BORG

I wonder how much time and money they just wasted ignoring their engineers.

The EcoSport is largely ridiculed in other parts of the world but it sells well because it's very cheap while still being more appealing than the typical competitors in those regions. EcoSport is starting to struggle as the market diversifies and goes after it, especially since it was EcoSport's market to lose once the competition started coming after them. Ultimately it has to be cheap to compete with better and bigger vehicles, but Ford has a strong SUV brand so it can likely get away with charging a bit more and still sell a few. I'm not sure what their expectations are but I'm sure they are in no position form a product or production standpoint to make a significant presence with EcoSport. I also think "Made in India" is going to be a far more significant problem for the EcoSport than "Made in China" at Buick, mostly because the EcoSport actually plays into those prejudices of cheap mediocrity that Volvo and Buick don't have to face at all. There is no question "Made in India" is going to dominate all coverage of this car, as it already has. Ultimately I think launching this product in this form is a surprising miscalculation and won't come without some significant and longterm public challenges. Part of me is just hoping they cancel this product like the US Grand C-Max.

Oh do go on!

A new one is arriving for 2019 based on the new C architecture for Focus (presumably). The current Escape is actually based on the older Kuga from Europe so it's technically older.

Ford's EcoSport sales have been plunging in India where competition has displaced it and cut its sales in half, so they likely have excessive capacity now for other markets like Europe and the US. Although it's going to be very hard to sell a significant volume from India or compete on price considering the overhead. I think Ford hopes the EcoSport can sell at a much higher price to pad the margins lost to importation and tax, especially since the EcoSport is designed and engineered to be a much lower cost vehicle than its primary competition. Ultimately there is just no way Ford is going to compete on volume with this car so it's most likely just a 'at least we showed up' entry. We should see a successor around 2022/3.

More lies, but the truth has no value in America, especially from the government. This whole thing has made Ford look like an evil anti-American corporation despite the hard work its leaders have done to grow and stabilize jobs and its business. No good deed goes unpunished or can be turned against you as a political ploy. What a nightmare we now live in where lies are forgiven and just part of the process. This is what drives me insane more than anything, absolutely no integrity or people willing to hold anybody accountable as long as the lies and manipulation favor their cause.

Uhh, please go back and re-read what he said. Thanks for chiming in.

I'm pretty sure any Democrat is Anti-American to those on the right. My elderly Jewish Grandmother was once told by a White Supremacist that Jews were Anti-American because they vote liberal. It's really just code language at this point for the right so as soon as I hear it used like this, I know where that person stands politically. It's just a way of turning proud Americans into enemies if they don't support the right agenda, it's language that divides and destroys, never unifies or strengthens. The goal is to ultimately limit and define "America" under a specific right-leaning vision which to me is fascism and the very definition of "Anti American". And see, I didn't have to call you dumb for voicing your opinion, this is America after all.

This is the first time the SuperDuty has shared anything with the F-150, including the new aluminum cab. The rest of the differences are very minor from a manufacturing perspective, the frames are just a variation of what is under the F-150 and are built by a supplier offsite anyway, drivetrains also just pop in.

GM corporate ATPs are still a few thousand higher than Ford's so they still have a pretty big gap to close

With softening F-Series sales it's also easier to merge SuperDuty production across the other plants with the new generation since they share most of the same parts, but I'm sure it's not something you can just throw the switch on either.

Mazda clearly has some of the best designers, especially on interiors.

It should be noted that Troller is not actually a Ford production. Ford owns and operates it as a subsidiary but there is no interaction beyond Troller buying some Ford parts, and there are strict rules when operating a subsidiary.

Europe, US, and China need a better Small Ute although a "Short C" doesn't mean it's cheaper or significantly smaller. The EcoSport is needlessly short because of regulations in India, so the rest of Ford's markets are paying the price for it which makes no sense. This is the part of OneFord that clearly has problems but Ford is more willing to sacrifice volume for profits. There is no question the EcoSport was dirt cheap to develop.

Bummer!

Trump put a gigantic target on Ford's back during the election and to fulfill his campaign promises he has to shoot at them. The rest is up to Congress

This product is going to be a fiasco if it's coming from India.

Both Explorer, Flex and Expedition/Navigator are heavily inspired by Land Rover design...clearly a healthy fetish, haha. If Expedition drops that much weight while carrying an IRS and automated folding seats, that would be quite respectable. I am glad that Expedition finally has an appealing design on-top of its vastly superior engineering. I hope people buy in this time! Unlike that terrible EcoSport they just phoned in, this is definitely a good product to take on GM's dominance in a market.

This is true, I'm going to complain either way on this one but I'm a little more alarmed by the EcoSport entering the market than Ford staying out of it until they have a better product to launch a new nameplate. This just tells me that the new product is not a stop gap at all since it's arriving alongside the all-new Fiesta, and Ford's planning has been far more shortsighted than even I predicted which tells me they really don't know what they are doing here and are just following the market instead of leading it.

Sorry, Fiesta and Transit Connect have the smaller screens, Focus has the 8".

It's needed to add a larger screen that's also within reach. The current Fiesta/Focus/Transit use a smaller 6" version.

I just don't agree that this looks nearly as good as the competition, primarily because it's riding on the smallest wheels in the segment which creates very ungainly proportions that make it look uniquely cheap and economy-car-like and nothing like an SUV. There is no question the EcoSport, unless significantly cheaper, will not be able to command the current pricing in the segment unless very small volumes are planned. If this is imported from India, that would be a first for the US as well. Regarding global sales, you know what's also a huge seller...the F-150. But you know where it doesn't sell well...the rest of the world. It makes ZERO difference that EcoSport sells well outside of the US. Ford is very good at selling global cars very poorly in the US, same with VW. The US is a different market. If you can't see that, then I'm surprised. In any case, I'm just irritated that Ford is walking into a familiar situation, not the right product for a new market segment. This happened before with FreeStyle/Taurus X/Flex before they finally got to Explorer...but that turned out eventually.

I think it's critical that Ford have an excellent product in a growth segment that forms the foundation of a younger audience and can diversify Ford's shrinking small car business while giving them a solid economy product should things get tight as it did 10 years prior. As it is right now, Ford has too many products losing sales or wasting space (Flex, Taurus, C-Max) and nothing in the gaps just stabilizing or "God Forbid" growing sales other than Vans and Trucks. Jeep has Renegade, Liberty, and Compass, and then there is Fiat....so yeah lots of products. Jeep as a whole way outsells Ford SUVs which have been in decline. The other issue probably comes down to Escape which is the cheapest and one of the smallest compact crossovers so Ford doesn't quite have things lined up right just yet and it's going to take a few product generations to resize and reprice things.

And Ford still doesn't outsell Honda or Toyota. But the Escape was a full commitment relatively early in the market, there were no Detroit competitors in the game for years following. But today Ford is the only major company without a B-SUV and not only are they the last to respond, they've done so in a way that indicates a far weaker commitment than Escape with a weaker position to lead and define a segment. I know Ford can get away with a bit more because it has a strong brand and large customer base so they can afford to take a few generations to enter a business, but sometimes it's pretty clear they are going to have problems off the bat and this is one of them. Ford is in such a weak competitive position going forward and I was expecting much better than this thing to solve their shrinking small car business. A B-Segment utility is a core business for a full-line automaker.

Ford has done something like this before with the Transit Connect, but that wasn't a retail product so it's very strange to see Ford taking such a half-measure on a critical new segment. It doesn't inspire confidence. Ultimately I think Ford is unable to reconcile global EcoSport success and the market in the US which is different, but not different enough to spend money on so they've been in this limbo for far too many years. Now they've decided last minute to patch it up and sell it in the US and hope for the best with limited imports.