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Perhaps one reason Ford raised prices so much on the gas Mustang and other gas vehicles was to raise money for their EV program. Ford has spent something like $50 billion dollars on EVs in the last 6 years, and it's been a financial disaster. This year alone Ford is expected to lose $5 billion on EVs, which is more than $100,000 for each one sold.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-projects-mounting-ev-losses-2025-q4-profit-up-2025-02-05/

"DETROIT, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Ford Motor (F.N), opens new tab on Wednesday projected up to $5.5 billion in losses on its electric vehicle and software operations this year, a loss similar to last year and a sign of the severe difficulties in cutting costs on battery-powered models."

Ford's debt to fund its EV program has also reached high levels, which is one reason the stock isn't doing very well.

GM also has spent at least $50 billion on EVs, and faces a similar financial reckoning.

I remember reading articles that GM and Ford were partially financing their EV programs with price increases on gas cars. But now we've reached a world where gas trucks often cost more than $60,000, and not that many people can afford them.

The EV spending spree is one of the things that has created the current affordability challenges for all vehicles.

EVs might be the future in the United States in the long run, but it seems like for the next couple of years things are looking bleak for EVs in America. We're likely to have a big EV sales surge until Sept. 30th, but when the $7500 EV credit ends things will get more challenging. Probably the manufacturers will just keep putting money on the hood for the next six months to move the metal, but with loses on every one sold they might consider significantly reducing EV production in a few months.

Third (and probably final) dealer service on the Maverick this morning, the second one at this dealer (James Collins Ford). Asked for the $39.95 synthetic blend special, a brake flush, one TSB, and two recalls. Brake flush was only $80.78, which was impressively cheap compared to what I expected.

The $39.95 oil change rang up as $90.27 straight parts and labor. The service writer's explanation was that the special was only for five quarts of oil, and my car took six, so I'm not eligible for the special. This is contrary to every other shop I've visited that will honor the special and charge for the extra quart, along with the tax and disposal fees that aren't included in the special.

I used some Ford points and only paid $80.94 out of pocket, but it left a very bad taste in my mouth, and I won't be back to that dealer. Similar issue on my first visit there, which they corrected when I left a review calling them out, but I'm just going to cut my losses at this point.

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I don’t know why you’re backing off now especially since you don’t plan to go back. Therefore, this is the perfect time to slam them. That tactic sounds like a classic bate-and-switch maneuver since a lot of cars today take more than 5 quarts. I’m sure other customers would like to know how this dealer operates.

jmonroe

Dealers will try anything.

Once I fell for a buy 3 get one free oil change scam at the dealer where I bought a 1997 Chrysler Cirrus. When I brought it in they told me that the deal was not for the Cirrus but for the 2000 Chrysler Concord I had bought at another dealer and no longer owned. I had them drop the lift and left.

Just yesterday my son took a friend to a Kia dealer to look at a Sorento which was listed on their website. Despite being on the lot for 79 days the salesman told the friend that the title for the vehicle had not arrived and he would be willing to sell it to her but she couldn’t register it. He then started pushing to sell other cars. They left.

Hyundai and Kia dealers are the worst. In Louisville you can include the Genesis dealer as well.

Bradford pears are bad news. Not only for their short lifespans and splitting, but the latest varieties sold reproduce into woodlands and crowd out native trees. To be avoided 100%.

Agreed! Not only are they stinky when flowering, but they have definitely moved toward the more invasive end of the spectrum as they continue to establish. Funny enough, the various cultivars themselves are not able to produce viable seed, but the different cultivars readily intermix to produce viable seed and, once a viable population of trees is established, they spread rapidly.

I find it interesting, even if not surprising, just how many ornamental species turn out to be frustratingly invasive with the passage of time. In Alaska, chokecherries are our primary "invasive" when it comes to trees.

You all have my home town of Glenn Dale, MD, to thank for the Bradford Pear. It was bred at a US Plant Introduction facility there, and only introduced in the 1960s. It's not supposed to be able to reproduce, and among other Bradford Pears, I don't think it's mutated to the point that it does, yet. However, it DOES reproduce with other, non-Bradford Pears, and the offspring are these invasive things that grow up jagged and crooked, have thorns long enough and strong enough to pierce the sole of a shoe. And they get a fruit on them that's maybe the size of a very plump grape, and does taste somewhat like a pear. The birds love 'em, and that helps spread them.

I remember first noticing them as a kid in the late 70's. There was a field on a hill that we used to go sled riding on. At the bottom of the hill was a thin line of brush and small trees separating one field from another. If we got going too fast on that hill, sometimes we'd end up in that line of brush, where some of those trees were growing. Wasn't too long before we got impaled!

Glenn Dale is pretty much Ground Zero for these things, and as you get away from it, they thin out, quickly. But I guess anywhere you have Bradford Pears, these mutants can form if there are other types of Pear trees around.

There is a type of pear tree called a "Callery Pear" that has thorns. But I think these mutant-offshoot things I'm thinking of are something different.