https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/21/business/stellantis-jeep-woes/index.html
this was an interesting story on cnn about jeep prices being too high. In 2023 jeep had the highest ATP of any automaker. This year they are second to ford. Ford has an atp of 55k vs the industry average of 47.5k. Things aren’t so great lately for jeep. Is ford following in their footsteps?
https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/which-automaker-is-actually-the-most-profitable/
I found this article interesting as well. Ford is at the bottom of the list for profit per vehicle at 3%. Toyota on the other hand is at 11.1% and Kia is at 11.6%. With all the high dollar trucks ford sells, how is their profit so low?
Agree completely, but for clarity, I’m not suggesting Ford reduce Ranger prices and therefore erode margins on existing variants, but to develop new ones that are much lower price (if possible) and sell at same or near-same margin. I know Ford could reduce manufacturing costs some by going to a single cab with 6-foot bed, but that alone probably won’t reduce cost $5k to get MSRP down around $30k. It will likely also require lower-cost powertrain. That seems the toughest part since everything has gone more upscale.
Big difference in organic demand vs demand driven solely by low prices. They could cut Escape prices by $10k and increase demand and sales by at least 50% (maybe more) but they would be losing money. They're setting minimum profit margin targets and adjusting volume to match the demand at those prices. They might need to drop prices a little but not a lot. Not yet at least.
They may be owned by the same parent but VW and Audi are completely separate companies. More like the Ford/Mazda arrangement than Ford/Lincoln or Toyota/Lexus or Nissan/Infiniti or Honda/Acura or Chevy/Cadillac. Those other brands are completely different.
And Bentley, Lamborghini... Bugatti, but they kind of gave that one away to Rimac.
VW is kind of a luxury conglomerate stuck with VW along with Skoda and Seat.
This.
Ranger is contained by the very good F150 above and the very effective Maverick below.
Ford had a dead set winner with Bronco but like Jeep the got super greedy chasing high
profit sales with an obviously rich trim mix. I wonder if there’s a way of adding more value
and desirably with lower and mid models. Strong incentives are needed at the moment
to get the huge inventory moving but maybe subvent some of the problem with killer leases?
Of course. My thought process is when you're going for these radical areo designs that are nothing like your current products in terms of appearance, you really have to know what you're doing. You can lean into areo principles and create something that's really visually striking, as I hope is the case. Or you can pull a Ford three row, and create something very areo efficient, but hideous.
A well executed areo design would be something like this, just raised to make it more practical. Something that's areo efficient, and very unique, but in a good way.