The list of 14 rules for running a skunkworks program and how they apply here is great and well worth reading the article, regardless of how you feel about the likelihood of Ford ever successfully executing on a $30k ev truck
I think Ford is technically capable of building a $30k EV truck and have been for some time. The F-150 Lightning was surprisingly close and only the overshot the mark in the direction most of the rest of the F-150 line has leaned in the same years.
I think Ford still hasn't solved its Dealer Problem that it currently would not have dealers willing to sell a $30k EV truck in the US.
I didn't, I said that $40k is closer to $30k than many would give it credit and that I believe that at least $10k-$20k more expensive than necessary for "luxury trim reasons" seems to be the current F-150 brand.
What stops Ford or General Motors from creating a "startup" that is not bound by its existing agreements with its dealership network to sell a new vehicle direct to consumers "in select states" where the law allows this? I mean any state where the Tesla is sold should allow this, right?
"Activist" Shareholders, primarily. Ford several years ago floated the idea of building its EV division as an almost entirely separate direct-to-consumer sub-company (specifically designed to directly compete with Tesla) and it got shutdown hard by shareholders.
Many of the biggest shareholders of both GM and Ford are their respective dealers. Shamefully this conflict of interest and reversal of some key controls is deeply entrenched in the US all the way back to the original lawsuit Dodge Brothers v Ford, which is also the dark origin of phrases like "fiduciary duty to shareholders", where then dealer network and automotive supply chain moguls the Dodge Brothers sued Ford for wanting to take record profits and reinvest them in R&D and asked that Ford give a record dividend instead (as its "fiduciary duty to shareholders"). They used that dividend to help finance their rival Dodge car manufacturer. In hindsight it is such a bizarre sequence of conflicts of interest that we're still dealing with the consequences of today (in how it created such quarterly earnings-focused myopia in US corporations), including specifically in the various ways that GM and Ford can't easily create a "startup" with no dealer network to stay competitive in EVs, why both are generally starved of R&D money compared to "startup" competitors, and also it all relates to why they are "too big to fail" given how much of the US economy is built on top of conflicts of interest and overlaps between them, their dealers, their supply chain, and their shareholders.
I think Ford still hasn't solved its Dealer Problem that it currently would not have dealers willing to sell a $30k EV truck in the US.