It still seems like getting rid of the Fusion was a mistake.

[ice-capades]

47 minutes ago, paintguy said:

Taurus SHO another example of a performance sedan that never quite made the sales that were expected. I've owned 2 and both were great cars. Taurus needed a redesign, but business case not there. 

 

Sorry, but from my experience the Taurus SHO did fairly well, especially when it became available with the automatic transmission. It appealed to a specific customer and was well received by them. It was never expected to sell in mass volume, but served the intended niche market well.

[DeluxeStang]

On 12/15/2023 at 7:59 PM, 2005Explorer said:

The Maverick, Escape and Bronco Sport are the currently affordable vehicles in Ford’s line up. The Escape is supposed to be cancelled next year. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ford doesn’t pull the plug on the Maverick and Bronco Sport soon after.

The maverick is still pretty affordable despite the price increases. Considering the fact that the maverick has been a runaway success, and is starting to achieve iconic status, I don't see it being canceled anytime soon. Same goes for the bronco sport. 

 

Ford does affordable aspiration better than anyone else, making "dream cars" that buyers can realistically afford. When Ford leans into this, they shine bright like a diamond, the mustang, bronco, bronco sport, escort, Galaxie, fiesta and focus st, maverick, and f-series all being examples. 

 

Where Ford struggles is in appealing to the compliance car "I just want a reliable appliance" crowd. The escape, the edge, the fusion, not terrible cars, just nothing spectacular. I want Ford to rethink the escape, and come out with something spectacular. I turn my head every time I see the newer Hyundai Tuscon, it's a striking design, give me something like that. 

[AM222]

On 12/19/2023 at 9:01 PM, silvrsvt said:

 

I was about to say...just a different name. 

Out of curiosity I checked the sales number of the Rav4 in the Escape & Kuga's main markets.

Ford Escape/ Kuga
November 2023 US sales: 11,542 
2022 US sales: 137,370
2022 Canada sales: 23,848
2022 China sales: 22,896
2022 Europe sales (Kuga): 125,718
2022 sales from Ford Escape/ Kuga's main markets: 309,832

Toyota Rav4
November 2023 US sales: 42,842
2022 US sales: 366,741
2022 Canada sales: 28,679
2022 China sales: 156,548
2022 Europe sales: 83,859
2022 sales of the Toyota Rav4 in Escape/ Kuga's main markets: 635,827

What about Ford's other markets like Australia? In 2022 Ford sold 2,179 Escapes in Australia, in the same year Toyota sold 34,845 Rav4s.

This is why you hear things like "not profitable" etc. It's not the segment, it's just not a competitive model in many markets, and it's missing in some global markets. 

Edited December 20, 2023 by AM222

[AM222]

22 hours ago, paintguy said:

Taurus SHO another example of a performance sedan that never quite made the sales that were expected. I've owned 2 and both were great cars. Taurus needed a redesign, but business case not there. 

The Fusion Sport was like an SHO-lite. If this was like a full ST-level vehicle, it would have been a good SHO. The Taurus just grew too big, heavy and expensive.

[silvrsvt]

22 minutes ago, AM222 said:

The Fusion Sport was like an SHO-lite. If this was like a full ST-level vehicle, it would have been a good SHO. The Taurus just grew too big, heavy and expensive.

 

The Fusion Sport never sold that well from what I saw...I saw more SHOs then Fusion Sports. I'd prob would have gotten a Sport if it was out in 2013 because the SHO was too big (didn't know this till after I had it) for my likes. 

[Rick73]

12 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

Where Ford struggles is in appealing to the compliance car "I just want a reliable appliance" crowd.

Excellent point.  My Ranger and E-Series appealed to me because they were excellent appliances.  Today, I think the Maverick comes closest to my idea of an “appliance”.  And I don’t mean that in a bad way, because just like buying a new refrigerator or dishwasher, I want it to look nice, be reliable, function as needed, and be a good value.  I just don’t get as excited about vehicles as when I was young and purchased a Mach I.  I know I’ve changed, but so has time.  IMO most people don’t view cars the same way as in the 50s and 60s, and it will continue to get worse with latest generation having even less interest in car culture.

[akirby]

2 hours ago, AM222 said:

Out of curiosity I checked the sales number of the Rav4 in the Escape & Kuga's main markets.

Ford Escape/ Kuga
November 2023 US sales: 11,542 
2022 US sales: 137,370
2022 Canada sales: 23,848
2022 China sales: 22,896
2022 Europe sales (Kuga): 125,718
2022 sales from Ford Escape/ Kuga's main markets: 309,832

Toyota Rav4
November 2023 US sales: 42,842
2022 US sales: 366,741
2022 Canada sales: 28,679
2022 China sales: 156,548
2022 Europe sales: 83,859
2022 sales of the Toyota Rav4 in Escape/ Kuga's main markets: 635,827

What about Ford's other markets like Australia? In 2022 Ford sold 2,179 Escapes in Australia, in the same year Toyota sold 34,845 Rav4s.

This is why you hear things like "not profitable" etc. It's not the segment, it's just not a competitive model in many markets, and it's missing in some global markets. 

 

You think people buy RAV4s because of styling?  It’s the same buyers who bought corollas and Camrys. Design has very little to do with it.

[GearheadGrrrl]

Fusion Sport was a "sleeper" that never sold well because nobody knew about it.

[rmc523]

15 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

The maverick is still pretty affordable despite the price increases. Considering the fact that the maverick has been a runaway success, and is starting to achieve iconic status, I don't see it being canceled anytime soon. Same goes for the bronco sport. 

 

Ford does affordable aspiration better than anyone else, making "dream cars" that buyers can realistically afford. When Ford leans into this, they shine bright like a diamond, the mustang, bronco, bronco sport, escort, Galaxie, fiesta and focus st, maverick, and f-series all being examples. 

 

Where Ford struggles is in appealing to the compliance car "I just want a reliable appliance" crowd. The escape, the edge, the fusion, not terrible cars, just nothing spectacular. I want Ford to rethink the escape, and come out with something spectacular. I turn my head every time I see the newer Hyundai Tuscon, it's a striking design, give me something like that. 

 

I disagree regarding Fusion and Edge - they were great models.  The problem is they've been left on the vine to rot without proper replacements (replacement side is more applicable to Edge now, of course), and then Ford wonders where customers go......gee.....you think maybe they want a new car that looks.....NEW......not the same model from 8 years ago?  SHOCKING.

[AM222]

1 hour ago, akirby said:

 

You think people buy RAV4s because of styling?  It’s the same buyers who bought corollas and Camrys. Design has very little to do with it.

Hmmm... Definitely reliability, maybe price, and probably looks (the boxer styling is aging better than the jellybean look). I do like the 2024 Escape's new face though. 

Edited December 20, 2023 by AM222

[Rick73]

2 hours ago, akirby said:

 

You think people buy RAV4s because of styling?  It’s the same buyers who bought corollas and Camrys. Design has very little to do with it.

Reputation plays a major role in my opinion.  There’s a general belief that it’s hard to go wrong with Toyota or Honda.  I’ve purchased three Hondas because of reputation, and also dealer is closer to my home than Toyota; otherwise may have gone with Toyota.  First Honda came after Ford dealer pissed me off, and Honda dealer had extremely good reputation for fairness and professionalism, though a little more expensive.

[DeluxeStang]

4 hours ago, rmc523 said:

 

I disagree regarding Fusion and Edge - they were great models.  The problem is they've been left on the vine to rot without proper replacements (replacement side is more applicable to Edge now, of course), and then Ford wonders where customers go......gee.....you think maybe they want a new car that looks.....NEW......not the same model from 8 years ago?  SHOCKING.

That's the issue with new car development. It's so expensive to bring a car to market in this day and age. That's largely due to the fact that the people making these things have to actually put effort in. Modern cars need to be efficient, powerful, basically last forever, safe, tech savvy, and attractive, all while meeting increasingly strict government regulations. All that investment means a car needs to stay on the market longer to recoup that hefty initial investment before they can break even, and start profiting. 

 

Compare that to the 60s when car brands were pushing new designs out every 2-3 years, but that's because cars back then had no effort or care put into their development compared to today. When no-one gives a shit, it's easy to rush something out the door for $5 and a smile and almost instantly profit. No-one engineering cars in the 60s had to care about safety, or longevity. If a car lasted until the test drive was over, and didn't blow up going over speed bumps, it was considered good enough. 

[DeluxeStang]

5 hours ago, akirby said:

 

You think people buy RAV4s because of styling?  It’s the same buyers who bought corollas and Camrys. Design has very little to do with it.

Styling is a factor in virtually every car as far as I'm concerned. That doesn't mean it's the most important thing to many buyers, but it does matter, even on the most utilitarian of cars and trucks. Trucks for example used to be functional tools, now the way they look is a huge point of discussion for many buyers.

 

Everyone wants to own a good looking vehicle. Put crossovers with comparable tech, quality, and price in front of buyers, one with a great looking design, and the other with a generic, or ugly design, and the great looking one will almost certainly sell better.

[akirby]

4 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

Styling is a factor in virtually every car as far as I'm concerned. That doesn't mean it's the most important thing to many buyers, but it does matter, even on the most utilitarian of cars and trucks. Trucks for example used to be functional tools, now the way they look is a huge point of discussion for many buyers.

 

Everyone wants to own a good looking vehicle. Put crossovers with comparable tech, quality, and price in front of buyers, one with a great looking design, and the other with a generic, or ugly design, and the great looking one will almost certainly sell better.

Styling can’t be horrible but just look at the previous Gen Camry and Corolla and Prius when they were the #1 sellers.  Nothing great about the styling and even the facelifts which were much better didn’t increase sales,  For basic transportation price and perceived reliability are far more important.

[silvrsvt]

The vast majority of buyers don't care that much about styling vs the reputation of reliability or cost. There are some, but I'd say 60% or better of buyers don't care. 

[akirby]

Styling does matter on a lot of vehicles like sports cars and some trucks and SUVs because those are emotional purchases.  Thats what is great about Bronco Sport.  But when you’re talking about basic transportation as long as it isn’t ugly it just doesn’t matter as much as price, mpg, reliability, etc.    

 

Camry was easily the ugliest mid sized sedan especially compared to fusion and optima but it outsold both by a significant margin.

[fuzzymoomoo]

On 12/18/2023 at 8:02 AM, akirby said:

The 2.0 works great in the Nautilus.  It’s not underpowered at all.  I understand folks like the extra power but from a sales standpoint it’s just not that important.  Didn’t seem to help Edge or Fusion to offer it.

That always seemed strange to me. I’ve had 2 Fusions now, the first one FWD with the 2.5 and the current one being AWD with the 2.0 and the 2.0 makes a huge difference in the way that car drives. So much so I’m probably not getting rid of it when the lease is up. 

[Rick73]

13 hours ago, akirby said:

Styling can’t be horrible but just look at the previous Gen Camry and Corolla and Prius when they were the #1 sellers.  Nothing great about the styling and even the facelifts which were much better didn’t increase sales,  For basic transportation price and perceived reliability are far more important.

 

Exactly, it can’t be ugly but it doesn’t have to be a beauty either.  Most buyers just need a vehicle to be good enough in every aspect.

 

I think styling, power, fuel economy, value, etc. loosely follow Pareto Principle (80-20 rule) where avoiding the bottom 20% (ugly, underpowered, gas guzzler, overpriced) will likely get 80% of buyers to consider purchase.  Extreme “must have” designs may get a lot of press attention, and reach the few buyers with specific needs, but companies like Honda and Toyota have had success by designing somewhat mundane cars that don’t give the majority of buyers a reason to avoid them.

[DeluxeStang]

14 hours ago, akirby said:

Styling can’t be horrible but just look at the previous Gen Camry and Corolla and Prius when they were the #1 sellers.  Nothing great about the styling and even the facelifts which were much better didn’t increase sales,  For basic transportation price and perceived reliability are far more important.

Yep. With cars, you're appealing to two, often drastically different audiences, the minority, car enthusiasts like ourselves, who actually are interested in cars. How they look, drive, etc. As well as the majority of buyers, who care more about fuel economy, or price.

 

Ford's lost touch with the latter crowd to a large degree, I honestly don't know how they'll manage to win these buyers back over. Especially considering perceptions are so powerful, and hard to change. That's why Ford needs to lean harder into design, and passion, to appeal to buyers who want something that isn't a bland commodity product. They did it with the BS, and maverick, and it worked perfectly. Now's the time to take that approach with escape. 

[akirby]

47 minutes ago, DeluxeStang said:

 

 

Ford's lost touch with the latter crowd to a large degree, I honestly don't know how they'll manage to win these buyers back 

Why do they need to win back those buyers who only buy on price if they can replace them with buyers willing to pay full price or close to it on other products?  If they were losing market share and profits were falling then that might make sense but that’s clearly not the case.

 

53 minutes ago, DeluxeStang said:

They did it with the BS, and maverick, and it worked perfectly. Now's the time to take that approach with escape. 

But here’s the problem a lot of people don’t seem to grasp.  People buying mavericks are customizing them like they customize civics.  Lowered suspensions, custom wheels and tires and active lifestyle accessories and custom interiors.

 

Bronco Sport buyers are buying off-road models with bigger wheels, tires plus off-road/adventure accessories and customizations.

 

Those are emotional purchases without much cross shopping.

 

What can you do to Escape to make it an emotional purchase?  Great styling can increase sales but doesn’t allow charging a premium over rav4 or CRV or Tucson.  Nobody is customizing them or buying expensive appearance packages or accessories.  It’s still just basic transportation.  Which is ok if there is no readily available alternative.  But this is where I think a longer BS and a Maverick SUV would do better from a profit standpoint.

[GearheadGrrrl]

How about a next gen Escape with 500HP, plug in hybrid, AWD, and enough ground clearance for Rallycross and a low enough CG to run with the hottest hatches in Autocross? And that's before upgrading with Ford Performance parts...

[Captainp4]

16 minutes ago, GearheadGrrrl said:

How about a next gen Escape with 500HP, plug in hybrid, AWD, and enough ground clearance for Rallycross and a low enough CG to run with the hottest hatches in Autocross? And that's before upgrading with Ford Performance parts...

Because no one that's buying an escape cares about going fast, rallycrossing, or autocrossing. They're younger middle class moms buying their first mom mobile.

[DeluxeStang]

1 hour ago, akirby said:

But here’s the problem a lot of people don’t seem to grasp.  People buying mavericks are customizing them like they customize civics.  Lowered suspensions, custom wheels and tires and active lifestyle accessories and custom interiors.

 

Bronco Sport buyers are buying off-road models with bigger wheels, tires plus off-road/adventure accessories and customizations.

 

Those are emotional purchases without much cross shopping.

 

What can you do to Escape to make it an emotional purchase?  Great styling can increase sales but doesn’t allow charging a premium over rav4 or CRV or Tucson.  Nobody is customizing them or buying expensive appearance packages or accessories.  It’s still just basic transportation.  Which is ok if there is no readily available alternative.  But this is where I think a longer BS and a Maverick SUV would do better from a profit standpoint.

That's the thing, the escape may be a commodity bland blob today, but that doesn't mean it has to be once it goes EV. We've mentioned how Ford's been thinking of making a smaller crossover with the flair of a mach-e.

 

Let's say Ford comes out with an electric escape, and they pull styling inspiration from the escort or something that makes it sportier. A change that turns the escape from some generic lump of rental car blandness, into something more desirable. That opens the door for aftermarket accessories. Just like Ford sells flood lights and bash bars for the bronco, they could sell aftermarket spoilers and stripe packages for the mach-e and escape EV. 

 

I want to be clear, the escape, as it is today, is done. If it wasn't for the massive sales potential inherent to the compact crossover segment, I would suggest for Ford to just kill the escape outright and leave the bronco sport as the lone offering in the segment. But there's real potential here for Ford to reinvent one of its icons and to turn it into something that no other vehicle in the segment offers. Everyone in that space is either making generic blobs, or squared off rugged designs. There's nothing in the compact space that focuses on being sleek and sporty. 

[rmc523]

21 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

That's the issue with new car development. It's so expensive to bring a car to market in this day and age. That's largely due to the fact that the people making these things have to actually put effort in. Modern cars need to be efficient, powerful, basically last forever, safe, tech savvy, and attractive, all while meeting increasingly strict government regulations. All that investment means a car needs to stay on the market longer to recoup that hefty initial investment before they can break even, and start profiting. 

 

Compare that to the 60s when car brands were pushing new designs out every 2-3 years, but that's because cars back then had no effort or care put into their development compared to today. When no-one gives a shit, it's easy to rush something out the door for $5 and a smile and almost instantly profit. No-one engineering cars in the 60s had to care about safety, or longevity. If a car lasted until the test drive was over, and didn't blow up going over speed bumps, it was considered good enough. 

 

That's fine and dandy....but all the other manufacturers seem to be able to do regular refreshes on a 3-6 year cycle.  On much of Ford's lineup outside of F-series, refreshes are sometimes stretching out 5+ years, redesigns going on 7-8 years......that's not good.

[DeluxeStang]

21 minutes ago, GearheadGrrrl said:

How about a next gen Escape with 500HP, plug in hybrid, AWD, and enough ground clearance for Rallycross and a low enough CG to run with the hottest hatches in Autocross? And that's before upgrading with Ford Performance parts...

 

13 minutes ago, Captainp4 said:

Because no one that's buying an escape cares about going fast, rallycrossing, or autocrossing. They're younger middle class moms buying their first mom mobile.

See, I don't believe in pushing it this far. 300 hp or so out of electric motors would be plenty. I'll share a mach-e scrapped proposal below, that's the sort of design I have in mind. Something sleek, almost impossibly good looking for the segment, that's just fast enough to be interesting. Exotic, unique, and wildly different to the bronco sport to avoid any in-fighting. Something like this would make the escape a passion product imo. If a new escape came out a year from now, and actually looked like this, we'd actually care about it, and so would buyers.