Ford is laying off about 700 workers who build the F-150 Lightning, the electric version of its best-selling pickup truck, and unlike other recent layoffs this one has nothing to do with the ongoing strike by the United Auto Workers union.

Ford lays off 700 who were building electric version of F-150 | CNN Business::Ford is laying off about 700 workers who build the F-150 Lightning, the electric version of its best-selling pickup truck, and unlike other recent layoffs this one has nothing to do with the ongoing strike by the United Auto Workers union.

  • psycho_driver@lemmy.worldEnglish
    181·
    1 year ago

    but pretty much only people left to buy affordable, small cars from anymore is the Japanese and Koreans.

    A big reason for that was that American car makers never figured out how to make decent small cars and were getting murdered by their Japanese and Korean competition.

    • trash80@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      American car makers never figured out how to make decent small cars

      I’m pretty sure that the latest incarnations of the Ford Focus and Ford Fiesta were decent cars.

      • psycho_driver@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Funny you should mention those two. In the US market they both shipped with a quite defective Ford-developed DCT that would rarely last 50,000 miles before failing. I do not believe whatever the problem is with these transmissions are fixable because the replacements will also fail short of 50,000 miles. I actually own two Fiesta’s, one with the 1.0l ecoboom which is currently dead at 84,000 miles due to the plastic used within the engine getting brittle and failing and causing it to catastrophically overheat very quickly (just about all of these 1.0s will fail between 75,000 and 85,000 from what I’ve seen). I also have a i4/manual version which is about to hit 200,000 miles and runs great. The key in the US market is to get a 5 speed version if you want mostly trouble free ownership. The Fiesta is almost the perfect small car that was mostly ruined due to cost cutting in areas that there shouldn’t be any cost cutting happening.

        • trash80@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          I hadn’t heard anything about the DCTs going bad. I was looking for an ST (and dreaming of an RS) back before Covid and couldn’t find any that were in good condition less than $20k. I just couldn’t afford that. I got a used Malibu instead, and I think it is a pretty good car (I haven’t had any problems anyway). I suppose it is pretty squarely in the mid-size class rather than a small compact.

    • SmoothIsFast@citizensgaming.comEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      No its because they have less safety and ecological regulations on trucks, as SUVs use truck platforms they no longer have to abide by the same set of regulations and production becomes cheaper. It’s always been motivated by profit…