I was ten years old the first time I saw someone do a “fatality” move in the fighting video game Mortal Kombat. I was scandalized. I didn’t know video games were allowed to do that. Curiously, I had no issue with firing missiles at boats full of terrorists in games like Desert Strike. That was comic and impersonal, whereas removing someone’s spine was both graphic and extremely personal.
Ford had a killer first half of the year, and the blue oval brand was the biggest in America (Ford, as an automaker that includes Lincoln, was not). Much of this is due to employee pricing and Ford’s plan to use the rush of people buying cars before major tariff impacts to grow market share. Now that employee pricing is going away, Ford is planning an even more aggressive action to win the second half of the year and bury its opponents.
How will Ford afford this move? As Morning Dump readers know, when the going gets tough, automakers get tougher on suppliers. Both Ford and Stellantis are trying to get better terms to make it through the back half of 2025 profitably. Can AI help? Tesla says Grok will be coming to its cars as soon as next week, which is a little bit worrying given that Grok most recently turned itself into a “MechaHitler.”
And, finally, why are cars crashing into so many pedestrians? A new article from David Zipper suggests a reason or, well, A reason. It’ll make sense in a bit.
Ford Offers ‘Zero, Zero, Zero’ Deal For Buyers
I gotta give credit to Ford’s marketing people. They love giving big names to simple ideas. Most recently, it was ’employee pricing for all’ under the extremely patriotic-sounding “From America, For America” moniker. This was a not-so-subtle dig at automakers that were not as American as Ford in terms of production. It was also well-timed to a rush of buyers coming to showrooms hoping to strike a deal before tariffs make cars more expensive.
That worked extremely well, with Ford sales climbing 14% in Q2 and Lincoln jumping ahead by 31%. The new plan is “Zero, Zero, Zero,” which I hear as “Tora! Tora! Tora!” in my head for some reason. Side note: That’s a great movie. Go watch that movie right now. I’ll wait.
Here’s how Ford describes Zero, Zero Zero:
Employee pricing for all was easy to understand and resonated with customers. But we also heard from our Ford and Lincoln dealers that more customers could benefit if we could reduce the upfront, out-of-pocket expense to buy or lease a vehicle.
Many families have seen their savings go toward higher mortgage rates and summer travel costs. They want a new vehicle but also want options that allow them to forgo an upfront down payment.
So, beginning July 8, we’re evolving. The employee pricing for all campaign transitions to the 0-0-0 summer sales event. It features zero down payment, zero percent interest for 48 months, and zero payments for the first 90 days on most of our Ford and Lincoln vehicles.
And that’s not all, tell ’em what else they get Rod Roddy:
It’s the same transparent, easy-to-shop approach for our customers. And for those interested in an electric vehicle, we are extending the Ford Power Promise through Sept. 30.
That means you can get a free charger, which is pretty neat. It’s also timed to the expiration of EV credits, which is no surprise.
There are two ways to look at this. The first is that Ford is trying to gain as much market share as possible and stick it to other automakers. Will this be the year that Bronco tops Wrangler in sales? I think it could be. Ford has the chance to be the #1 best-selling brand in America for the entire year. The product mix is right, production doesn’t appear to be restricted, and it has a tariff advantage for the moment relative to many automakers.
The other way to look at it is that Ford is doing this while it can afford to do so. The best time to sell electric cars is right now, as those expiring tax credits are going to hurt. Additionally, employee pricing is a tactic that worked with pre-tariff vehicles, as those vehicles didn’t cost Ford more to produce or sell. Now that Ford is transitioning to post-tariff vehicles, the ZZZ deal is less about lowering the price of the car and more about using Ford Credit to keep the monthly payment down. With inflation cooling and pressure on the Federal Reserve Bank to lower rates, it’s also not a bad time for Ford to float 0% financing for a while.
Now, while this all sounds like a good way to get people into the shop, there are some obvious restrictions in the fine print:
2025 model year Raptor vehicles, Bronco Sport, Bronco, Expedition, Maverick, Ranger, Transit, Super Duty and Lincoln Navigator are excluded.
2024 model year Raptor vehicles, Maverick, Ranger, Transit (non ICE Cargo/Van), Super Duty (non XL pickups), F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mach-E are excluded.
This might be the perfect time to grab a 2024 Bronco (there are about 5,000 of them still for sale according to Cars.com), but a 2025 is not in the cards. Similarly, big ticket items like any Raptor is out. The Maverick, unfortunately, is excluded, as is the Ranger. The new Mach-E and F-150 Lightning are included, but 2024 models are excluded for some reason. All Escapes and Mustangs are included, as are all F-150s and non-Navigator Lincolns.
Ford And Stellantis To Squeeze Suppliers
Carmakers, for various reasons, are clearly not excited about passing the cost of tariffs onto customers. There’s some inevitability to it, though in the interim, it looks like the classic move of leaning on suppliers is still alive and well in Detroit.
From Crain’s Detroit Business, it’s the same old song:
[A]utomakers are forcing suppliers to sign onto more stringent terms in exchange for tariff cost relief and new business, according to supplier executives, attorneys and a Crain’s Detroit Business review of contract terms.
In Ford’s case, the automaker is attempting to roll back a provision that allows suppliers to opt out of contracts on a yearly basis — a provision that Ford terms and conditions have contained for decades and which suppliers have long used for leverage in negotiations.
Stellantis, on the other hand, is distributing new term sheets seeming to assert the enforceability of its contracts after a spate of lawsuits brought a microscope to the legal standing of its supply agreements.
“(Stellantis’) effort to provide financial support to suppliers as it relates to tariffs is confidential,” Stellantis spokeswoman Jodi Tinson said in an email. “Our purchase orders have repeatedly and consistently been upheld by Michigan courts.”
After the pandemic and all those lawsuits, it’s not clear how much juice there is left in those oranges, but I’m sure automakers will find out fairly soon.
Grok AI Is Coming To Cars
We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts. Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X. xAI is training only truth-seeking and thanks to the millions of users on…
— Grok (@grok) July 8, 2025
This week Grok, the AI chatbot run by Twitter/X/Whatever, decided to post some truly awful things. I don’t want to engage too much with it, but it was wildly anti-Semitic and, at one point, started referring to itself as MechaHitler. NBC News has a bit of an explanation of this:
On Monday, NBC News reported that Grok had begun issuing some answers that seemed to take a more rightward tilt, using a more definitive voice in questions about diversity and removing some nuance it previously included in certain answers around topics that included the history of Jewish people in Hollywood and a slur used to describe people with intellectual disabilities. In some posts, Grok appeared to respond in the voice of Musk.
But Tuesday’s answers took a more dramatic turn, sometimes inserting antisemitic statements and narratives into responses without any clear prompting.
Just to make things more exciting, Grok is coming to cars very soon, according to Elon Musk. I’m sure nothing bad will happen.
Why Are Pedestrian-Car Accidents Up? Maybe It’s The A-Pillar
All of life is a trade-off, and there does seem to be some possible connection with cars getting safer for occupants and more dangerous for anyone else outside of the car. In particular, this article from David Zipper over at Bloomberg contends that maybe the thicker A-Pillars that reduce rollover risk are also impacting visibility:
If the safety effects of stronger A-pillars is neutral to positive for vehicle occupants, the converse is true for those walking, biking or inside other cars. All else being equal, a wider post will inevitably obscure a larger section of the roadway. In a 2022 study, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that SUVs and pickups were more likely than smaller cars to strike pedestrians during left-hand turns, with A-pillars cited as a probable cause. In a 2007 paper, Reed and several coauthors found a correlation between A-pillar thickness and crashes that occur during lane changes. (In an interview, Reed cautioned that those findings were more suggestive than conclusive.)
Jessica Cicchino, senior vice president for behavior and infrastructure research at IIHS, noted that size is just one of the factors that determine the extent to which A-pillars limit a driver’s vision. “It has to do with how close or far away the pillar is from the driver, and it can be different for drivers of different heights.”
Some cars have offered interesting solutions to this. Both the Fiat 500L and Suzuki SX4 offered a split A-pillar with a little window. Perhaps that could help?
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Oh boy. New York Mag suggested that perhaps “A-Lister” from Romy Mars is on the short-list for Song of the Summer. This one is tough. The song is fine. I also appreciate that Romy Mars, who is the daughter of both Sophia Copolla and Thomas Mars of Phoenix fame, tries addressing the “nepo baby” thing head-on. We can’t choose our parents. I think as an act of disclosure, it’s pretty good and I suspect we might get greatness from Mars one day, but it doesn’t have the hook needed to be a true SOTS.
The Big Question
Is Ford right to go for it, or is it going to burn itself out trying?
Top photo: Ford/Stellantis/Midway Games
Haven’t we reached peak bunker design for vehicles yet? Thick pillars, high beltlines, tiny windows, high hoods… when is it going to stop? Sure, cameras have a role, but so does stellar outward visiblity.
And what does the data say? Are the thick pillars and high hoods saving lives?
Used to work for a supplier. They have squeezed every drop out of the orange. This is not a great strategy.
I’m not knocking 0% interest but with the cost of cars now, 48 months isn’t a great carrot.
Wow almost a book here. Break it down. Auto manufacturers have done everything to get sales now the sales dried up and they have to lose money to sell cars. And since the Union cars are so poorly made they lose more money on warranty and lose sales on top that. If you lose money on sales you aren’t winning. The only option is for union made cars to be better built to the extent the warranty repairs under the union label aren’t worse than the non union. And frankly I prefer to escape the union label because they are even worse than any other buildings plant
Anyone who has driven a chevy HHR or a 5th gen camaro will tell you a thing or two about thick A-pillars. Its like the goal was to be able to completely obscure an elephant.
No government regulations forced the pillars for questionable increases in safety.
Oh thank you for correcting me
One thing to give me pause is Ford’s QA has been rather shit lately, despite Farley’s talk about making it a priority. But hey that’s what the warranty is for, yeah? Just hope you’re not one of the first customers to experience an issue they say they don’t cover.
Not only are A-pillars larger, windshields are laid back more in this era of aerodynamic focus, and this exacerbates the problem. I’ve had a couple of pedestrian scares in my newer car because of this.
Between a massive A pillar and a door mirror the size of an RFD mailbox with no gap between the two, a Grand Cherokee will hide almost anything lower than its beltline coming from the passenger front corner
Government regulations are more worried about safety in a crash as opposed to safety avoiding a crash.
I had a very small role in the film Pearl Harbor. I tell everyone I know to watch Tora! Tora! Tora! instead.
O come on you couldn’t have been that bad.
I’d tell you to watch it to find out – but that would be unethical.
“Grok AI Is Coming To Cars”
Dammit I don’t want to go to the Sudetenland.
“Squeeze the suppliers”. Yep. Pick on small businesses. Can you start by making a good-faith offer of taking some of that executive bonus money and investing it in workers, engineers, and suppliers? You know, the people who make your product and don’t just talk about it?
A lot of Americans shit-talk unions, but this is why unions were created.
Agreed. Suppliers definitely love getting squeezed from both ends, it sure is pleasant.
What to cost manufacturing so much more money they had to screw others? Union built cars are not any better mostly worse but far more expensive
How are union built cars “mostly worse”? What car models are far more expensive because of unions?
Conservatives want to bring back manufacturing but pay people dirt poor wages to do the work. What is the point of bringing back low paying jobs? Why can’t autoworkers demand better pay/benefits and work with a contract?
After deporting everyone working in the fields, will we run shuttle buses for grandma, out to the farm, to earn her Medicare?
That is the plan: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5389919-agriculture-secretary-migrant-laborers/
Every car assembled in the USA is more expensive because of unions. BEFORE the recent 25% pay bump in the last union contract UAW workers at the Detroit 3 were making $65 on average (wages and benefits). That 25% pay bump lead to increases at non-union car factories so companies like Honda, Toyota, Nissan, etc can keep the UAW out of their shops.
UAW wages are also why wages at car part plants are so crappy today. Back in the old days GM and Ford built their own parts but as as wages went up they spun off their parts divisions – which then went bankrupt as you can’t compete paying UAW wages.
So now we have workers in parts plants making peanuts and assembly workers making six figures to do basically the same job.
“The new plan is “Zero, Zero, Zero,” which I hear as “Tora! Tora! Tora!” in my head for some reason.”
In other English speaking countries is this “Zed, Zed, Zed”?
At least in football (soccer) speak it would be “Nil, Nil, Nil”. Zed stands for the letter Z, not zero.
But to be fair about 90% or more of the time soccer teams score zero at the end of most games
Actually no
Fleet-spec F-250 RCLB is the way to go here. Solid work truck.
Wait, so now we are complaining about WAP (Wide A-Pillars)?
Maybe a Weird Al song?
“Can’t see folks in the crosswalk?
That’s some Wide A Pillars.
Turns with vision blocked?
That’s some Wide A Pillars.
I’m talking WAP, WAP, WAP,
That’s some Wide A Pillars”
Yes we always do it
“ It features zero down payment, zero percent interest for 48 months, and zero payments for the first 90 days on most of our Ford and Lincoln vehicles.”
Sounds great initially. The only fly in the ointment is likely to be that you still have to pay the full sky-high MSRP.
“Grok AI Is Coming To Cars”
Having Artificial Stupidity added to a car does not interest me at all. And if I had a car that had it, I’d look at disabling it.
“Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that SUVs and pickups were more likely than smaller cars to strike pedestrians during left-hand turns, with A-pillars cited as a probable cause.”
OR maybe it’s the fact that modern trucks have gotten to be too tall… making it harder to see people directly in front.
“Is Ford right to go for it, or is it going to burn itself out trying?”
It’s not a question of right or wrong. It’s a question of how much inventory they have on hand. If they have an excess amount of stock, it’s best to use demand levers like this to move stock sooner rather than later and NOT be like Stellantis and still have a bunch of 2024 stock halfway through 2025.
My real only concern about ford is the last few weeks around me I’ve seen a few Blazer EVs as police cruisers rather than Explorers. I wonder if GM is trying to get more serious about trying to sell something other than suburbans to LEO and Fleet.
Only an anecdote but my local PD had a Blazer EV as a tester (potential dealer/GM backed program?) and most of the officers loved it, as well as claims that Chevy went to lengths to make the upfit process part of the vehicle design.
This is piquing my lukewarm interest in a Mach-E. I know the EV incentives are going away and prices will go up immediately due to that, but what happens 5-10 months after September 30th?
Does the unsold inventory get fire-sale’d? At some point dealers are going to need these things off of their showroom floors. Is that when the real deals happen? In my town of under 10k people I have seen more Cybertrucks than Mach-Es as the Blue Oval faithful (at least here) are uninterested in an electric SUV bastardizing the Mustang name.
That is wild. In Michigan Mach-Es are everywhere and the only cybertruck owner is some guy advertising on facebook that he has a chauffeur license and you can hire him and his cybertruck to take you to an event. I kinda feel bad for him.
We also have at least one Hummer EV. And I personally know one person with a Lightning. But we all make fun of the cybertrucks.
Could it be that Uber and Lyft don’t accept Cybertrucks as qualifying vehicles?
The Mach-E already doesn’t qualify for the EV tax rebate if you purchase (you can still get it under the leasing loophole), so other than getting a free charging station, waiting until after Sept 30 won’t change much.
I’d look for a used one where someone else has already taken a bath on the epic depreciation. I bought mine new in 2022 for about $63k (though I later got $10k in federal and state credits on that years’ tax filing), and they’re selling in the low $30k range now.
I don’t feel too bad since we love it and have no intention of selling it for the next decade, but if I was in the market today, I’d be looking at used ones for sure.
Fair. I can’t imagine a world in which I buy new, but I do think it will be interesting to watch.
Seems like everyone that has one loves it.
It’s been really great, and very tellingly, it’s the first American brand car we’ve bought, so I had zero Ford loyalty prior to buying it.
To combat A-pillar visibility I rock my head + torso diagonally a foot or so when driving in front of stores.
I can’t remember if I had that issue in older vehicles, all I remember from my 98 Sienna was the rear view mirror completely obscuring a merging in Highlander.
2025 model year Raptor vehicles, Bronco Sport, Bronco, Expedition, Maverick, Ranger, Transit, Super Duty and Lincoln Navigator are excluded.
2024 model year Raptor vehicles, Maverick, Ranger, Transit (non ICE Cargo/Van), Super Duty (non XL pickups), F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mach-E are excluded.
Wow, what an enticing sale that can only be applied to a third of the lineup, and excludes all Fords I would ever consider buying.
I will say, goddamn has Ford sold a bazillion Broncos around here. They are damn near everywhere. And these aren’t base model 2-doors we’re talking about. They easily outnumber the newer Wranglers now.
Might actually be a decent time to negotiate on a Wrangler. I see that local dealers actually stock a few reasonable ones now.
I owned an SX4. The split A-pillar didn’t do a tremendous amount for forward visibility, it sort of just made the A-pillar larger in a way. But that car still had mostly great sightlines as the top half was mostly made of very tall glass, and the A-pillars were close enough that very minor neck adjustments allowed you to see around them. Add that with a very low beltline and it made up for it.
…but but but Mustang… 🙂
I will say, a local dealer has a single 2024 turbo hanging around for 35k. 0% financing on that would seem to be a pretty legit deal.
True: Explorer, Mustang, F150, Escape…. and what else fall under ZZZ?
Luke warm take: Mortal Kombat always sucked. Its entire angle was a combination of media outrage and a testbed for motion capture.
Gameplay was horrid. Give me Night Trap for the Sega CD 🙂
Killer Instinct was superior to Mortal Kombat, in my humble opinion.
0,0,0, We were trained to pronounce Ooo!
“Peter, those are Cheerios”
LOL. That is all.
Great. Now the Cybertruck and its driver think I killed Jesus.
That’s what you get for paying for AutoPilate
This is a rich, Corinthian leather-level pun.
Ford has historically been able to weather the storm, when we look back at the shitshow that was the late aughts.
I believe they can bleed longer than their competitors can. GM and the Kia/Hyundai twins are sitting pretty, but they’re all-in on electric, and about to lose the not-insignificant discount advantage.
I predict this will cause the F150 to pull further ahead in the Truck Domination arena. Which is exactly what the current administration is supporting. The high margin trucks will see them through.
I feel like the situation Ford was in during the ’00s has some fairly big differences. Alan Mullaly just finished selling off JLR and AM just before the crisis began, and continued to sell Volvo and its stake in Mazda later into the crisis, giving it a ton of cash at an opportune time. Nowadays, Ford is primarily based in North America and declining in Europe, while in the past it had much more market share in South/Central America and Asia to rely on, for better or worse.
I feel like this is a case where the international market hurts more than helps. Especially with production.
Y’all are gonna end up like Lada if this shit keeps going.
Not to mention Ford only avoided the need for a bailout because they had just renegotiated its lines of credit. So they had time to wait out the recession before getting pegged with higher financing rates. Which was just dumb luck. It had very little to do with being any better managed.
…. and then they took billions in federal loans to keep the doors open and new vehicles financed. The idea that Ford didn’t take a bailout is ludicrous. They just didn’t go bankrupt – which has actually hurt not helped them as both GM and what used to be Chrysler got rid of a lot of bad debt, bad real estate, and union obligations in bankruptcy.
Nearly every year, GM sells more trucks than Ford. So, I suspect they will both be fine. The other member of the big three is likely in trouble.
“…and, at one point, started referring to itself as MechaHitler.”
I warned ya. Now that “B.J.” Blazkowicz has been retired for years, who will save us?