Sorry, you delightful, compact pickup-loving sickos. Ford’s adding shifts, hiring employees, and apparently doing all it can to keep its small Maverick truck on dealer lots. It’s not working.

I’ve definitely contemplated trading my family Forester for a Maverick, especially now that you can tweak them to run super fast, but the availability hasn’t been great. I shopped some local dealers to see what they had and, while trucks were available, limited supply and high demand has sort of cut into the extremely reasonable prices.

While we’re on the topic of deals, Chinese suppliers say they’re getting a raw deal in Tesla’s price war, we may be dealing with a charging war for ten years, and an RV company is trying to close the deal with its own customers.

NOOOOOO FORD MAVERICK NOOOO!!!

The good news is that Ford’s boosting production of the Maverick at the same Hermosillo Assembly plant in Mexico where it also builds the Bronco Sport. In fact, the supply chain issues that have made it difficult for companies to prioritize affordable vehicles have started to wane a bit, and production is slowly rising.

The bad news is that it’s probably enough given all the pent-up demand. Ford Authority was paying attention during Ford CEO Jim Farley’s annual shareholder call and caught this important tidbit:

“Yeah, we’re going to have a capacity increase in July at the plant,” Farley said while speaking during the automaker’s annual shareholder meeting. “That’ll help. Unfortunately, we completely under-called the demand for Mavericks. So, I’m not confident even with the capacity increase that we’re going to have a lot of Mavericks available to everyone. We still have – look, we have a ten day supply of the vehicle. You can find Mavericks. The capacity increase will help, but clearly, the vehicles hit a really positive nerve, especially with the U.S. consumer. And we’re doing everything we can to increase, especially our supply chain, to increase the production.”

I mean, you coulda just asked me. I’d have told you it would be super popular. He’s right, though. You can find a Maverick if you’re willing to pay a premium. It may not be until 2024 or 2025 until the trucks become affordable.

Also, if you own a Maverick Hybrid, congrats, there’s another recall (or if you own a hybrid or PHEV Escape). Here’s the report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:

Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2020-2023 Escape, 2022-2023 Maverick, and 2021-2023 Corsair vehicles equipped with 2.5L HEV or PHEV engines. In the event of an engine failure, engine oil and fuel vapor may be released into the engine compartment and accumulate near ignition sources such as hot engine or exhaust components, possibly resulting in an engine compartment fire.

Oh the fun of early adoption. In addition to getting Ford Mavericks on dealer lots, Farley has previously pledged to clean up the automaker’s iffy quality record, which can be seen pretty clearly here in this NHTSA graphic:

That’s a lot of Ford. Currently Ford has the top spot among manufactures in the Untied States when it comes to most open recalls with 27. GM, which makes more cars, only has nine open recalls by comparison.

Chinese Suppliers Say They’re ‘Blood Donors’ In Price War

We’ve written a lot about the Tesla Price War, and not much has changed lately. Prices are still extremely low and I’m still begrudgingly encouraging friends who want EVs to cross-shop the Model Y because the deals are too good.

You know who the deals are not good for? Chinese suppliers.

It’s easy to think that, say, Chevy, builds an entire Camaro. That’s not how it works, though. Chevy may design and assemble the Camaro, but a new car is just an amalgam of OEM-built and supplier-provided parts. A car’s wheels, tires, transmission, seatbelts, airbags, seats, glass, catalytic converter, headlights, and battery all could come from a supplier, just to name a few parts.

For years the Chinese government heavily subsidized both the production and purchase of electric vehicles in a (successful) strategy to make the Chinese the leaders in electric mobility. Now that those subsidies are disappearing, automakers in China are doing what they can to keep prices low for consumers who have been trained to assume EVs are affordable so they don’t have to drastically cut back production. The easiest way to do that? Squeeze your suppliers!

There’s a Reuters story about it today and it’s interesting to see how the suppliers are working the refs. Ultimately, China is a state-controlled economy, and suppliers are appealing to the authorities to give them some relief. A letter was sent to the authorities and somehow it leaked:

Reuters confirmed with two supplier sources familiar with the matter that the letter addressed to Changan’s procurement department was sent to the company.

One of the sources said the amount by which Changan was asking suppliers to reduce their prices varied, with some bigger suppliers asked to absorb cuts of less than 10%.

[…]

In the letter, the suppliers said they wanted Changan to reverse the decision, which they said was prompting other automakers to follow suit and ignored the companies’ years of work to support the auto industry.

Over the years, suppliers had become “blood donors” to efforts by Chinese automakers to compete using a low-price strategy, they added.

Bleak.

Wingamm US Wants To Kickstart Its Investment

One of our most popular stories from the Tampa RV show earlier this year was this Mercedes piece on the Wingamm Oasi 540.1, an adorable little Italian-built van with a high level of design that can squeeze into a small parking spot.

Currently, the company is taking deposits (it says it’s taken about 200 at $14,500 a pop). Mercedes and I spoke with the CEO of Wingamm USA Tony Diamond last week to find out the status on bringing the vans here. He said that the plan is to send U.S. federalized/approved chassis to Italy and have them built there and then sent back, with the first arriving later this summer.

This is less capital-intensive than trying to federalize the Italian chassis, according to Diamond, but it’s not inexpensive. The company’s solution? It’s doing a public raise using Start Engine (it’s like Kickstarter). So far, about 159 people hav invested $259,430.56 at $5.25 per share.

In our conversation, Diamond admitted the capital markets are tough and it’s not easy to raise funds, so why not try and to take advantage of the public buzz? We’ll keep an eye on it as Wingamm does have a unique product in the space that’s price competitive (if it can keep its costs down) and lots of other startups are facing challenges raising cash.

How Long Will The Charging Wars Last?

I’ve already put my marker down and said I’d like to see everyone adopt Tesla’s superior car charging standard, but it’s probably not happening anytime soon.

Here’s an analysis from Reuters that has a couple of key points I think it’s worth highlighting:

Holding back EVs has been a weak CCS charging infrastructure that many complain is inefficient or sometimes inoperable, leading prospective buyers to fear becoming stranded on the road with nowhere to charge.

This is essentially conventional wisdom at this point. Charger uptime, anecdotally, feels like it’s improving, but it’s far from as reliable as the Tesla network. We already talked about the pressure this puts on charging startups, but then there’s this:

“We are now probably locked in to having two separate charging standards co-existing for the foreseeable future,” Consumer Reports senior policy analyst Chris Harto said.

FreeWire CEO Arcady Sosinov said his company plans to offer NACS connectors at its fast chargers by mid-2024, while Aptera Motors CEO Chris Anthony said the U.S. government should invest in the Tesla network if it becomes the predominant standard.

“Because of this announcement … there’s going to continue to be a standards war for a decade or more,” Sosinov said.

For a decade or more! Ouch.

The Big Question

How long will it take for Ford Maverick prices to come back down to normal?

Photos: Ford, Changan, Mercedes Streeter, Matt Hardigree