the Android Auto or Apple CarPlay interface comes up into the top zone, and the nav drops down to the card screen. So you still see a miniature version of your map in the card. And so

Rebecca Lindland  37:54  
it actually moves I mean, doesn't just go side to side, but it actually moves vertically as well.

Sam Abuelsamid  37:59  
Well in that area, the magnet basically shrinks down into a card, right and the card expands up into that top zone. So you know, that's it guys, or you know, your phone, you know, if you want to make a call, you know,

Rebecca Lindland  38:11  
kind of what Bobo does a little bit.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:13  
Um, it's different. It's quite, it's actually quite different from like, census. Okay, um, one of the things, you know, that I noticed was how responsive it is. I mean, there was no lag. It worked really, really well the software, it seems to be really well executed. Yeah, no bugginess to it, no, no lag Enos to it, you know, you tap on a card, it you know, and it was really nicely animated, you know. And when I say animated, it's, you know, it's not, you know, it's not fancy animation, but it's just, it's, it's very smooth and slick. Yeah, so it just expands up to fill that top zone and the other one shrinks down. You know, so you can toggle back and forth between whatever you're doing very quickly, very easily, very large touch targets, you know, so you're not searching around for stuff. And it's a very clean interface. And then right at the very top, there's a strip with, you know, two buttons, one for vehicle settings, one for your, your personal user profile, you tap on the vehicle settings, you know, and it opens down kind of like the reverse of an Android app drawer, you know, to give you access to other settings, you know, much less frequently used stuff, you know, make adjustments to seats and other things. But overall, you know, I mean it's it's a really nice clean interface that I think works really well. And then in addition, you know, unlike the Tesla Model three and model y you actually do get another screen right in front of you with vehicle information so your speed your abs information, so if you're in adaptive cruise control or Lane Keeping Assist, you know, it shows you that stuff, you know when it detects other vehicles, you know, so that stuff is right in front of you and a 10 inch display, horizontal display and It just works. You know, I mean, I know, you know, that has been a challenge for for, you know, is getting that kind of software stuff to work really well. Yeah, certainly, you know, sink to which better, better known as my Ford touch was bad. I mean, it was slow it was crashy, you know, this one just, it was seamless and fluid. Yeah. And I think that's a, that's a great thing. The, and that and that idea of seamless and fluid kind of permeates the whole car, everything about it just felt really well integrated. And there was nothing that I tried that, you know, got the thing upset, you know, driving down the road, you know, this was a first edition, so it's a, you know, get the larger 19 inch wheels on it, you know, the ride quality was good, but, you know, the body control was excellent, you know, going over rough pavement, you know, I wouldn't call it you know, supple, but you know, it did a good job of absorbing the stuff, you know, so it was very comfortable. But, you know, on the twisty curvy roads, you know, that I was on it, you know, very responsive, you know, turn in was great, you know, steering field was actually surprisingly good. So, you know, this thing is, is fantastic to drive, you know, and this is kind of from a performance standpoint, this is kind of the mid range, you know, so it's going to be five to five and a half seconds, zero to 60 time, which is quick, as plenty quick, but it feels quicker than it is, again, because it's an Eevee, you get that instant response off the line. And that's the other thing, you know, with the modes, it's not just the sound, but the modes, you know, change the accelerator response and the steering response. So when you put it in whisper mode, the steering efforts a little bit lighter, the accelerator responses a little bit slower, you know, more more comfortable, when you put it into unbridled mode, every, you know, the steering gets a little heavier, and the accelerated response, you know, is a little quicker, you know, so it, you know, it's, it feels a little more responsive. And, you know, the other interesting thing was, Ford is really going to be pushing the one pedal driving aspect of this, you know, the strong region.

So the default is going to be strong region, and when you when you have the strong region turned on, it will actually lift your foot off, it will take your you know, it'll bring you down to a complete stop. Wow, you know, without touching the brake, you know, at about up to about point two 5.3 G's, so for basically, for all of your normal driving anything short of a hit panic stop or hard stop, you know, you don't even have to touch the brake pedal, but you can switch that off in the settings as well. So it's easy to switch off. And that's, you know, again, the three modes, you know, the response of the region is a little different in whisper mode, it's more like a coast down, you know, in a traditional car, and unbridled you get the strongest region response, and then engage is somewhere in between. and, you know, I found that, you know, driving on those on those country roads, you know, in unbridled mode, you know, I could easily just modulate that one pedal and get all the braking I needed, you know, going into corners and coming out, you know, and, and I could easily you know, adjust the tighter corners that can easily adjust the attitudes of the car with the accelerator, you know, get, you know, back off a little bit to get it a little turn left, turn in a little bit more, you know, get it a little bit harder to, you know, kind of, as I pull out a corners to straighten it up, you know, and it feels like what you expect the sports car to feel

Dan Roth  43:54  
if they can make it you know, fluid in terms of its response with that one, one pedal driving as well and having a sporty response for it. So it doesn't give you the hardest region, but it helps you you know where you would where you would tap the brakes for you know, weight transfer before you initiate a turn in or something in a more traditional car. If it can just make that really fluid. It's going to be really enjoyable to drive on in a sporty manner. Yeah, so that that's cool that they're, they've thought of that and seems like they've, I mean, I'll reserve judgment until I ultimately get to drink.

Rebecca Lindland  44:32  
But no, it looks it looks like they've thought of so many things like even and you know, I always like the little surprise and delight the drain hole in the frunk Yeah, like in the you know where so here's

Dan Roth  44:45  
20 freeze the drain hole in the front.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:49  
They talked about that last year, having a drain hole in there. So you know if you're having a tailgate party, you know, you can fill that sucker up with with ice and pack it with beverages. And food, just open up that drain or actually it's an it's an active drain hole. So it'll drain automatically, you don't actually have to open it up. So it's a one way drain. So as the ice melts, you know, it'll just drain down, or, you know, if you've got what gear from the beach, you know, you can throw that stuff in the front, excuse me, put your put your dry stuff in the back, get 29 cubic feet of cargo space behind their seats, and then 4.8 cubic feet in the front, you know, so you put your wet gear in the front, it'll just drain down. And, you know, put your dry stuff in the back. So, one interesting little tidbit that, you know, we noticed, when we opened up the the frunk, I still hate that word, I still think it's a safe word. But when you open

Rebecca Lindland  45:43  
early adopter, what can I say open up the trunk.

Sam Abuelsamid  45:46  
You know, there's actually partitions in there right now. Right. And this, those were not there when we saw it last year. And it turns out, because the size of the trunk means that under current regulations there, it's possible for a small person to be inside of that,

Unknown Speaker  46:04  
like just a Manila, she could probably

Sam Abuelsamid  46:06  
fit in, sorry. And so you have to have an interior opening for the for the for that somebody gets stuck in there. And they do have an opening in there. But you know, it's an electronic system. And they're still refining the software for that. So the first builds actually have some partitions in there. So you know, the, you know, the cavities are big enough, you know, to put grocery bags and stuff in there. So you put four or five grocery bags in there full grocery bags, but you know, a person could not climb in there, Larry, and once once the software is available for the interior release, that's going to be pushed out via an OB over the air update. And that's the other thing, you know, this thing supports over the air updates for all systems in the vehicle. So they'll push out an update, that'll enable that. And then they will also include instructions for how you can remove that, that partition, although taking a look at it, you know, anybody who's reasonably handy with a screwdriver, or a spudger could probably pop the restraints out of the thing pretty quickly and get that out of the way, you know, in a couple of minutes. If you if you needed to have the full volume,

Dan Roth  47:16  
don't overestimate the skill of the common man.

Rebecca Lindland  47:21  
Okay, so what about this season? I mean, the interior and the end, the material choices and such, the seats in the front look fairly flat? Are they well bolstered

Sam Abuelsamid  47:30  
that they're, I would I would prefer them to be a little more bolstered than they are. You know, but they're comfortable. But they they could use more bolstering. But again, you know, the GT will definitely have seats that are wildly bolstered. Right? Yeah. So you know, this one, you know, this is more typical of what you would find, you know, in a base Mustang. But when when they launched the GT next summer, it'll have more heavily bolstered seats, because the GT is going to be able to run zero to 60 in under three and a half seconds. So it's a Wow, it's gonna have performance comparable to a GT 500.

Rebecca Lindland  48:09  
So and then on the material choices, are they offering a vegan option for the that is

Sam Abuelsamid  48:13  
material other than the cloth? That is actually the only option? There is no leather?

Rebecca Lindland  48:17  
There's no leather? Yeah, they

Sam Abuelsamid  48:18  
call it active x. It's a it's a vegan, you know, artificial.

Unknown Speaker  48:25  
Like leather.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:26  
Yeah, from your pictures, but it's, you know, it's very comfortable it actually, I mean, it's not, it's not plush, like, you know, the leather in a, you know, high end luxury car. Yeah. Right, you know, it feels really good. And actually, they have the same material on the steering wheel. And on the steering wheel, it actually feels really good in the hands. So it's got a little bit, it's not really it's not slick, on the steering wheel, it's actually got just a little bit of texture to it. So you, it feels comfortable in your hand, and you get a really good grip on the steering wheel. So it's not quite like a, it's nowhere near like an calcaterra type of thing, right, there's just enough of a texture there that it doesn't feel slick and your hands and like it's gonna slide your hands. So that is really, really nice. I like that a lot.

Rebecca Lindland  49:10  
And speaking about compared to the there's a fabric or something on the dash.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:15  
Yeah, so what's that situation?

Yeah, so one of the things they did was this, you know, one of the things, trying to bring in some Mustang design cues, you know, you have one of the ideas in the traditional cues in the Mustang is that that twin pod type of layout on the dashboard. And, you know, they tried to echo that a little bit with what you see here, on the dashboard with these two things. But it's, it's also, you know, in a modern way it the speakers are behind that. So you have like a soundbar

Rebecca Lindland  49:51  
right underneath.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:52  
So you've got this fabric that's covering it. So it's like having a soundbar sitting in front of you across the dashboard. Oh, that's cool. And, you know, again, You know, it looks good, you know, it's well executed, but it also looks modern, you know, it's, it's a very clean, you know, uncluttered design,

Dan Roth  50:11  
right? Oh, it looks great, we're gonna see because this isn't just a single model, this sort of takeaway that I am understanding with the Maki is that it's, it's not a single car, it's an entire architecture and and they had to imagine the ecosystem around that architecture too, which is why they did the, the deals with the charging providers. And the more we we look at the car, the more we use it, I think it's going to be obvious that they the things that they thought about and had to solve for it, like the door handles that tuck under the mirrors and sets,

Sam Abuelsamid  50:51  
that's another really neat feature that they did here is the door apples, chocolates. So one of the, you know, you look at it, you look, you look at the doors, and there's no obvious door handles there. But on the pillars on the on the the a pillar and the C pillar, there's a little push button there that you tap. And on the front doors, there's a little little handle, you stick your finger under it. So you press the button with your, with your thumb, the you know, you can use the little handle to pull it out. But what happens when you press that button on the inside of the door, there's what they call the door presenter. So there's a little ram that pops up, but inch and a half, two inches. And there's also an accelerometer inside there. So what happens is you press the button, the door kind of pops out a couple inches, and you can pull it open. But you know, when you pull it open at any, you know, at any normal speed that you would open the door, as soon as the door starts to move, that little ram retracts back inside the door. So when you look at the inside of the door, it looks flat. But if if you pop the thing open and it pops the door out, and then you lean on the door, the door won't go in. So what is using was doing is using that accelerometer to determine how fast that doors moving, and if it's moving very slowly, it it'll keep that the presenter there, that little RAM and the door won't, won't move. So you can stick your finger under there and it won't, it won't pinch your fingers, you can't pinch your fingers in it. And then I'm going to have to try this out. And you know, if you get down and look, you can, if you pull the door open very slowly you can, you'll see that RAM is still sticking out there, then as soon as you drift or a little bit or move it you know anything beyond just a very slow pole, you'll see it pop back in inside, you know, and disappear right away. And then on the on the back doors. You know, one of the things that they were describing was, you know, often, you know, when kids are getting into the back door, or you know, the back of the car, you know, they'll pull the handle and then they'll stick their hand behind the back edge of the door, you know, to pull it open. And the reason why they have the little handle on the front doors and not on the back doors on the front doors. It's actually within the wake of the mirrors.

Rebecca Lindland  53:19  
Right for era

Sam Abuelsamid  53:20  
Yes. It actually those little handles actually have zero impact on the aerodynamics, because it's great though the air from the mirrors, reattach the weight from the mirrors reattaches about halfway down the back door. So they can put that there and it has no impact. If they did that on the back, it would cause extra drag. So what they have is on the inside of the back door, you know, when you pop it open, you just grab the back edge of the door and there's actually a plastic panel on there. You know, there's like a grip on the backside of the door that you can't see from the outside, but you pull it open, you know, it's got a nice comfortable grip there.

Rebecca Lindland  53:55  
Do you have pictures of that? Because I'd love to see that.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:58  
Somehow I missed getting pictures of that. Okay, I will I will have to get that but

Rebecca Lindland  54:03  
you're fired. Yeah.

Dan Roth  54:06  
Wow.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:08  
The idea with the with the presenter, I think is is really cool. You know, again, it's one of those details, you know, we talked about this, you know, with the, with the owner, and they launched the F 150. This whole idea of Human Centered Design. And we're starting to see this permeate throughout all of the things that all these new products that Ford is bringing out is a lot of really thoughtful details that you wouldn't normally wouldn't think of but you know, when when you realize they're there, it's like, oh, yeah,

Dan Roth  54:35  
that's well, like, you know,

Rebecca Lindland  54:37  
there's actually, I'm sorry, just real quick, there's actually an indent, I'm looking at one of your pictures of the backseat, there's actually an indent in the body of the vehicle next to the gasket, and I'm wondering if that's

Sam Abuelsamid  54:48  
Yes, that's where the presenter would, that's where it is. Okay. So, yeah, all right. That's where that's where, that's where it pushes against.

Dan Roth  54:57  
Okay, cool. Um, so I mean, I think that that impression that you were talking about Sam, are you like you look it over your experience that you find all these these areas where Ford has put the thought in, that you didn't even know that that was something to think about. That's something that needs to happen in sort of any kind of product design, especially with automobiles, because the stakes are high when you're out on the road. And it's good to see that, despite a lot of the rhetoric of taking things from software and app development in the tech industry, where their credo has been move fast and break things, and that like, that sucks when you're talking about a 5000 pound weapon, you know, so it's the thing that I'm taking from, from the book that I've plugged a couple times is the flip side of that the designer and the the team, creating those products that your job is to imagine not only the way it affects you, but the way other people may be affected by you know, how is it for disabled folks and older people and all these things in your job is to say no, and ask why. So you've got move fast break things, say no? And ask why in the sense that you have to understand all of the different ways your perfect solution is going to break and then make that that solution for them. So I'm really encouraged to see some of that because, again, we your interview with with how Tae Tang was he they talked to was the CEO of delta or something. And he gave them sort of another at Bastion Yeah, just another mantra that was just like, you know, be ambitious, but move quickly. And and you can move quickly. But you really need to, to fully realize your your ideas. And that's something that I don't think we've seen enough of in any kind of paradigm shift for the automotive industry. You know, anytime we're trying to do a lot of things, something gets broken, and that's really bitten Tesla a few times. So I like

Sam Abuelsamid  57:03  
Yeah, well, I think, you know, what's, what's different here? Yeah, unlike Tesla, you know, Tesla moves fast break things and then ships them software

Unknown Speaker  57:14  
design and then tries to fix

Sam Abuelsamid  57:18  
what we've seen here. Or at least, what it appears that we've seen here is that they're, they're doing the move fast and break things before they should, right,

Dan Roth  57:26  
that's fine. Like, development. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  57:28  
right. And that's that whole, that whole user interface on that center screen, you know, is all about that, that process that design, the development process was move fast and break things internally. And they went through a whole ton of iterations on that, before they came up with, with what they're shipping. Yeah,

Dan Roth  57:45  
and I think that with the, with a team together like that, too, when you break down those walls, you know, the stupid business jargon is no silos. When you remove the silos, you've got all the teams working together, it's like the old the old Chrysler idea of AMC idea of platform teams, and I'm sure other automakers pick up on that as well. I mean, that's something from the early 80s. So it's not like it's revolutionary now, but just get all the disciplines together, have them all talk to each other and figure it out. That's, I think, much better strength than everybody kind of working, you know, off their, their spreadsheet in a single discipline. And, again, I don't work at a car company. So maybe I think that my, my picture of how it gets done is different than the reality. So it just seems natural to me that if you get everybody talking to each other, you're gonna solve those problems a lot, a lot better than everybody kind of just doing their own thing. And the product gets barked out there. Right, like the giant hairball of checklists

Sam Abuelsamid  58:52  
where everybody was doing their own thing, but apparently nobody was actually talking to each other. Right.

Rebecca Lindland  58:57  
And certainly, nobody was saying no, yeah, and asking

Sam Abuelsamid  59:01  
this one, you know, the, I think it's clear that they asked a lot of questions, got a lot of nose, you know, and, and came up with something that, I think, you know, really works. And, you know, one of the one of the things I asked how, you know, is, you know, you earlier, Rebecca, you mentioned Saturn, you know, Saturn was this big experiment for GM, where they basically created a whole new car company within GM and did things in a different way. And some stuff that they did kind of filtered back in, but not a lot. Yeah, in the end, you know, Saturn ended up becoming just another division of GM. Yeah, because

Rebecca Lindland  59:46  
it was absorbed back in

Sam Abuelsamid  59:47  
Yeah, before finally get

Dan Roth  59:48  
well. There was a lot of the way that one in particular was executed. You have to be careful when you're running a corporation like that with divisions. You know, culture is important and they They almost broke the culture, they were like, Yeah, all you other GM brands, you suck. So we're gonna take the money that we could invest in making you better. And we're gonna make a new one a new shiny object over here. And that I think, sort of doomed Saturn to a lot of hard feelings inside GM.

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:18  
Well, yeah. And they and then they put them they started a product as well I mean, we could do an entire show on what happened with but

Dan Roth  1:00:23  
I see your point where they they they almost use it as a development lab for how to change GM, which at that point was kind of scratching its head going Wait, where'd our market share go?

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:36  
Well, but let's say you know, I think about Apple, right? And how a lot of how Apple developed things like the iPod and individually, but they integrate it then they don't leave it as a standalone, that thought processes those developments. those technologies are then integrated, not with resentment. But with the that cultural idea of this is this is a great idea. Where else can we use it? And I think that's one of the things that, you know, you there's that needs to happen more in legacy companies. It's not a pissing match. It is how do we make our product better? And it's an ego thing it is how do we make our product better? And that's a cultural thing. I think that starts from the top with a sense of humbleness of what are we what are we focusing on? are we focusing on what we do well, or what our customer not,

Dan Roth  1:01:28  
Ah, that's the that's the key is if it's almost like, you know, what's good for GM is good for America. And like all these things from the, you know, the the middle of the 20th century that turned out to kind of come back around and bite them. You can't You can't sit still and Ford hasn't, you know, and I think that maybe that's one of the things we're seeing to hear is that there was big leadership turnover.

Rebecca Lindland  1:01:54  
Well, that was that was the Alan Mulally effect, though, right? Because Alan came in just that. Well. Go ahead, you were there.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:04  
So, you know, Molly, when Molly came in, you know, he changed a lot of things. But somehow, it didn't seem to become permanent. It did not. And in terms of the culture, and when, when Molly retired, and they made fields, the CEO, a lot of stuff kind of went back to the way it was. Right, and, you know, kind of reverted, you know, and you had these it interesting, interesting nine fights, you know, between departments and a lot, you know, a lot of bad decision making. And then that's ultimately a big part of why fields was was let go. Yeah. And what's going to be interesting to watch over the next three, five years, is how Ford continues to evolve. You know, Hackett, you know, when he changed a lot of things to when he came in, you know, and, you know, things like, you know, t medicine and the AV business and a lot of other things. And I think, you know, Farley, Jim Farley, who's now the CEO, I think was much more, I think he he took what hacket did much more to heart than fields ever did, with volleys ideas. And well, and so yeah, you know, I think if he can keep that kind of approach going, and, you know, whether the lessons they learned from GE Madison, continue to filter through the rest of the company. If that happens, then I think that this was, this was great. This was a great experiment. And, you know, it'll, it'll be good for the company, long term. But if they don't find a way to replicate what they've done, and keep this, keep these concepts going, then then four, it's going to be in trouble.

Rebecca Lindland  1:03:58  
Yeah, I mean, I think with with, with four with Malala is rain there, the transition to mark did not involve continued adoption of what Malala put in place. And that's because because mark, I could not engender the same level of commitment and loyalty to those processes. So those were very specific to to Alan and what how he ran the company. And that transition didn't happen. Even though Mark adopted a lot of what Alan wanted. It didn't it didn't carry through then to when Mark took over. And so it will be really interesting to see what happens with Ford with Ford's culture with this team and and the and the mindset of whether they can continue infiltrating through the legacy of Ford Motor Company, and I hope they do because Everyone will be better for it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:01  
Yeah, I mean, so far we've seen, you know, some, you know, several new products this year that do seem to embody the kinds of ideas that that Hackett brought to the business with the F 150. Yes. So the mock E, and, you know, we'll we'll see, you know, in 2021 and beyond, if they can keep doing that. It's, it's gonna, it's gonna be a challenge. And they they have to succeed at this if they're if the company is going to survive long term.

Dan Roth  1:05:32  
Yes, exactly. All right. Um, did we we put a post out for questions. Did we get any questions?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:39  
Uh, no. All right. I was I was. I should have put I should have done that yesterday. I didn't. But I'm sure we'll have some questions after this. This post goes live on December 15.

Dan Roth  1:05:52  
Yeah, I mean, I think that we can probably burn another few episodes about the Maki, and I'm sure that we will. But I wanted to make sure that we got out there with our taste of especially

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:02  
after you to have a chance to drive it as well.

Dan Roth  1:06:04  
Yeah, hopefully that happens someday soon. I mean, they're doing regional drives. So that's good, you know, Ford is figured it out. And they'll you

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:11  
know, they'll get these things into the press fleet. You know, I think fairly quickly after after the 15th. You know, the, the charging experience, you know, I didn't get the opportunity to to charge it. We only had a couple hours with the car. But you know, it supports 150 kilowatt charging. So you should be, you know, with the extended range battery, you should be able to get a full charge in about 40 minutes.

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:39  
And what is the range? I don't think we've talked about that. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:41  
So it starts off the base model, the standard range, rear wheel drive is officially rated at 230 miles. The rear wheel drive extended range battery is rated at 300 miles. And the route or the all wheel drive extended range is 270 miles, which is what I drove. And the talk to Darren Palmer, who's the Director of EBS, he programs at Ford, about you know what, because you might think that with the all wheel drive the dual motor, they might actually be able to take advantage of more region to get more range. But the way that the testing is done, you know, the lab testing is done for the range estimates. And for fuel economy, they have test weight classes. So they've been been them, you know, and that's for setting up the dynamometer the loads on the dyno. So it's like about 100 to 150 pound test ranges. And the extra motor basically bumped it up a test notch to the next test weight class. And so that caused the, you know, put a little more load on it and caused it to drop down a little bit. But the reality is, it's probably going to be closer to 300 miles, you know, I was I was driving fairly briskly during my time with it. So, you know, I think the just under three miles per kilowatt hour that I was getting is probably not is not representative of what you would get in normal daily driving, you know, and just like any other car, you know, if you're driving it fast, you know, you're going to use more fuel use more energy. But you know, getting 300 miles out of this thing should should not be a problem at all, and it does recharge you know, as quickly as anything else that's out

Unknown Speaker  1:08:33  
there. And the price point,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:35  
base price for the Select trim, the base trim is like just under $43,000. The, the extended range all wheel drive is going to be if you if you like the premium trim level is somewhere around $50,000 or just

Rebecca Lindland  1:09:00  
75 7500 tax credit still apply

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:03  
70 $500 tax credit still applies for it's probably not going to hit the 200,000 sales threshold until sometime around middle of 2021. So, you know, least through middle of 2022, you'll still be able to get a tax credit on this. So, you know, I think the the one the one I think most people will want will be the extended range either rear drive or all wheel drive, which is going to be you know, 50 to $53,000 roughly. So you're looking mid 40s after the tax credits, you know, low 40s if you're in California or some other state and you'll be able to get it and

Unknown Speaker  1:09:37  
then they

Rebecca Lindland  1:09:38  
Yes sir. And then they ended up building it in Mexico. Right? Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:42  
they're retooled the Quadro on Mexico plant where they used to build Fiesta. Yeah, and that's an Eevee plant now, so they're building battery packs and ease. So there will be other stuff coming from there besides the monkey. Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:09:54  
well, that's something that we didn't really touch on too deeply is that the motors the power electric tronics in the arm the software is all in house designed by Ford. I think they're not they're not manufacturing the motors in house right now but

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:11  
I think eventually they will be manufacturing motors in houses as the volumes ramp and the battery design is there's

Dan Roth  1:10:17  
two writers they partner Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:19  
as far as far as I know, it's it's their, it's their battery pack design. LG Chem supplies the lithium ion cells, much as they do for many other companies. So

Dan Roth  1:10:28  
that's that's the whole arc. And that's the whole system. Like they did the whole shootin match. So expect that the Maki is really just the start of

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:36  
Yeah, I mean for four to actually has a battery lab, giant battery lab with the University of Michigan, where they test cell chemistry and develop cell chemistries. So they've been working on their, their cell chemistries there. And, you know, working with LG Chem to manufacture the farms, for now at least four does not getting into manufacturing cells, although in a recent conference, Jim Farley talked about that. Yeah, you know, as volumes ramp up, they would, they would, they are potentially looking at bringing cell manufacturing in house as well, like GM has done, but for now they're relying on suppliers, LG Chem supplying the machi that Ford will also be getting lithium ion cells from SK innovation when their plant is up and running in Georgia. So SK is going to be supplying Volkswagen and Ford at least and and others as well. So yeah, it's it's gonna be, it's gonna be interesting to watch the adoption, I think first year, you know, they're looking at about 50,000 units for Maki globally. And then we'll see how it ramps up from there, and then, you know, other models that they're adding over the next several years.

Dan Roth  1:11:48  
That will be exciting. We'll see how it does, please, please send us them early and often. Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:56  
Well, you know, it's, it's gonna, it's gonna be fascinating to see what they do with the 650, which is the next generation classic Mustang, which is coming out in a couple of years,

Dan Roth  1:12:05  
that's going to be the Mach one is gonna be the hybrid, right. Like,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:07  
that's the logging that I had speculated that the Mach one would be the hybrid, but that's actually watching in the spring. That's, that's a five liter, that's just a standard five liter now looks like the hybrid Mustang is going to shift to 2022. With the new one comes out with the Yes, 650 is going to have the hybrid rather than the current a spy 50 generation. And, you know, who knows, maybe we'll see, you know, an electric Mustang coupe as well.

Dan Roth  1:12:37  
Mustangs are good.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:39  
Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, one other one other thing I've neglected to mention. You know, one of the things, you know, when they, when they made the decision to transform this thing, and pivot make this a Mustang, you know, the design changed. You know, they've shown some sketches, you know, showing the profile of the original car that they were developed original crossover, they were developing, which a very short hood, you know, sloping windshield, you know, more, you know, more s, you know, crossover, traditional crossover, like, and, you know, when they change the proportions of this thing to make it look more like a Mustang. So, it's got that long hood, you know, it kind of stretches out and when you're in the driver's seat, I mean, look out over that hood. It is it does feel more like sitting in a Mustang. You know, then sitting in something like a Chevy Bolt, you know, where the hood just kind of drops away from you in front of you. You know, you see that hood in there, and it's got more of that Mustang feel to it.

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:40  
It really looks fantastic. And I love the profile of the huge skylight sunroof. I mean, I think the glass

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:47  
roof stayed on the entire time I was driving it never fell off.

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:53  
The rims the treatment of the rims. I mean it really I think they've done an absolutely gorgeous job with this vehicle.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:00  
I think so too. I like it a lot. You know, I liked it when I saw it last year. I've continued you know, it's grown on me even more. Oh,

Rebecca Lindland  1:14:08  
where is the charge port?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:09  
The charge port is on the right front fender. left front fender driver side?

Rebecca Lindland  1:14:16  
Okay, like behind the wheel? Not in the front. Not the front grille. No. Okay. All right. Cool. No, it looks it looks really fantastic. So

Dan Roth  1:14:24  
is that your prediction Sam like Well, I guess we'll leave everybody with a prediction but you think that the the Mustang Mikey's gonna do well and usher in a new era of electric Ford's?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:35  
Yeah, I mean, you know, we already know there's gonna be a bunch of electric Fords and Lincoln's coming. We've already announced the F 150. And the E transit. There's at least one electric Lincoln coming and during the contract talks with the kidding Canadian union earlier this fall. They you know, part of that new contract there is the Oakville assembly plant where they build the edge and the Nautilus today is going To be retooled to build a V's from 2023. So there, that's going to be another Eevee plan. So they're going to be building a V's at least four different locations by 2023. And quite Alon, Oakville Dearborn, the F 150. I mean, the F 150 and Kansas City where they built the transit. And I expect that as, as we've seen with GM and other manufacturers that that number is going to grow, there's going to be additional plants building ATVs over the next several years,

Dan Roth  1:15:29  
as long as people keep buying them, and

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:32  
well, that's that's the, that's the key if you know, the, you know, and this, this is what, you know, I think Ford recognized, you know, that if they're, if they're going to build a V's, they have to make it, they have to make the entire experience appealing for customers, you know, not just what it looks like, what it drives, like, but everything about owning and buying an Eevee has to be better. And yeah, so far, from what we've seen, I think they're on the right track. And they, you know, the, the the last piece that's missing, you know, I think, I think last year, when we first saw the Maki, you know, I said at the time, you know, they they basically stole the Tesla playbook in almost every respect. In terms of the the experience, the user experience and ownership experience around this vehicle. The the one key differentiator that Ford potentially has relative to Tesla, is they know how to build vehicles. And but, and this is a very big, but, you know, they know they've been building vehicles for 117 years, they know how to do it, but that doesn't mean they always get it right. As we saw last year with the launch of the Explorer and aviator, you know, they had a really bungled launch with that vehicle. And they have to have a smooth launch with this thing. Because if they mess it up, like they did the Explorer, then they, you know, I think that's going to kill any perception that consumers have that Ford knows how to build these things. Yes, they can, if they can do that, right, they can have a smooth launch and get these things to customers. I think it'll do well. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  1:17:15  
And I know you interviewed how Thai Tang, I'm, and we're gonna add that to this. And what is his position?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:22  
The global Chief Product Development Officer. Okay, something something to that effect.

Unknown Speaker  1:17:29  
Right. All right. That's

Dan Roth  1:17:29  
a perfect segue. So why don't we wrap up here, we'll paste the interview with how to tie tank at the end. And then we'll see everybody for the next episode.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:38  
All right, bye.

Rebecca Lindland  1:17:39  
Great. Bye.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:44  
So the big week, this week, finally, letting people outside of Ford actually thrive. Maki, you know, this is this is a really important program for Ford. First purpose built PDF for the company in its history. What, what, what is what does this mean for how they actually have themselves?

Hau Thai-Tang  1:18:05  
Sarah, it's a watershed moment for us, as you stated, because every vehicle that we've done up until now, we started with the constraint that we had to protect our own internal combustion engine. And with this product we didn't. So we really used that to challenge the team around, you know, all of the design paradigms that we've had for 117 years, and how would we, you know, challenged that to deliver a great experience for the customer. We've been very intentional around how to execute it, you know, clearly embracing Mustang, to cut through the clutter of all the other products that are launching, but also to use that as a platform to amplify and amplify the attributes that Mustang customers love the most of using the battery electric vehicle. And then on the inside, as you can tell, we're very intentional about making this very advanced. But not not a science project, not a spaceship, balancing that with being very intuitive and easy to use. And then, of course, the all new electrical architecture over the air update the sink 4.8 for a system, you know, really game changing for us. Yeah, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:09  
There's Yeah, having watched this program, we kind of know, first look at it a little over a year ago now. And it seemed the only Auto Show. There's a lot about this program that is very different from the way Ford is typically developed vehicles. I see more in this one of Ford looking outside of itself, instead of doing it the way you always developed. This is been very intentionally very, very different approach. And

Hau Thai-Tang  1:19:39  
I'm really glad you picked up on that because we had a lot of internal soul searching and we actually even debated Should we go out and acquire a startup, you know, can we really challenge ourselves and disrupt ourselves? And we we talked as a leadership team, we said, you know, we've done this, we know how to do this and the example I used was the Ford GT program. You know the story we took 30 of our best and brightest locked him in the basement of the product development center. And just put

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:05  
you all in one.

Hau Thai-Tang  1:20:06  
Yeah, best and brightest. But But the key enabler, though was we had a very clear mandate for that. Look, it's going to be the 50th anniversary of you know, for beating Ferrari, we want to go back to LA and we want to win. And here's the date. And and that was the config mandate. And we said, if we could could, you know, crystallize for this team medicine, we called it the same group of our best and brightest what the mission is, you know, they can they can do it, and they can challenge the status quo and disrupt ourselves. And we, I borrowed this from Ed Bastian, the CEO of delta, he came to speak to us and he said, the way Delta thinks about disruption is think big, start small and scale fast. And that was kind of the mandate, we gave the team medicine, we said, we want you to be really forward thinking in terms of your aspirations for this product, think big. But let's start small and do it on this one first Maki product. And then we'll scale up those learnings across the enterprise. And that's the way we've approached it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:04  
And, you know, one of looking at this vehicle and all the aspects around it. One of the things, you mentioned learning's, it seems like you've taken a lot of learnings from what at least one particular other company has experienced over the past decade selling one company, Ignacio, there's a lot, there's clearly a lot of Tesla influence in this vehicle. Talk about how you picked and choose chose the pieces that you wanted to use.

Hau Thai-Tang  1:21:33  
Yeah, I think Tesla demonstrated to the entire industry that, you know, you can take a battery electric vehicle and make it fun, be aspirational. and challenge the entire business model of how you How you going to mark and how you create value. And that was, you know, an epiphany for us, we went from viewing it as something you have to do to be compliant. So the analogy I use is sort of like, you know, giving you a kid's cough medicine, they pinch their nose and close their eyes and swallow to now hate. How could we really embrace this and use this in coupling where we're where we're strong Mustang, obviously iconic nameplate, we dominate that segment, we have strong favorable opinion, we have the market share lead, could we use a battery electric vehicle architecture to amplify the attributes of Mustang customers love instantaneous torque, performance, fun, the drive all of those things, and do it in a way that's really fresh and new, that adds on to Mustang rather than takes away from Mustang. So that was really the approach and then thinking through the business model. So a paradigm that we all have had for 100 years in our industry, it's a transaction model, I sell you a car, and I hope you come back in six years and buy another one. So now we have it's a use model, you buy this vehicle with the over the air connectivity, it gets better with age, we can give you incremental functionalities and features that you didn't have when you buy it. And then we can create value from that, and, and you know, have a lifelong relationship with that customer.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:14  
They the the decision to use the Mustang name that came well, while after this program was originally, you know, while along the way and information and medicine in May 2017. That idea of, you know, looking at how do we develop a business model for eds. With with the use of the Mustang name, how has, how's the feedback been from outside of Ford, to having a Mustang crossover?

Hau Thai-Tang  1:23:44  
Um, it's been controversial, you know, but it was a very intentional choice. I remember that day because because at the time, Jim Farley and I both started our jobs at the time I had, I had spent five years in purchasing I was coming back as a takeover product development. Jim was moving into the global markets role. And one of the first things we did was we independently both asked Murray calendar tours around the studio. And we had about 60 inflight programs. And the way I looked at it was I said, Mary, there's some products that are so far along, there's nothing I can do about them. There are some that are really early on that we can still change. The really hard ones are the ones that are kind of mid flight because you can make a change, but there's probably going to be some timing implications. And you have to be really intentional about it. And this was one of the products I got done. Jim did the same walk around independently, he came back arrived at the same with the same product that we had to change and we just talked as a team that in this timeframe, there's going to be hundreds of new nameplates that are electrified. What is Ford going to do to cut through that clutter? Why would somebody choose us and consider us? And we said, you know, we have to lean to the areas where we're strong pick the segments nameplates where we have strong brand favorable opinion where we have a dominant market share where we have pricing power. And And oh, by the way, could we use electrification to amplify those attributes that those customers love. And that's how we landed on Mustang. And for a lot of folks, they were skeptical. And I think they would shop in a very traditional paradigm, a mindset of what this is what Mustang is. If Lee Iacocca was trapped by that, we never would have had a Mustang. Right. So I think, you know, the, the proof is in the pudding. Hopefully, it will do well in the marketplace, I'm confident that it will, and it'll allow us to really build on the Mustang family, extended family. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:43  
one of the risks, and this has happened to companies before where they have tried to go down a new path, try a different approach. It's worked, but then it doesn't, it doesn't get ingrained into the approach, that new approach doesn't get ingrained into the company culture. What are you doing to help make sure that the things that succeeded with tea medicine and Maki get fed into other programs going forward as it pertained? Yeah.

Hau Thai-Tang  1:26:13  
So this is the scaling up part of it, which is we're taking the lessons from the machi TMT medicine, and we're actually institutionalize it. So we're changing our global product development system. For example, taking time out where we know, we are able to do that, which is changing the way we're organized. So as part of the recent organizational announcements that Jim Farley made he, he put, you know, there was for me, there was kind of three key elements to it. One was putting the business unit and customer requirements first and foremost, that's kind of North Star of who we serve, and then creating this industrial platform, which I lead where we're combining product development, purchasing, enterprise product line management, but also manufacturing together so that we can work simultaneously. That was one of the learning learnings from Team medicine was having those teams together upfront working simultaneously. And then creating this technology and software platform where we know that the future and you know, is all about software, and how do we enable the technology stack to create these wonderful connected experiences that change that, you know, how how we differentiate Ford and Lincoln in the marketplace? Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:28  
I mean, that's clearly an area where you have had some substantial success over the last five years, is that really creating that distinction between the two brands? You know, Lincoln's are no longer regarded as just fancier Ford's, you know, they look at it, they have a completely distinct look and feel to them are with electrification, are you planning to do the same sort of thing and separate electric boards and Lincoln's from their internal combustion siblings,

Hau Thai-Tang  1:27:59  
we Yes, we want to continue to differentiate Ford and Lincoln to the same level that we have today, it's really paid dividends for us, Lincoln is, you know, one of the fastest growing brands in the marketplace, it's going to be frankly, it's going to be harder with battery electric vehicles, because many of the tuning knobs that you have, so things like power, train sound quality, and are no longer at your disposal. So the teams have to work harder. And software is gonna be a big part of that. But the most important thing is having clarity on the Northstar of what the brand stands for. So internally, within Ford, we refer to Lincoln as as quiet flight. It's about, you know, this human, intuitive, you know, relaxing driving experience. And we think battery electric vehicles are a great way to amplify those attributes for Lincoln as well. Speaking of software,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:51  
software is an area that has been part of the auto industry for decades now. I worked in software as an engineer for nearly 20 years. But it's an area where automakers are not generally considered to have a whole lot of expertise. And it's traditionally been more in the really deeply embedded software, but not in the user facing software. You and others, Borden and your competitors have talked about trying to hire a lot more software engineers coming here. How's that process been going? Have you been able to attract and recruit people with the kind of user facing customer experience

Hau Thai-Tang  1:29:30  
software expertise? Yeah, so you're very familiar with the space we've had, we have a lot of software experience, but it's mostly around calibration and infotainment. And as what we see is going forward, yes, vehicle embedded is going to be very key. Having that very tight coupled between designing software that works with an embedded compute staff is very different than software that runs in the cloud where you don't have all those constraints. But we also recognize that so much that Experience now needs to be delivered seamlessly between embedded in the vehicle, the cloud on the edge on a mobile device. And we that's part of the organization that we've created with this new technology and software platform. In terms of hiring, we have been able to attract people we've been, we did a very successful acqui hire with blackberry and where we brought on about 600 of their folks. And we left them in Ontario, and did for some moving. And now, with COVID, we've learned to work very well remotely. So I think because there's a lot more flexibility. And frankly, it's a fun industry to be in, I think many of the tech folks recognize that, hey, I don't just have to work for a consumer electronics company or an apple firm. I could work on a cool in a coal industry, like the automotive and have a huge impact.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:47  
Speaking Blackberry, Ford announced three years ago that you chose to work for blackberry for the operating system for a lot of the stuff that you're doing. And is that what that team that you acquired is, is are they doing that in generally, now,

Hau Thai-Tang  1:31:03  
they played a key part in terms of delivering this sync for a system for us. So not only the software, but they've done a lot of the vertical integration of the hardware. So we, we've integrated more of the compute, that needs to be standalone, the black box that we bought from the tier one suppliers we've integrated, and we've controlled that we've created our own hardware architecture and software architecture in terms of clarity of, you know, firmware, middleware, and customer facing layer, and how, which part Ford wants to own so that we can get scale and reuse across vehicles and applications. And in which part, we want to leverage the supply base for this still have the differentiation and the flexibility in terms of who we work with.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:48  
And, you know, what are you looking at, again,

Unknown Speaker  1:31:51  
Tesla,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:52  
look at what they've done, especially in the area of their full self driving software. And they've, they've really been out on the bleeding edge in terms of what they're willing to distribute to customers. Yeah. On the other hand, you got Volkswagen, it had some significant challenges with the launch of their first me vehicles, you know, a lot of delays to the software, where were you see Ford being in that spectrum right now of pushing out, you know, whatever they might consider a minimum viable product versus trying to get it right, at least, or maybe having a higher standard for what's viable? Well,

Hau Thai-Tang  1:32:29  
I think, first and foremost, you can't generalize all software and lump it together. So I think customers are more tolerant to having beta systems and recognizing that something that you can refine an update, and I want to be part of a beta test, I'll give you an example. We were one of the first to integrate ways into our infotainment system. Many of those early pilot users were hand raises that said, I want to help for debug the system. And they are okay to have occasional bugs there. They're a part of the development community to help us improve. And that's very different than a safety critical system like a Driver Assist system, we would never do that with a driver systems. I don't believe in using customers debate, a test, you know, safety critical items. So we're taking a very different approach than Tesla there. Our view is we understand the limitations of the current state of the art in terms of the suite of technology, we know that the customers still have to be in the loop. So they may have hands off, which we're delivering, but their eyes still have to be on the road and their minds have to be on. And when you start to launch systems, and you give it the nomenclature that intimate a higher level of functionality than what it actually is. It's very risky, and Ford would never do that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:55  
One, I guess one last question. Do you see? Do you see this program as having been a success so far?

Hau Thai-Tang  1:34:04  
Yes, absolutely. It's been a home run for us. We're proud of the product executions. We're proud of how we've changed the way we work as an organization, and I'm really proud of how we've leveraged this to change the business model.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:19  
Okay, thank you for Thank you, Sam.

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai