Maxidyne

GOP, you have a loose cannon...

Explanation I heard from a Mack dealer is that a lot of customers that really should buy a Granite for their vocational/construction/farm application buy a Pinnacle or Anthem instead because they're a couple thousand $$$ cheaper and the "on highway" Pinnacle or Anthem gets a longer warranty than the vocational trucks like the Granite.

Just kidding, a lot of the market for "Flintstones" Macks has gone to the MR, and fiberglass hoods have improved to the point where steel is a less attractive alternative. Steel hoods are aerodynamic disaster areas too, and one of Mack's advantages in the vocational market is the rounded more aerodynamic hood of the Granite. A lot of vocational trucks put on a coupe hundred highway models a day, so an aerodynamic work truck has a big advantage over the primitive designs of some other truck makers.

Pretty much the whole cab is steel.

That's what the MR is for.

The electric cars create lots of buzz but low single digit market share. I've seen the 10 billion number in several places, VW Group reportedly spent $25B on their electric car, but it's actually in production. I suspect Ford execs got into electrics when they saw Tesla's stock skyrocket and thought it would do the same for their Ford stock as they approach retirement. Problem is, Tesla's buyers and stockholders are a cult with immense brand loyalty- GM has an electric car available that is the equal of the Tesla Model 3, but it does't sell well because Tesla cultists still think GM is the evil empire that killed the electric car. The cults (Mustang, Tesla, VW, Suburu, Porsche, etc.) make it difficult for a manufacturer to move into new market sectors- Perhaps Ford would be smart to concentrate on their market leaders- F-series, Transits, Mustang, and a new Taurus?

I'd love to see Ford independent and back to it's former glory, but it may be too late- They've blown $10B on the electric "Mustang" but their supplier can only provide 50,000 batteries a year. Another half billion on 'lectric pickup vaporware start up Rivian, can't Ford build an electric pickup nobody wants on their own? The Detroit depot project probably has a couple hundred million already spent and contracted of it's half billion dollar rehab cost, while office space sits empty everywhere. Then there's the $8B of junk bonds Ford sold to the Fed so they can offer 0% loans to try to unload their million vehicle inventory of the wrong vehicles, all while chasing away a couple hundred thousand car customers a year. On paper Ford is already bankrupt, the filing will be just a formality. The Fords would be wise to accept any merger offer they can get from VW Group while they still have a bit of bargaining power to negotiate protection of Ford jobs, product lines, and the Ford heritage.

The Fords and Porsches need to have a proper German family picnic with the best German and Irish foods followed by a night at an Irish pub with the best of each nations libations and do the deal a merge these great automakers! "BREAKINGVIEWS-A Ford-VW tie-up would solve a ton of problems 12:05 PM ET, 05/22/2020 - Reuters (The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.) By Antony Currie and Christopher Thompson NEW YORK/LONDON, May 22 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The brouhaha about President Donald Trump not always wearing a mask while visiting a Ford Motor plant on Thursday may provide the carmaker’s embattled boss with a welcome distraction. Friday marks three years since Chief Executive Jim Hackett took the wheel from ousted predecessor Mark Fields – and he has had a rough ride: Ford has lost half its value during his tenure, plummeting to $22 billion, compared to General Motors’ 23% drop. A merger with Volkswagen could be the way forward. The two rivals are already collaborating on electric and autonomous vehicles. It’s a decent way to share the huge costs of developing the next generation of cars. But it doesn’t solve their respective weaknesses. The U.S. market has been $75 billion Volkswagen’s weak link for a long time. In 2019, the German automaker’s market share in light vehicles was a mere 4%, according to Jefferies, including the Porsche and Audi brands. Joining forces with Ford would give the two almost a fifth of U.S. sales, rivaling GM. Ford, meanwhile, has struggled to turn a sustainable profit in Europe and has stumbled in China. By contrast, the latter is VW’s most significant single market, accounting for two-fifths of its global vehicle deliveries. A merger would make the new company the largest carmaker in the world by volumes sold. A deal would be financially compelling, too. Assume a VolksFord combo can cut the same 2.4% of overall costs as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Peugeot are for their tie-up. That’d save nearly $10 billion a year. Taxed and capitalized, those could be worth $65 billion once restructuring costs of $14.5 billion are subtracted, equal to around two-thirds of the automakers’ current combined market value. Both companies have convoluted family ownership, though. The Porsche-Piech families hold 53% of VW votes, while the Fords control 40% of the company thanks to supervoting stock. Resolving that to both sides’ satisfaction presents a major stumbling block to striking a deal. Were they to succeed, VW Chair Herbert Diess could end up driving a more powerful model – and Hackett will have found a graceful exit."

Interesting that the big banks seem to be running the automakers these days, advancing credit to suppliers, makers, dealers, and consumers to try to keep sales up and losses down. I sold off a bunch of stocks as the market started to tank and have enough cash to buy a new Mack (but I know better), and have been hunting for a good deal on a new car. But seems most of the incentives offered are zero percent financing, and having paid cash for just about every thing the last few decades the banks know I'm not a credit junkie and won't give me that zero percent financing. I'm in no rush, it's early in this depression and better deals will come and strange deals will happen- For a start, Carl Icahn will probably become the world's largest used car dealer in a few days when Hertz will likely go bankrupt and he's majority shareholder...

One of the measures of good non-partisan leadership is that your getting complaints from both sides, and Governor Walz is getting complaints from the medical professions that he's opening up Minnesota too fast as well as from the right that he's opening up too slow. One of the measures of a good scientist is that they admit the limitations of their ability to forecast, and that's what Governor Walz is doing. This is similar to flood forecasting, where the flood crest forecasts are in ranges of probability because even with supercomputers and thousands of data points the NWS admits their forecasts are "only" 80% accurate 7 days out. When you've got a flood forecast in a week that will cause 100 million in property damage but that loss can be prevented if 100 thousand dollars is spent on sandbags, a good leader buys the sandbags... That's what Governor Walz is doing.

Those were pretty common on Allison equipped trucks.

You don't know Tim Walz, I do. He's a school teacher and National Guard member, became an officer and earned a PHD. If he's taken a stand, there's a good reason for it- He doesn't just take the democratic party position on issues, he takes in the arguments of all sides and then comes up with a position that blends the best of all the arguments. His whole administration is like that- They came up with their own forecasting model that takes into account Minnesota's unique geography and demographics. They sweat the details- Minnesota's Agriculture Department has been helping butchers and small meat processors increase their capacity so farmers have more markets for their livestock when the packing plants were shut down. This is how Minnesota works and why we're one of the most successful states.

The republican Trump administration is currently "in power and in bureaucracies".

What is this "deep state" of which you speak?

I'll agree on the debt, and the COVID-19 relief packages were very poorly planned and executed, for example 80% of Ford dealers got grants/loans under the PPP program for small businesses, whether they needed it or not. Same with the $1200 checks, I sure as heck don't need mine and will donate it to charities. But COVID-19 is no farce- While northern Wisconsin has been largely spared, two counties away from me they had over a thousand cases and it's now spreading into my county. Just like the models predicted, COVID-19 can spread anywhere, it just takes longer for it to reach the rural areas.

While I disagree with kscarbel2 that all government is corrupt, being as I and my fellow small town council members work for pennies an hour given we're only paid $35 a month, I will agree that both parties are just as susceptible to corruption. While the Chicago democratic machine is legendary, when my republican brother ran for a non-partisan Park Board seat in a republican suburb of Chicago he had the whole republican machine turn on him because he wouldn't join their machine. In heavily democratic Minneapolis and St.Paul you'll see multi million dollar projects steered to the same handful of favored contractors, and out here in the republican dominated rural areas contracts are routinely steered to cronies, often without even the formality of competitive bidding. But everywhere we've got public employees who could make as much money retired as the do working still plowing snow and keeping the utilities working in their 70s... So not all of us are corrupt, thank god.

That a Ford Bi-Directional?

There were also some customers that loved the R model so much that even after the R model was discontinued instead of buying CHs they ordered RDs with lighter specs to use as on-highway tractors. I've even seen a couple with sleeper boxes!

IIRC Wilson had U models with Cummins 903s because they went around all the manufacturers taking bids for the truck and engine separately. Mack was the low bidder on the truck and Cummins must have a lot of 903s laying around because they underbid everyone else with the 903.

While the 60 Series is a great engine, about the only thing it had over Mack's E6 and E7 was several hundred pounds of dead weight!

I watched the annual meeting, the best part was the ads they ran before the meeting- Some great production work. The meeting was totally predictable, with a script little changed from before Ford bonds fell to junk status and COVID-19 intervened- Ford is going full speed ahead with electric cars that now have no market and borrowing at 9% so Ford Credit can make 0% loans on $40k F150s. That business plan no longer works, but when the Ford family has supermajority voting rights this drunken with power management masquerading as an automaker could go on for years. Bill Ford already said "Hell No" to their best exit strategy, a sell out disguised as a face saving merger with VW Group. With suppliers unlikely to push Ford into bankruptcy and even big institutional shareholders unable to bring Ford back to reality, how many years can Ford hang on as a "zombie" penny stock company making not even a million vehicles a year, some of which actually get sold and paid for?

Back in the mid 90s I drove a CH with an E7-350 pulling a roll off trailer, weighed over 40,000 pounds empty and close to the legal limit of 80,000 loaded. Also had some Louisvilles with 425 HP Cats in the fleet, they were no faster and a good thousand pounds heavier.

With the entire industry devalued, perhaps VW Group is looking at bigger acquisition targets?

Like in war, it's the wounded, not the dead, that bring the greatest costs. With COVID-19 we're seeing a substantial percentage of the infected people hospitalized for weeks, then never fully recover so they'll need ongoing treatment for life. So figure at least a million dollars in lifetime health care costs per person. They'll probably be unable to work too, so figure another million in Workers Comp and/or disability benefits. If even just a couple percent of a company's workers get disabled like this it will wipe out the corporations profits for decades. This is why Costco and even Menards are requiring not just their workers but customers also wear masks. This is why the engineering company that is designing our town's water system rebuild are working from home and will appear at our next meeting via Zoom online. It's not 1950 anymore, it's not even 2019 anymore... We have to work safely or COVID-19 will kick our ass.

A lot of it comes down to liability- Our city gets it's liability insurance through the state League of Cities, and a typical hospital bill for COVID-19 treatment will run into six figures. The insurance actuaries have done the numbers and figured out that ignoring precautions could very well bankrupt the plan, so we have to follow our state's and the CDC's rules or we lose our insurance coverage. Good luck finding an insurance company that will insure an organization that won't follow those rules.