Word is that Changan is now so skilled that it can do full top hats on vehicles built for China
and hopefully, that skill is applied to exports in the wider Asia pacific market.
There's gotta be a way that Ford can supply more vehicles efficiently to our region.
I looked at GM’s quarterly sales figure of 696,000 and that’s an average of 232,000 sales a month.
Man that’s a long way in front of Ford’s 170,000 per month average….
So I really wondering what Ford could do in the next six months to improve things…
I hear there’s a big price increase coming for updated Aviator, that’s not good….
Yes, it’s gives a sense of custom build, something Ford makes just for you. The kind of thinking behind
the Maverick development is perhaps whats needed to reset buyer perception of other volume sellers.
I was just thinking about the original Taurus launch, back then it was a revolutionary vehicles but a lot
of buyers loved it too…..not sure how Ford recaptures that type of response..maybe extended range EV?
This. The flexibility of the modern C2 should be allowing Ford to tailor whatever vehicles are needed
in Europe and ROW markets. A well designed Electric vehicle platform that can do the same thing
shouldnt be so hard. I wonder if the issue is looking at one or two vehicle developments instead
of looking at a whole family of vehicles.
Another big impediment I Europe is countries like Germany insist on production of Focus in order
to guarantee support from German buyers, it’s a rather parochial place and when ford stated
consolidating production in Valencia Spain it save a lot of money, the plant building up to
six different types of vehicles. Good idea but again, Europe is a tricky place to do business.
I agree it won’t be a huge margin but 4% on a $25K vehicle is only $1K. Below that you might as well just invest in bonds.
I think this was true in the past for some vehicles (especially commodities) but I don’t think it’s prevalent any more and it certainly doesn’t apply to vehicles like Maverick, Bronco, Bronco Sport, F150, Mustang, etc. Buyers today seem to care more about the individual vehicles and less about the brand.
They should strive to get as much margin as possible out of a small car, but I feel it is also important to realize that they won't make as much of a percentage of a profit as a large car. The lower priced car is important as an ambassador to a brand to a first time buyer. If it is built correctly and with quality, then that buyer will come back and buy higher priced cars and keep buying the brand. Toyota and Honda managed this flawlessly and Hyundai has accomplished this as well.
I think the big root cause there goes back to higher cost basis especially in Europe. I think that led to a lot of the other bad decisions. When your costs are low you have far more options
The question was why the GM large SUVs sales were down. What I was trying to say was it was higher prices which is a combination of factory raising prices and dealers not giving discounts. I think both will change as prices come down to normalize sales again just like we’re starting to see with trucks.