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


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1 hour ago, Bob Rosadini said:

Not to get off topic, but whatever happened to the Mazda rotary (Wankel) engine.  Great hype and then?

I think they were high on NOX pollutants too.  Doesn't sound like something easily correctable. More research being done on standard engines and hybrid/EV.  Probably dead technology on a large scale.

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I had a summer job at Engine Engineering back in the around 1970.  Mainly I was a "Gofer," meaning go for this, go for that.  I recall seeing a number of vehicles running around with a Ford-developed Wankel engines.  You could always tell, that had a rotary engine triangular piston decal on the sides of the car.

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There was a YouTube on a US based developer who showed how Mazda had put the combustion chamber in the wrong place on the rotors and demonstrated how the rotaries could never get above about six or seven to one compression. He then showed that moving the combustion chamber to a new position improved compression and fuel efficiency. I found this amazing and wondered if the Japanese engineers were locked into a lot of preconceived ideas and were unable to change mindset due to engineering culture - do not question wisdom of superiors or original developers?

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6 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

What is exactly the metric they are using to judge this? And technically FCA is also an American company, since they do have what, Four American brand name plates under their banner?

Here is the methodology that BCG uses. https://image-src.bcg.com/Images/BCG-Most-Innovative-Companies-2020-Jun-2020-R-4_tcm9-251007.pdf

 

The BCG most innovative companies ranking is based in large part on a survey of 2,500 global innovation executives (63% C level,37% senior vice-president or vice-president level) who were polled from August 2019 through October 2019. 

 

We assess companies’ performance on four dimensions and then take an average of normalized scores to calculate the overall ranking. This year, as noted in the text, we added a new scoring dimension that captures each company’s variety and intensity of boundary breaking, by assessing its ability to breach established industry entry barriers and play in an array of markets outside its own. 

 

These four dimensions are:
1.) Global “Mindshare.” The number of votes received from all global innovation executives.
2.) Industry Peer View. The number of votes received from executives in a company’s own industry.
3.) Industry Disruption. The Diversity Index (Herfindahl-Hirschman) of votes across industries. 
4.) Value Creation. The TSR including share buybacks from January 2017 through December 2019 (three years).

 

FCA is a European company. Their corporate headquarters are in the Netherlands, their financial headquarters are in the U.K., and the largest shareholder in the company is the investment firm Exor N.V. which like FCA itself has corporate HQ in the Netherlands though its run by the Italian Agnelli family.

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18 hours ago, rperez817 said:

 

fuzzymoomoo said earlier in this thread that Ford's innovation oriented business segment (Smart Mobility + AV) is "not even delivering profits at the moment".

 

Also, Ford was not among this year's 50 most innovative companies in the annual analysis on innovation done by BCG. GM also failed to make the list. In fact, other than Tesla, all of the automotive OEM or Tier 1 automotive component supplier companies on the list are European or Asian. 

 

image.thumb.png.f78274cffd56d333a13c679f8ab9eea5.png

 

The fact that McDonalds is on this list proves it is worth as much as their crap-taste-ic hamburger. 

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On 10/6/2020 at 2:35 PM, ice-capades said:

 

Mazda's contribution was overrated for years. Ford didn't lose anything by selling it's interest in Mazda. 

 

On 10/7/2020 at 7:55 AM, theoldwizard said:

Concur !  Lots of effort was put in by Ford and it is certainly questionable if they really got "paid back".

 

Mazda GH chassis begat the Ford CD3 chassis....So I would say that Ford did indeed get their monies worth out of that joint venture. Similar to the Volvo tie up the gave us D3 out of Volvo's P2 architecture....

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19 minutes ago, twintornados said:

 

 

Mazda GH chassis begat the Ford CD3 chassis....So I would say that Ford did indeed get their monies worth out of that joint venture. Similar to the Volvo tie up the gave us D3 out of Volvo's P2 architecture....

 

Understood but have to wonder how much Volvo's contribution to D3 was worth considering the losses Ford incurred with it's involvement and ownership with Volvo and then sale. 

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57 minutes ago, ice-capades said:

 

Understood but have to wonder how much Volvo's contribution to D3 was worth considering the losses Ford incurred with it's involvement and ownership with Volvo and then sale. 


I'm sure Ford got way more out of that platform than what they could have dreamed of as it was being developed. They certainly got exponentially more out of it than Volvo ever did. 

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3 hours ago, twintornados said:

 

 

Mazda GH chassis begat the Ford CD3 chassis....So I would say that Ford did indeed get their monies worth out of that joint venture. Similar to the Volvo tie up the gave us D3 out of Volvo's P2 architecture....

 

Don't forget CD2 (MK1 Escape) which was derived from GF chassis. And Ranger, which would not exist today had it not been Mazda B-series keeping Ford's pickup truck business on life support outside North America until Ford actually invested its own money on it. 

 

Mazda was a hugely important part of Ford. I don't think anyone who knows Ford history can say otherwise. Mularlly did what he had to do but Mazda was not in the same category as Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover, or even Volvo. 

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3 hours ago, bzcat said:

 

Don't forget CD2 (MK1 Escape) which was derived from GF chassis. And Ranger, which would not exist today had it not been Mazda B-series keeping Ford's pickup truck business on life support outside North America until Ford actually invested its own money on it. 

 

Mazda was a hugely important part of Ford. I don't think anyone who knows Ford history can say otherwise. Mularlly did what he had to do but Mazda was not in the same category as Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover, or even Volvo. 

All the money for Mazda to do anything was bankrolled by Ford with express intention

of using the fruits of that Labor, CD3 and CD3S between them covered so many Ford

Mercury, Lincoln and Mazda vehicles, there was also the earlier Laser/Escort and Telstar.

 

Any need Ford had for Mazda was finished the day Mulally told

Ford NA and Ford Europe  and ROW to all work together,

Edited by jpd80
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22 hours ago, bzcat said:

 

Don't forget CD2 (MK1 Escape) which was derived from GF chassis. And Ranger, which would not exist today had it not been Mazda B-series keeping Ford's pickup truck business on life support outside North America until Ford actually invested its own money on it. 

 

Mazda was a hugely important part of Ford. I don't think anyone who knows Ford history can say otherwise. Mularlly did what he had to do but Mazda was not in the same category as Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover, or even Volvo. 

 

Wasn't the Duratec I4 based on a Mazda engine as well?

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3 minutes ago, Harley Lover said:

 

Wasn't the Duratec I4 based on a Mazda engine as well?

 

Yes sir Harley Lover, Ford's Duratec 1.8L, 2.0L, 2.3L, and 2.5L were based on the Mazda MZR 'L' engine family. Ford still owns the rights to build Mazda MZR 'L' based engines and in fact is the only automaker that currently uses the design. Mazda itself phased out the MZR for its vehicles in favor of the new SkyActiv-G engine family and in the near future, the HCCI SkyActiv-X.

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3 hours ago, rperez817 said:

 

Yes sir Harley Lover, Ford's Duratec 1.8L, 2.0L, 2.3L, and 2.5L were based on the Mazda MZR 'L' engine family. Ford still owns the rights to build Mazda MZR 'L' based engines and in fact is the only automaker that currently uses the design. Mazda itself phased out the MZR for its vehicles in favor of the new SkyActiv-G engine family and in the near future, the HCCI SkyActiv-X.

Ford and Mazda codeveloped those engines at the same time with Ford putting up the cash for the project

Wingsnut over on fordinsidenews was an engineer on that project, it's a huge misperception that Ford just

used a Mazda engine, especially when it funded the whole thing and owns the IP.

 

Both manufacturers have now evolved their engine designs away from the early common design.

 

Edited by jpd80
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On 10/9/2020 at 2:53 PM, bzcat said:

 

Don't forget CD2 (MK1 Escape) which was derived from GF chassis. And Ranger, which would not exist today had it not been Mazda B-series keeping Ford's pickup truck business on life support outside North America until Ford actually invested its own money on it. 

 

Mazda was a hugely important part of Ford. I don't think anyone who knows Ford history can say otherwise. Mularlly did what he had to do but Mazda was not in the same category as Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover, or even Volvo. 

Yes, the relationship benefited both. Mazda makes very good small sedans and CUV's that have quality and very reliable. Ford has a huge dealer and service network that Mazda doesn't have. Just go back to the mid 90's Mazda based Escort that sold very well and had the reputation of being bulletproof. They are still a popular used vehicle as they just won't die if taken care of. It's easily the best small sedan and wagon that Ford dealers ever sold. The Ford based Pinto and Focus were disasters.

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4 hours ago, FordBuyer said:

Yes, the relationship benefited both. Mazda makes very good small sedans and CUV's that have quality and very reliable. Ford has a huge dealer and service network that Mazda doesn't have. Just go back to the mid 90's Mazda based Escort that sold very well and had the reputation of being bulletproof. They are still a popular used vehicle as they just won't die if taken care of. It's easily the best small sedan and wagon that Ford dealers ever sold. The Ford based Pinto and Focus were disasters.

 

Uh, I got over 200K out of both of my Focuses/Foci, and both were fun to drive. I enjoyed them. On the other hand, I rented a Corolla and Sentra on two of my SoCal vacations, and couldn't wait to turn them in at the airport.

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On 10/9/2020 at 11:34 AM, fuzzymoomoo said:


I'm sure Ford got way more out of that platform than what they could have dreamed of as it was being developed. They certainly got exponentially more out of it than Volvo ever did. 

 

Didn't Ford still suing Volvo's Turbo and AWD technology, or at least was a good springboard?

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