Did you notice Ford first picked a fight with Tesla over what actually was an honest comparison (Cyber truck weighs what the F150 does) and that could have been the base Cybertruck (we don't know) and that F150 is very much like the F150s on the road that will be replaced by the Cybertruck. Did you also notice when Ford quickly backed off they delayed the release date by 1 year so now its being released in a few years? So they actually backed off on their launch window too. And my guess is this came when higher level Ford scrutiny started looking at what was entailed in the contest and they realized they still weren't clear on what they were doing with their over all project and delayed it.
How to tell if Ford has figured out what it is doing:
You can measure it by the number of parts it has compared to its competition. Right now an F150 has 3x more parts than the Cybertruck or put more starkly the Cybertruck has 1/3 the parts of a F150. The Cybertruck has a million mile power train and a zero maintenance exterior and about the only thing you may be replacing is tires. If we were getting ready to board a plane and plane B had 3x as many parts as plane A which would you prefer to fly on?
Let me tell you about a telltale part that separates the men from the boys. If a manufacture puts a transmission in an electric vehicle it means they don't know what they are doing. Try to find the transmission on a locomotive. If the F150 has a transmission even a 2 speed they don't know what they are doing and are trying to sell fluff. Simplicity is the principle, you replace moving parts with solid state.
Lets apply this process to updating the freight rail system. Eliminate the locomotives. Replace dead weight in the rail car construction with batteries and motor-generators for recuperative braking and power on each axle. Cover cars in PV and add aero cladding. Done! Fuel costs have been replaced by radically lower clean power costs and operations costs including stacking and loading have been radically reduced in a green way. Train performance and safety has also been increased.
How to tell if Ford has figured out what it is doing:
You can measure it by the number of parts it has compared to its competition. Right now an F150 has 3x more parts than the Cybertruck or put more starkly the Cybertruck has 1/3 the parts of a F150. The Cybertruck has a million mile power train and a zero maintenance exterior and about the only thing you may be replacing is tires. If we were getting ready to board a plane and plane B had 3x as many parts as plane A which would you prefer to fly on?
Let me tell you about a telltale part that separates the men from the boys. If a manufacture puts a transmission in an electric vehicle it means they don't know what they are doing. Try to find the transmission on a locomotive. If the F150 has a transmission even a 2 speed they don't know what they are doing and are trying to sell fluff. Simplicity is the principle, you replace moving parts with solid state.
Lets apply this process to updating the freight rail system. Eliminate the locomotives. Replace dead weight in the rail car construction with batteries and motor-generators for recuperative braking and power on each axle. Cover cars in PV and add aero cladding. Done! Fuel costs have been replaced by radically lower clean power costs and operations costs including stacking and loading have been radically reduced in a green way. Train performance and safety has also been increased.