> Their head start for launch is pretty meaningless.

You're comparing something that exists to something that doesn't yet exist, and you have no information on future volume, then calling the first thing "meaningless." I don't understand that at all.

Your point is entirely predicated on Tesla producing Cybertruck in such large volumes that it dwarfs Ford's F-150 Lightning, but you have no factual basis for that claim.

The drama here for all of this is that we're seeing the century of R&D invested into making cars compressed into a decade for replicating that work for electric vehicles.

They're comparable, but not identical, so domain knowledge for one doesn't always translate into the other. Witness the Bolt / LG Chem battery fiasco.

So yes, Ford is the first (or second? third?) over the line to make engineering samples available to the public. They also have their ICE platforms to fall back on if they don't execute perfectly. Plenty of time no worries.

Tesla (and rivian?) are in the deep end without any option but to figure out how to swim / mass produce their product, so they've got incentive to execute.

There are plenty of companies that got their product to market only to be destroyed by warranty burdens. It is instructive that the bolt was first to market (vs the model 3).

So the story hasn't been told yet, but certainly tesla's not in a position of strength here.

I wouldn't say that he has no factual basis. Ford is aiming for a run rate of 5k/week by the middle of next year.

We know that this was considered the minimal benchmark for the Model 3 and that their targets for CT are higher.

Its a guess about future state, so surely not certain, but noone has this "won" by getting ~50k units done over the next 12 months.

> We know that this was considered the minimal benchmark for the Model 3

You say that as though, oh no problem Tesla will have that minimal benchmark immediately. But in reality, it wasn't until 2 years after they started delivering the model 3 that they hit that "minimal benchmark" for it.

Well, sort of... first deliveries were in Q3 2017. By Q3 2018 they were failing to hit 5k, but that still meant 4k/week. Just ~6 months after that, they were at 5,500 per week.

If they failed like that again, they'd still catch up pretty quickly. I have doubts, though. Cybertruck doesn't seem to be getting the same attention and drive behind its launch that the 3 did.

> the amount of these trucks ford can produce is very small. Their head start for launch is pretty meaningless.

Far from it. One, they're pre-selling (note: selling, not taking deposits for). Two, they're making 150,000 a year and plan to make 600,000 in 2023 [1], the latter representing about 5% of the American light truck market [2] and about 50% of the total number of vehicles Tesla builds in a year [3].

[1] https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1134628_ford-f-150-ligh...

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/199981/us-car-and-truck-...

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/715421/tesla-quarterly-v...

"It's aiming to make 600,000 EV's per year by the end of 2023" means that they plan on making 600,000 EV's per year in 2024.

And that's the measure that matters. A truck isn't available unless you can buy it, and given the number of pre-orders that both Cybertruck and F-150 have, unless you already have a reservation you won't be able to buy either truck until annual production reaches the 500,000/yr mark or so. And it looks like both Tesla and Ford will reach that rate at about the same time, so the race is on. Hopefully Ford has secured enough batteries to reach that level, because that's likely going to be the limiting factor.

You have misunderstood the goals in the green car reports article (or maybe they did). They aren't at 150k a year now, they hope to be at that run rate by mid-2023.

The F-150 is the best selling vehicle in the United States.

They almost quadrupled output from 40,000 to 150,000 because of demand.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/04/25/ford-f-150-lightning-ele...

Getting US consumers to want EV’s in large numbers is the real problem. Sounds like Ford is getting people excited. I’m sure they’ll be ready to double output as needed.

Deliver first, deliver often. Figure the rest out later. Startup playbook.