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Ford To Stop Selling Every Car In North America But the Mustang, Focus Active (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Ford today announced it will phase out most cars it sells in North America. According to its latest financial release, the auto giant "will transition to two vehicles" -- the Mustang and an unannounced vehicle, the Focus Active, being the only traditional cars it sells in the region. Ford sees 90 percent of its North America portfolio in trucks, utilities and commercial vehicles. Citing a reduction in consumer demand and product profitability, Ford is in turn not investing in the next generation of sedans. The Taurus is no more. The press release also talks about a new type of vehicle, though it sounds like a crossover. This so-called white space vehicle will "combine the best attributes of cars and utilities, such as higher ride height, space and versatility." Currently, Ford sells six sedans and coupes in North America: the Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, C-Max, Mustang and Taurus. This lineup hits multiple segments, from the compact Fiesta to the mid-size Focus, C-Max and Fusion to the full-size Taurus. The Mustang stands alone as the lone coupe.
I love my antiquated '94 Corolla wagon, not that it's a great car or anything (although it is), but largely because it's got a low and wide profile. Makes it fun to negotiate a curve. Who wants to drive around in a high box?
Ford stops selling vehicles that consume less gas in line with new mobility taxes so only the rich can travel. Affordable vehicles wreaked havoc when the peasant population was able to leave areas with shitty abusive systems in place.
That would not be because they are low, but because they are long.
I think Honda might have been the first to do this about three decades ago when they based all their cars on just two flexible platforms. The Accord, TL, RL, TSX, Crosstour... all the same car. The smaller was the Civic and the RSX. The SUVs are similar, Pilot/MDX and CRV/RDX. They keep changing the model names to throw us off the trail, but the manufacturing is very carefully designed to minimize infrastructure, support, and design. I never figured out where the odd US models like Fit and Element fit that scheme, but they sure seemed expensive for so few units if they were unique.
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Or any color as long as it's black?
They had a sedan that sold well and businesses bought in mass, but cancelled it. Bring back the Crown Vic, I can't tell todays cop cars and taxis from an uber.
You're betting the company on SUVs, and in a few years when gas prices shoot up again, you're gonna lose the company. Does anyone really believe gas prices can stay this low for forever? I think they'll shoot up again within 5 years, just when Ford has ditched all its cars that people will actually want to buy when gas is $5 a gallon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy
Ford currently sells five models of sedans: Taurus, Focus RS, Fiesta, Mustang, and Focus Active. They're phasing out the first three models over the next few years, to be replaced with all new electric and hybrid models. Still spending a bit to keep the other two in production for the foreseeable future though.
If US consumer tastes change (as they always do) Ford is toast.
Tesla can't make enough sedans and not affordably enough
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Their masterplan is to use all the money saved by shuttering all these lines into shorting Tesla, drive down its share price and buy the company.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
They forget how the company was built. A Model T was $300 in 1925 => $4,268.42 in 2018. You can't buy a new car for triple that now.
They only deliver to GM. Maybe Ford sees the writing on the wall.
I think you're missing the point.
Tesla psychologically owns the luxury market. It's the cool kid's ride, easily analogized to the iPhone 8 or 10. Is it a pavement pounder? Yes. Is it the fastest? No. It's the coolest, or so says the buyers, who pay a huge margin to a company that barely floats its boat.
I like Corvettes, but Bowling Green lost its way, IMHO. Still very cool. But not for the cool kids. Corvettes are like Blackberrys, or maybe an LG.
Afterthought: Isn't it appropriate to use smartphone metaphors in a car thread, instead of cars in a smartphone thread?
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Let's look at those numbers a bit differently. Tesla investors hope that Tesla grows, of course. If Tesla does extremely well and increases sales by 20% every single year, in 50 they'll be - still not one of the top 5 automakers.
FORD:
Found On Road, Discontinued
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I do. Streets in my city (Asunción) are awful. Lots of potholes and plenty of ill-designed and ill-placed speed bumps. When you have low quality streets, a high ride is a godsend.
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Teslas have a ~300 mile range. Unless you are driving more than 150 miles each way to work, you can just charge it at home.
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Tesla makes plenty of money on the S and X. It's just that they are investing that money on bringing up the Model 3 and other projects.
That's not the case at all. Money for the Model 3 is coming from investors and loans.
According to their Q4 report, their gross profit is $438 million a quarter. Of that, $146 million goes towards paying interest on their loans. Another $1 billion goes to other expenses, including R&D, marketing and administrative. Notice how they're already $600 million the red before we even get to the $786 million in capital expenditures (aka. factory construction).
So they paying for all this with loans, which is not really sustainable.
To get in the black, they'll need a combination of several things:
- Drastically increase gross profit.
- Cut R&D, marketing and administrative spending.
- Reduce interest costs.
- Stop building new factories.
I personally don't think any of those are viable. Their margin is relatively high at 19% right now because they're selling luxury models. But the Model 3 will have a much lower margin, perhaps only 10% (which is what Ford is working with). Even if they can sell their target 5,000 Model 3's a week, we're still looking at only $200 million in additional gross profit for the quarter. The other $400 million loss will have to be made up with cost cuts.
Maybe they can kill R&D ($350 million) at the cost of future competitiveness, but marketing and administrative expenses can't be cut without affecting sales or production.
Not much can be done about interest costs, since it's the banks that set the rates. They also need the money right now, so paying the loans off is not an option.
As for capital expenditures, well, they're definitely not going to make enough sales to save them if they don't have factories for the production volume.
All in all a pretty bleak picture. But they have the backings of millions of fanboys and more importantly, investors, so they'll be ok until something bad happens to Musk. Even if they did get out of this hole though, I still don't see them turning into the next Apple or Amazon.
I think exception would be taken if I ran an extension cord from my second-story window into the parking lot and across to where I could actually park. I also suspect that my car would not remain plugged-in for as long as I might need.
Well damn, I guess we should scrap the whole idea of EVs then because you can't charge one.
You know there's literally hundreds of millions of people that have driveways and garages that can, right? If it's not a good solution for you, don't buy one. Gasoline will still be a thing for some time.
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Japanese, cars have always fit me better and more comfortably than American cars.
This is largely a myth. Two cars coming off the same production line, one goes left, gets Toyota badging, the other goes right and gets GM. Which one has the higher customer rating? Yup, Toyota. Better life cycle too. Same parts, same labor, same everything, what is the difference?
Turns out, how people VIEW their cars matters. They take care of cars that they think will last, and don't take care of cars that are "cheap". Self fulfilling.
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