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How Ford burned $12B in Brazil (2021)
- cladopa 7mo agoIt must be said: Mr Ford created way more wealth in the world than what it destroyed. For example, the Japanese discovered that importing Ford cars from Japan was cheaper that manufacturing those in Japan, including all the shipping cost. The same happened in Russia, Germany and most places of the West world. The new manufacturing method was a revolution that have generated trillions.
- ProAm 7mo agoStill a wild antisemitic so.... money isn't everything.
- elorant 7mo agoI don’t understand why you’re downvoted. Hitler considered him an inspiration and praised him in Mein Kampf. Ford funded and published “The Dearborn Independent” which was a newspaper full of libel against Jews. Sure he was a visionary industrialist, but also a vile human being.
- ulfw 7mo agoSo is Elon Musk and yet he is the richest man on Earth, has meddled in government freely and fanboys still believe every fart that is coming out of him. He used to be into making cars too but that clearly fell off the wayside
- kakacik 7mo ago... and has very little respect here. Some fanboys aren't a guide to amount of respect one deserves, regardless of topic. I must say he redeemed himself tiny little bit in my eyes when he blocked russian use of starlink in their war in Ukraine, I didn't register any apparent reason apart from stopping murdering of civilians by russians, but thats been happening during whole war in non-trivial numbers. But he also famously sabotaged their naval drones mid attack by disabling all of them during early phase of the war, to not sink half of black sea naval fleet at one go, so... a complicated, highly unreliable person. I think everybody can easily find deep flaws in him, be them personal or professional (ie he is POS father based on many accounts for example, thats not flying with most parents that know this). Then it matters if folks have firm hard-to-bend moral values or are more flexible with them. Based on experience most people are quite a bit flexible, otherwise they would have to hate themselves too a lot.
- lostlogin 7mo agoIt’s deeply average that Musk is improving his behaviour when he stops helping Russia.
- charcircuit 7mo ago[flagged]
- jazzyjackson 7mo agobuZZER Sorry, libel against Jewish people is not a different opinion!
- charcircuit 7mo agoThat is not what I said. The gp used the term "antisemitic" which by definition means having a negative opinion on semites. You are looking to argue semantics while I'm trying to answer a question.
- octopoc 7mo agoNo, that’s exactly what it is
- jazzyjackson 7mo agoWould you at least allow a distinction between having theories about Jews and publishing theories about Jews? Parent poster wasn’t disparaging Ford for merely committing WrongThink, IMO it’s quite another thing to support a newspaper to put your libel in front of the public to misinform and cast ire against a race of people To be clear I don’t think Ford should have been prevented from publishing his opinion, as an American I am a free speech hardliner, but I do think we can decide not to celebrate people based on their public speech and actions Just MHO :)
- octopoc 7mo ago[dead]
- jazzyjackson 7mo agoGets undue credit for assembly lines, guns and pocket watches were moving that way too, I wonder what middle school history book publisher cemented his legacy
- sidewndr46 7mo ago> the Japanese discovered that importing Ford cars from Japan was cheaper that manufacturing those in Japan maybe I just don't understand, but something seems off with this statement?
- sushid 7mo agoto Japan* I think
- Hasslequest 7mo agoI think what they're getting at here is that it's cheaper for countries to import the car from themselves because you don't have to cover the cost of manufacturing, just the cost of transport (which is low, because you are importing it from yourself).
- lysace 7mo agoAnd now an authoritarian one-party country (I think it's decidedly sliding into a dictatorship) is winning car manufacturing - and possibly almost all of manufacturing except high-end semiconductors and optics. The future is going to be interesting. :/
- dmoo 7mo agoJust as an aside - The album Fordlandia https://open.spotify.com/album/2I4uGgkMgN3UGE8ZQjCMjB?si=qdGXlmMNQfaKaNq7Gc59BQ https://open.spotify.com/album/2I4uGgkMgN3UGE8ZQjCMjB?si=qdG...
- SPascareli13 7mo agoInteresting aside, BYD (Chinese EV automaker) has took over production in the old Ford factory in Camaçari.
- roysting 7mo agoI was just reading an article on how BYD's flash charger can apparently charge a battery from 10-70% in 5 min and full in 9 min. That's basically refueling speeds.
- hvb2 7mo agoThe only use for that is for people that cannot charge at home I would think. After having driven for 4 to 5 hours a 15 minute break is not an issue? If you can charge while you sleep, you would typically have enough capacity to make it through a normal day? Yes, there are probably exceptions but if you're not a commercial driver and drive >250 miles a day, that sucks....
- rjsw 7mo agoIt would be helpful for the current generation of smaller electic vehicles that are fine for daily use but would need to stop every 100 miles on a longer trip in winter.
- whatevaa 7mo agoSmaller battery, slower max charging. Higher speeds are achieveed by parallelization.
- hvb2 7mo agoI have driven a leaf since 2016 and I can tell you that no one will do this with 100 miles between stops. Because the stops aren't at exact intervals, you might be stopping every 80 to 90 miles since you don't want to risk not getting to the next. At that rate, you're adding time really quickly as charging might take 8 minutes but getting to and from the charger easily adds another 4 to 8 minutes. At that point you're talking about adding about 10 to 16% to your total time taken
- luqtas 7mo agothey also managed to buy and destroy a really proeminent 4x4 national company [0] it's tech was of course, eaten by them [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troller_Ve%C3%ADculos_Especiais https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troller_Ve%C3%ADculos_Especiai...
- dartharva 7mo agoFord burnt a lot in India too iirc, it had to exit the market rather unceremoniously
- locao 7mo agoThis article is wrong at its core. > The study was commissioned by Brazilian auto industry group Anfavea Nothing that comes from Anfavea is trustable. It's a crooked association of a few automakers that will try to push the government to give every subside to them and tax the other ones to the brim. The article tries to justify Ford Mexican cars low sales numbers in Brazil using every flawed argument Anfavea uses. For instance: > On Thursday, Ford launched its new Bronco Sport SUV in Brazil. Made in Mexico, it is exported to the U.S. where it starts at $26,820. In Brazil, where per capita income is much lower, Ford said the Mexican-made car will retail for $48,000. The key point here is "starts". Ford only imports top of the line cars in Brazil. I just searched Bronco Sport prices in Mexico in 2021, they started at $30900 up to $40000+. That $40000+ version was (still is) the only one sold in Brazil. 20% over the retail price in Mexico is not great, but far away from what the article tries to imply.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- projektfu 7mo agoStellantis is doing well in Brazil, especially with the popular Fiat Strada. The Jeeps (Compass and Commander) are also seen as aspirational cars there for many people. I imagine the Bronco was selling way above the Commander price point with less features. But the real story now is that Chinese makers (BYD, Chery) are expanding rapidly. BYD is selling people on both electric and gasoline cars. Chery has a partnership with CAOA to produce cars in Brazil. Stellantis also builds cars in Brazil. It seems that the best way to sell to the market is to build there, and keep the costs down while hitting the right price point.
- skybrian 7mo agoToo bad about the slave labor though: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/03/01/byd-slavery-allegations-brazil/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/03/01/byd-slavery-...
- DeathArrow 7mo agoStellantis doing well in any market is news to me.
- projektfu 7mo agoYeah, it's a surprise because of their missteps everywhere else.
- tuktoyaktuk 7mo ago[dead]
- Glawen 7mo agoFiat has been doing great in Brazil for years. They also have some R&D there too
- ashwinnair99 7mo agoSame story every time. Underestimate how different the market is, stay too long hoping it turns around, leave with nothing. Just had more zeroes than usual.
- manarth 7mo agohttps://archive.is/mzQjQ https://archive.is/mzQjQ