akirby

All these Ford needs and Ford should build are strictly emotional desires with zero business rationale. You can’t bring back Focus without killing either an existing product or the new cheaper EVs. So which one are you killing?

Stop taking the luxury pickup thing so literally. I was just trying to make the point that different brands do different things. Taurus was a huge seller but made no profit. It was propped up by rental volume. The entire Hapeville plant made nothing but rental cars the last few years. Again you’re confusing sales with profits. You can say Ford can’t sell higher priced vehicles but that’s exactly what they’re doing and doing it well. If they had warranty costs under control it would be even better. You can’t blame a company for playing to their strengths and maximizing their returns just because they’re not building what you like.

Suburban had a long history before Expedition and Excursion. Plus GM brand loyalty. Hard to dethrone the market leader even with great products.

Not just executives but also employees and shareholders. And when you say things like Ford needs to or Ford should do something then that implies a business decision and I’m trying to explain why Ford is making these business decisions. You seem to only care about the consumer view and that’s fine as a consumer. But don’t try to rationalize the business decision based on that.

Which further illustrates my point. Each mfr has its niches of what they do well and that’s where they focus their resources. For BMW its performance cars and small to midsize SUvs. Kia is the same but mainstream. For Ford its trucks and SUVs.

Completely missed the point. Kia would kill to be able to sell 900k vehicles at the kinds of margins that Ford gets with F series. But they can’t because they don’t have the experience or expertise nor are they willing to make the huge investment required. A company has to play to its strengths and what works for one doesn’t work for another. Companies that aren’t US based evolved differently. And companies have to prioritize their resources. They cancelled Continental, Taurus, Fusion, MKZ, Focus, Fiesta and Ecosport. But they added Ranger, Bronco, Maverick, Bronco Sport, Aviator, Mach-e, E-transit and Lightning. And they’re working on at least 4 more new vehicles. Escape isn’t going anywhere now and I think Edge will be back. It’s a zero sum game unless you’re willing to build new plants and hire more people.

Sales of large luxury sedans declined significantly as well. Has nothing to do with drivetrain. Simple market shift over the last 3 decades. And while a few people would pay a premium for a great midsized family sedan, the vast majority of sales is still people looking for a cheap appliance to get them from a to b. That’s the market whether you like it or not. As for why Ford doesn’t sell certain vehicles but competitors do, answer this question. Why don’t Kia, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Honda, BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Jaguar, Porsche, Land Rover, Volvo or Mitsubishi sell full sized body on frame pickups or SUVs? Thats a 3M+ market they’re just ignoring. Toyota and Nissan tried with minimal results.

Fusion was #3 behind Accord and Camry and selling close to 300K. Hermosillo was near capacity. There were 8 competitors at one time and at least 3 of those (Kia, Hyundai and Nissan) were cutting prices to gain sales. There was nothing to distinguish one from any other and outside of brand loyalists it was all about price. Ford thought they could sell $30k Titaniums but buyers wanted $25k SEs with a $4K rebate. That is the definition of commodity when the o ly way to get volume is to out cheap the competition. Nobody beat Taurus or Continental. The market just went away.

Try disconnecting the battery for a few minutes.

I don’t see the problem.

Sounds like the transmission control module.

I guess the 270,000 that bought them first quarter did t get that memo.

That’s not a dealer I would do business with. Borderline incompetence.

I meant in terms of it being too small for this market and not generating much revenue or profit.

Check the tire pressure. May not have been lowered after shipment.

Having rented a Fiat 500 several years ago I agree completely.

They never said that as far as I know. Thats what the people said who prefer cars. And I’ll keep saying this every time it comes up. They did not simply decide to cancel Fusion. They needed space for Maverick and Bronco Sport and Hermosillo made the most sense. They did not just cancel it and close the factory. Without the new vehicles they’d still be in production. Same for Focus at MAP. Now Taurus and Continental were killed due to poor sales. Fiesta and Ecosport were just terrible products.

The fact they already have a vehicle and space at Flat Rock says the ROI must be terrible. GM and Toyota have always valued volume over margins while Ford is the opposite here lately. GM and Toyota definitely have lower costs so their ROI is batter on individual vehicles. Ford wasted a lot of money developing so many new platforms and engines recently - some of which were discarded. And we know about warranty costs. When you keep things longer and don’t develop as many new things your cost tends to stay much lower.

Not a driving story but in college I was asst mgr at a local furniture store. The manager only had one set of keys and I had to close at night, so I would lock the front door with the key and throw them in the back of the delivery truck so the mgr could open the next morning. One night I closed up at 8:00 pm, put up the keys and jumped in my 1975 cutlass. But I couldn’t remember if I locked the back door so I drove around, jumped on the dock, checked the back door and jumped back in the car because it was cold. Local cop sees me and thinks I’m breaking in. I said I’m the asst mgr, the store just closed 5 mins ago and the keys are in the back of that truck. He finally let me go and said stop acting so suspicious.

You have to be careful about that. It can appear that other cars have brights on when it’s just the curve of the road. If the fog lamps are on then brights can’t be on for factory lights at least. That cop must have been having a bad day.

Paperwork. 😂. That’s a hell of a doc fee.

But that’s just it - if you’re not interested in lap times on a track then this isn’t the car for you anyway. It’s not a daily driver. Think of it more like the cobra jet mustang drag cars. Or a 911 GT3 RS. You have to make huge compromises to maximize track performance. Everything on it is about maximizing performance not appearance.

Again we agree just using different words. I think they did some process reengineering 2 yrs ago based on what they knew at the time and what they learned from Mach-e and Lightning but Farley thought there was more to be done including low cost EVs. So he formed the skunkworks team. But you can’t just sit back and wait 2 years to see IF they find something new that would apply to other programs. There is risk in waiting for new processes and there is risk to moving ahead in parallel. If it only cost them 1 year on T3 then moving ahead was better than waiting 2 years to start. We all know Oakville was the wrong products in the wrong plant at the wrong time. Period.

That capacity can easily be reused.

I don’t disagree with any of that. Were just looking at it from different angles.