Comment on Why Americans Can’t Buy the World’s Best Electric Car
wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 4 days agoIn September 2009, Ford entered into an agreement with the Department of Energy and borrowed $5.9 billion
www.freep.com/story/money/cars/…/5526413002/
They still hadn’t paid it back in full in 2022.
LilB0kChoy@midwest.social 4 days ago
This is definitely worth mentioning but it’s also good to note that it was a loan not a bailout and Ford has repaid it.
Documents filed by Ford show the company owed payments of $591 million in 2020, $591 million in 2021, and $289 million in 2022. As of this year, the loan has been completely repaid. But the compact cars it built with the original loan have since been discontinued.
Ford also received a $9.2B loan for EV battery factory projects from the government.
psycho_driver@lemmy.world 4 days ago
The compact cars probably being the Fiesta and the Focus. The Fiesta is almost a perfect vehicle. Small but comfy for four decent sized occupants. Great gas mileage. Super reliable motor (I have one with 219,000 miles that’s never even needed a tune-up yet–5 speed manual). They put ultra shitty automatic transmissions in them that failed after 35,000 miles so all the good was nullified by that boneheaded decision. Of course you always run the risk of being turned into a grease pancake by bro-dozers all day every day when driving a car in the US.
LilB0kChoy@midwest.social 4 days ago
I like small cars. I have a 2019 Kona and I love the size but I looked at the newer ones because I’m tempted by hybrid or EV. They the newer ones bigger so I decided to just hold onto my current car for a couple more years and then I’ll look at a Telo.