Ford December/Q4/2023 Sales Results

[akirby]

1 hour ago, rmc523 said:

 

Yeah, I think C2 would've been just fine for it, and they could've spiced it up with a performance oriented tune on a hybrid model or something.

 

 

100% agree - they change directions far too often.

 

We criticize GM for coming out with a bunch of duplicate products and/or ones with questionable business cases, but at least when they set their mind to doing something, they stick with it, even if the model winds up cancelled after a generation.  Meanwhile Ford stops and starts programs like a kid eating cake and candy at a birthday party.

 

Ford should have a big cost advantage over GM with fewer brands and models, but they piss away that advantage by not being able to build enough popular products fast enough and by taking too long to get new things out the door due to limited resources.  And higher warranty costs.  They should have either continued with the 3rd Mexico plant or rebuilt Flat Rock and brought C2 edge and nautilus to Oakville giving them 3 C2 plants and a lot more options.

[fuzzymoomoo]

28 minutes ago, akirby said:

 

Ford should have a big cost advantage over GM with fewer brands and models, but they piss away that advantage by not being able to build enough popular products fast enough and by taking too long to get new things out the door due to limited resources.  And higher warranty costs.  They should have either continued with the 3rd Mexico plant or rebuilt Flat Rock and brought C2 edge and nautilus to Oakville giving them 3 C2 plants and a lot more options.

It’s looking more and more to me like Jim Hackett did more long term damage to the company than some of us previously thought. 

[jpd80]

7 hours ago, akirby said:

As much as us enthusiasts would have liked a RWD edge I think the C2 version would have been more successful.

Absolutely, a FWD/AWD Edge/Nautilus also better delineates itself from Explorer/Aviator

and C2 would have given us an Edge before 2020, so well into the product cycle by now.

 

There’s also the other knock ons that could have freed up development teams on CD6 to do say,

Explorer Sport Trac instead of RWD Edge…an add on product like that is far less time consuming.

That could have in turn, freed up crew cab F150 to perhaps cover heavier GCWR avoiding CAFE,

if anyone could pull off a “heavy half ton” perception, it would be Ford.

 

 

Quote

I think this is Farley’s personality showing in product decisions. Going too fast on new things and having to stop and change direction when issues come up or something more enticing.  Ditching Edge and Nautilus for BEVs instead of building a new plant, then ditching the Rivian deal before it really got started (severe lack of due diligence on that one), starting then stopping the VW platform.  Too much short term thinking trying to go too fast.

That’s a reasonable summation of the situation.

Keep in mind that Farley came through under Fields and Hackett, seeing how drive Bill Ford was on implementing BEVs. I think that eagerness to correct shortcomings in his predecessor’s plans and the willingness of Bill Ford to support him saw a massive ramp up in intent to compete against GM, Tesla and VW - probably Ford’s three main global BEV competitors.

 

Part of the issue becoming a BEV manufacturer is reinvention of design, development and parts procurement. Ford was clearly devoted to divorcing the old from the new but I don’t think that was the problem so much as misreading just who their customers were and what they actually wanted…

Edited January 5 by jpd80

[Rick73]

Two sales volumes that surprised me a bit were E-Transit and E-Series.

 

December E-Transit volume was up extremely high from a very poor November.  Unless some November sales somehow were reported in December numbers, there’s hope for E-Transit yet.  December sales were more than twice as high as average of other 11 months in 2023. ? 

 

E-Series volume was up considerably both for December and all of 2023 (over 2022).  Considering E-Series design is very old, and that economy was weak through most of 2023, particularly how it affected RV industry which relies heavily on E-Series Cutaways, the 43k units seems great.  That’s more than Ranger sold; which isn’t bad for a Cutaway that hasn’t been upgraded much since 2008 Model Year.  And to think Ford planned discontinuing shortly after E-Series vans were phased out in 2014.

[akirby]

27 minutes ago, Rick73 said:

Two sales volumes that surprised me a bit were E-Transit and E-Series.

 

December E-Transit volume was up extremely high from a very poor November.  Unless some November sales somehow were reported in December numbers, there’s hope for E-Transit yet.  December sales were more than twice as high as average of other 11 months in 2023. ? 

Fleet sales are usually done in batches and not spread out evenly during the year.

[2005Explorer]

Ending production on a product like the Edge when it’s still a hot seller and definitely making money for Ford is a bad idea. They won’t do it, but how about rush a facelift and offer a high MPG hybrid model? Toyota keeps platforms around for years and just updates them. If it was a failing undesirable product I could understand, but the Edge still has life in it. I’m afraid what they are canceling the Edge for is going to be a slow selling money pit.

[Oac98]

1 hour ago, 2005Explorer said:

Ending production on a product like the Edge when it’s still a hot seller and definitely making money for Ford is a bad idea. They won’t do it, but how about rush a facelift and offer a high MPG hybrid model? Toyota keeps platforms around for years and just updates them. If it was a failing undesirable product I could understand, but the Edge still has life in it. I’m afraid what they are canceling the Edge for is going to be a slow selling money pit.

It’s a damn terrible move but according to Farley it’s a commodity product. 

[Bob Rosadini]

53 minutes ago, Oacjay98 said:

It’s a damn terrible move but according to Farley it’s a commodity product. 

Definition please for this old guy. What is a "commodity" product?   

[Oac98]

38 minutes ago, Bob Rosadini said:

Definition please for this old guy. What is a "commodity" product?   

I believe he means there are too many two row crossovers and there aren’t alot of three row Bev crossovers so they chose that route. If that makes any sense 

[akirby]

30 minutes ago, Bob Rosadini said:

Definition please for this old guy. What is a "commodity" product?   

Something that is widely available without much differentiation between competitors which causes mfrs to lower prices to get more sales.

 

Like midsized family sedans.

[DeluxeStang]

13 hours ago, Oacjay98 said:

 What I want to know is what’s taking Ford so long to take the tarp off and show us what they look like. They were announced 5 years ago! 

If I was a betting man, I'd bet we'll see some reveals at the Detroit auto show this summer. 

[DeluxeStang]

1 hour ago, Bob Rosadini said:

Definition please for this old guy. What is a "commodity" product?   

Basically any product that isn't profitable as it relies on a low price and incentives to sell. There just isn't a ton of profit in those types of products. Expanding on that idea, we could also look at commodity products as your generic transportation devices. Ford is shifting it's strategy to offer more "icons" vehicles that sell based on passion and uniqueness, and as such, can command a higher price. 

[jpd80]

9 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

It’s looking more and more to me like Jim Hackett did more long term damage to the company than some of us previously thought. 

Reworking the E-Max became so expensive that it had to be sold as a Mustang to have any chance of

recovering costs. The supposedly affordable replacement BEVs  sourced from VW were so expensive

that Ford ended up curtailing plans in North America. Ford went back to doing BEV development itself

but still had to develop its own JV battery  supply lines.

 

I often criticise Farley for changing plans but when I think of the mess he inherited, it’s not surprising…

I think it will be a long time before Ford ever turns a profit from BEVs because it has sunken so much

money into assets that have yet to prove their worth. I’m still wondering who in the BS castle had to

inform Bill Ford that Ford won’t be selling 600,000 BEVs in a couple of years time if ever…

 

Mark Fields might have been a lot of things but he was smart enough to know the business case

for a BEV in 2017 was beyond weak, his biggest failing was that data on vehicle trends was miles

out of date. There was no way that Ford could keep up with faster moving competitor vehicle launches.

 

Edited January 6 by jpd80

[twintornados]

14 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

It’s looking more and more to me like Jim Hackett did more long term damage to the company than some of us previously thought. 

 

But, the "Glass Palace" has some nifty new office furniture...

[Oac98]

9 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

If I was a betting man, I'd bet we'll see some reveals at the Detroit auto show this summer. 

I agree, 100 percent.

[2005Explorer]

10 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

Basically any product that isn't profitable as it relies on a low price and incentives to sell. There just isn't a ton of profit in those types of products. Expanding on that idea, we could also look at commodity products as your generic transportation devices. Ford is shifting it's strategy to offer more "icons" vehicles that sell based on passion and uniqueness, and as such, can command a higher price. 

I'd have an extremely hard time believing even with some incentives the Edge isn't profitable. I bet it's a hell of a lot more profitable than the Mach E. I believe that's also taking incentives to sell right now. The Edge has a solid and still modern platform. They could have easily extended it with a facelift and an available high MPG hybrid option, but I guess Farley knows best. I just hope the replacement actually makes more profit than the Edge. Looking at the current state of the Ford Model e business I'm doubtful.

Edited January 6 by 2005Explorer

[akirby]

1 hour ago, 2005Explorer said:

I'd have an extremely hard time believing even with some incentives the Edge isn't profitable. I bet it's a hell of a lot more profitable than the Mach E. I believe that's also taking incentives to sell right now. The Edge has a solid and still modern platform. They could have easily extended it with a facelift and an available high MPG hybrid option, but I guess Farley knows best. I just hope the replacement actually makes more profit than the Edge. Looking at the current state of the Ford Model e business I'm doubtful.

The current platform is heavy and expensive but the C2 version could be done easily and the powertrains are already available.

 

I’m sure it was decently profitable but it was the most expendable vehicle when something had to go to make room for those 5 new EVs originally planned for Oakville.

 

And in typical Ford fashion they killed a C2 redesign for North America at the same time they killed the new factories and now that they’ve changed the EV plan from 5 to 2 and the EV explosion isn’t happening they don’t have a good alternative.  Should have kept C2 edge and nautilus in Oakville and added a 3rd C2 model if needed and put the EVs in flat rock or Mexico.  Poor planning 

[Rick73]

46 minutes ago, akirby said:

And in typical Ford fashion they killed a C2 redesign for North America at the same time they killed the new factories and now that they’ve changed the EV plan from 5 to 2 and the EV explosion isn’t happening they don’t have a good alternative.  Should have kept C2 edge and nautilus in Oakville and added a 3rd C2 model if needed and put the EVs in flat rock or Mexico.  Poor planning 

Yeah, the issue with taking risks is that at times they don’t work out; hence why it’s a risk.  The probability of failure is always there, though many BEV proponents didn’t want to consider chance of failure and wanted Ford to bet the farm on electrification.  Ford was lucky that BEV demand slowed early enough to delay major investments and postpone other manufacturing plans, or it could have been worse.

 

Who knows, since BEV volume did not materialize as projected, maybe what we are seeing now was part of their emergency contingency plan.

[akirby]

Ford doesn’t do contingency plans that’s the problem.

When they launched the 2011 Edge with MFT (sync 2) there were hundreds of bugs and it crashed 3-4 times per week.  But they had no backup plan.  They couldn’t keep building the old models and the new models didn’t work without MFT,  They had to launch it and hope they could get it fixed quickly.  It took about 6 months to get it somewhat stable and  over 2 years to get it working well.  
 

They had ample warning - at one point there were 1500 bugs.  At least now they hedge their bets a little better in some areas.  
 

In IT you always assume something won’t work so you always have a backup plan.  Unfortunately for Ford backup plans can be expensive so they tend to just cross their fingers and hope for the best.

[Dequindre]

2 hours ago, akirby said:

The current platform is heavy and expensive but the C2 version could be done easily and the powertrains are already available.

 

I’m sure it was decently profitable but it was the most expendable vehicle when something had to go to make room for those 5 new EVs originally planned for Oakville.

 

And in typical Ford fashion they killed a C2 redesign for North America at the same time they killed the new factories and now that they’ve changed the EV plan from 5 to 2 and the EV explosion isn’t happening they don’t have a good alternative.  Should have kept C2 edge and nautilus in Oakville and added a 3rd C2 model if needed and put the EVs in flat rock or Mexico.  Poor planning 

 

This post kind of embodies Ford's thinking, or lack thereof, at this point. There seems to be no clear direction as to how to achieve a full lineup of compelling vehicles. Farley and company seem to have some short-term thinking on product introductions (or discontinuations) without thinking about how Ford can field entries in many vehicle segments. 

[rmc523]

16 hours ago, 2005Explorer said:

Ending production on a product like the Edge when it’s still a hot seller and definitely making money for Ford is a bad idea. They won’t do it, but how about rush a facelift and offer a high MPG hybrid model? Toyota keeps platforms around for years and just updates them. If it was a failing undesirable product I could understand, but the Edge still has life in it. I’m afraid what they are canceling the Edge for is going to be a slow selling money pit.

 

14 hours ago, Oacjay98 said:

I believe he means there are too many two row crossovers and there aren’t alot of three row Bev crossovers so they chose that route. If that makes any sense 

I think the problem is also that they don’t realize people like different size vehicles too, so dropping products people like “because” isn’t good either 

[sullynd]

3 hours ago, akirby said:

Ford doesn’t do contingency plans that’s the problem.

When they launched the 2011 Edge with MFT (sync 2) there were hundreds of bugs and it crashed 3-4 times per week.  But they had no backup plan.  They couldn’t keep building the old models and the new models didn’t work without MFT,  They had to launch it and hope they could get it fixed quickly.  It took about 6 months to get it somewhat stable and  over 2 years to get it working well.  

And then when they launched the all new CD4 model in 2015 they kept MFT as sync 3 wasn’t ready yet, and then they switched for the 2016 model.  Our 2015 is MFT and I’m tempted to swap it out to a sync 3 system so my son has carplay. 

[jpd80]

6 hours ago, akirby said:

The current platform is heavy and expensive but the C2 version could be done easily and the powertrains are already available.

 

I’m sure it was decently profitable but it was the most expendable vehicle when something had to go to make room for those 5 new EVs originally planned for Oakville.

 

And in typical Ford fashion they killed a C2 redesign for North America at the same time they killed the new factories and now that they’ve changed the EV plan from 5 to 2 and the EV explosion isn’t happening they don’t have a good alternative.  Should have kept C2 edge and nautilus in Oakville and added a 3rd C2 model if needed and put the EVs in flat rock or Mexico.  Poor planning 

It’s the kind of myopic view that prevents good decision making on evolving existing products.

Hey let’s take $11 billion in ICE funding and blow it on BEV development….

The BEVs aren’t selling so good, what do we do now?

 

Meanwhile in 2022, the Mach E costs $25,000 more to produce than a comparable Edge…

The alarm bells should have been going off then but Ford chose to double down and end Edge.

https://www.carscoops.com/2022/06/rising-material-costs-mean-the-ford-mustang-mach-e-is-no-longer-profitable/#

 

Quote

The impact of soaring prices has had such a significant effect on Ford that a Mustang Mach-E now costs $25,000 more to produce than an equivalent combustion-powered Edge. To help mitigate costs, Lawler said that Ford is re-engineering the Mustang Mach-E on the fly to improve its margins.

There’s a big secret  being hidden under the Mach E project, a lot of red ink that probably won’t be recovered.

It’s at about a quarter of the projected US sales volume, Europe is about the same but China is in the hundreds.

Ford never discusses its Chinese sales anymore because they suck so badly.

Edited January 6 by jpd80

[Bob Rosadini]

1 hour ago, jpd80 said:

It’s the kind of myopic view that prevents good decision making on evolving existing products.

Hey let’s take $11 billion in ICE funding and blow it on BEV development….

The BEVs aren’t selling so good, what do we do now?

 

Meanwhile in 2022, the Mach E costs $25,000 more to produce than a comparable Edge…

The alarm bells should have been going off then but Ford chose to double down and end Edge.

https://www.carscoops.com/2022/06/rising-material-costs-mean-the-ford-mustang-mach-e-is-no-longer-profitable/#

 

There’s a big secret  being hidden under the Mach E project, a lot of red ink that probably won’t be recovered.

It’s at about a quarter of the projected US sales volume, Europe is about the same but China is in the hundreds.

Ford never discusses its Chinese sales anymore because they suck so badly.

 

Per my "bold" sentence, always scratched my head that ICE was out but "oh by the way, good thing they make money so we can fund......."

In the meantime, "Seaking Alpha " today from Entrpreneur..."Ford revving up for electric transformation"

..."the compny has relied on its gas -guzzling muscle cars and its ubiquitous F-150 pickup for over a century.  But now the electric revolution's buzz can be heard in the distance, and Ford is navigating a precarious turn toward a battery powered future"

 

Article goes on with many pros and cons...one thing no mention of? Sorry state of affairs when it comes to our grid..both in production of power as well as a distribution system that is ancient.

 

In due time, in due time.

 

Oh bulletin yesterday.  GM gave its Buick dealers the ultimatum..sign up for all the facility uprgades and training costs or take the flag down.  Four yesterday took a pass in Mass.

[jpd80]

21 minutes ago, Bob Rosadini said:

 

Per my "bold" sentence, always scratched my head that ICE was out but "oh by the way, good thing they make money so we can fund......."

In the meantime, "Seaking Alpha " today from Entrpreneur..."Ford revving up for electric transformation"

..."the compny has relied on its gas -guzzling muscle cars and its ubiquitous F-150 pickup for over a century.  But now the electric revolution's buzz can be heard in the distance, and Ford is navigating a precarious turn toward a battery powered future"

 

Article goes on with many pros and cons...one thing no mention of? Sorry state of affairs when it comes to our grid..both in production of power as well as a distribution system that is ancient.

 

In due time, in due time.

 

Oh bulletin yesterday.  GM gave its Buick dealers the ultimatum..sign up for all the facility uprgades and training costs or take the flag down.  Four yesterday took a pass in Mass.

Yeah, Ford dealers have already done this dance with Ford…

The problem is that Ford’s BEVs haven’t been the tear away sales that Ford was counting on…

GM is in a similar position, you can’t press for $1M dealership upgrades when BEV foot traffic is still comparatively low.

A 

I sense that this year, GM and Ford will resort to basics  by simply  maximising profits

from the main go to, full size truck and utility sales, getting rid of supplier restrictions.

Edited January 7 by jpd80