True, but the scales are flipping. It's not the segment necessarily that dictates profitability, but the level of competition within the segment, and the pricing pressure that comes with it. When Ford made the decision to move away from cars to utilities, everyone was making sedans, very few were making aspirational utilities, it was an untapped market.
Today, it's basically fulfilled, most brands offer something similar to a bronco sport, this idea of a utility with bolder, more unique styling. Some go the same direction the sport went in, the macho, wannabe off-roader look, others adopted a sportier look. But aspirational utilities are everywhere now.
You know what isn't around anymore? Aspirational coupes, sedans and hatches. A few of them exist, but they're few and far between. These days, it's the aspirational car, not the aspirational utility market that's being underserved.
They can use that capacity for EVs and if they need more products they can do c2 utilities that would be profitable. It’s just pointless to bring new products that don’t make money.
That’s because you misinterpret half of what I say. There is a huge difference in a $25k focus that needs $3k incentives plus dealer discounts and a $25K Maverick that sells at MSRP and over. It’s not about absolute ATPs but profit margins and ROI. Plenty of room for less expensive products if they’re desirable and profitable.
What the hell are you talking about?
Just looking at the Maverick as an example-starting price is just under $24K.
I did a search on Ford's website and there are roughly 100+ of them apparently in the area where I live with in 20 miles (dealer stock and enroute)
Out of that 100+, only 3 of them where less then 27K
The vast majority of the Mavericks are in the mid 30K range, which means they are already 10K over their start price and some models go as high as $41K, which is 17K over starting list price.
So being a product that was designed to be "cheap" there is a huge amount of profit that is being made off it, esp since it doesn't have discounts or subleaned financing on it either.
But here lies the issue-the development work might be "free" but you still need to make new tooling, subassembly production (power plants, interiors) and whatever else to put it into production and then make a profit off it.
If it was that simple and profitable to do it, I think Ford would be doing it already.
Plus I'd venture to say that nearly every non luxury sedan has some sort of sub leaned financing and discounts on top of a lower MSRP (vs a CUV) to make money off it.