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As Farley's tenure begins, Ford focuses on growth, improved execution, faster transformations


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4 hours ago, PREMiERdrum said:

Many great points in this discussion

 

A few notes:

 

Without a few *major* course corrections that Hackett made, I honestly don't want to think about what we'd be discussing on this page today. The iceberg was within site yet the captain kept talking about his plans upon reaching New York. Bad, bad, bad. Worse than most will understand for a while. 

 

The lack of a comprehensive portfolio strategy is why we saw Freestyle come out as it did, Explorer left to die, Expedition kept languishing, and Flex quickly abandoned. For the first time in my fandom of the Blue Oval, there is a legitimate, comprehensive *Portfolio* strategy in place that is helping better allocate investment, talent, and attention. They are NOT going to force entries into every segment. The segments they do enter, they're expect to commit to and own. 

The Mustang, Bronco, and F-Series sub-brands are three areas we all should be particularly excited about. They are getting the attention of Crown Jewels... as they should. 

 

Agreed. The last sentence are three of the "franchises" mentioned in the post. I believe the Transit would be the fourth as it is a global brand with different models like Transit, Transit connect ect. 

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4 hours ago, rmc523 said:

 

Flex replaced Freestyle/Taurus X.

Flex should have stayed on CD3 and kept the Fairlane name like the concept.

 

Also, if my memory is correct, the Flex actually was the direct replacement of the Freestar.

 

Ford considered do a Taurus-like 3 bar nose job on it, but Fields killed it and decided to enlarge the Fairlane concept to replace it. They even considered sliding doors on the Flex, but nixed that idea due to the high costs of sliders. 

 

Taurus X and Explorer basically merged into the CD4 Explorer as the X was redundant. 

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3 hours ago, rperez817 said:

 

This statement highlights the importance of educating the public about about the potential benefits of AVs and dispelling misconceptions. That's why Ford's membership in the Partners for Automated Vehicle Education group and the work Ford has done with its own AV education campaigns is a success factor as I mentioned earlier in this thread. 

Seriously? Your going to use someone who has maybe a year or two of actual driving experience as to why we need abandon how things are now?

 

How are your going to sell using an AV in a COVID type situation where people at going to demand that it’s sanitized or whatever? 
 

Then you have to contend with large group of people that an auto is an expression of themselves or is a status symbol to them. I know that I sure as hell don’t want to share my “toys” with anyone else. 
 

If anything, the AV situation that is being envisioned would require even more vehicles on the road if no one owned a car. 
 

depending on your views, all it’s doing is making society into a rental on where you don’t own anything and all your doing is being made a vessel to extract money from with no way of escaping it. At least if you own your car/house/whatever you can step off that convayier belt. 

Edited by silvrsvt
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Ford is an old mans company now...mundane, boring as hell buick similiarity, geriatric vehicles...$51k for a mustang 5.0 and bronco will quickly follow....for the youth may be bangladesh is the hope...fields has to rediect perception of the brand quickly... 

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1 hour ago, snooter said:

Ford is an old mans company now...mundane, boring as hell buick similiarity, geriatric vehicles...$51k for a mustang 5.0 and bronco will quickly follow....for the youth may be bangladesh is the hope...fields has to rediect perception of the brand quickly... 

 

Why would Fields be doing anything? Last I heard he was the weekend assistant manager at an Applebee's.

 

PS the Bronco reservation demographics.... ?

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12 hours ago, snooter said:

Ford is an old mans company now...mundane, boring as hell buick similiarity, geriatric vehicles...$51k for a mustang 5.0 and bronco will quickly follow....for the youth may be bangladesh is the hope...fields has to rediect perception of the brand quickly... 

 

image.png.bed9c174459a2c1f178b884322cd6e08.png  

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13 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

How are your going to sell using an AV in a COVID type situation where people at going to demand that it’s sanitized or whatever? 

 

Ford Smart Mobility and AV have been researching and testing solutions for sanitizing and disinfecting vehicles I'm sure. Another department at Ford worked with Ohio State to come up with software that uses heat to disinfect Police Interceptor vehicles. https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2020/05/27/ford-heated-sanitization-software-police-vehicles-coronavirus.html#:~:text=Using Police Interceptor Utility's own,to help disinfect vehicle touchpoints.

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13 hours ago, snooter said:

Ford is an old mans company now...mundane, boring as hell buick similiarity, geriatric vehicles...$51k for a mustang 5.0 and bronco will quickly follow....for the youth may be bangladesh is the hope...fields has to rediect perception of the brand quickly... 

 

That's the big challenge for Jim Farley. He has to finish the work that Hackett started just to get Ford fit again. At the same time, he also has to completely transform Ford into a 21st century business. Hackett said about Ford earlier this year "I don’t think this company can keep straddling the old and new worlds forever ... This company has to change."

 

I think Farley is the right man to do those 2 things.

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20 hours ago, mackinaw said:

 

Yep.  Years back, a friend of mine worked in Ford purchasing.  A supplier delivered some bad front end suspension bolts for the Ranger which resulted in a recall.  The supplier had to pay the cost of the recall.

In fact, Ford absorbs the cost on recalls. 

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17 hours ago, jpd80 said:

Hackett got credit for many initiatives begun under Fields, Bronco and Bronco Sport, Explorer, F150 based Expedition,

NG F150 & SD, New Escape/ Corsair are all pivotal models essential to Ford paying the bills today.

 

The statuses of Bronco, F-Series, and CD6 specifically were an absolutely mess in May of 2017. 

Fields gets no credit for the ideas he started and then paused or canceled. Hackett saved them. 

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22 hours ago, jasonj80 said:
22 hours ago, FordBuyer said:

Meanwhile, Ford has to replace 700,000 back up cameras including mine that is all screwed up. Wonder how much that is going to cost Ford. 

 

Not much as it was a supplier issue.

Very seldom do the suppliers "cost share" in recalls. (This was the big issue with Ford and Firestone on the Explorer tire fiasco.)   The mailing of recall notices, stocking and distributing parts, costs millions beyond the cost of the part.

Edited by theoldwizard
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7 minutes ago, theoldwizard said:

Very seldom do the suppliers "cost share" in recalls. (This was the big issue with Ford and Firestone on the Explorer tire fiasco.)   The mailing of recall notices, stocking and distributing parts, costs millions beyond the cost of the part.


Depends, but they supplier would pay for the new cameras as well as labor to install them. However it depends on the contract as sometimes OEM's will wave it if there are significant cost savings that they determine not to be an issue. If Ford gives specs and the supplier the specs and the supplier says no it needs to be done this way and it will cost more, Ford might say just build to our specs as we determined it will be fine for this application, Ford gets no warranty and eats the costs if there is an issue.

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I can only HOPE that a new CIO will put some fresh blood into the Information Technology area !

While IT has done a few good things (they jumped on fiber technology to unite the Dearborn campus very early and expanded that to all of SE MI), their overall performance has been a disaster.  They give preferential treatment to upper management (they have their own support staff based in the US, not off shore like everyone else) and are much more likely to tell you what you can NOT do than to help you come up with a solution to a problem.

 

DIY solutions or "shadow IT" still resolves most everyday problems.

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36 minutes ago, akirby said:


Nope.  Might depend on the supplier and the part but in most cases the supplier pays if it’s the supplier’s fault.

 

12 minutes ago, theoldwizard said:

Very seldom do the suppliers "cost share" in recalls. (This was the big issue with Ford and Firestone on the Explorer tire fiasco.)   The mailing of recall notices, stocking and distributing parts, costs millions beyond the cost of the part.

Totally agree on the rarity of cost sharing . Ask any parts buyer ! It's the same with the Ford logistics carriers (Penske ,etc..). Ford absorbs the cost!  

 

 

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Guess it depends on if the recall is related to a manufacturing issue or if it was a design flaw.  If the camera was built to Ford's specs, then Ford pays, if it was a manufacturing process issue that Ford required (e.g. Ford required ABC and it was done correctly and the fix is to do XYZ instead), Ford pays, but if the supplier just messed up, they pay.

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