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Bill Ford wins National Pond Hockey Championship with employees

Who says executives aren't people? This past weekend, Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Company, and a group of employees trekked up to Eagle River, WI for a few games of pond hockey. Team Ford took part in the 2014 Labatt Blue/USA Pond Hockey Championship, capturing its fifth title in the 50+ Tier 1 Division.
"It feels great to win," Ford, who plays on the team alongside other Ford employees, told the USA Hockey website. "It was fun to play [River Valley Pioneers] because they're great guys and we play them every year. We finally beat them, which we were due. It was a very clean game, a tough game."
The FoMoCo team managed to score seven goals to River Valley's two, and went undefeated in all five of its games during the tourney. Take a look below for the official press release on Team Ford's win.

1 in 7 Americans say they might buy an EV next, as sales of electrics surge

About one in seven driving Americans may likely purchase an electric vehicle as their next car, according to an AAA poll, meaning that as many as 30 million Americans may pony up for an EV within the next three to five years. While some of the motivation is environmental, survey recipients say that lower maintenance expenses and solo access to high-occupancy-vehicle lanes are also among the factors behind potentially going electric. Take a look at the AAA press release on the study here. The poll indicates that about as many people are planning to buy an EV for their next car as are looking to buy a pickup, which is impressive given that the best-selling US vehicle is the Ford F-150. And things should only improve, as about 20 percent of millennials polled said that their next car would probably be an EV. The results are all the more encouraging, at least among green-car advocates, because gas prices have fallen about 40 percent within the past five years, meaning that there's less of an incentive to go electric from a purely economic perspective. Through the first quarter of this year, US plug-in vehicle sales were up about 63 percent from a year earlier to about 39,000 vehicles. Meanwhile, when it came to AAA's annual green-vehicle awards for this year, Tesla's Model S and Model X took the large car and SUV categories, respectively, while the Chevrolet Bolt and Volkswagen e-Golf were listed atop the subcompact and compact lists. The Lexus GS 450h hybrid and the Ford F-150 took home AAA's best green vehicle in the midsize and pickup truck categories. Related Video:

2022 Lincoln Navigator buyers can get $5,000 to convert to the 2023 model

Ford Motor Company is doling out more money to try to keep its chickens in the coop. Last August, when the automaker couldn't fulfill every order for the 2022 F-150 Lightning electric pickup then levied price substantial price increases on the 2023 F-150 Lightning, the automaker created a "Transition Private Offer." The program gave 2022 reservation holders without trucks a rebate to buy a 2023 Lightning that effectively nullified the price increase. Earlier this month, Ford did it again with the 2023 Bronco. The "2023-Model Bronco Cancel Order & Purchase Replacement Offer" dangled $2,500 to 2023 Bronco buyers without SUVs to either change their Bronco order to a configuration that could be built sooner, or cancel their order and buy another Ford. Now it's Lincoln's turn. CarsDirect says another dealer bulletin outlines a "2023-Model Navigator Connect Model Year Transition Private Offer" for those who didn't get their 2022 Navigator built. "Select customers" who close a deal before April 2, 2023, can get $5,000 off the price of a 2023 Navigator or have the money applied to a 2023 Navigator lease. Akin to the Lightning offer, the Navigator incentive nearly eats up all of the price increases on the new Navigator. The latest version of Ford's most luxurious SUV had MSRPs bumped from about $5,000 for the middle trims to $6,475 for the Black Labels. At the entry-level end, a customer might have some money left over for more options like the brand new Diamond Red Tricoat paint on a 2023 model, depending on how Ford conducts the offer. The base Navigator trims went up by $3,215 for the Standard and $4,730 for the Reserve. If a 2022 Black Label buyer were to take Ford up on the offer, that buyer would be paying $1,475 for the same vehicle; the changes applied to the 2023 Navigator other than price didn't make it to the Black Label.  The folks out in the cold are the few 2022 Navigator L buyers. Lincoln discontinued that trim for 2023, so those folks will need to make another choice or find another roost. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.