passis

Official presentation shouldn't take much longer. FCA/RAM is developing in Brazil a "Grand Compass"-based trucklet, probably to hit US dealerships too, around 2024.

It looks like Ford India is not getting a Brazilian afterall... To me, shared projects aimed at Southeast Asia, South America and Southern Africa should go hand in hand to cut costs but Ford seems to be overspending in overlapping products, changing its mind many times and eventually going different ways...

Ford do Brasil seems to be launching the Bronco in May, they even made a video - lame, if you ask me, looks like they're aiming at young urban women... You can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unGijVqbWgY

Sounds interesting. Other markets could benefit from this model, possibly with good margins. Maybe CX758 gets resurrected, V758 seems to have - with the BX trio gone, that makes a lot of sense...

I read on FA that Hermosillo could also get Transit Connect, which I always thought made a lot of sense - but instead they went for a 3rd party production in Uruguay...

Well, calling Mustang a vehicle with VW underpinnings might be too much...

A lot of VW architecture... Any chance Ford and VW might become inseparable by the end of the decade? Note: There are rumours Ford do Brasil might use VW's Brazilian plants to produce EVs (although I very much doubt Ford will ever again accomplish any commercial success here). VW was planning on bringing MEB but current situation caused a delay in their plans - the Transporter/Kombi was mentioned. [However, the CEO of VW South America also claimed that ethanol-based hydrogen vehicles would be more viable here. ]

So now that Cologne and Valencia are officially getting updated for electrification, will Craiova follow? Or will the Ecosport situation in Russia, Brazil, India, Thailand also be a bad pressage for Romania?

Maybe Mexico is getting the Puma. As for India, the situation is very confusing. So the BX duo might just be completely dead as Ford is abdicating new peripheral ICE models in favour of EVs.

After Brazil, Ford seems to be pulling the plugs of the Indian Ka/Figo/Aspire https://indianauto.com/news/ford-revamps-lineups-figo-aspire-freestyle-nid8957

I hope in México they don't charge for the Territory twice as much as the Eco, as they do here. Maybe Mexico is indeed getting the production of the Brazilian NG Territory.

Also in December Ford had a meeting with dealers in Brazil and they were all excited about the new products in Camaçari. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they announced the cancellation of the expansion. Not just Brazil, but Mahindra and Zotye are gone too. I'm not familiar with the numbers involved in terms of break-even production, but they're investing $1 billion in South Africa for massive production and $600 million in Argentina for a very questionable output - in the best scenario they keep what they have now, replacing Brazil with Chile, Peru. etc. Either I am very bad at math or this plan is not viable. Especially when you're already spending $4.1 billion to abandon an important regional market. To me, these are very mixed messages. You're absolutely right in pointing Brazilian economical problems, but other carmakers managed to make some money in the last decade, prior to Covid. Even competitors that were new to the market and had smaller scale production (Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, Jeep). It's painful to see Ford with great products and engineering having such a poor understanding of the market.

Now is the perfect time to go after those markets. Can you name a few? Ranger sales have been hit even harder than the Ka in Brazil last month - so there should be lots of extra capacity in Pacheco from now on, as pickup buyers value reliability. https://www.mobiauto.com.br/revista/amp/ford-vendas-de-ranger-e-territory-estao-caindo-mais-que-as-do-ka/577 Hopefully those markets can compensate Ford going out of business in Brazil. In any case, Ranger prospects globally are very good. Being conservative for this matter I'd just forget about south American NG Ranger until I see it with my own eyes (Zero faith in last year's official announcement). But those 50k shouldn't affect much when you see the full picture.

I'm not sure about this number. Argentina seems to have produced 900k along 25 years. It also seems that Argentina sales are around 15k and that it represents around 30% of total production. (https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fsa/ar/es/news/2020/09/ford-argentina-celebra-la-produccion-de-la-ranger-900-000-en-pla.html). So the production could be half of that, around 50k. With Ranger sales in Brazil going down, one could see a drop by 20k in that number - considering the Camaçari debacle doesn't affect other regional markets as well... Also, it's worth mentioning that VW is not chipping in with the Amarok here. Unfortunately, Ford is making Ranger's business case very difficult to work in South America.

What I find funny - well, actually, sad and hard to understand - is that they are spending 4 times as much here... $4.2 billions...