Bluecon Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/bus...f1709f4&k=71637 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slider71 Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 Are you kidding? 6 Speed Automatic? Hybrid version? 3.5 L v6 with 268 HP? This will be more than competitive with the Fusion. That is why Ford should have pulled out all the stops to make the AWD Fusion available at launch. That would have given it an edge to back up the styling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fllcobra Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 I see the Fusion putting a dent in the Honda Accord sales. But I seriously doubt anyone who buys a Camry will defect to the Fusion. The cars are styled too far apart. Besides, Ford still has a ways to go in convincing the majority of import buyers that the Fusion has build quality, residual value and reliability similar to the Camry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slider71 Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 I see the Fusion putting a dent in the Honda Accord sales. But I seriously doubt anyone who buys a Camry will defect to the Fusion. The cars are styled too far apart." I can see some of that. The Accord is just past a mid-model refresh, so Fusion will pick up some there, but more likely from the Malibu and the Altima for a little while as well. The Accord has a nicer interior than the Fusion, but the Honda's trunk is too small now for the mid size class, which seems to be 16 cubic feet or better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluecon Posted January 10, 2006 Author Share Posted January 10, 2006 Is it just me, or is Ford REALLY slow to bring new vehicles to market. You look at all the new product at the auto show and Fords' new product is launching at the end of 2006. Look at the new Hyundai product. How do they do that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Beeck Posted January 11, 2006 Share Posted January 11, 2006 Shock as it is, it seams that this once Ford has raised the bar. The Fusion has a four wheel double wishbone suspension and optional AWD coming next year. Comparing the two is like comparing the Fox bodied Ford Fairmont to a same year Toyota Cressida, only the Camry is now the Fox body :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardJensen Posted January 11, 2006 Share Posted January 11, 2006 (edited) Camry is at or near its highwater mark. Wiser heads at Toyota must be aware of this. The market is fragmenting, and with competitive (very competitive) entries from Hyundai and Ford, it's not a two-horse race between the Camry and Accord anymore. Credit Toyota with a few things, though, an interior that is a major improvement over the previous Camry, and a hybrid model tuned for efficiency (37/43mpg) not performance. Still, in the coming years, Toyota will need to either accept a downward (or at best flat) Camry sales trend, or they will need to start hustling it with incentives and daily rental sales (In fact in 2004, the Accord actually outsold the Camry to retail buyers. The 11% fleet mix on the Camry, over 40k units, dropped its retail sales total below that of the Accord). ... Edited January 11, 2006 by RichardJensen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricers-shaft-blueoval Posted January 11, 2006 Share Posted January 11, 2006 (edited) Camry is at or near its highwater mark. Wiser heads at Toyota must be aware of this. The market is fragmenting, and with competitive (very competitive) entries from Hyundai and Ford, it's not a two-horse race between the Camry and Accord anymore. Credit Toyota with a few things, though, an interior that is a major improvement over the previous Camry, and a hybrid model tuned for efficiency (37/43mpg) not performance. Still, in the coming years, Toyota will need to either accept a downward (or at best flat) Camry sales trend, or they will need to start hustling it with incentives and daily rental sales (In fact in 2004, the Accord actually outsold the Camry to retail buyers. The 11% fleet mix on the Camry, over 40k units, dropped its retail sales total below that of the Accord). ... excellent deduction my dear friend! now chew on this most interesting piece of information: Ford's five-year funk: The relentless march of Toyota and other import brands has hurt Ford far more than GM Amy Wilson Automotive News / January 9, 2006 - 6:00 am DETROIT -- There's no doubt the past five years have been brutal for the Detroit automakers. But you may not realize just how unevenly the pain has been felt among the Big 3. The relentless U.S. sales onslaught by Asian automakers -- revealed starkly again last week when final 2005 figures were released -- has taken widely divergent bites out of General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and the Chrysler group. The bloodiest victim? Ford, by a staggering margin. Compare the 2005 and 2000 sales figures: Ford Motor, including its foreign brands, lost more than a million units of sales in the United States, a quarter of the automaker's 2000 volume. Sales of the Ford brand alone fell by 823,955 vehicles. Lincoln and Mercury also took severe hits. Put another way, Ford Motor lost the equivalent of three full Mercury divisions since 2000, which was the industry's biggest sales year on record. Mercury sold 359,143 units in 2000. By contrast, General Motors, including Saab, dropped 461,373 units during the same period, down 9.4 percent. But GM had bright spots. Its largest brand, Chevrolet, gained 46,419 units amid the Japanese onslaught. Cadillac and GMC grew, too. The Chrysler group suffered early in the five-year period but is newly resurgent. The Chrysler brand has gained sales, and the group's market share is up from 2004. The Big 3's plunge can't be blamed on the decline of the overall market since 2000. The U.S. record of 17.4 million sales of cars and light trucks in 2000 was nearly matched in 2005, the third highest year with nearly 17 million light vehicles sold. The real problem for Ford, GM and Chrysler during the five-year period: steady growth by Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai as they lured U.S. car buyers out of domestic vehicles. Nameplates plunge Ford's five-year free fall occurred almost across the board, led by once-vaunted nameplates: The Explorer SUV lost 205,369 units, down about 46 percent. Ford's minivan -- the Windstar in 2000 and the Freestar in 2005 -- lost 144,713 units, a 65 percent drop. The Ranger pickup lost 209,167 units, down about 63 percent. The meltdown is all the more striking when you consider that Ford was surging in the mid-1990s. Alex Trotman, Ford's CEO at the time, even set his sights on overtaking GM as the world's largest automaker. With Ford and GM on the downswing, the juggernaut known as Toyota is now the obvious pick to gain the No. 1 spot. Some speculate that could happen as early as this year, given Toyota's plans to increase global production another 10 percent in 2006. Toyota will start production at its San Antonio pickup plant in late 2006, adding another 150,000 units of capacity. A Toyota franchise is something almost no dealer would turn down. Still, it's way better to own a Cadillac or Chevy store these days than Lincoln, Mercury or Ford. So just what happened at Ford? 'We lost our way' "In short, we lost our way," said Mark Fields, Ford Motor's fourth new head of North America in the past five years, at last week's Los Angeles Auto Show. "We lost touch with our customers -- particularly our car customers." In 2005, Ford regained some traction in car sales, helped by the debut of the 2006 Ford Fusion sedan. But that didn't offset the collapse of the Explorer and other trucks, allowing the Chevy brand to grab the U.S. sales crown for the first time in 20 years. The pain doesn't stop there. Last year marked the 10th straight year of market share decline for Ford's domestic brands. In 1995, Ford, Lincoln and Mercury held 25.7 percent of the U.S. market -- nearly identical to GM's share in 2005 of 26.2 percent. By 2005, Ford Motor's domestic brand share had plunged to 17.4 percent. It's time to "change or die," said Fields, the man tapped by CEO Bill Ford to turn around the company's U.S. fortunes. Bill Ford will reveal Ford Motor's latest turnaround plan, including plant closings and job cuts, on Jan. 23. Bolder design and better brand identity, plus new crossovers and small cars, are all on the long-term agenda. Mr. Fields: Your marching orders are clear. But the path ahead still looks muddy. You may e-mail Amy Wilson at awilson@crain.com Lost and found U.S. unit volume lost and gained, 2005 compared with 2000 Ford Motor –1,050,420 GM –461,373 Chrysler group –217,862 Toyota Motor Sales 641,090 Nissan North America 324,581 American Honda Motor 303,612 http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti...efsect=AMERICAS "sad but true" ! Edited January 11, 2006 by ricers-shaft-blueoval Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardJensen Posted January 12, 2006 Share Posted January 12, 2006 That's all a matter of where you start the stopwatch. Ford's marketshare hit a modern day peak of 25% in the late 90s, GM by contrast has been steadily declining for years. Remember that in the late 90s Ford was discussed as possibly supplanting GM as the nation's and world's largest automaker. That was because Ford was growing, not shrinking through much of the 90s. ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
630land Posted January 12, 2006 Share Posted January 12, 2006 The Auto New feature says three vehicles mainly lost sales since '00. Explorer, Windstar/Freestar, and Ranger. But they lost the Contour and Focus/Taurus dropped a lot too. Fusion has AWD and Hybrid power on the way. IN case some forget, Ford also sells an Escape Hybrid, right now! So, no, Toyota doesn't have a monopoly on hybrids like some seem to think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardJensen Posted January 12, 2006 Share Posted January 12, 2006 Another important consideration: dramatic declines in Ford sales since 2000 are of less consequence than the steady erosion of marketshare over the past two decades at GM. Why? Because that steady erosion has resulted in much higher legacy costs per unit sold at GM than at Ford and DCX. ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slider71 Posted January 12, 2006 Share Posted January 12, 2006 So, no, Toyota doesn't have a monopoly on hybrids like some seem to think. Um, actually, they sorta do. Ford licensed that Hybrid technology from Toyota for the Escape and Mariner. I don't know if was a flat fee, or a per unit cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sullynd Posted January 12, 2006 Share Posted January 12, 2006 Um, actually, they sorta do. Ford licensed that Hybrid technology from Toyota for the Escape and Mariner. I don't know if was a flat fee, or a per unit cost. Ford developed their own hybrid system, it shares nothing with the HSD. There is a cross licensing agreement that also allows Toyota access to some of Ford's patents (Ford has over 100 hybrid patents of their own). Ford and Toyota are still the only two manufactures with a full hybrid system, though Hondas has gotten better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardJensen Posted January 12, 2006 Share Posted January 12, 2006 Um, actually, they sorta do. Ford licensed that Hybrid technology from Toyota for the Escape and Mariner. I don't know if was a flat fee, or a per unit cost. And Toyota got sued by Solomon Technologies because they DIDN'T license a patented design for the Prius transmission. ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc-o Posted January 12, 2006 Share Posted January 12, 2006 That's all a matter of where you start the stopwatch. That's the big deal here... they're taking numbers from 2000, and 99-00 saw the highest sales ford ever had. If you start considering GM's stock slide from its all-time high it's down something like 80%. How bad is that? Gas was also dirt cheap in 99-00, because oil was under 10 bucks a barrel - so it's up 600% now, what does that proove? Well obviously when you're comparing a current low (or a current high) to a past low (or past high) you can make any change seem more dramatic than it really is. The big assumption in the argument is that sales in '00 were at a sustainable level, which they weren't, like the stockmarket and rock-bottom oil prices that year. Comparing any numbers to fluke/freak numbers doesn't have the same effect if you ask me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slider71 Posted January 12, 2006 Share Posted January 12, 2006 Ford gave Toyota some diesel and direct injection stuff, not hybrids. http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0.../A01-272872.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
one2gamble Posted January 12, 2006 Share Posted January 12, 2006 your misinformed about the hybrid issue slider As far as Fords decline, how much of that decline is from a decrease in fleet sales? Killing off nameplates etc etc etc. Ford has tried to shrink down as it gets products in order. We may see growth in a few years. Mercury market share last I checked has increased lately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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