Engineering teams from a ton of revolutionary players, Ford's resources, bringing in people from F1 to do the areo/styling. I don't want to jinx it, but this is looking extremely promising. If Ford can pull this off, and execute affordable EVs that are insanely desirable, I can genuinely see them closing the gap to Tesla massively. Who knows, a decade or so from now, they might even be selling more EVs than Tesla if they can commit to this strategy.
Ford China can afford sedans due to the low manufacturing costs.
Many automakers produce sedans in China that they do not offer elsewhere for this same reason. GM, BMW, Stellantis, VW, Toyota, Honda, etc.
The Shelby name seems to confuse more people than it excites them. You have to explain to people how there's 3 types of Shelby in the car scene. You have SSC who has nothing to do with Carroll Shelby, their Tuatara supercar was designed by the guy who penned the mach-e but that's the only connection to Ford that exists. Then you have Vegas Shelby, which is basically a glorified West coast customs by this point charging 20k for some gaudy chrome rims and stripes. Finally, you have the cool Shelby, the stuff designed and engineered entirely by Ford, that technically isn't even Shelby in anything but branding.
It's a cluster F, I can see why Ford wants nothing to do with it at this point. Add in the licensing fees they have to pay to the Shelby organization, I'd imagine every year, and suddenly, it's easy to see why Ford wants to branch off.
Oh the irony of Ford dropping the insistence of $1 million upgrades to access BEVs
to now letting every dealership sell BEVs mostly with incentives to move them…
Interesting to see that 25% of all F150s sold are hybrids, that’s close to 10,000 a month.
Res assured that if Ford sold a PHEV F 150, Lightning sales would tank overnight……
Sedans are not just dying in the US market, but globally.
From Europe to China to Southeast Asia to Australia and South America, more Top 20 lists will have crossover, SUVs, and Trucks year after year.
In the US, Camry, Corolla, Accord, and Civic used to sell 100's of 1000's more than they do now. And that is with less competition. They all keep investing in them, and yet, sell less and less.
I think the 2025 "all-new" Camry shows the issues with sedans. Even Toyota is admitting they can't invest into an all-new Camry since it is just a re-skin. That would have never happened in the 90s/2000s.
I see that F Series is now +210,000 so all of Ford’s talk about controlling inventory levels is out the window.
I guess the next move will be to stuff dealerships with stock and then add incentives as required to move them…
With regards to Farley’s claim of Ford losing billions on sedans in North America, that would be more believable if Ford had more than just a few of them. Between 2011 and 2020, they mainly had Americanised versions Fiesta, Focus and Mondeo plus the CD4 derived MKZ and Continental. D3 Taurus was the standout and twinned with the Explorer, became the police vehicles of choice by many departments.
While it’s probably true that Ford spent a fortune developing the CD4 MKZ and Continental, Lincoln dealers were begging for a 3-row utilities Navigator and an Aviator. So apart from from trying to make European Mondeo, Focus and Fiesta work in North America, I don’t see much beyond modest, controlled investment in cars.
I wonder if a lot of the perceived losses with sedans is opportunity cost, maybe Farley regrets that Ford didn’t move more quickly to utilities in the twenty tens, we still don’t know how much funding was burned by Mark Fields on developing Lincoln cars including the RWD plans..