[HN Gopher] Ford to lay off workers as it focuses on electric ve...
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Ford to lay off workers as it focuses on electric vehicles
Author : sizzle
Score : 39 points
Date : 2023-06-27 21:34 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| They're laying off workers whose skillsets are specific to making
| vehicles with combustion engines and hiring workers specific to
| making vehicles with electric motors.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| It's sad that they don't have some sort of retraining for these
| people.
| jupp0r wrote:
| > Ford has previously said it is also hiring in some areas,
| so it's not clear if these layoffs will result in an overall
| reduction in Ford's workforce in the United States or Canada.
|
| This might mean that they are eliminating positions, but are
| possibly filling new ones with the laid off employees where
| appropriate.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I'm guessing it's mostly people with deep specialization (and
| interest) in combustion drive trains (e.g., engineers). I
| don't think it's feasible to take a combustion drive train
| engineer with a decade of experience and make them reasonably
| productive as a battery engineer in a short timeframe. No
| doubt many of those engineers are capable of making the
| pivot, but most are likely not particularly interested.
| hgs3 wrote:
| I assume it's cheaper to hire new employees at base pay than
| pay to retrain the seasoned employees.
| criddell wrote:
| I wonder how the switch to electric is going to impact Ford
| dealers? From what I've read they need to (re)train their
| mechanics and buy a bunch of new equipment and then also deal
| with the fact that electric vehicles require less maintenance.
| stcroixx wrote:
| In my circles, dealers would always be the absolute last
| resort option for having any maintenance done due to their
| reputation of inflating prices and doing crappy work. Not
| sure if EV manufacturers are attempting to force consumers to
| have all their work done by dealers. If so, I'll keep
| waiting.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Dealers typically get a monopoly on software fixes/firmware
| updates.
|
| In EV's, more and more issues will be fixed by
| reconfiguring/patching software.
|
| I would guess that over time, car software will get more
| and more locked down - even today, real cryptography is
| typically used to stop you flashing new firmware onto your
| ECU. Those checks are only going to get tighter. There are
| no opensource ECU's.
|
| Therefore, I don't see the dealer going anywhere. But they
| might get rid of the workshop and replace it with desks of
| people able to hit buttons on a computer...
| sokoloff wrote:
| * * *
| burnished wrote:
| Well, their primary income seems to come from deceiving
| people, I'm sure they'll either invent new forms of
| 'maintenance' work or grossly exaggerate the required
| frequency of some other task.
| statusqueue wrote:
| The majority of their revenue actually comes from the
| service department.
| grugagag wrote:
| Maybe the whole dealership model is to change too?
| esotericimpl wrote:
| [dead]
| Mizoguchi wrote:
| Dealers will slowly fade away as online car shopping becomes
| more common. Volvo for example is aiming at 2030 as the year
| they turn 100% online. It's reasonable to assume all other
| car makers will do the same. There's absolutely no reason to
| buy from a dealer in today's world, that's like when in the
| 80s and early 90s you needed a middleman to buy a computer.
| ruffrey wrote:
| How do you test drive a car for an online dealer? Do they
| drive to your home and let you take it for a spin?
| ohthatsnotright wrote:
| In your Apple Vision Pro of course.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| A showroom can exist and not be an independently-owned
| dealership. In fact such showrooms could stock multiple
| brands, like any other brick-and-mortar store we
| frequent.
| m463 wrote:
| I keep on reading that electric vehicles require less
| maintenance, but they still require some maintenance, and
| lots of things continue to break.
|
| how much maintenance does a honda ice car really require?
| Most of them run flawlessly for years and years, almost
| without opening the hood at all.
|
| I wonder how the numbers break down?
| pengaru wrote:
| If Tesla is any indication, they'll be chock full of
| unnecessary complex gimmicks that will constantly break and
| need servicing.
|
| I once helped someone with a flat tire in a Model S who had
| zip ties dangling from every door handle. The "present
| mechanism" had failed in every door, look it up, it's a
| known problem of wire fatigue caused by the present
| mechanism's repetitive movement breaking the door handle.
|
| Imagine owning a Model X at 150,000 miles. I watched kids
| have to crawl under the rear "gullwing" door of fresh one
| last month. It refused to open beyond a small gap, despite
| there being no obstructions. Impatient parent in the
| driver's seat just shouted in frustration for them to crawl
| in after throwing his hands up at the steering wheel.
|
| Trash needs lots of maintenance to keep on the road...
| those things are like Homer Simpson mobiles.
| jefft255 wrote:
| Looking forward to an electric car that's not a gadget on
| wheels. Oh well that's probably never going to happen
| jayd16 wrote:
| Fans, belts, radiator, oil, (ironically) battery, (oil,
| fuel and intake) filters are eliminated.
|
| Bulbs, tires, alignment, washer fluid, cabin filters, and
| brake pads remain.
| blcknight wrote:
| I've owned a few EV's and they all have 12V batteries.
| The traction battery charges the 12V and it powers all
| the typical car power systems.
| mulmen wrote:
| Brake _fluid_ also needs serviced. And EVs still have
| suspension so you 'll eventually need new shocks. You
| also have power steering. And Air conditioning, including
| the condenser. (Some?) EVs also have radiators for heat
| management of the battery which includes a water pump.
| soperj wrote:
| You seriously don't change the oil?
| blcknight wrote:
| There's no oil to change. It doesn't have a combustion
| engine.
| mulmen wrote:
| It has a differential and gearbox so it has oil.
| delfinom wrote:
| I change out my Honda's oil once a year (10k miles per
| year), so what, $60?
|
| Heh, in my case, I would go bankrupt owning a EV because
| of tires. My god roads are so fucking bad in NYS that I
| replaced 3 tires this year alone due to massive gashes in
| the sidewalls. EVs being so fucking overweight do not
| have cheap tires, RIP.
| starttoaster wrote:
| I could be mistaken, but I think they're mostly not
| counting a procedure that basically amounts to loosening
| up a bolt that makes oil come out the bottom, tightening
| it back up again, and then adding new oil from the top
| side. I think the kind of maintenance they're thinking of
| is more like "replace the serpentine belt."
| pengaru wrote:
| Timing belt is a big one for ICEs, valve adjustment if
| it's something racy.
|
| There's also just so many moving parts there's far more
| opportunity for engine failures, especially in the face
| of neglect/deferred maintenance. I don't think there's an
| EV equivalent for needing an engine rebuild/replace
| because you ignored the timing belt for too long on an
| interference motor.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Many serpentine belts are a sub-10-minute job. Put a
| wrench on the tensioner, take the tension off it, slip
| old belt off, put the new belt on, release the wrench
| tension. It's literally faster than any oil change
| (engine, diff, or transfer case).
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| It's weird.
|
| Two decades ago I had a 2004 subaru that needed nothing
| first years.
|
| Then We got a 2015 Toyota rav 4 and every maintenance there
| was some up sell. Change a filter check the brakes
| resurface rotors change the atf or differential oil etc. We
| actually got into a dispute with dealer after third
| consecutive $300brakes maintenance.
|
| Thought maybe that was lemon car or bad dealer but now we
| have a honda odyssey and same thing. My bill last week was
| $900 for a car that nothing was wrong with, just "regular
| maintenance".
|
| Due to our schedules my wife usually takes the car in ; I
| can see the bill is inflated in terms of labour and parts
| but I already know they'll tell me that's the book value.
|
| So for today's ice cars, they do get a lot of revenue from
| regular maintenance and may even be more profitable for
| them than actual fixes.
|
| I wonder about Ev - do they not have brakes, Cv joints,
| bearings, differentials (I know there's no transmission),
| et cetera?
| danans wrote:
| >U wonder about Ev - do they not have brakes, Cv joints,
| bearings, differentials (I know there's no transmission),
| et cetera?
|
| They have all those, but at least for brakes, they last
| much longer due to regen braking.
| mulmen wrote:
| My brakes are serviced on a time interval. Brake fluid is
| hydrophilic. You replace it based on age to prevent
| corrosion of brake components. If brakes are used less
| and don't get as hot I would expect EV brakes to need
| more preventative maintenance, not less. Pads and rotors
| may last longer, but fluid will be the same or worse.
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| Well, I'm sure all of those massive dealer markups from the
| pandemic and ensuing vehicle shortage needed to go somewhere,
| right?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://electrek.co/2023/01/27/ford-considering-changes-
| ev-d...
|
| https://cleantechnica.com/2023/03/22/some-ford-dealers-
| withd...
|
| https://insideevs.com/news/610114/ford-modele-dealership-
| rul...
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| Sometimes, I wish headlines would be a bit more specific.
|
| "Workers" to me implies assembly line workers, whereas the
| actual layoffs are mostly engineers. I have never really heard
| anyone call engineers, "Workers"...
| wccrawford wrote:
| "Workers" doesn't even mean non-managers any more... It's
| just all employees. The word has lost a lot of nuance.
| lolinder wrote:
| > Google parent to lay off 12,000 workers
|
| https://nypost.com/2023/01/20/google-parent-alphabet-to-
| lay-...
|
| > Microsoft laid off another 689 workers from its Seattle-
| area offices Monday
|
| https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft-cuts-
| another...
|
| > Meta to Lay Off Another 10,000 Workers
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/14/technology/meta-
| facebook-...
| cubefox wrote:
| The thing is: Combustion motors are amazingly complex and
| highly optimized beasts, while electric motors are dead simple.
| There isn't much to improve. So there are not many people
| working on electric motors.
| scop wrote:
| I was speaking with the owner of an auto shop a few months back
| and he made an interesting point I hadn't heard re Ford: whereas
| Tesla is eating new customers, Ford and other legacy automakers
| are having to eat their own customers...which can lead to some
| serious business complexity!
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| In the business world we call this cannibalizing sales.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalization_(marketing)?wp...
| olivermarks wrote:
| Ford is bleeding to death on purpose so they can get more tax
| payer EV subsidies
|
| https://youtu.be/5MZeTeqdsTw
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Wasn't Ford, unlike GM and Chrysler, NOT a recipient of bailout
| "too big to fail" federal money?
| abakker wrote:
| yes, but it was more circumstantial. by lucky happenstance
| they had arrange a significant loan facility almost directly
| before the financial crisis. they leveraged this heavily but
| because the financing had been arranged ahead of time it left
| them more sound. Ultimately, the other vehicle makers just
| got loans from the government post-hoc.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I wouldn't say it's on purpose. Ford has always been a marginal
| (financially) automaker, and while the US gov is providing
| substantial support (>$10B) via battery and vehicle subsidies,
| it will be a painful transition based on the financials and
| balance sheet. Too much financial and institutional debt
| considering the swiftness at which they must transform. Tesla
| has a lot of room in their margin (and also generous subsidies
| due to US component content) to eat price reductions due to
| rising interest rates, Ford does not while also trying to
| retool their entire manufacturing supply chain.
|
| TLDR Efficient, nimble innovators can kick the can, laggard
| incumbents cannot.
| jdsully wrote:
| Ford Credit (loans to purchasers of their vehicles) is on
| Ford's balance sheet while the others had to spin off those
| businesses in '08. So the debt situation is a bit misleading
| if you just compare the top level numbers to industry peers.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Ford Credit is what sells Ford vehicles, but it's also
| where the profit is (roughly half of profits). Take away
| the credit biz, and that's a material impact to both
| profits and volume.
|
| As the below article notes, it's a balance and pushing risk
| around.
|
| https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2020/
| 0...
| jemmyw wrote:
| Does that mean if you buy a vehicle outright all those
| folks buying on credit are subsidising you?
| gobins wrote:
| It's interesting that while other companies are doubling down on
| electric vehicles, Toyota has come out and said the opposite
| after being one of the first companies to start.
| qqtt wrote:
| Toyota and Honda are both pushing more into electric cars these
| days. The main reason they are behind is that the Japanese
| government pushed hard to develop fuel cell cars and gave out
| big incentives for companies to put fuel cell vehicles on the
| road. This big push is why Honda and Toyota both have fuel cell
| options for customers to use on the road today, but they are
| both pretty behind on battery electric vehicles.
| bigyikes wrote:
| Electric cars becoming dominant seems like an inevitability to
| me, and it looks like many auto makers agree. It's "just" a
| matter of battery costs, battery density, energy costs, and
| volume.
|
| What does Toyota see that we're missing?
|
| I ask this as someone who just bought an ICE vehicle, but only
| because there were no electric vehicles in my market segment.
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