The head of the Ford Electric Effort threw some serious shade at Tesla over the quality issues and promised that you wouldn’t have to make that concession with Ford electric cars.
Darren Palmer, one of the original members of Ford’s Edison team tasked with designing the brand’s first all-electric car and now head of Ford and Lincoln’s battery-electric vehicle development, had some interesting comments in a new interview.
In an interview with Automatic record On the sidelines of the launch of the Mustang Mach-E, Palmer said electric vehicle buyers so far have had to concede and accept some “flaws.”
He said:
“The doors are suitable, the plastic and other materials are identical in color, the bumpers do not fall off, the roof does not burst when washed, and the door handles do not hang in cold weather.
Although the CEO didn’t mention Tesla by name, many of these quality issues have often been associated with the brand.
He says buyers will not have to make these “compromises” with Ford electric cars.
Take an electric
It would be easy to respond with “yes but” and list all the things that Tesla does better than Ford when it comes to electric vehicles because there are so many of them.
Tesla cars have a longer range, can charge faster, and are more efficient than the new Ford Mustang Mach-E.
But Palmer has a point here, too. If we can tell he’s talking about Tesla without even mentioning him by name and listing a bunch of quality issues that we associate with the brand, that tells us Tesla has some quality issues.
Tesla’s fast pace resulted in some quality issues and we have particularly seen those that occurred in early new car launches, such as the With Model Y in 2020, And during Tesla’s quarter-end payouts when the automaker tries to deliver massive numbers of cars in very short periods of time.
The automaker should definitely work on that, but at the same time, this fast pace is also what drives innovation and leads to Tesla achieving industry-leading specifications with its electric vehicles, especially when it comes to efficiency and range.
Some people always prefer it while others prefer to go with Ford and maybe avoid these quality issues.
I think the two companies should look to each other for improvement here, and I’m excited by the potential of the new electric competition to push the overall quality of the new electric cars even higher.
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