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The problem is keeping a market alive requires continued investment which requires capital and other resources. By exiting a market or market segment those resources can be diverted to BEVs and other new vehicles and technologies. It’s likely faster and cheaper to exit now, revamp the business while enjoying more profits which should accelerate the transformation, then re-enter markets with new products where it makes sense. It’s like buying a really old house - sometimes it’s better to tear it down and rebuild from scratch than to try and fix it up.

I like Jimmy Dinsmore and it was good of him to use his contacts within Ford to put some context around the Auto Forecast Solutions report. Thing is, AFS seem to be a reputable industry source so either they know something we don't (ie S650/'23MY has been cancelled) or something was lost in translation (which I suspect is what's happened). I will be VERY surprised if S650/23MY has been cancelled as, timing wise, we should be very close to seeing prototypes on the road within the next 3 months.......assuming a spring reveal of the '23MY car with it starting production Sept/Oct 2022.

So the salesperson closed the deal and wrote up the purchase agreement, took it to the desk manager who approved it, so the salesperson could turn the customer over to the F&I person, who arranged the financing on an unsellable vehicle; nobody in the transaction chain knew?

You know the erg to say I told you so, can be seen as childish to progressives, but DAM WE TOLD THE HERD SO… Some groups of voters that endorsed Biden have announced opposition to some of the orders signed in his first days in office. Really the sheepies figured out what “mutton for dinner means”…. Then you can`t make this shit up…. “We (Amazon) believe that the best approach to a valid, fair and successful election is one that is conducted manually, in-person,” an Amazon spokesperson told news outlets. “We will continue to insist on measures for a fair election, and we want everyone to vote, so our focus is ensuring that’s possible.” (a “union” election must be in person, how else would the progressives be able to do their intimidation routine?) Amazon`s board went on to state “its policy strongly favors in-person elections” get the hell outta here…. WTF mail in balloting was all fair, valid and successful just a month ago. Four years of this… I didn`t think he`d do that? I didn`t vote for these assholes….. sheepies are proving there is no fixing stupid.

Exactly. Every dollar that a business pays in taxes comes from their customers who buy their products and services. Raise taxes and they’ll still make the same profit but we’ll be paying higher prices. Fix the personal tax code so the executives who get millions pay their fair share without loopholes. A company like Ford with 250k employees generates roughly $4B a year in federal income tax. With less taxes businesses can grow and create more jobs which in turn funds more income tax. If these corporations decide to funnel the extra money to executives then they pay more taxes. I just don’t understand the anti-business pro govt philosophy because the govt is only funded by businesses who create jobs.

I think perhaps the other factor in play is that Ford are internally projecting high costs for ongoing product development and plant updates/retrofits to put itself in place for the late 2020's and 2030's when the make up of its fleet will be dramatically changed (due to government regs (EV's) and perhaps an element of market demand). If this is true, Ford are looking at it's projected profits/costs for Brazil, and reached the conclusion that a $4 billion hit now is better than what its forecasts showed for the rest of the decade. And those projected savings will be plowed into addressing the costs I mentioned above. A potential example of this might be the investment in OAC later this decade (keeping in mind that the investment is far more than what has been announced for the plant, since other costs for things such as product development, etc. are also linked to what happens at OAC). Repeat this at multiple plants around the globe, and it adds up. Also factor in Ford's nascent interest in potentially jointly investing in battery production, and there's yet another high cost endeavor that requires capital. When all is said and done, Ford are in a race to create as much capital velocity as it can, as it will need as much as possible to finance itself going forward. This also enhances Ford's ability to borrow as the capital markets and banks will look more favorably upon Ford and give Ford better terms if Ford can demonstrate improving operations and profitability.

Ford delivered 5,120 Bronco Sport SUVs to customers in the fourth quarter of 2020, and this top-of-the-line Badlands was one of them. Despite being a demo car, a Florida dealer mistakenly sold it to a customer, only to call him back the very next day, asking him to return the vehicle. The owner traded in his 2015 Volkswagen Jetta, made a down payment of nearly $2,500, and accessed financing to buy a Bronco Sport he technically shouldn’t have been allowed to purchase. He took delivery of the boxy off-roader on December 22 and got a call back from the dealer 24 hours later to bring back the Bronco Sport on Christmas Eve. https://www.motor1.com/news/471502/ford-bronco-sport-demo-mistakenly-sold/ FoMoCo Corporate got involved and the customer was allowed to keep the vehicle he purchased. I'm not sure what legally the dealer could have done anyhow to get it back, and fighting it make them look like fools. Glad he got to keep his Bronco Sport.

Yeah, more profits for Ford. But less jobs at Ford, suppliers and dealers if you only make & sell 50K vs 200K. HRG

If you watch the 6 minute interview, Rand absolutely destroys ABC News' George Stephanopoulos and calls him out for being a fake journalist:

Thank you mackinaw sir. I saw this article from Jimmy Dinsmore at TorqueNews. Separating Fact From Fiction Regarding The Next-Generation Ford Mustang | Torque News

Your first point is very valid. I was told GM was working on a 'real' Blazer as a fully capable off-road Wrangler competitor, not the small CUV that was introduced with the Blazer name. The 'real' Blazer was going to be an expensive program, but was predicted to be a profitable one. Nonetheless, the program was dropped to conserve capital for GM's BEV and battery programs. As for your second point, the cynic in me says the Ranger and Transit do not overlap with VW's South American products.....

Don't think so. AFS said it and everybody else picked it up.

Simple - they want to force behaviors through laws. Higher taxes is a way to punish the rich who obviously got their wealth by cheating the system or by blind luck - they couldn’t possibly have earned it. And then redistribute that wealth to the less wealthy. Or force changes to protect the environment such as BEV adoption or shutting down oil production. Of course they never consider the negative impacts or whether these policies actually work or accomplish the goal as long as it makes them feel like they’re helping.

Thanks very much for this great explanation. I understand all points you have raised and even agree, to good extent, with the reasoning brought here. However, the first point I'd like to add is that Ford is struggling more than, say, VWAG to invest in new technologies partially because of its relative small size. For a larger auto group it is more efficient to dilute investments throughout a variety of models and Ford doesn't seem to scale very well. And by shrinking the company this weakness will only be stressed. Also, if there is one plant where I do not see large electrification investments needed in the foreseeable future is Camaçari. Firstly, because infrastructure in South America is poor. Secondly, in some markets like Brazil, biofuel is seen as a very competitive technology to improve overall CO2 emissions. So, if automakers can keep on running existing ICE platforms in one place in order to maximize the use of technology already developed, this place is here. Having said that, to my limited perception, it would make more sense to keep on milking B2 and C2 architectures with relatively low investment for as long as possible in these underdeveloped economies. As a by product, this would allow them to hold foot on their non negligible 10% market share in Brazil. Instead they are going for enormous losses and a laughable 0.5-1.0% slice of the pie - if that. Ford had the Ka as the second best selling vehicle and I'm sure the lack of confidence in the brand will undermine any long term aspirations the Blue Oval might have regarding the large Brazilian market. Too bad Ford managers cannot make money like GM, FCA and VW do down here.

Buffet? Like Old Country Buffet? I thought they went out of business, maybe not? Some other buffet? Maybe one of these? https://m.yelp.com/search?find_desc=All+You+Can+Eat+Buffet&find_loc=Warren%2C+MI Surely you don’t mean Jimmy or Warren Buffett. I’m sure someone like you would know how to spell their names. Question for you; Where does Amazon’s money come from? Increase Amazon’s taxes and it’s not coming out of Bezo’s pockets, but rather yours and mine.

Not sure what this was in response to as the quote was blank and how we got from gas/road usage taxes to income taxes. We probably should restrain ourselves from calling trump an idiot. He did after all have accountants smart enough to beat the system and figured out how to get elected president. The alternative minimum tax was supposed to address the issue you stated, but doesn’t seem very effective. As long as the government insists on having subsidies and credits for certain behaviors deemed good, there will be those that take advantage of them and pay less in taxes than those that don’t do the “good” activities or aren’t able to participate. I’m not going to get upset at someone for taking advantage of the tax code. I will blame the legislators for creating the mess, though. Stating taxes need to be raised on one class and then giving those same individuals tax breaks for something is bs. Just a big smokescreen.

As of right now, intro only. But, I'd imagine that it is largely what the '22 MY Heritage package will wind up being. ---- Here's pics of Velocity Blue finally (vs. Lightning Blue too)

Lol. Military. Feels like prison sometimes! I love it though.

Easy solution. Flat tax.

Why do you say this, based on current system low mpg trucks would be paying more per mile. Large heave vehicles also do more damage to the infrastructure. A usage fee based on actual miles used and damage potential makes more sense then the current system. It might even be more adventitious to the over the road industry because it would be based on miles and not fuel used.

What Color is that? Does not look like any of the current offerings...

Not sure why the color is so blown out from my crop....

The idea of taxing miles driven is a good one because that’s putting the cost on the cost causers. However, it doesn’t need electronic nannies. Just collect it once a year at registration renewal. Or just make it a flat rate per vehicle. $200-$300 per vehicle per year would probably cover it.

Joe Bidet likes French fries.......

You can keep saying "who knows" but that is not true. Ford knows. The writing for a near all-EV future has been on the wall for since 2011 when EPA and all the auto companies reached agreement on 2025 CAFE. Ford is a real business with real Govt compliance requirements and they have to make sure they can continue to sell vehicles in the future. 2028 is not that far away - you have to make decision now for vehicle going on sale in 2028. Please enlighten the crowd on how you can get to 54.5 MPG fleet wide average without going all electric on things like Mustang to offset F-150 hybird which will probably max out around 35 MPG (CAFE uses the old school inflated MPG number) after footprint adjustments. Going full EV is the only practical solution that will preserve Mustang's performance and still meet CAFE. You can try to make a non-EV Mustang after 2025 but you have to either sacrifice performance or increase price (to cover the non-compliance penalty). EV will get you the performance and still keep price reasonable. The US is about to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord which will snap it back into CO2 reduction target in line with the rest of the industrialized nations. 2025 CAFE is upon us in only a few short years so EPA will begin working on 2030 or 2035 CAFE target soon. Even a modest 1% increase per year from 2026 onwards will see the CAFE target go over 60 MPG by 2035. This is the future that Ford is planning for... 2028 EV Mustang won't be the first traditional nameplate to convert to full EV. You'll see that starting much sooner.

I like the kindle fire option also, It is inexpensive option and everyone will be happy (Including you) Headphones are a must too.... when my kids were young we had a drop down monitor w/ DVD player installed in our Honda Odyssey mini van . my children never agreed on what to watch ... and there was no headphone option then ....I can still hear in my head the "Barney the dinosaur" theme song that was played a thousand times on long road trips.

I assume you are talking about for small kids? Buy each of them a Kindle Fire from Amazon. They come ready for all different ages and then no one has to fight about what they are watching or what games they are playing. When my kids were young, we ended up getting them each a portable DVD player, since sharing didn't work too well with only one monitor (which is what our 2005 Toyota Sienna minivan had).

The more stuff they put into the cars, the more that can and will go wrong.

I can say the same thing with motorcycles. I ride with my low beam on, plus some spots that are running at 20% during daytime. And I have a BMW R1200RT. Profile wise, it's a fairly large looking bike. And yet, people still don't see me at times. They're just getting to lazy to turn their damn heads and actually look.