Hackett to retire 1 October, Jim Farley to become CEO

[bzcat]

1 hour ago, jpd80 said:

The only profitable vehicles that Ford sells in Europe and ROW are Transits and Ranger, all the rest barely cover

development and production costs. What we're seeing in those markets is Ford trying to limit the bleeding by

increasing vehicle prices, Ford is literally shrinking its business to profitability but it's now discovering just how

underwater its entire global business has become. God help Ford if it ever asks the same question in the USA.

 

The VW alliance is the salvation of Ford's European and global business, without those guaranteed sales of 

commercial vehicles (vans and pickups) to VW, Ford would have been forced into even more drastic cuts.

Now, the future looks brighter with Ford also accessing VW's MEB electric vehicle toolkit in Europe at least

and staying in front of a tidal wave of change against its ICE business. The next few years are going to be

very interesting indeed.

 

 

We discussed many times already. You can't shrink your way to prosperity in the auto business. Unlike say... office furniture, auto business has high fixed cost and long product lead time. Which means volume matters. You can't just shrink volume to chase margin as a long term strategy because very soon, you won't have enough volume to cover fixed costs. Ford needs x million C2 vehicles to make investments for next gen make sense. If you start cutting volume in small markets 3 or 4 thousand units at a time, soon you stuck with a spreadsheet that is upside down with no possible return on investment. 

 

But you also brought up an interesting point which I've mentioned a few times as well. With Transit and Ranger being the only profitable vehicles that Ford sells outside the US, it really boggles my mind that Ford doesn't put in more effort to sell these two vehicles in more markets. 

 

 

 

 

[mackinaw]

3 minutes ago, bzcat said:

We discussed many times already. You can't shrink your way to prosperity in the auto business.....

 

Sure you can.  GM is much smaller than they were before the bankruptcy.  They deliberately downsized by exiting Europe, Australia and India.  Before Covid hit, they were making one billion dollars profit/month, or 12 billion dollars/year, all on reduced volumes.

[Harley Lover]

9 hours ago, akirby said:

 

I thought Mulally did a great job - I wasn't blaming him at all.   And I could probably concede that the 2013 Fusion was BIC.  But I'm having a hard time remembering any other vehicles developed between 2008 and 2014 that truly went all out to "own the segment" like they're doing with Bronco.  

 

Do you not recall the 'aluminum F150'? 

 

I'm not saying that every vehicle Ford developed was BIC. I'm contesting your statement "He gave the engineers and designers carte Blanche to make them best in class.  That’s something that neither Mulally or Fields came close to doing on the product development side." with regard to Mulally. And I gave the citation to support it.

[Harley Lover]

15 minutes ago, mackinaw said:

 

Sure you can.  GM is much smaller than they were before the bankruptcy.  They deliberately downsized by exiting Europe, Australia and India.  Before Covid hit, they were making one billion dollars profit/month, or 12 billion dollars/year, all on reduced volumes.

 

How much debt load did the U.S. government remove from GM's books to allow them to that profitability? How many debt holders were screwed over (non sequitur). It's far too simple to claim they "shrank their way to profitability".

[jpd80]

17 minutes ago, bzcat said:

 

We discussed many times already. You can't shrink your way to prosperity in the auto business. Unlike say... office furniture, auto business has high fixed cost and long product lead time. Which means volume matters. You can't just shrink volume to chase margin as a long term strategy because very soon, you won't have enough volume to cover fixed costs. Ford needs x million C2 vehicles to make investments for next gen make sense. If you start cutting volume in small markets 3 or 4 thousand units at a time, soon you stuck with a spreadsheet that is upside down with no possible return on investment. 

 

But you also brought up an interesting point which I've mentioned a few times as well. With Transit and Ranger being the only profitable vehicles that Ford sells outside the US, it really boggles my mind that Ford doesn't put in more effort to sell these two vehicles in more markets. 

Absolutely, why on earth isn’t Ford  pressing harder with Ranger and making Everest more competitive- they don’t even sell it in Europe.

ive often suspected that Ford’s product delivery timetable from concept to delivery is so long that the original data is out of date and the product not exactly a good fit with buyer - I’m aware that there’s way more issues to this.

 

This cutting to profit is devastating customer interest in Ford  globally, the new Focus is already in full retreat in places like Australia as they keep lumping us with UK market oriented vehicles just because they’re easy RHD and insanely, we’re getting a diesel Escape to go up against red hot sales of hybrid RAV4 .

[jpd80]

13 minutes ago, Harley Lover said:

 

Do you not recall the 'aluminum F150'? 

 

I'm not saying that every vehicle Ford developed was BIC. I'm contesting your statement "He gave the engineers and designers carte Blanche to make them best in class.  That’s something that neither Mulally or Fields came close to doing on the product development side." with regard to Mulally. And I gave the citation to support it.

Internally, aluminium cost increases is now a constant headache for Ford especially so under Hackett’s tenure.

[akirby]

12 minutes ago, Harley Lover said:

 

Do you not recall the 'aluminum F150'? 

It was already best in class before he got there.  But yes, he continued the theme.

 

And I acknowledged Fusion.  But there were others like cmax that weren’t.

[jpd80]

21 minutes ago, Harley Lover said:

 

How much debt load did the U.S. government remove from GM's books to allow them to that profitability? How many debt holders were screwed over (non sequitur). It's far too simple to claim they "shrank their way to profitability".

The option to go chapter 11 was there for Ford too but the Fords refused to give up control of the company.

 

A failed GM was not an option for the industry or the government, it was a lender of last choice and still got burned $10 billion on sales of stock..

 

In an alternate reality,

Ford could have gone CH11, dumped all its debt and bad assets on Mercury, fired 40,000 workers and emerge from bankruptcy almost debt free like GM did.

Edited August 5, 2020 by jpd80

[jpd80]

Sorry guys, don’t mean to be a contrarian here, history is done and we can’t go back change what has been but wouldn’t you think that corporates learn a few things about when to control risks and when to take good calculated risks on products that pay off handsomely.

[probowler]

46 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

Sorry guys, don’t mean to be a contrarian here, history is done and we can’t go back change what has been but wouldn’t you think that corporates learn a few things about when to control risks and when to take good calculated risks on products that pay off handsomely.

Well ya can't have a meaningful discussion if everyone is  in agreement and patting each other on the back!

At that point it's just a bunch of jerks, in a circle ?

Edited August 6, 2020 by probowler

[ausrutherford]

It is true that global sales are down over the past couple of years. However, in many areas (not including China, which has been a cluster), the mix of sales has been improving.

 

Ranger now controls most sales for Ford Oz, basically taking the same ratio the Falcon once did. Which will provide Ford Oz more profit? Falcon/Focus...or the Ranger? We all know the answer. Same goes for Fiesta sales switching to Puma or Focus sales switching to Kuga elsewhere. 

 

Ranger was already the 2nd best selling small truck globally before releasing in the US. Some have suggested why Ford doesn't start production of the Ranger in China. I have asked that myself, but the T6 platform is used for JMC pickups. All dealers that sell JMC products also sell the Ford products made under the same JV, so it might lead to internal competition.

 

Things are looking up in China. Corsair, Nautilus, Aviator, and Explorer are now locally made and are so far doing well. 

[jpd80]

Ford Aus doesn’t make much profit, looks like Thailand keeps most of the profits for itself and away from the Aussie taxman.....

[fuzzymoomoo]

2 hours ago, bzcat said:

But you also brought up an interesting point which I've mentioned a few times as well. With Transit and Ranger being the only profitable vehicles that Ford sells outside the US, it really boggles my mind that Ford doesn't put in more effort to sell these two vehicles in more markets. 

North America was the last big holdout as far as Ranger is concerned 

[jpd80]

9 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

North America was the last big holdout as far as Ranger is concerned 

Yes and the rejection was based on 2006 perceived need for a smaller pickup. This is where out of date customer data both on Ranger and F150 being mostly large crew cabs was completely missed for so long. They didn’t see the opportunity because the perception was flawed.

Edited August 6, 2020 by jpd80

[ausrutherford]

6 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

Ford Aus doesn’t make much profit, looks like Thailand keeps most of the profits for itself and away from the Aussie taxman.....

 

It doesn't have too. All it has to do is provide a large amount of volume for the Ranger. 

 

GM could never get the right volume mix with the Colorado. Never even sold well in Thailand.

 

I'd say with how much Ranger and Everest sales have increased, together with JMC sales, the T6 Platform has been Ford's biggest success story of the past decade. 

 

Ford is selling at least double the amount of Rangers now in every market than they did with the last generation. 

[jpd80]

5 minutes ago, ausrutherford said:

 

It doesn't have too. All it has to do is provide a large amount of volume for the Ranger. 

 

GM could never get the right volume mix with the Colorado. Never even sold well in Thailand.

 

I'd say with how much Ranger and Everest sales have increased, together with JMC sales, the T6 Platform has been Ford's biggest success story of the past decade. 

 

Ford is selling at least double the amount of Rangers now in every market than they did with the last generation. 

Absolutely and buyers are mostly prepared to pay a lot more to get what they want.

[SoonerLS]

On 8/4/2020 at 10:36 AM, rmc523 said:

 

At least we don't have to listen to any more bizarre speeches that nobody understands anymore.

Don't worry; it's an election year. We'll get plenty of that.

[fuzzymoomoo]

36 minutes ago, SoonerLS said:

Don't worry; it's an election year. We'll get plenty of that.

Any time either Trump or Biden opens their mouth it's always alphabet soup of nonsense 

[akirby]

13 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

Any time either Trump or Biden opens their mouth it's always alphabet soup of nonsense 

 

Or just about any of the high profile folks on both sides.   Honestly, we just need to clean house and start over with folks who aren't obsessed with beating the other team and who can actually meet somewhere in the middle.

 

Rand Paul seems to be the only one with any semblance of doing what's right without playing political games.

[fuzzymoomoo]

7 minutes ago, akirby said:

 

Or just about any of the high profile folks on both sides.   Honestly, we just need to clean house and start over with folks who aren't obsessed with beating the other team and who can actually meet somewhere in the middle.

 

Rand Paul seems to be the only one with any semblance of doing what's right without playing political games.

Good luck with that, there's too much money tied up in elected officials, even Rand Paul and I agree with you on him. 
 

Besides, the communist revolution is on now so it won't be long before the entire system changes anyway. 

[Trailhiker]

11 minutes ago, akirby said:

 

Or just about any of the high profile folks on both sides.   Honestly, we just need to clean house and start over with folks who aren't obsessed with beating the other team and who can actually meet somewhere in the middle.

 

It is the media on both sides which provokes this, sensationalizes it, and profits from the discourse.

[akirby]

3 minutes ago, Trailhiker said:

It is the media on both sides which provokes this, sensationalizes it, and profits from the discourse.

Agreed.

 

Now back to Hackett......

[jpd80]

Hackett gets hammered for not doing enough publicity but behind the scenes, he put right a lot of off course decisions by Fields, a lot of things the public will never know about.

keeping Ford Europe was also another big mountain to climb but maybe the pay off is coming with VW alliance.

[ausrutherford]

1 hour ago, jpd80 said:

Hackett gets hammered for not doing enough publicity but behind the scenes, he put right a lot of off course decisions by Fields, a lot of things the public will never know about.

keeping Ford Europe was also another big mountain to climb but maybe the pay off is coming with VW alliance.

 

Whenever I saw an analyst says that Ford should have sold off Ford EU, then never seemed to understand that Ford EU supplied a lot more to Ford than Opel ever did to GM. 

 

Opel still had mostly its own vehicles. It never developed its own commercial vehicles and I could go on.

 

If Ford EU was sold off: 1) it would make the feasibility of the Transit Connect hard to justify just for the US market; 2) It would make the Custom's business case impossible for it just to be in China; 3) It would have hurt Ford South Africa since much of its Ranger exports go to Europe; 4) Would have killed any Ford subcompact vehicle (car or crossover) globally since Europe is the largest market for the B-segment; 4) would have hurt Ford's feasibility for all c-platform vehicles with the loss of Focus and Escape volume; 5) Would have hurt JMC's position in China as it uses Ford Turkey developed trucks and engines for heavy trucks.

 

Not to mention the Ford Family pride. We know they take pride in selling in Ireland especially. 

 

And I could go on...

[FordBuyer]

33 minutes ago, ausrutherford said:

 

Whenever I saw an analyst says that Ford should have sold off Ford EU, then never seemed to understand that Ford EU supplied a lot more to Ford than Opel ever did to GM. 

 

Opel still had mostly its own vehicles. It never developed its own commercial vehicles and I could go on.

 

If Ford EU was sold off: 1) it would make the feasibility of the Transit Connect hard to justify just for the US market; 2) It would make the Custom's business case impossible for it just to be in China; 3) It would have hurt Ford South Africa since much of its Ranger exports go to Europe; 4) Would have killed any Ford subcompact vehicle (car or crossover) globally since Europe is the largest market for the B-segment; 4) would have hurt Ford's feasibility for all c-platform vehicles with the loss of Focus and Escape volume; 5) Would have hurt JMC's position in China as it uses Ford Turkey developed trucks and engines for heavy trucks.

 

Not to mention the Ford Family pride. We know they take pride in selling in Ireland especially. 

 

And I could go on...

 

And I would have never bought a 1968 Ford Cortina GT, a 1971 V6 Capri, and a 1975 V6 Capri. Still enjoy YouTube videos of racing Capris and the great sounds they make. Lots of great heritage there and memories. Still have the racing Capri picture of it rounding a tight turn with inside tire up in air.