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Jim Hackett to retire as CEO of Ford; Jim Farley named successor Michael Martinez, Automotive News / August 4, 2020 DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Hackett will retire later this year after more than three years leading the automaker and will be succeeded by COO Jim Farley, the company said Tuesday. Hackett, 65, did not give a reason for his retirement, effective Oct. 1. Ford said he would work with Farley, 58, over the next two months to ensure a smooth transition. "I am very grateful to Jim Hackett for all he has done to modernize Ford and prepare us to compete and win in the future," Bill Ford, Ford's executive chairman, said in a statement. "Our new product vision – led by the Mustang Mach-E, new F-150 and Bronco family – is taking shape. "We now have compelling plans for electric and autonomous vehicles, as well as full vehicle connectivity. And we are becoming much more nimble, which was apparent when we quickly mobilized to make life-saving equipment at the outset of the pandemic." Hackett was elevated to CEO in May 2017 to be a change agent at Ford and help speed up its decision making. Under his tenure, Ford instituted a global redesign that prioritized what he called design-thinking. "My goal when I took on the CEO role was to prepare Ford to win in the future," Hackett said in a statement. "The hardest thing for a proud, long-lived company to do is change to meet the challenges of the world it's entering rather than the world it has known. I'm very proud of how far we have come in creating a modern Ford and I am very optimistic about the future."

Amazing restoration of a 1982 Autocar DK-64 by our friends at Waste Pro USA! Incredible Job! Always Up - Autocar Trucks .

MarketWatch / August 3, 2020 Shares of Eastman Kodak tumbled 24% in afternoon trading Monday, putting them on track for a third-straight double-digit percentage decline, after the company, which is getting into the pharmaceuticals ingredients business, disclosed that holders of convertible notes were exercising their right to convert notes into common stock. Kodak stock has now dropped 50% since skyrocketing 16-fold in three days to $33.20 on July 29, after the Trump administration announced on July 28 that Kodak received a $765 million loan, as part of a Defense Production Act directive to loosen the reliance on foreign sources for pharmaceutical ingredients. In an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, Kodak said the holders of the 5.00% convertible notes due 2021, which were issued in May 2019, are converted a total of $95 million of the notes into 29.9 million shares of Kodak common stock, on July 29. That would imply a value of $3.175 per converted share, while the stock was currently trading at $16.58. On July 27, Kodak granted CEO James Continenza options to buy Kodak stock at various strike prices, which are now all in the money, to "protect" him from dilution of his share holdings, in case the convertible debt issued in May 2019 were converted into stock.

This is one of Jay's best video yet. Extremely rare car. For 1934, so far, far ahead of its time.

Jesper Eriksson, Scania General Manager / August 3, 2020 Still working hard ! .

I've gotten over the Model 3's expressionless front fascia. But I'm not crazy about most of the dash controls being on the tablet. As for build quality/pain finish, that's improving to acceptable levels. But this Sony car from a distance looks very impressive.

Too late to the party with nothing new to offer. Inferior to Paccar’s offerings. Can’r touch Freightliner, Navistar and Ford Medium on price. So what was the point of this exercise? Create a tax loss?

A protoype, it's arguably more attractive than industry leader Tesla's designs. .

Daily Mail / July 31, 2020 Kodak CEO Jim Continenza was awarded 1.75 million stock options one day before the Trump administration announced a $765 million loan to develop generic pharmaceuticals - sending stock prices soaring and netting the CEO a potential $30 million profit. CEO Jim Continenza and three other top Kodak executives were awarded stock options that included the right to buy Kodak stock at $3.03, $4.53, $6.03, and $12 per share until February 2026. According to filings obtained by the Popular Information newsletter, Continenza was the primary beneficiary, having been awarded 1.75 million options. Most of those options - 981,707 shares - were purchased at a stock price of $3.03 per share. Continenza was also awarded options at $4.53, purchasing nearly 300,000 shares.

On Tuesday, July 28, the White House tweeted: "We have reached a historic deal with @Kodak to begin producing critical pharmaceutical ingredients right here in America!" And the stock lifted off, peaking the next day, July 29. I myself don't think the executive branch of the US government, nor any other branch, should communicate via Twitter. (For the record, I don't participate in any so-called social media including Twitter and Facebook).

Kodak went from a low of $2.13 a share on Monday, July 27th, to a high of $60.00 on Wednesday, July 29th.

Ford will defer some quarterly payments on Energy Dept. loan Reuters / July 31, 2020 Ford Motor Co. said Friday it had won approval to defer some quarterly payments due on its U.S. Energy Department retooling loan, but added it will repay the loan on time by June 2022. In September 2009, Ford was awarded a $5.9 billion low-cost government loan, a key source of liquidity in the aftermath of the financial crisis. The automaker said its loan was modified in June to reduce quarterly principal payments from $148 million to $37 million. Ford said it has $1.26 billion of remaining principal left on the loan. An Energy Department spokeswoman said "the flexibility the Loan Programs Office was able to provide through this loan modification is a good example of what (Energy) Secretary Brouillette meant when he asked for all of the Department’s resources to be supportive of the energy industry during the COVID-19 pandemic." Ford said "with COVID-19 related economic uncertainty remaining, we believe that is worthwhile to further strengthen our balance sheet and increase liquidity to optimize our financial flexibility." The company noted that if it opts to pay a dividend, repurchase shares above a certain threshold, or provide security to other lenders it will have to revert to the original payment schedule. The company said Friday that "deferring a portion of the principal until the maturity date will also result in incremental interest cost to Ford, in addition to the cost to modify the loan. All costs associated with the modification were covered by Ford through a higher interest rate." But it added, "the financing remains very cost-effective." The Energy Department did not comment.

The Xcient is a superb heavy truck. In Oz, they don't know how to get started.

Yes, they could. Their Euro 6 engine can also meet US emissions. Hyundai is contemplating bringing the Xcient to the states as a conventional (bonneted) cab truck.

Ford’s Attempt to Turn Corner Boosted by Earnings Beat Keith Naughton, Bloomberg / July 30, 2020 Ford Motor Co. posted much better-than-expected results for the latest quarter but projected a full-year loss as it attempts to pull off a restructuring amid the carnage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The automaker said Thursday its operating loss in the second quarter was less than half the $5 billion deficit it had predicted, due mainly to undiminished demand for its sport utility vehicles and trucks despite springtime factory and showroom closures. Ford’s adjusted loss of 35 cents a share was considerably better than the $1.18 per share loss analysts forecast. The economic crisis caused by the viral outbreak hit Ford two years into an $11 billion global reorganization that leaves Jim Hackett, the company’s chief executive officer, little room for error amid an extended earnings slump. It also comes as the automaker prepares to roll out three critical new models aimed at reversing its fortunes: the electric Mustang Mach-E, the revived Bronco SUV and a redesigned version of its top-selling F-150 pickup, its most profitable model. The virus shutdown at Ford plants delayed those launches by about two months. Ford’s $1.9 billion loss before interest and taxes compares with crosstown rival General Motors’ second quarter loss of $536 million. In the third quarter, Ford is projecting an adjusted profit of $500 million to $1.5 billion. For the full-year, it expects to post an adjusted loss. Ford ended the second quarter with more than $39 billion in cash on hand, including $10 billion in new debt. Ford said it has repaid almost half of its $15.4 billion in revolving credit and expects to maintain or exceed a cash balance of $20 billion for the rest of 2020 “even if global demand declines or there is another major wave of pandemic-related plant closures.”

Americans will be living with the coronavirus for decades Dr. Michael Osterholm, epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota This interview is the first in a series of conversations MarketWatch will conduct with some of the leading voices in the U.S. on the COVID-19 pandemic On Jan. 20, just nine days after Chinese health authorities published the DNA sequence for a new coronavirus that had sickened dozens of people in China, Dr. Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, wrote in an email: “I’m certain this will cause our next pandemic.” The next day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first U.S. case of someone infected with what became known as COVID-19. Since then, as outbreaks intensified and the virus spread to Europe, and then the Americas, Osterholm, a flu expert with experience working in the CDC who heads up the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, has become one of the nation’s leading voices on the pandemic, weighing in on everything from masks to contact tracing. Osterholm’s viewpoint is sobering. The 67-year-old expects the novel coronavirus to be present for the rest of his life. He doesn’t believe the wave theory (a first wave, a lull, following by other waves) will apply to this pandemic. “That’s not what’s happening here,” he told MarketWatch in an interview. MarketWatch: One of the things I’m pretty interested in is the talk and the hope around a vaccine. Do you think we have misconceptions about what it means when we have a vaccine? Michael Osterholm: Everyone is looking at the vaccine as being a light switch: on or off. And I look at it as a rheostat, that’s going to take a long time, from turning it on from its darkest position to a lightest position. If you’re anticipating a light switch, you’re going to be concerned, confused, and in some cases very disappointed in what it might look like in those first days to months with a vaccine. MarketWatch: I saw a piece in The Atlantic this week and I thought they positioned it well. They described it as the beginning of the end. Osterholm: It won’t be. We will be dealing with this virus forever. Effective and safe vaccines and hopefully ones with some durability will be very important, even critical tools, in fighting it. But the whole world is going to be experiencing COVID-19 ‘til the end of time. We’re not going to be vaccinating our way out of this to eight-plus billion people in the world right now. And if we don’t get durable immunity, we’re potentially looking at revaccination on a routine basis, if we can do that. We’ve really got to come to grips with actually living with this virus, for at least my lifetime, and at the same time, it doesn’t mean we can’t do a lot about it. MarketWatch: Do you think we’re going to see some of these vaccines fail in clinical studies? Osterholm: One of the challenges we have is: what do we mean by fail? What’s the definition? Some people right now have a view that any vaccine that isn’t like the measles vaccine is going to be a challenge, meaning they’ve got to work 93% to 98% of the time. I don’t think there’s any sense that that’s going to happen with this vaccine. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t going to be an effective vaccine at 50%, 60% or 70%. We have to keep watching for safety signals. We have to make sure that over time we can assure the public with open and transparent data that: This is what you can expect in terms of reactions, this is what might have any long-term complications. MarketWatch: When it comes to how medical information is being disseminated, there have been a lot of changes. You’ve done some peer review and work with journals. Do you think some of these preliminary scientific writings are being shared with the public too soon? Osterholm: Oh, absolutely. We’re drinking from a fire hose right now in terms of new information. You can make the case that’s important because we’re in a position to learn things that could have a very real impact on patient outcome and therefore getting the data out are critical. But then there’s a downside to that, too, because with that comes an increasing amount of marginal if not potentially erroneous information. MarketWatch: Do you think we’re going to see distinct waves of outbreaks in the U.S.? Osterholm: No, no. They’re not waves. We’ve never had a pandemic due to coronavirus before. We’ve had influenza pandemics. With an influenza pandemic, you do get true waves, meaning you get a first big peak of cases, then the numbers come down substantially without any human intervention. It’s nothing we do. We’ve never understood why that happens, and then a few months later you get a second wave. At this point, that’s not what’s happening here. This is like a forest fire, full steam ahead. And wherever there’s human wood to burn, it’ll do it. What we see, though, are these spikes in cases where human mitigation strategies ended, or they’re not adhering to them ... This is just one constant pressure that’s occurring. MarketWatch: And human mitigation [like mask wearing or social distancing] declines? Osterholm: Right. And everyone’s expecting it. Look at Hong Kong, which is doing an outstanding public health follow up, and yet they are still having a problem. Think of this like a big forest fire. If you’re in the way of it, you’re going to get burned. The best we can do is try to put out as much as we can. But even knowing that, if you just suppress it, it’s going to come back. The embers are still there because we never really put it out. MarketWatch: What do you think the biggest failure in the U.S. response has been? Osterholm: We’ve failed because we declared victory over the virus when we had no business doing so. This virus has been poised to be transmitted in our communities, and we thought we had done enough to get it down. It’s like a fire crew. “I only put out half the forest fire but you know, I put out half so we’re done.” And then look what happened. It’s burned more acres since we gave up than it did before we gave up. MarketWatch: What was that moment when you realize the seriousness of this virus? Osterholm: I just could tell based on all the data we had, and it was one of those “oh my God” moments. No one knew for certain how a coronavirus is going to act, and, unfortunately, it’s fulfilling all my worst nightmares. One challenge that is yet to really be understood is just what kind of durable immunity we get from infection and vaccine. We’re making assumptions right now that’s going to last. If it doesn’t, that really complicates things. If you have double, triple, and quadruple jeopardy with this virus, that’s not a pretty picture. MarketWatch: Are we getting going to get close to [herd immunity] by a vaccine? Or is the goal to keep as many people safe as possible? Osterholm: Again, it goes back to the question we just discussed: is there durable immunity? Because herd immunity is based on the concept that once you have immunity, it stays. One of our goals has been to postpone as many cases we can until the vaccine is available and use that as your means for getting 50% to 70% of the population protected. But we don’t know what immunity means for either natural disease or vaccine. Herd immunity is still, in some ways, that theoretical state to get to but we’re not sure we ever will.

Ford Trucks International / July 29, 2020 Ford Trucks debuts, in collaboration with Groupe CAT, a multinational company specializing in automotive distribution, its spare parts warehouse in Madrid. More than 10,000 m2 and 18 people dedicated to providing agile and efficient response to the needs of our customers. We don't stop so you don't stop. #PoweredByFordTrucks #SharingTheLoad .

Volvo Preps for Full Mack MD Production Heavy Duty Trucking (HT) / July 27, 2020 Sweden-based Volvo Group recently began initial production of its all-new Mack MD Series of medium-duty trucks at its Roanoke Valley Operations (RVO) facility in the Roanoke Valley, Virginia. Full production of the Mack MD Series is scheduled to begin September 1. .

Truck anti-spray skirting: https://www.fleetengineers.com/product-category/brush-kits/ https://www.easternmarine.com/heavy-duty-truck-trailer-fenders http://www.brushsolutions.net/ https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/TWRFLT03100716 http://www.fiberbuilt.com/industrial/shop-rv-truck-anti-spray/

I had many dealings with that spec........mostly WS767LST's with 350 Cummins, short wheelbase, steel budds, large diameter fuel tanks, and Dayton (Reyco-looking) suspensions. Ryder liked how the Dayton rear hangers had replaceable rubber wear pads (attached with 2 bolts). .

General Motors slides to a loss on falling demand for cars in the US Financial Times / July 29, 2020 General Motors fell to a loss in the second quarter, dragged down by a collapse in profits and falling sales from its traditionally lucrative North American operations. Global sales at the Chevrolet and Buick owner halved to $16.8bn in the quarter, with a net loss of $758m, compared with a $2.4bn profit in the same period in 2019. Its North American arm posted a $101m net loss for the quarter, compared with a $3bn profit in the same period a year earlier. US sales of Chevy trucks fell from 248,000 to 176,000, while deliveries from its GMC truck brand slid from 153,000 to 100,000. Both units are significant profit drivers at the business. Total US vehicle sales fell from 747,000 to 492,000, while global sales dropped from 1.9m to 1.5m. Both its international arm and its self-driving Cruise business also lost money, while profits from its financial division halved from $536m to $226m. The company managed to eke out a $294m profit in the first quarter, buoyed by truck sales in the US.

The Wall Street Journal. /. July 28, 2020 Eastman Kodak Co. has won a $765 million government loan under the Defense Production Act, the first of its kind. The purpose: to help expedite domestic production of drugs that can treat a variety of medical conditions and loosen the U.S. reliance on foreign sources.

Paul, Sears (management) failed to evolve forward, particularly since 1990 when it became critical to do so. As others have said, they were ahead of their time for decades (though ironically they might not have realized it, not knowing of a Amazon online future awaiting).