Ford USA to kill all passenger cars except Mustang, Focus Active

[anobserver]

Originally Posted by Sprintey

What is a Focus Active?

I hadn't heard of it either. So I looked it up and the description was...

"...a four-door Focus hatchback with a 1.2-inch suspension lift, black plastic around the wheel arches, faux skid plates at front and rear, and a slightly different front bumper and grille design. The Active also has different interior trim pieces that Ford describes as “more rugged” and “textured."

A competitor for Subaru XVs, perhaps.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Maka

Hi guys, here's a interesting & counter take/opinion on Ford's recent decision to cull most of its US passenger car lineup -

https://www.whichcar.com.au/opinion/...-car-portfolio

cheers, Maka

If things change and the market shifts back to passenger cars Ford can turn the taps back on pretty quickly with Fiesta and Focus, with those 2 still available elsewhere. Not sure about Fusion, that will depend on wether Mondeo continues or not. They could always use the Chinese Taurus which is a lwb Mondeo.

But it takes a bit of the risk out of the strategy.

[Sprintey]

Thanks for explaining the Focus Active gents, in particular the pic was good. That is a Ford I could buy - like an XV but with a torque converter Auto. Now, will it have selectable or full time AWD, or the unfortunate haldex on demand, applied when it recognises you are already in trouble? Enquiring snowboarders want to know...

The XV is excellent in this regard - constant 60/40 split but has the grrrr CVT. Previous model manual was 50/50 constant split. i've always considered an AWD that is constantly applying torque to all four wheels superior in icy/low traction. Hence why the petrol AWD Terry was so good.

If you want a laugh, try watching an earlier generation CRV hit sand and refuse to send power back when it is already axle deep.

[Sprintey]

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

Meh, being confined to drive around in a Camry, would be enough for me to resign from the force. The thing is an occupational hazard

You could try the Camry RZ, it looks and goes... oh wait nevermind...

[Crazy Dazz]

Gees some people are thick, read the title and go Ballistic.

For starters, it may well be that they are referring only to manufacturing, in NA, and could continue to sell some models as imports.

Even if not, the rules have been pushing the American market this way for 50 years, its hardly a surprise.

It's simple. If you want to buy a "Passenger Car" in the USA, then the vast majority of you must buy a squeaky little plugin pimple.
But hey, step on over to the SUV side of the dealership, and you can still buy a thumping great V8.

The previous version of the rules probably pushed the market so far as to kill off all large passenger vehicles, but the revised rules make even less sense.

By 2025 (not that far away) small cars (eg Fiesta) have to achieve a CAFE of 60mpg (and that's US gallons not Imperial.) Only way you do that, and meet emissions, is with plugins and ZEVs.
And that big honking SUV? 30mpg. guess which ones the Americans are buying...

Furthermore, even if you want a small or medium vehicle, if you buy an SUV instead of a hatchback, the CAFE standard is roughly 10mpg higher, so again guess which one Ford wants to sell.

It's typical of what passes for government in the US. For years SUVs were exempt, so whilst manufacturers were forced to sell more smaller and more economical cars, it was open slather on SUVs and Trucks. Now that the government wants to reign those in, the auto companies point the finger and say "see, its all your fault, everybody drives SUVs now, we need concessions"

Plus of course, surprise, surprise, sur-prise, these new rules are absolutely hammering importers whose sales are heavily biased towards cars, whilst the American companies make out like bandits with their huge sales of SUVs and trucks.

[Maka]

Here's a interesting read -

http://kfgo.com/news/articles/2018/m...for-automaker/

"Ford Motor Co shareholders should expect "fairly large" changes in the coming year, Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. told Reuters, building on the automaker's moves to discontinue some North American models and boost electric vehicle investment."

To face the axe - "It could be regions, it could be functions, it could be areas of emphasis," Ford said in an interview. "We’ve done some big things, and we still have some big things to do."

Plenty of jobs about to go too?

cheers, Maka

[malazn mafia]

Originally Posted by Sprintey

You could try the Camry RZ, it looks and goes... oh wait nevermind...

Camry RZ .. bring out the bad in Granddad

[Sprintey]

In the finance newsfeeds this morning Ford shelving F150 production and over 7000 workers for a short while in the states as a fire at a component supplier has stopped supply of an alloy radiator support section.
They sell 15,000 of these a month, average time before sale is 76 days so they have some supply.
Gotta love just in time production.

[Sprintey]

Originally Posted by russellw

My analysis of the US market and this decision has been uploaded to the Technical Portal.

Regards
Russ

From Russ' excellent article:

"Clearly, the old dinosaurs like F-Series and Mustang not only sell well but their manufacture is reasonably straightforward and can be managed by less efficient plants and their margins are obviously high. Focus, Fiesta and Fusion are much more modern platforms and require manufacturing tolerances that are beyond those older plants and then quality suffers but they are also less profitable if only because they require more recent (and thus unamortised) capital expenditure. "


Revenge of the dinosaur... I like that a lot.

[jpd80]

The announcement only affects North America.

What would you say if Ford's sales volume was down by 10% but profits and margin were up? That's the likely result.

Absolutely and I can think of no better example than in 2019, 125K Ranger sales mostly dual cabs
replacing a similar number of Focus / C-max sales in 2018. (2020 sees high profit Bronco with 60K sales?)

The next example would be CD6 Explorer/Aviator swallowing up current production of Taurus and PIU.
those 40K combined annual sales then become mostly new Aviator sales with much higher ATP.


And if Ford is prepared to let Fusion remain at Hermosillo for the next few years, does that open the door
to a new model SWB C2 Ute along side it (as was planned with Focus) the new model gradually increases
production as Fusion approximates the slow decline of D3 Taurus at CAP to a point where it finishes quietly.

[Syndrome]

Just like GM, Ford is downsizing the company to better reflect their market share.