akirby

Bronco pickup only makes sense if Ranger gets replaced by a unibody version. I don't see how Ford can make all new affordable pickups at TTC unless they're small and midsized unibodies to replace Maverick and Ranger.

Sunk costs, dealers, Bill Ford, potential future EPA regs, UAW

The pink ones, obviously......

them whompies are closing up my sinuses. You better back off another 10...

Ford sells 50k Rangers now. Gladiator sells 45k. No reasonto think a Bronco pickup would sell less.

. Ford's proclivity to make minimal investments in cars is because they aren't very profitable to begin with. Some were absolutely losing money. We've already discussed ad nauseum the reasons why - too many redundant platforms and too many changes. Ford created 9 different ecoboost engines plus multiple versions of some while Toyota soldiered on with NA2.5s and 3.5s and a turbo 2.0. And their car platforms haven't change much in decades. That's how you keep costs down. So of course that is self inflicted. We keep saying that over and over but you guys don't hear it. But that's water under the bridge at this point - the question is how should Ford respond? Do they spend tons of money fixing fusion and focus and escape to realize a 3% return or do they spend far less money and replace them with products that have higher margins? Ford has that option. Others don't have those types of vehicles or good options to make them. And there is a huge difference between 3% and 10% margins. Let's talk $30k vehicles at 3% and $40k vehicles at 10%. It takes 550,000 units to make half a billion dollars on the cheaper one. And that requires 2 huge factories with 3 shifts each. And with only a $900 margin per vehicle if you get in a price war and have to put an extra $1k rebate on the hood you're losing money. No margin for error. Meanwhile the $40k vehicle makes $4k profit per unit so it only takes 125K units to make half a billion profit. That's one factory and 1 or 2 shifts - less than half the fixed overhead. And you can survive price wars or recessions and still turn a profit. It's also a zero sum game unless you have tons of extra cash (Ford doesn't) or you're willing to go into more debt to expand vehicle capacity by hiring tons more designers, engineers, testers, marketers and building expensive new factories. Especially if all you're getting is a 3% ROI. Therefore you have to kill existing projects to fund new stuff. What you thought when Ford was selling hundreds of thousands of small cars was that they must be raking in the cash. But when Mulally took over Ford admitted they were losing $3K on each focus they sold. So why were they (and GM) selling them of they lost money? Because of the CAFE offset that allowed them to sell larger more profitable ones. And back then if you closed a factory you still had to pay the workers. Now the rules are different so the incentives to make small cars at a loss or small profit just isn't there. To put it another way - corporations are investments. Why would they invest billions to make cars for a 3% return when Ford could put that money in bonds and get a guaranteed 5% or higher return? And I beg to differ on F series resources. They do visual refreshes every 3 years and major changes every 6 years. Also consider there are 2 cabs and chassis, 12 cab/bed combinations and 6 different engine/transmissions plus dozens of options and packages. That's a full time job for a huge team of people and part time for others. And at an average price of $60k at 15% net profit (which are both probably on the low side) that's a net profit of $9k per vehicle or close to $9B. From one line of vehicles in 3 plants. That's why it gets all the resources.

Yes. I had a 2013 Titanium and it was great but all I ever saw on the road were cheap SEs. They thought they could sell premium models with AWD and plug in hybrids and 350 hp but buyers said no we want cheap cars.

He's hauling dynamite and he needs all the help he can get....

EASY - no rebates. Fusion required $4k rebates to sell. Maverick and Bronco Sport were selling for full msrp and above.

This part goes back to 2022 so it's not a new problem. They are actively seeking out older problems and fixing them. It does not mean that new quality improvements aren't working so please give it a rest. If new problems keep cropping up on 2026 models then you can start bitching again.

True and I do expect ce1 to be Ford's lowest cost platform and able to turn a nice net profit even on affordable pricing. It's basically Ford's reset button on high platform costs. And I do think a lot of it will transfer to ICE vehicles contrary to what others think.

That's exactly what they did. They didn't idle any factories. They replaced Fusion and mkz with Maverick and Bronco sport. They replaced focus with Bronco and Ranger. Much more desirable and profitable vehicles.

Market share without profit is stupid unless you're running a charity. But some people don't seem to understand that not all vehicles are profitable and you can sometimes make more money by reducing sales and market share.

Supposedly you can leave it parked for 8 hours but that never worked for me. This procedure did though.

Autozone won't touch it if any parts have to be removed. On the Nautilus you remove the airbox then remove the bolt at the bottom front of the battery and you can slide it forward to reach the terminals. Not too bad - about a 15 min job.

I don't think they'll exit - I think they'll just replace Ranger with a more affordable unibody truck.

I miss his posts as much as I miss fiberglass underwear..

I can change the cabin filter in a cd3 fusion in 90 seconds with no tools. Cd4 fusion takes a screwdriver and 15 minutes. cd4 had to be beefed up to support ecoboost 2.7 and 3.0 power and it supported plug in hybrids. Build quality suffered a lot starting with the headlights before cd4 fusion even launched. They were shipping cars to flat rock to fix them then shipping them back to hermosillo. Hermosillo went from #1 in quality to nowhere near that overnight. And it wasn't the workers. C2 was built to only support I4s. As such it has more in common with C1 than CD4.

Ok we got it.

I'll be visiting the PEC in the spring. I'd rather beat up their cars on the track than mine.

As the owner of a cd3 and cd4 fusion and a cd3 and cd4 edge and nautilus I disagree. Cd4 had far more issues and was a much more complex vehicle in addition to being overweight. C2 is far superior to both.

Absolutely not because it's the most important vehicle and platform that Ford has and it's been that way for 60+ years. You can't discuss Ford's investment in other products without it because it gets top priority on resources. Why do the Koreans have so many cars and crossovers? Because that's essentially all they sell so they don't have to share resources with trucks and large SUVs and commercial vans. Unless you have the cash or you're willing to mortgage the future to expand the business by adding tens of thousands of employees and open new factories, corporate resources are a zero sum game. When Ford introduced maverick and bronco sport they financed it by killing fusion and mkz. All of the people and factory and other resources were just shifted to new products. Didn't have to hire people or build new factories.

Generally speaking the markets are different and some buyers are willing to pay more for certain things than other markets. Local competition and local cultural tastes are big factors. Doesn't mean they're always right about what American buyers want or would be willing to pay for but it's usually a calculated decision.

Dealers make money on every sale regardless of whether Ford makes a profit or not. Of course they'll be upset about losing a volume seller. They were upset about losing Fusion until Maverick and Bronco sport showed up with $5K addendums.

C1 and CD3 were good platforms. EUCD and CD4 were fat expensive pigs by comparison. But there is zero evidence that any of those vehicles were actually profitable. C2 is what should have followed C1 and CD3. More vehicles help amortize the platform costs but only if those vehicles can be sold at a profit. Maverick and Bronco Sport are perfect examples of using C2 to make profitable vehicles. Of course you ignore F series which is the best example of platform utilization ever. Essentially the same platform with minor tweaks every 3-6 years selling 1M vehicles per year across 3 plants. Not even Toyota can touch that one.