{"id":48496,"date":"2023-04-28T11:20:13","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T15:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=48496"},"modified":"2023-04-28T11:20:13","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T15:20:13","slug":"ford-ceo-warns-tesla-product-freshness-ev-commodities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=48496","title":{"rendered":"Ford CEO warns Tesla about ‘product freshness,’ believes their EVs are becoming commodities"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\"Ford<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Ford CEO Jim Farley is warning Tesla about \u201cproduct freshness\u201d as he believes Tesla\u2019s electric cars are at risk of becoming commodities.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Last summer, Farley accurately predicted that a price war in the EV market<\/a> would be coming soon. Tesla started it in early January, and Ford followed with price cuts to its Mustang Mach-E electric SUV<\/a>; but it didn\u2019t end there, as Tesla kept slashing its prices across its entire EV lineup all year.<\/p>\n

Farley commented on the situation again (via Insider<\/a>) and compared what Tesla is doing with what happened with Ford when it became a mass-producer of cars itself:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cGo read \u20181913,\u2019\u201d Farley said, referring to\u00a0a book\u00a0that features a close look at the year Ford became a mass-producer of vehicles. \u201cThis has all happened before.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The CEO believes that cutting costs and prices is only part of the equation to create demand as he warns Tesla CEO Elon Musk that if they focus only on that, they will have a problem with \u201cproduct freshness\u201d:<\/p>\n

\n

I think what he\u2019s going to learn is product freshness means a lot. The product gets commoditized and then you lose your pricing premium. That\u2019s a really dangerous thing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On Tesla\u2019s most recent earnings call, Musk said that Tesla\u2019s goal is to adjust prices to ensure demand matches the automaker\u2019s increased production capacity.<\/p>\n

Electrek\u2019s Take<\/h2>\n

Tesla has always said that making its products the best they can be is a top priority, so it\u2019s not like Tesla is not trying to keep its products fresh.<\/p>\n

However, Farley has a point. Some of Tesla\u2019s products have become a bit stale. The lineup as a whole certainly is, with only four models and no new models since 2019, though the Cybertruck is going to partially fix that.<\/p>\n

Model 3 is certainly the one in need of a refresh, and apparently, one is coming next quarter, but we don\u2019t know yet how significant it will be. A big change so far appears to be a new front-end<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Model Y is Tesla\u2019s most important product and yes, there\u2019s an argument to be made that it is becoming a commodity at the current volume Tesla is producing it. It has become all about pricing.<\/p>\n

I think one of the problems with Tesla right now is that the automaker is extremely focused on its Full Self-Driving product, which it is convinced it can achieve while increasing the value of all the vehicles in its fleet.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, and for the people who are not convinced this is a certainty, it looks like Tesla is slipping on other aspects of the business.<\/p>\n

\n

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.<\/em> More.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ford CEO Jim Farley is warning Tesla about \u201cproduct freshness\u201d as he believes Tesla\u2019s electric cars are at risk of becoming commodities. Last summer, Farley accurately predicted that a price war in the EV market would be coming soon. Tesla started it in early January, and Ford followed with price cuts to its Mustang Mach-E […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}