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bzcat

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Everything posted by bzcat

  1. US vehicle exports enjoy some tariff preference in GCC Countries (which represents the vast majority of sales in the Middle East region) so it makes sense for Ford to source Fusion from the US instead of Europe. Also the majority of the Ford vehicles sold in GCC Countries are SUVs... so again, much easier to coordinate shipping logistic etc. if they get Fusion from US ports as well.
  2. Mexico sends Fusion to South America. Flat Rock send them to Middle East and a handful of other places. But for sure all LHD markets.
  3. I'm surprised Ford Australia is sticking with Valencia for the new Mondeo rather than taking advantage of US-AUS FTA and sourcing them from the US. I guess wagon availability plays a key factor here? But it's not like Camry is available in a wagon... Utilities are the growth segments there in Australia, and this is an area that Ford has lots of product depth. Ford Australia sales has been falling 15 years in a row... will 2015 be the year the trend line reverses? Everest, Edge, and Explorer will provide Ford Australia with a strong suite of SUVs to complement EcoSport and Kuga.
  4. 4,000 new jobs points to a very high volume engine... so that lends credibility to Detroit Free Press's report of 1.5 Ecoboost production. Although, it's possible that Ford is expanding the engine plant to add 1.5 Ecoboost and new diesel engines.
  5. Make sense to target the market leader when you are an insurgent brand. Ranger is Ford's #1 seller in Australia but still only does about 65% of Hilux's volume. Ranger did outsell Hilux in New Zealand last year... not sure how the kiwis running Ford over there managed that but quite an accomplishment
  6. The last time for Ford was the 1930s... and it was standard engine
  7. I was just going to post the same... lol Biker accidentally proved your point that you can't take weight out after chassis design is frozen. Similar size cars using shared platform should weight about the same.
  8. Europe Fully Owned Ford Valencia (Spain) - Mondeo, S-Max, Galaxy (begins later this year), Transit Connect, Kuga, C-Max Ford Colonge (Germany) - Fiesta, C-Max Ford Saarlouis (Germany) - Focus, Kuga Ford Craiova (Romania) - B-Max Europe Partially Owned/Joint Venture Ford Otosan (Turkey) - Transit, Transit Custom, Transit Connect, Transit Courier Ford Sollers (Russia) - CKD assembly only - Mondeo, S-Max, Galaxy, Kuga, Transit, Explorer Asia Fully Owned Ford Lio Ho (Taiwan) - Focus, Fiesta, Kuga Ford Chennai (India) - Figo, Fiesta, EcoSport, Endeavour (Everest) Ford Sunard (India) - TBD rumored to be C-car line Ford Hai Duong (Vietnam ) CKD assembly only - Ranger, Everest, Focus, Fiesta, EcoSport, Transit Ford Geelong (Australia) - Falcon, Territory Asia Partially Owned/Joint Venture Chang'an Ford Chongqing#1 (China) - Focus Classic, Mondeo, EcoSport Chang'an Ford Chongqing#2 (China) - Line 1: Focus, Kuga; Line 2: Escort Chang'an Ford Nanjing (China) - Fiesta, Mazda2 Chang'an Ford Hangzhou (China) - Edge, Taurus (begins later this year) Chang'an Ford Harbin (China) - TBD rumored to be 2nd C-car line including the new local-brand budget sedan Jiangling Ford #1 (China) - Transit Classic, Transit Jiangling Ford #2 (China) - Everest (begins later this year) AutoAlliance (Thailand) - Ranger, Everest, Focus, Fiesta, EcoSport, Mazda 2, Mazda 3, Mazda BT50 Ford Sime Darby (Malaysia) - CKD assembly only - Transit
  9. Just for the record: 1. The Chinese Taurus will be flex-build with Edge in the new Hangzhou plant. So we know for sure it is not a D3. It has to be a CD4... Ford is not going to invest in a brand new assembly operation for D3 platform in China. 2. I already opined earlier in this thread that the math doesn't work for Continental as a stand alone build in North America. It has to have a volume twin in order for the assembly plant fixed costs to be amortized. Ford doesn't have any spare capacity on existing CD4 lines anywhere to add Continental so it has to be on a new line. 3. We know Ford already has an UAW agreement that will move "a Lincoln" to Flat Rock. Hemosillo - We know it is at or near capacity right now because Ford added Flat Rock to meet Fusion demand. So Continental is not going there. Oakville - New CD4 Edge and MKX are going to soak up all the capacity there. Continental probably won't go there. Valencia - Busy already with Mondeo, S-Max, and Galaxy... Ford will Edge there first before they will make the Continental there Hangzhou - I don't foreseen a scenario where Ford will export Continental from China to the US, not on this earth anyway That leaves the empty half of Flat Rock as the only possible place to add another CD4 line. Flat Rock - fuzzymoomoo says Fusion is flex'd with Mustang on the same side of the plant, which based on current Mustang demand, means that line is probably at capacity. If Ford is going to make Continental in Flat Rock, it won't be on the same line with Fusion and Mustang. Ford is not going to start a new CD4 line with just 20,000 Continental sales a year. It has to be near 100,000 units to make sense.
  10. Ford already has a 2.7 Lion V6 diesel so if anything, they'd start there, not with the gasoline 2.7 EB. Diesel engine design has advanced very far in the last decade so adopting a gas engine for diesel duty is basically tossing out a lot of those development experience and starting over - rather pointless and illogical from an engineering standpoint. Using a similar bore and stroke as a gasoline engine may save some costs but you are probably giving up some efficiency as it is probably not the most optimum bore and stroke for a diesel of similar displacement. On an inline engine, the sharing of basic block makes more sense... on a V-engine, various cooling and exhaust requirements means packaging of gas vs. diesel are quite different, thus reducing the potential benefits of sharing the block.
  11. VW announced major cutbacks in Russia today. Its Kaluga plant (Tiguan, Polo, Skoda Rapid) will be idled on Fridays, and the remaining 4 days will have only 2 shifts instead of 3 shifts. http://www.wsj.com/articles/vw-to-reduce-russian-output-1427114176 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-23/vw-said-to-cut-jobs-at-russian-factory-as-car-market-shrinks http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/columnists/neil-winton/2015/04/09/car-sales-russia-dive-nearly/25522031/
  12. Crosstour will be replaced by a more conventional SUV... more like Edge. http://world.honda.com/news/2015/4150331Auto-Shanghai-2015/index.html
  13. My guess is Explorer will go longitude FWD with optional AWD. Aviator will be longitude AWD only. But I'm just guessing.
  14. The biggest factor is payload rating is chassis design, not engine output. Titan XD is based on a 12 years old frame design that was originally shared with the compact D40 Frontier (Navara in your part of the world). In another word, Titan XD has the classic "too much engine for the chassis" problem.
  15. The 1500 HD market is certainly a very tiny slice of the pickup truck market. Not sure if Ford really looked at it as potential F250 competition but more so just a pointless exercise with limited return on investment. As to the original thread topic... I think we will see a hybrid F150 first before a diesel F150. Ford has been working on it for a while and I would guess it will come after the 10 speed auto is implemented across the board. And quite possibly only as a PHEV... I see fleets running something like that and taking the tax credits and reaping the reward on fuel savings. 2.7 Ecoboost + several hundred pounds of battery should return a payload that is similar to the 3.5 V6 (the non-EB base engine) and performance similar to 5.0 V8. So while the acquisition costs maybe higher vs. 3.5 V6, you are getting more performance and similar capability. Plus there is upside of tax credit and long term operating savings. Diesel is missing the tax credit component and the operating savings is probably not as significant as ability to run on EV mode.
  16. I'm surprised PHEV is still not available on MKZ
  17. They are identical. Edge, S-Max, Galaxy are the same vehicles just with different exterior. Escape and C-Max also have the same interior. They even share the same greenhouse and door panel.
  18. Are you saying Ford can pump out 400,000 Escape/MKC in Louisville? There is usually a natural ceiling on production rates due to physical constrains so production rate is usually not linear with labor input. There must be some bottleneck somewhere (paint shop? final QC?) that will be overwhelmed if you add more labor.
  19. If Ford had the spare capacity in NAFTA zone, I'm sure they'd take another serious look at Ranger. But ultimately, midsize truck is Toyota's turf... anyone that wants in will need to contend with Tacoma. The segment was shrinking for many years so if GM can expand the size of the market, then good for them, and potentially good news for Ford as they start thinking about T7 Ranger. GM's deck of cards were different and they choose midsize pickup truck instead of fullsize vans. So if anyone is serious about looking at how the math will work for GM in the long run, that's where you need to start.
  20. The new factory is earmarked for the next generation Focus, and a low price car with a new brand name that Ford is co-developing with Chang'an right now.
  21. Ultimately, the math that matters is on profit, not sales volume. We don't have enough info to conclude one way or another but here are the anecdotal evidence, which I freely admit supports my opinion that midsize truck is a fools errant unless you are Toyota: 1. US spec Colorado/Canyon received pretty substantial revision from the global version, which was largely a rebadge job of Isuzu Rodeo pickup. The capital investment is probably moderate but still substantial. 2. GM retooled the fullsize van factory to build the Colorado/Canyon. This also resulted in GM exiting the light duty van segment, which is generally very profitable for Ford at least... not sure about GM. Is midsize pickup truck more profitable on a per unit basis than 1500 vans? I think Ford says van is more profitable but GM? 3. GM's fullsize pickup didn't have a very good launch... sales were down almost 20% in early 2014 because GM withdrew sales support on the new model but sales recovered somewhat after rebate started flowing again in the later part of the year. So take the comparison to prior year with caution. 4. Despite the sales support for fullsize pickup, it is still likely commanding higher margin than any midsize pickup truck. It's been often repeated factoid that average margin on domestic brand fullsize pickup trucks is somewhere just shy of $10,000. Given the lower MSRP of Colorado/Canyon, it's unlikely to match the Silverado margin. 5. Who is buying Colorado/Canyon? Fullsize buyers downsizing? Ranger owners coming out of witness protection? Tacoma owners fed up with frame rust? I don't know but GM surely has data that shows what vehicles are being traded in for Colorado/Canyon. The fact that they haven't been leaking words that Colorado/Canyon buyers are conquests from Ford and Toyota leads me to think it is mostly previous GM owners. This may support the short term pent up demand theory. But long term viability?
  22. Re: boring looks - have you seen the segment retail leader Toyota Avalon? Or runner up Buick LaCrosse? They are about as exciting looking as bars of soap. Fullsize sedan buyers like boring and predictable. The spy photo also lacks trim details like chrome... which I expect there will be lots of it on production version. RE: China only or China first - I think I've detailed my guess on this before but it seems pretty clear to me that Taurus is going to be China first. Here are the supporting facts: 1. Ford flexed Fusion to the Mustang line (or the other way around?) at Flat Rock so half of the facility is dark right now. Total capacity at Flat Rock is 250,000 units on two shifts so each side of the plant is roughly 125,000 units. The Mustang+Fusion side is close to 125,000 max on two shifts so Continental has to go to the side that is currently empty. Let say Continental doubles MKS sales from 2014 - very ambitious but achievable - it would increase from 8,000 to be around 16,000 units annually. Add in some export sales, you are at 20,000 units max. You can't support that kind of low volume assembly in the US. It's going to be Cadillac level financial disaster if Ford tries to do Continental without Taurus - margin on Continental alone cannot support the fixed costs. 2. Now look at the picture with Taurus added to the mix... Ford sold 52k Taurus in 2014, one of the worst year due to the fact the car is old and starting to lose competitiveness. Assuming the new one will increase demand by 20%, you are 60,000 units (Ford sold 69k Taurus in 2013 so there is some more upside there). Add in some export sales to Australia, Middle East, Mexico, Canada, you have maybe 70,000 units for Taurus alone. Add in the 20,000 unit Continental we just mentioned above, and you have 90,000 units on a line that can probably do 125,000 units on two shifts. Still not great but within the envelop of fiscally sensible investment. And this gives you some extra room still to flex in another CD4 car - e.g. the Taurus sales number I used does not include Police Interceptor... 3. Look at timing on D6... 2015 Explorer just received mid cycle update so we have 3.5 model years before the earliest possible debut of D6 Explorer in calendar year 2018. That means a potential D6 Taurus will be after 2019. If we assume new Taurus is China only, that implies that Ford will keep the existing Taurus in Chicago until that time basically unchanged since 2009 (2010 model year) - that's 10 years. It makes zero sense given Ford's relative prosperity now.
  23. Just an observation... and some deductive reasoning. Escape sales is off by 2,398 units from March 2014. MKC sales is 2,070 units this month (vs. 0 last year). Since Ford is basically production constrained at Louisville, this means Ford is happily trading some Escape sales for presumably higher margin MKC sales. Now I suppose this could open the door for another C-car assembly plant in North America... Ford is on track to sell more than 50,000 Transit Connect this year and it clearly could use 10~15% more volume on Escape/MKC so another 30~40,000 units. That's almost 100,000 unit right there and starting to approach a breakeven point for adding a new assembly line.
  24. Oh sure, some did. I even dubbed them the E-Series mafia, although I suspect it was just the same person posting under 2 or 3 different names. The van numbers are incredible this month. Nearly 10,000 Transit, nearly 5,000 Transit Connect, and another 6,000 E-series (probably mostly cab chassis or cutaway at this point). Fusion numbers are down... when is the mid cycle update due? 2016?
  25. Glass half full: Ford must be pleased that MKC is doing 50% of the volume of segment leader Audi Q5 after roughly 9 months on the market Glass half empty: Ford should be worried that similarly brand new Lexus NX is doing 75% more volume than MKC Compact Luxury CUV Sales March 2015 Acura RDX 3,963 Audi Q5 3,934 Lexus NX 3,633 Mercedes GLK 2,478 Volvo XC60 2,464 Lincoln MKC 2,070 BMW X3 1,541 Porsche Macan 1,180 Infiniti QX50 209
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