Tesla can bankrupt Ford with a single vehicle a pick up. Predictably Ford has become a monoculture crop grower and quite pampered. Ford is financially weak and wholly unprepared technologically for the changes coming. It has also been propped up by 25% tariffs on imports pick-ups. And it is completely dependent for profit on its F 150 and variations. But its historically important and ridding the brand from the market will signal the end of ICE like nothing else. And it is fitting given the pettiness over the Model E. It will be the end of a chapter the end of a book and something that is inevitable. Tesla can bankrupt Ford with a single vehicle but it should also lobby hard against any kind of bailout out for Ford. Shouldn't be too hard, even Romney didn't want to save GM. Tesla will the be the only big US auto firm that hasn't gone bankrupt and with a difference, others went bankrupt in large part because they were ICE based and petrol economics have always sucked all the way down to the end of the supply chain. Seems true that a Model Y can be adapted from a Model 3 ala a smoother S to X and the timing on the battery curve and prices makes total sense to follow the stated master plan. But to me Tesla's most consequential vehicle will likely be that pick up. Think of the reaction of Old Dominion to the Tesla Semi. Also, even as we move into electric autonomy what is asked of a pickup to the extent that they are useful (rugged individualism and small business tea partier type stuff) might prove a bit tougher for full autonomy for instance in use on job sites so to the extent that the pick-up truck is less than a fully realized robot the style of vehicle might have a little longer window of longevity. The emotion and symbology here are crucially important. In the Texas Energy sector they drive friction lined inefficient heavier than necessary petrol swilling trucks long protected by tariffs- (this was to protect the big three against Toyota which would have decimated them even as it never wanted to for instance do an illogical V-8 pickup.) They have tail pipes hanging out of their mouths with tobacco grown with petrol fertilizer and petrol pesticides. They eat beef fed not with grass but with Monsanto petrol corn (BT plus petrol glyphosate) and drink sour mash made of the same inedible GMO petrol corn. Gone on to milking the earth for petrol the way they used to milk cows. They style themselves as lazy cowboys who enforce structural violence. The cow is a symbol of being able to milk something or live off another animal and if that fails slaughter the animal and if that fails steal other people's animals in a raid. It's kind of a pirate swagger- hence skull and bones and porcillian club. But mainly they don't do work, other people do work (they are in control of the work) and they don't ride horses anymore they drive Ford F-150s- their steal horse or maybe a Harley hog. And of course they live on petrol fueled plantations (full of slaves) they call ranches. If they get cancer they take drugs made of petrol. Taking away their horse means they aren't cowboys anymore. It forces them to understand the reality of full automation (which happened 50 years ago) in that the rich in a truly automated world no longer have a way to justify their status (necessity of work is gone- all belong to the leisure class) the bubble of denial pops and they descend down into the manure they created and it forces them to understand that all boats must rise together. Taking away their horse (the creature they subjected to animal husbandry just like other humans they tried to domesticate) pops their bubble right here in the heart of petrol slavery the way a taxi cab driver or a truck driver get their bubbles popped on sight of fully automated semis and fully automated cabs that are 10x safer than human drivers all over the roads everywhere. Some of the Truck mags are starting to try to mess with the marketing of the Tesla Truck by planting seeds in people's mind about what it might look like. What Tesla has shown is already completely excellent but what these sites show looks like a cross between a Dodge (a company bankrupt 2 times and about to be acquired for the 3rd time a foreign company (apparently Hyundai)) and a Toyota (which a mere 25% tariff allowed the F-150 to survive) and in the small to mid sized range with chintzy garish letters embossed into the tail gain and many cues designed to make it look cheap and lightweight. They don't state that these are not official Tesla renderings. They are trying to lower expectations. I'd like to see Tesla offer for a F-150 price better than the highest F-450 specs for payload give it 8000lbs so it can carry a brand new F-450 and then set that in the bed or on it and then hitch it to a pristine perfect representation of one of each of all 13 generations of F-150 all tied by cable to the hitch facing the opposite direction and drag that ICE sht up a hill backward is a tow. Might need to put the Tesla pickup's wheels in cogged track for traction but guessing if Tesla gives it 10000 NM should be no issue. Then show it beating the newest top stock ICE Mustang muscle car at the drag strip and then have it beat that at the track. Seems Ford may be anticipating some of this talking about taking its Mustang into a ridiculous off road SUV or CUV cross over. But guessing 4 years from now if Ford is still around they will still be trying to peddle ICE F-150s and ICE Mustangs. Really important if Tesla takes Ford down because it will be a proper baton passing.
