Is the Gladiator losing interest with buyers?

[Reddog]

Respectfully, this isn't happening- at least not in the next 25 years. My father worked as a Director for GM until very recently when he became a Senior Mechanical Engineer for a different company in the same field, and he was working on all electric Buick models for the 2027 models all the way back in 2013. My father worked under Henrik Fisker at Ford/Aston Martin prior to working at GM, where he took his extensive auto cad knowledge and electric system engineering knowledge and was tapped to work in a program that began retrofitting existing vehicles to being electric. My fathers job at the time was literally 3D modeling existing (at the time Chinese market) vehicles, sending 3d ideas of how to shove batteries in to the shop next door to him, and having the modelers physically putting blocks of material that represented what could be batteries into these vehicles. For perspective, my father was one of the first handful engineers for GM that worked on the Bolt, and his signature is inscribed inside the concept vehicle that was released in 2015.

He told me 10 years ago that GM had a hard goal of all-electric by 2027. He use to regularly mention the Hydrotec Program, which was effectively a "Vhs/Beta" type race, in his own words, and it was hydrogen Vs. Electric. GM didn't hit the 2027 goal, obviously, but the Ultium battery technology they are currently working with is a game changer. Conversely, the Hydrotec program fizzled, and there is not an active engineering team on it- I want to say it was right when things started closing down during COVID that he told me they moved the HydroTec team to a different area of responsibility.

Not to say that 1 company makes a difference, but GM is 15-17% of the auto market in the USA. Ford only has about 75% of the marketshare that GM does. So, if GM isn't working on it, It's hard to believe they find it to be a viable option.

Your father must have witnessed some amazing times while at GM. But Toyota, not an inconsequential company, thinks hydrogen is the future as I do. As for GM, there was a time when our economy went as GM's fortunes did, but that's gone. GM is no longer the king of cars. They have made too many mistakes and Mr. Obama finished them off. My opinion. Look how far GM has fallen in the last forty years. They are not the king makers any longer. The future for cars is smaller, leaner companies that can react to swift changes in market direction. Obviously, none of us know what the future holds. But when GM tied itself to the federal government during the Obama years, they locked themselves in a servants of the governments programs and mandates. Time will tell who is right I guess. Or more aptly put, time will tell who will prevail. I'm betting GM will not be there at the finish. Hope I'm wrong.

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[bleda2002]

Your father must have witnessed some amazing times while at GM. But Toyota, not an inconsequential company, thinks hydrogen is the future as I do. As for GM, there was a time when our economy went as GM's fortunes did, but that's gone. GM is no longer the king of cars. They have made too many mistakes and Mr. Obama finished them off. My opinion. Look how far GM has fallen in the last forty years. They are not the king makers any longer. The future for cars is smaller, leaner companies that can react to swift changes in market direction. Obviously, none of us know what the future holds. But when GM tied itself to the federal government during the Obama years, they locked themselves in a servants of the governments programs and mandates. Time will tell who is right I guess. Or more aptly put, time will tell who will prevail. I'm betting GM will not be there at the finish. Hope I'm wrong.

But they dont, Toyota is pushing solid state batteries now as the future and "continuing to research hydrogen". Hydrogen was a pet project of the previous CEO who got pushed out and as such hydrogen is now going back to a foot note while they announce tens of new EV's, PHEV's, and Hybrids for the next 5 years.

There is a place for hyrdogen fuel cells, especially in the trucking/long haul segment, but if the infrastructure for EV's is lacking and hard to make, the infrastructure for hydrogen is basically non-existant and even more difficult to build out.

 

[Tim. Y.]

Unless you're heavily in some of the indexes in Red, the stock market seems to be doing fine YTD.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Respectfully, this isn't happening- at least not in the next 25 years. My father worked as a Director for GM until very recently when he became a Senior Mechanical Engineer for a different company in the same field, and he was working on all electric Buick models for the 2027 models all the way back in 2013. My father worked under Henrik Fisker at Ford/Aston Martin prior to working at GM, where he took his extensive auto cad knowledge and electric system engineering knowledge and was tapped to work in a program that began retrofitting existing vehicles to being electric. My fathers job at the time was literally 3D modeling existing (at the time Chinese market) vehicles, sending 3d ideas of how to shove batteries in to the shop next door to him, and having the modelers physically putting blocks of material that represented what could be batteries into these vehicles. For perspective, my father was one of the first handful engineers for GM that worked on the Bolt, and his signature is inscribed inside the concept vehicle that was released in 2015.

He told me 10 years ago that GM had a hard goal of all-electric by 2027. He use to regularly mention the Hydrotec Program, which was effectively a "Vhs/Beta" type race, in his own words, and it was hydrogen Vs. Electric. GM didn't hit the 2027 goal, obviously, but the Ultium battery technology they are currently working with is a game changer. Conversely, the Hydrotec program fizzled, and there is not an active engineering team on it- I want to say it was right when things started closing down during COVID that he told me they moved the HydroTec team to a different area of responsibility.

Not to say that 1 company makes a difference, but GM is 15-17% of the auto market in the USA. Ford only has about 75% of the marketshare that GM does. So, if GM isn't working on it, It's hard to believe they find it to be a viable option.

Maybe you've been seeing some of the upcoming battery technology and trends in that area. Smaller, lighter, more bang for the buck and pound. Solid state batteries are a thing - once the roadblocks are overcome. Honda and Toyota are both solidly behind this research and Toyota says something about 2025.
Will they succeed? Time will tell - promised for years, maybe finally getting somewhere.
Toyota says they can get over 700 miles on them.
Tesla is invested heavily in new battery technology - DUH, they have to be! If they can't make batteries lighter and get better range, they'll be the next victim.
If you have a product that relies on something - you'd better be ahead of anyone else in that something - or die. The 4680 is here and production being ramped up. And there's the semi-solid state battery coming down the pike.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

But they dont, Toyota is pushing solid state batteries now as the future and "continuing to research hydrogen". Hydrogen was a pet project of the previous CEO who got pushed out and as such hydrogen is now going back to a foot note while they announce tens of new EV's, PHEV's, and Hybrids for the next 5 years.

There is a place for hyrdogen fuel cells, especially in the trucking/long haul segment, but if the infrastructure for EV's is lacking and hard to make, the infrastructure for hydrogen is basically non-existant and even more difficult to build out.

Toyota has shifted direction - not abandoning hydrogen completely, like you said, but is focused on new battery technology. Solid state they claim by 2025 and semi-solid state is being looked at.

Unless you're heavily in some of the indexes in Red, the stock market seems to be doing fine YTD.

Sure - slowly but surely - took a few months to drop 20%, going to take a hell of a lot longer to recover. It's always that way. It's really fragile now - a lot riding on what the fed does.

Let's just say 3 years ago, we were at level A, now, 3 years later, at level B and that's a bit more than 20% under A. It's crawling back up, but slowly. There's a lot of us who say we've lost 1/5 of our retirement in the last -since early 2021.

 

[Minty JL]

Shit economy (as a whole), stupid interest rates and over priced w/ lack drive train options

 

[Hootbro]

My question is really how many parts are actually specialized for the Gladiator over the wrangler that would make the gladiator economically not wortwhile to keep in production? Even with low sales producing a few stretched frames and beds just doesnt seem like alot of differences to keep producing.

At launch in one of the press junkets, Jeep was asked a similar question on parts commonality. They stated that something like 80%-85% of the sunken costs and engineering to develop the Gladiator was already borne by the Wrangler JL and the RAM 1500 side. The rear suspension is just a scaled RAM 1500 setup. That left the frame, rear bed box and getting the engine cooling dialed in for towing.

If Jeep had to do a clean sheet truck design, it would have never came to market. FCA back then knew and stated the Gladiator was a niche market vehicle and stated it would be priced as "upmarket" with a planned assembly capacity that was not expected to exceed 75K units a year.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

At launch in one of the press junkets, Jeep was asked a similar question on parts commonality. They stated that something like 80%-85% of the sunken costs and engineering to develop the Gladiator was already borne by the Wrangler JL and the RAM 1500 side. The rear suspension is just a scaled RAM 1500 setup. That left the frame, rear bed box and getting the engine cooling dialed in for towing.

If Jeep had to do a clean sheet truck design, it would have never came to market. FCA back then knew and stated the Gladiator was a niche market vehicle and stated it would be priced as "upmarket" with a planned assembly capacity that was not expected to exceed 75K units a year.

There ya go, messing up arguments with facts and what FCA said about their own vehicle sales and capacity.
That's sort of like popping a balloon of speculation and opinion using a needle of fact.
That knocks the wind out of the sails of "oh, oh, now Jeep has competition for JT" as well.
FCA doesn't give a rip because it was never really supposed to compete against Toyota and certain others.

 

[Hootbro]

There ya go, messing up arguments with facts and what FCA said about their own vehicle sales and capacity.
That's sort of like popping a balloon of speculation and opinion using a needle of fact.
That knocks the wind out of the sails of "oh, oh, now Jeep has competition for JT" as well.
FCA doesn't give a rip because it was never really supposed to compete against Toyota and certain others.

Just my 2 cents, but unless sales start dipping around or below 40K units per year, I do not think it is going anywhere.

Just doing rough math last time Jeep had a similar truck based on the CJ-7 coming in as the CJ-8 Scrambler, there was like a 15 to 1 sales ratio of the CJ-7 over the CJ-8 Scrambler. So it was not really popular even back then. Current JL/JT sales ratio is roughly 5 to 1 with the JT a way more popular vehicle in the Jeep community than the Scrambler ever was back then.

People want to box in the JT with other mid-size trucks when it really is it's own thing.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Yeah why do people even bring up EVs and such and politics in a threat about Gladiator sales.

No problem with electricity here - we export it.

Not sure why people are so very concerned about what some blog says about Gladiator sales - they have theirs, so why worry about it?

 

[Kintama40]

But they dont, Toyota is pushing solid state batteries now as the future and "continuing to research hydrogen". Hydrogen was a pet project of the previous CEO who got pushed out and as such hydrogen is now going back to a foot note while they announce tens of new EV's, PHEV's, and Hybrids for the next 5 years.

There is a place for hyrdogen fuel cells, especially in the trucking/long haul segment, but if the infrastructure for EV's is lacking and hard to make, the infrastructure for hydrogen is basically non-existant and even more difficult to build out.

Toyota partnered with Paccar and built a Hydrogen motor for them. There is a place for Hydrogen, but at the current time it's not feasable. Infastructure for Hydrogen is going to be tough, with most projections saying the west coast by 2030, most of the US by 2035, and the rest of the country by 2040. At 8 to 15 million a site, it's going to be really expensive to do this. Coupled with the current projection of 372 miles per fill, it's going to take a lot of stations to handle truck traffic. Power output will also have to be increased 26% over current levels to handle the process.

The solution for trucking is Renewable Diesel, but the supply isn't there right now.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

The solution for trucking is Renewable Diesel, but the supply isn't there right now.

Partner with McDonalds and your Gladiator Ecodiesel can smell like french fries as you go over the Rubicon.............

 

[bleda2002]

Partner with McDonalds and your Gladiator Ecodiesel can smell like french fries as you go over the Rubicon.............

Smells delicious, but would that be a bear hazard?

 

[Kintama40]

Partner with McDonalds and your Gladiator Ecodiesel can smell like french fries as you go over the Rubicon.............

It could smell like shit too if they move to using municipal waste like they are planning too. ?

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