Jump to content

Ford 1st Quarter Sales


Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Donaldo said:

 

I think Bronco & Bronco Sport will have a lot more potential to create conquest buyers for Ford than the Mach-E. It's a market that Ford abandoned decades ago, and still sells a lot of off-road oriented SUVs. 

Consider this, all the vehicles you mentioned are replacement products for Hermosillo and Cuautitlan,

San Louis Potosi was cancelled, it's clear that Ford is limiting total US sales to a maximum of 2.5 million.

They are as reliant as ever on F Series carrying the can for Jim Hackett's mobility and electrification plans...,.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:


Stuff that I don't feel comfortable posting about publicly. 
 

Also the governor of Michigan just extended and enhanced the lockdown order until the end of May, and essentially turned the state into a police state. 

So you are saying that Ford was forced to “care” about their factory employees?   Or you didn’t see the “stay at home” orders being extended?  Just trying to understand, from your perspective 2 weeks ago, you eluded to the fact that you would be back at the factory because Ford doesn’t care.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

Consider this, all the vehicles you mentioned are replacement products for Hermosillo and Cuautitlan,

San Louis Potosi was cancelled, it's clear that Ford is limiting total US sales to a maximum of 2.5 million.

They are as reliant as ever on F Series carrying the can for Jim Hackett's mobility and electrification plans...,.

 

I can see focusing on vehicles with the highest profit margins. I understand the Porsche 911 had the highest profitability per car last year.  It accounts for almost 30% of Porsche's profits, even though it is only 11% of sales.  It's not the most expensive or exclusive sports car.  Same thing with premium American made SUVs like the BMW X5 and Mercedes GLE, they punch above their class and put money in the bank. Maybe the higher end F-150s like Raptors will be the Porsches of pickup trucks? I'm thinking high customer satisfaction+low discounts= good profits. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:


Stuff that I don't feel comfortable posting about publicly. 
 

Also the governor of Michigan just extended and enhanced the lockdown order until the end of May, and essentially turned the state into a police state. 


She only extended it until the end of April. She wanted to extend it 70 days but the legislature told her no. She’s making this way to political and is probably going to cost Peters his seat this Fall if she’s not careful. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, Donaldo said:

I can see focusing on vehicles with the highest profit margins. I understand the Porsche 911 had the highest profitability per car last year.  It accounts for almost 30% of Porsche's profits, even though it is only 11% of sales.  It's not the most expensive or exclusive sports car.  Same thing with premium American made SUVs like the BMW X5 and Mercedes GLE, they punch above their class and put money in the bank. Maybe the higher end F-150s like Raptors will be the Porsches of pickup trucks? I'm thinking high customer satisfaction+low discounts= good profits. 

Correct and with that, we can also see that Ford is less inclined to chase massive  sales in compact segments like RAV4 and Equinox.

Everywhere you look, Ford has entry models but the higher trims and options is money to Ford, make them desirable and buyers react.

 

10 minutes ago, snooter said:

 the sport truck segment can disappear just as fast as it appeared...sport trucks are so 30 years ago...ford needs product that "connects" and at this point it does not....its all stickers and product that is dam expensive to mod....

The money to develop is already spent, they are ridiculous high profit that rich buyers can afford,

that means there's a lot of room to move on price when times are tight. I'm sure sports trucks will

stay as long as buyers want them.

 

Ford doesn't give a fig about modifiers, never have and never will.

Edited by jpd80
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Donaldo said:

I can see focusing on vehicles with the highest profit margins. I understand the Porsche 911 had the highest profitability per car last year.  It accounts for almost 30% of Porsche's profits, even though it is only 11% of sales.  It's not the most expensive or exclusive sports car.  Same thing with premium American made SUVs like the BMW X5 and Mercedes GLE, they punch above their class and put money in the bank. Maybe the higher end F-150s like Raptors will be the Porsches of pickup trucks? I'm thinking high customer satisfaction+low discounts= good profits. 

 

Ford is a volume manufacturer not a boutique car company like Porsche or Tesla. They can't keep chasing margin and ignore volume because they have high fixed costs. Yes, you can in theory charge higher price for each unit if you only plan to sell 100,000 instead of 150,000 but that assumes there is no nature demand for 150,000 units (so you have to discount and provide incentive to move the other 50,000 units). However, that ignores the fact that the cost of running the factory to produce 100,000 and 150,000 units are basically the same. So by not producing that extra 50,000 units, Ford just destroyed its profitability. Additionally, to justify higher prices, you need to keep products fresh. What have we seen Ford do instead? Just the opposite! They kept the Escape past the sell-by date and the new one is getting panned for having cheap interior. 

 

In the case of compact CUV, there is ample evidence that natural demand for Ford Escape is likely higher than Ford is willing to sell. There is also plenty of evidence that consumers are willing to pay a premium for compact CUV that delivers the goods but Ford decided to cut cost instead. It's a weird situation they are in.

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, snooter said:

Little harsh dont you think?

The truth often is, no offence intended but Ford regularly defers heavily modified Mustang/extreme off road  trucks/SUVs to the aftermarket.

 

1 hour ago, bzcat said:

 

Ford is a volume manufacturer not a boutique car company like Porsche or Tesla. They can't keep chasing margin and ignore volume because they have high fixed costs. Yes, you can in theory charge higher price for each unit if you only plan to sell 100,000 instead of 150,000 but that assumes there is no nature demand for 150,000 units (so you have to discount and provide incentive to move the other 50,000 units). However, that ignores the fact that the cost of running the factory to produce 100,000 and 150,000 units are basically the same. So by not producing that extra 50,000 units, Ford just destroyed its profitability. Additionally, to justify higher prices, you need to keep products fresh. What have we seen Ford do instead? Just the opposite! They kept the Escape past the sell-by date and the new one is getting panned for having cheap interior. 

 

In the case of compact CUV, there is ample evidence that natural demand for Ford Escape is likely higher than Ford is willing to sell. There is also plenty of evidence that consumers are willing to pay a premium for compact CUV that delivers the goods but Ford decided to cut cost instead. It's a weird situation they are in.

 

 

Ford is definitely leaving a lot of money and sales on the table, the problem is much deeper than higher ATPs,

it's this attitude of actively resisting products and trims that have low profit returns. All to keep JH's 10% returns.

 

Mulally taught Ford that a lot of the costs that were once assumed to be fixed are in fact variable

and that feeding the multitudes with 40,000/mth Escape might not serve their purposes as much

as say, split across two vehicles with higher asking price and lower Mexican input costs.

It's more about benchmarking Ford against itself than others and something that will haunt them

if or when the market changes abruptly like now. Jim Hackett has proven to me how dreadful he is

at contingency planning, he has heavily leveraged Ford on "the future" while running down the present.

Edited by jpd80
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, bzcat said:

In the case of compact CUV, there is ample evidence that natural demand for Ford Escape is likely higher than Ford is willing to sell. There is also plenty of evidence that consumers are willing to pay a premium for compact CUV that delivers the goods but Ford decided to cut cost instead. It's a weird situation they are in.

 

Isn't that the point of the Bronco Sport? Charge more for a vehicle that should have higher demand and transaction pricing then the Escape? Maybe they are trying wring the Escape pricing as much as possible til the Sport comes along and then they will lower pricing to a point via incentives to move them?

 

They seem to have some sort of issue with the Escape's costs-They did some serious decontenting on the last gen at the end of its run, but oddly a 2017 SE has nearly everything a 2013 Escape Ti has equipment wise and in some cases is better equipped (Power passenger seat on the SE vs Ti) then it was. Not sure what is going on there with Ford...seems like they seriously dropped the ball some place. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

 

Isn't that the point of the Bronco Sport? Charge more for a vehicle that should have higher demand and transaction pricing then the Escape? Maybe they are trying wring the Escape pricing as much as possible til the Sport comes along and then they will lower pricing to a point via incentives to move them?

 

They seem to have some sort of issue with the Escape's costs-They did some serious decontenting on the last gen at the end of its run, but oddly a 2017 SE has nearly everything a 2013 Escape Ti has equipment wise and in some cases is better equipped (Power passenger seat on the SE vs Ti) then it was. Not sure what is going on there with Ford...seems like they seriously dropped the ball some place. 

Some mistakes with Escape pricing and trim content could be corrected with an update like Explorer,

I think Ford is being a bit take it or leave it with buyers, there's a lot of money being left on the table.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

Also the governor of Michigan just extended and enhanced the lockdown order until the end of May, and essentially turned the state into a police state. 

 

We've been shut down since the 16th and a couple things have happened in the past week or two clamp down on things even more. It's not a police state-its looking out for everyone's best interests.

 

We have an issue the next town over from me with a certain religious sect that runs it and doesn't follow the social distancing rules or other things implemented-and they have the most numbers in the entire county and are causing the communities next to it to be the 1st or second/3rd highest in their respective counties. My town is has the highest amount of cases in my county because of that. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

It's not a police state-its looking out for everyone's best interests.


Local municipalities around me (one of which still has ZERO confirmed COVID-19 cases, most of which are in single digits) are literally sitting in parking lots and waiting to write people tickets. That screams police state to me. A friend of mine who lives around the corner from me got harassed by local police for mowing his lawn. 

  • Like 1
  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:


Local municipalities around me (one of which still has ZERO confirmed COVID-19 cases, most of which are in single digits) are literally sitting in parking lots and waiting to write people tickets. That screams police state to me. A friend of mine who lives around the corner from me got harassed by local police for mowing his lawn. 

 

That sounds like bored cops to me...we have a fairly significant population (about 1.5 Million between the two counties I live near) and I haven't seen that yet...the closed the parks the other day finally here. I've been out a couple times and there are still a decent amount of people out and about. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/8/2020 at 6:47 AM, rperez817 said:

 

Yes sir snooter. Ford buyers tend to be loyalists who already own a Ford vehicle. This is a good thing in that it's easier to sell to an existing customer than to get a conquest customer.

 

While the last thing Ford needs right now is growth, there is the long term concern that the number of Ford loyalists is shrinking. And as you correctly said, more erosion of Ford's market share is likely. Maybe Ford's new BEV products like Mustang Mach-E will finally change that. Remains to be seen.

It will be years before any BEV products will reverse the market share erosion, especially given their premium pricing. What Ford needs to help with market share is a vehicle that will sell 100,000 or more units/year  - like a C2 based Fusion sedan. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

 

That sounds like bored cops to me...we have a fairly significant population (about 1.5 Million between the two counties I live near) and I haven't seen that yet...the closed the parks the other day finally here. I've been out a couple times and there are still a decent amount of people out and about. 


There's a video circulating social media right now of a guy being forcibly removed from a train in Philadelphia because he didn't want to wear a mask. That doesn't sound like bored cops to me. 

Edited by fuzzymoomoo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said:


There's a video circulating social media right now of a guy being forcibly removed from a train in Philadelphia because he didn't want to wear a mask. That doesn't sound like bored cops to me. 

In my country, they closed down a state border,r rat runners now driving around blockades are being hit with $13,000 fine.

People not permitted to go camping or use holiday homes, one government minister caught and ultimately forced to resign.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, snooter said:

They should have canned the edge....makes even less sense to keep with the soon arrival of the wanna be heep...may be use the savings to upgrade interiors on f series and escape

Bronco may be a disappointment to you but that doesn't mean it's not a capable off roader

that does most things expected of it, short of extreme off roading.

 

The money has already been spent developing NG Edge, there are no savings to be had

as cancelling it now would be an even greater loss to Ford.

 

Edge will have softer body styling than Bronco and complement sales, not compete.

All part of Ford's plan to have three sales channels:

 

Bronco Sport + Escape + Corsair = 100k + 200k + 30k annual sales in first full 12 months

Bronco + Edge + Nautilus = 50k + 180k + 30k annual sales in first full 12 months

 

Edited by jpd80
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And look at Fusion sales.  In the Top 20 yet again. 

 

Yes, a ton are fleet these days, but they're EVERYWHERE.  Dumbest decision ever to discontinue this model (and another feather in the cap for sending Jimbo - take Billy Boy

 April 2 (Reuters) - The following are the 20 top-selling vehicles
in the United States in Q1 2020, as reported by automakers and ranked
by total units. 

Top 20 selling vehicles in the United States in Q1 2020:
    
 RANK     VEHICLE                   Q1 2020      Q1 2019      PCT CHNG
                                                                       
       1  Ford F-Series P/U             186,562      214,611    -13.1
       2  Chevy Silverado-C/K P/U       144,734      114,313    +26.6
       3  Ram P/U                       128,805      120,026     +7.3
       4  Toyota RAV4                    97,631       83,820    +16.5
       5  Toyota Camry                   77,188       81,684     -5.5
       6  Chevrolet Equinox              73,453       88,500    -17.0
       7  Honda CR-V                     71,186       87,280    -18.4
       8  Toyota Corolla                 69,214       78,608    -12.0
       9  Honda Civic                    63,944       78,185    -18.2
      10  Nissan Rogue                   59,716       93,814    -36.3
      11  Ford Explorer                  56,310       61,922     -9.1
      12  Toyota Tacoma                  53,636       58,183     -7.8
      13  GMC Sierra P/U                 53,009       40,546    +30.7
      14  Jeep Grand Cherokee            50,083       57,749    -13.3
      15  Ford Escape                    48,117       60,702    -20.7
      16  Toyota Highlander              47,890       52,621     -9.0
      17  Nissan Altima                  47,347       51,480     -8.0
      18  Honda Accord                   47,125       64,411    -26.8
      19  Jeep Wrangler                  39,668       49,978    -20.6
      20  Ford Fusion                    36,937       41,683    -11.4

with you - off a cliff).  Refresh it lightly (but more than for '19) for '22, and a full (NOT new platform) redo for '24.  Want 250K in sales for a couple (maybe more) years on top of the Fusion's already healthy sales?  Bring the wagon (duh!) and call it Country Squire.  Offer it in base (S) trims and above and also a vinyl wood sided option on SE and above.  And price it from $27-ish to $40-ish.  AWD an option.  At the very least, it'll be an instant remake of many movie and sitcom classics.  I'd buy one, for sure.  So would my sister and her friends and their friends.  OK, so the appeal might be to those of us 50+, but we have the money.

Edited by CLTEcoBoost
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...