The dealerships won't sell it. Any marketing they do for it will hurt their other brands. Any marketing they do for their other brands will hurt it.

It's like McDonalds selling an organic, grass fed burger. If they talk about the quality of the beef, they're basically saying the Big Mac is low quality beef.

McDonald's just a couple days ago announced a change from frozen to fresh beef patties in their Quarter Pounder, clearly to compete with Wendy's who joked about it on their Twitter (https://twitter.com/Wendys/status/847478772311834626).

I'm not sure what that says about your analogy. Perhaps Ford should have gotten started on this a long time ago and taken the hit then. Perhaps once Ford gets serious about electrics, their response will be equally as weak as McDonald's.

Interesting they haven't done a sub-brand like a Saturn or Scion.

The sub-brand still messes with their marketing. Why do you think there is so much anti-Tesla astroturfing? There's no point in starting a sub-brand if you're just going to have to astroturf it.