TStag

Just wondering. According to Autocar in the UK up until March 08 the Range Rover Sport was Ford's most profitable vehicle. Autocar then seemed to indicate that it might now be the F-150? But what about the Flex? Or maybe a Volvo or Lincoln? Just wondered...

That's like saying we plan to model ourselves on Chrysler by depending on mainly the US market.

...as I see it the fundemental problem with it is that it's cost GM so much to develop and has such a high price tag that it would take an age for GM to make any money on it. Also the tech is advancing so quick that there is a real danger that it will be starting to get out of date on launch.

The Volt will fail....even GM are starting to quitely admit this...

Of course GM doesn't want to lose Vauxhall and Opel. Vauxhall alone is GM's 4th or 5th biggest market and a lot of GM's small car tech comes from Europe. One option I believe they are looking at is asking other governments for help. The UK is said to be recepitive but want GM to tool it's UK plants for electric car production and may also want production moved back to the UK and away from Germany.

Farago is wrong on this no doubt. Sales are picking up now all over the world. Paticually for bigger more expensive cars with higher margins. That can only help Ford. The bigger difficulty for Ford will be around managing the debt burden over how ever many years....

How much did Volvo lose last in 2008 and how much did JLR lose? Just answer me that How much could Ford have sold Volvo for when they sold JLR? You said "Globally sales of Land Rover fell by 35 percent last year" what was Volvo's sales drop? How much do Volvo make on a C30. How much do Land Rover make on a Range Rover? Land Rover's sales have just started to boom again Range Rover up 50%. Solihull back to a 5 day week. FACT is Volvo is weaker than JLR. That's why Ford are taking an age to find someone who will buy it! Should have sold Volvo first..... Right now Ford would be enjoying the JLR sales recovery.

Volvo is loosing a lot more than JLR is right now. JLR lost 600 million dollars in 2008. Volvo lost more than twice that! Land Rover is seeing a very strong recovery with most models lines now reporting 50% sales growth mtd. Jaguar's pain is over. XF is a strong seller and XJ is bringing in big order books. In fact JLR have just told the UK government that it doesn't want any state aid. As Ford fans know that's something to be proud of! That said Volvo sell more cars than JLR sure. But when are people going to realise that it's not how many cars you sell. It's how much profit you make on each one. Cars like the RR, RR Sport and XJ make big profit margins. Car's like the C30 don't. And as far as the tech issue goes then how can Volvo contribute more to Ford than JLR could? 99.999% of Volov parts are Ford based. JLR by contrast supplies the likes of BMW with things like Hill descent control. Ford should have sold Volvo first. Not JLR. But to fair this is Mullaly's first major error.

Yes BUT the revised LR3 and Range Rover Sport (which went on sale a month after the RR) are now seeing sales rocket in similar proportions to the RR. According to Autocar the only one which is sluggish is the LR2 at the moment. But bearing in mind the RR, LR3 and RR Sport is where most of Land Rover's money is made then that's not a big deal. Solihull has just gone back on a 5 day week and suppliers are now scrambling to meet demand. Very few Automakers can claim to be doing that well right now. To put this in perspective a 50% increase in sales will put those model lines back to where they were before the recession started and would put Land Rover back into the kind of territory where they were making over $600 million dollars a year (despite Jaguars losses). With the XF doing well and the XJ going on sale very soon then they could bizarely be about to hit the really big bucks jackpot. Do the maths.

Yeah it's stupid to think that a car like the Range Rover could make a lot of money even if cars like the Mercedes S Class generate 20% of Daimler's profits. Yeah that's why former CEO Jacques Nasser didn't really build PAG in the first place...

How much capacity is BMW wasting right now? How much is Land Rover wasting at Solihull? Not a lot. Admittedly they need to fill up Ford's old Halewood plant but the Baby Range Rover will sort that.

See: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/articl...H2y66wD99U96IO0 Meanwhile Range Rover up 50%. Just saying.... happy days!

As Ford exec's might say. It's the value of the sales not how many you sell. A 50% uplift in Range Rover represents a massive uplift in revenue. 25% for Volvo is poor as they make much cheaper cars on the whole. Next month we get the figures for all the revised Land Rover's then it will be exciting to compare the Premium car maker (Land Rover) to the sub premium car maker (Volvo). Also be interesting to see how quick JLR get's back to bumper profits now that the recovery is under way. Let's see how much they are making in a few years. Ford's decision to sell then may look like the actions of the desperate, rather than a masterstroke as the look now. Bit like when GM paid Fiat 2 billion to go away...

Range Rover sales up by a whopping 50% Mtd Land Rover back to 5 day week Jaguar sales down but only really because XJ went out of production http://www.birminghampost.net/birmingham-b...65233-24341256/ Back to bumper profits soon then! How's Volvo fairing?

Good performance by JLR. New XJ could put them into break even territory and with sales likely to go up and a weak pound then I actually could see profits of over a billion dollars within 2 years. This is small potatoes for a luxury car maker caught up in one of the worst recessions in history.

To some extent you need to seperate TATA's spin from the fact's. Bearing in mind nearly every car maker in the world is running at a loss right now and considering that JLR's losses are actually not that bad (approx 600 million last year) relative to other car makers like PSA (lost almost 2 billion) then they are actually not too badly positioned for an upturn as the range of cars they are making are not selling too badly. As a group sales declines for example are in line with BMW but not as bad as other brands in the same sector. Also the new XJ will have a significant impact on profits as for example the S class makes up something like 20% of all Daimlers profits. Factor in the new baby Range Rover (to be launched early next year) and actually things aren't bad at all. Remember this is an awfull economic environment for everyone at the moment. TATA however are trying to spin storys to gain cash out of the British Government. That's what this is all about in my view. The reason the UK government is reticent about helping JLR is because they know that TATA is forced to stick to Ford's development plan for JLR for 5 years and isn't even allowed to shut a plant according to the conditions of sale. Also with TATA motors profitable, why rush to assist? Mullaly's did do well to get what he did for JLR. But tell me honestly. Which division should Ford have sold first? Volvo with it's astronomical losses and lack of new product. Or JLR with it's new models and more limited losses over the course of the recession. Volvo was supposed to be worth about 6 billion dollars at the time of JLR's sale. But what would Ford get for it now?

You may well be right but the Chinese are aiming to speed things up by buying companies like Opel and Volvo. If they gain access to the right engineering talent at companies like Opel then they can speed things up a lot. There are over 100 Chinese car companies. Many will just fade away but it won't be long before a number start exporting to the USA or setting up factories in the US. The Chinese are already gearing up a factory in Europe, if they get Opel then the timetable accelerates.......

In Europe?

...er I live down the road from Whitley where this things been developed. There are a few floating about in my neck of the woods.

Would rather see increased market share in a bigger market. Whilst this is a good performance the competition won't sit still for a minute. Last thing Ford needs is to see market share begin to fall as the market expands and rivals launch new models. Not saying Ford have done badly or that Ford doesn't deserve credit but I wonder how sustainable it will be as the trading environment changes?

The most important thing for both GM and Ford is what kind of post recession world they enter. Will cheap cars from China and elsewhere drip sales away from them (and the likes of Toyota) over the next decade, making their debts harder to manage. Or will we see a return to "business as usual" in the US and European car industry? That for me is the great unanswered question.

I struggle to believe Land Rover did this well...... http://www.roverparts.com/News/Archive/jlrtotalquality.cfm And I'm a fan!

Think you need to see the car in the flesh to truly get this. The back looked odd to me as well at first, but the more I see of it then the more convinced I become that actually it's a brilliant piece of design. Personally I'm not sure about the wrap around wood on the top of the dash, but then if you choose it in the right colour it less of an irritation.

Just seen the SWB version on the news. It's got a much shorter boot which transforms the look again. Kin of like a car to fit between the XF and XJ. Personally that's the one I'd have.

No the front end is to awesome to be compared to the XF. It's like they outsourced the rear end to the people in charge of the BMW 7 series.... Oh well at least they are getting better.....