akirby

You misunderstand. If you can be #1 because people are willing to buy that many without using huge incentives or fleet dumping that's great (F150 e.g.). But you don't want to sacrifice unit profitability and long term viability just to be #1. E.g. Ford could put $4k incentives on the Fusion and sell a ton of them and possibly be #1. But that's stupid because the added incentives wipe out any additional profit from the added volume and you've now put a strain on your manufacturing and supply chains. Camry and Accord did not make it to the 1 and 2 spots by discounting heavily. They made a good product at a fair price and they built up their customers and sales volume with repeat buyers over 20 years. It didn't happen overnight and Fusion won't be #1 overnight. It's also a lot harder today because there are far more competitive midsized sedans now than 20 years ago. In summary - being #1 in and of itself doesn't mean anything. Being #1 because you have the most customers willing to buy your product consistently with decent profits is fantastic. The difference is how you get there.

That's the scary part - I think he is serious.

Talk about delusional........... Not giving it more performance than the Volt is a huge mistake. Actually, the whole thing is a huge mistake. This is the XLR all over again.

Please don't start a business. You won't make it. With that slim of a profit margin the least mistake could take it away. One recall or big price war and you're losing money. If there is an economic downturn you now have 4 shifts of production in 2 plants instead of 1 shift in 1 plant. You're spending 4 times as much capital for almost half as much profit. That's not wise investment.

When they cost no more than current hybrids and can be recharged fully within 15 minutes with at least a 300 mile range and you have as many charging stations as you do gas stations today - get back to us. Until then the public will continue buying hybrids.

Why would you expect it to look like something totally different?

You can overheat the engine by simply not putting the coolant overflow cap on correctly. Or not properly connecting the hoses.

Which is better? Selling 400K vehicles with an average profit of $3K or selling 100K vehicles with an average profit of $20K?

Engines still have to be connected to the rest of the vehicle (oil coolers e.g.) and other parts added/installed. It could also have been a single batch of parts that were only sent to LAP not Hermosillo.

It seems to be limited to the Escape assembly plant.

Being number one is good for bragging rights but at the end of the day it doesn't pay the bills or keep the doors open and any business that compromises profitability just to be #1 is going to fail. That was part of the problem with Ford and GM in the 90s - they were going after sales and keeping the factories running without regard to profitability or long term viability. Let's say Ford adds enough infrastructure to be #1 in production and they add numerous plants and workers to do it. Then they have to drop the prices or put cash on the hood to obtain the top sales figures so profits erode. Then there is some downturn and sales drop and you're left with all this capacity to pay for but no profits. That's why GM went bankrupt. We'd all like to see Fusion number one but nobody wants Ford to compromise profits to do it.

Be aware that IF there is dealer cash available then that usually shows up as an additional X plan rebate that isn't available without X plan. Is it possible to get $600 below X plan? Sure, but I'd be very careful with add-on fees and other things that they might be adding in. That's about $450 below dealer invoice so you're dipping into a lot of the holdback unless they make it up elsewhere. My advice is to get another dealer to quote X plan on the same order using Vincent to see what incentives are actually available with X plan just to make sure you aren't missing a rebate.

What the heck does being number one in sales have to do with customer satisfaction?

I've explained why I think they had these problems rushing to get the new global vehicles out the door to achieve massive cost savings. I also expect Ford to pull back now that they've achieved those cost savings and can go back to focusing more on quality. If they're still having these problems in 2 years then it will be a big concern. But this won't affect sales.

Now that you mention it - that's correct.

When you have to explain what you meant to 3 different people within just a few posts then maybe you should take a closer look at what you're typing instead of implying we have comprehension problems. Nobody is going to buy electric vehicles en masse until they can get a full recharge anywhere in the country in 15 minutes or less. Until that happens they won't be accepted as mainstream vehicles.

If electric vehicles were so great, why aren't you driving a Leaf? You can get one for $259/month with only $1500 down.

You said hybrids were going to die because they weren't green due to the batteries. Then you said fully electric vehicles (which have bigger batteries) were better. Either you don't understand what you're saying or you're not doing a very good job explaining yourself.

I believe the government was responsible for those 377K pensions, not just for welfare assistance.

Isn't the base mustang the "deluxe" version, as opposed to the "premium" version?

You're still advocating fully electric vehicles that have even larger batteries but saying hybrids are bad because you have to replace the batteries. That's totally illogical. Hybrids are here to stay because they have infinite range with current infrastructure and 10 minute refueling. You won't have that capability with electric vehicles for decades. And a Fusion hybrid is only about a $2K premium over the regular Fusion. The hybrid mkz is the same price as the non hybrid.

If you're under 25 or over 45 chances are you don't have any kids to haul around anyway. And even if you do maybe it's your commuter car that nobody else rides in 95% of the time. So I don't think it's fair to say that people who drive them are selfish. Could you add a few pictures to your signature? It only takes up one entire screen right now.

Who said it would be cheap?

details, details.......

I think it would cost similar to a plug-in hybrid. The batteries would be smaller without the external charger but you have to add back two motors so that should be a wash. You'd only need a little bit of stored power to use at take-off and cornering with regenerative braking. I think that's how the racing hybrids work.