[landcruiser123]

I really don't know how sustainable it'll be for Ford to continue as a "premium" brand selling Endeavours, Rangers, and Mustangs. They'll most likely exit completely as HQ is focused on revamping their entire lineup with EVs.

Originally Posted by Stribog

Likewise, the likes of VAG, Ford, GM all believed in pushing THEIR vision for the market and have failed or in various states of failure. Contrast this with SAIC or Kia and even our homegrown TaMo and MaMo who have brilliantly adapted and continue to evolve (the absolute shocker of the XUV700 being the most recent) to offer compelling value to the customer.

THIS is the only reason and anything else like "complicated tax structure" or "no enthusiasts" etc are just lame excuses by said OEM's.

Perform or perish is how capitalism operates and well, since the mid 90's at least our auto market has had a level playing field.

No doubt Indian regulations are a bit complex, but I completely agree with you. VAG, GM, Ford need to design for India (or at least make some changes) to get acceptance in the local market. A perfect example would be the Grand i10 for India which is slightly elongated compared to the European model.

Hyundai, Toyota, and Ford started around the same time in India. Hyundai is just growing fast while Ford is all but finished. Toyota has been middling - they have some good UVs, but lost the car market entirely.

[sid3091]

Originally Posted by landcruiser123

I really don't know how sustainable it'll be for Ford to continue as a "premium" brand selling Endeavours, Rangers, and Mustangs. They'll most likely exit completely as HQ is focused on revamping their entire lineup with EVs.


No doubt Indian regulations are a bit complex, but I completely agree with you. VAG, GM, Ford need to design for India (or at least make some changes) to get acceptance in the local market. A perfect example would be the Grand i10 for India which is slightly elongated compared to the European model.

Hyundai, Toyota, and Ford started around the same time in India. Hyundai is just growing fast while Ford is all but finished. Toyota has been middling - they have some good UVs, but lost the car market entirely.

Waiting game for Ford, I think. The premium only option is a temporary measure, but it can buy them time to develop and launch India specific models. They've got umpteen number of platforms, and just need to pick the right one. The territory would be an excellent offering in the 14-18l range, and shouldn't take them too much time to start manufacturing in India, considering it was designed for Asia.

[shortbread]

I sincerely hope Tata sees the opportunity here. Ford resolves two of TML's two biggest achilles heels in either foot!

- good petrol engines
- an export market

The challenge is taking on more debt and adding more capacity when parts supply and inflationary pressures are looming. Ford should look to provide a subsidied transition plan.

A lot of energy, time and goodwill has been invested into this market. The easiest thing to do is to quit. The US economy is a three legged stool, in which one leg is a massive debt bubble. Ford should look to consolidate, survive with a local partner but importantly look to continue it's presence in India.

[COMMUTER]

This is a direct result of the governent failing to implement crash testing norms. Had they been implemented, the best selling yet life endangering products would have been kicked out of products and cars of good safety record, along with the best reliability and frugality would have been shining. When Govt. is least bothered about the life threatening situations that people are being put through then people will keep suffering.

We get what we deserve in the end either way.

[prajwalmr62]

Originally Posted by COMMUTER

This is a direct result of the government failing to implement crash testing norms. Had they been implemented, the best selling yet life endangering products would have been kicked out.

Yes, blame the competitors for selling more cars.

If there was a better regulations, everyone would have made better cars. Even Ford has watered down chassis for their cars as well. There was a long post about missing truss of Endeavor here somewhere.

If Ford is here taking its final breath, it is because of their own wrongdoings. People have been buying Ecosport since 2013/14. Most of them are already searching for an upgrade and Ford has nothing to show for them. I'm pretty sure even if there was an half decent SUV from Ford, most of the existing customers would have bought it even without test drive.

Ford has manufacturing capacity of Maruti and product line-up of Volkswagen. What did they expect?

[eccentric]

It's quite disheartening to see this. The only Ford car I drove was the EcoSport on a TD hoping for an upgrade from our 2009 Swift VDi in April 2021. While the turbo kick of our Swift was missing, I really loved the connection to the road this car gave. The dynamics, braking, robustness of the build, ability to conquer rough terrain were all spot on. However, I found the car to be narrower, less roomy and slightly claustrophobic than our Swift. So, had to vouch for the next segment (4m+) which is unfortunately missing in Ford's lineup!

I believe the portfolio of Ford cars is flawed,

- Lack of a premium hatchback which could rival the likes of i20, Altroz...
- Lack of a sedan against the Vento, City...
- Lack of a 4m+ C-SUV to rival the Kicks, Kushaq...

Example, if am owning an Aspire and deciding to opt for a notch higher sedan class, I don't have any options from Ford but to look elsewhere. Same is the case for existing owners of the duo, the Figo and the EcoSport. So, if Ford couldn't cater to this simple mindset, how would they attract new customers and retain the existing customer base?

India needs new models and not mere cosmetic surgery facelifts!

They have their engines, decent dynamics, safety, build and all other basics right. What is lacking is the depth of the product line up that caters to popular demand!

[kiku007]

Originally Posted by Stribog

since the mid 90's at least our auto market has had a level playing field.

Did Hyundai and Ford have to deal with the same set of rules and bias? Yes. Did Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai/Ford have to deal with the same bias? No.

The emission, safety, vehicle size/engine capacity regulations mostly favored Maruti Suzuki. The 4M rule never made sense for India and is a classic case of how one company benefited and most others went back to the drawing board to chop their cars.

It is not a level playing field when one player that commands about 50% of the market share gets preferential treatment.

Due credit where it is due and I'm not saying Maruti Suzuki had everything handed over to it in a gold platter. They worked hard for it as well but that doesn't mean the playing field was level.

To be competitive and profitable in India, global automakers have to make huge compromises. I don't have to explain how Hyundai, KIA, Toyota or Honda have diluted their global standards in India. I have seen first hand on how Ford went to make the Gen-1 Figo cost competitive. One can clearly see the difference in quality between the Fiesta and the Figo at that time.

Now I see posts on Skoda's misadventures with the Kushaq. It is just sad. The suppliers can make components of high quality but it can't be done when they desire lower cost. The standards auto-makers have for their export and domestic markets are different.

If Ford exits India, remember that Ford actually cuts it's loses. So who is the loser then?

[autocrat]

If a company like Ford with great heritage, depth of design and engineering and more than a century of experience in making and selling cars is faltering in one the best car markets in the world, it only points to poor management. It may be lack of connect with the market, not reading the competition, poor foresight, whatever it is that has got Ford to where it is now, can be traced to bad management.

May be its too late to make a course correction, or may be it isn't - only if the right people are put in charge of dealing with the mess.

Auto industry is one where there have been many fantastic turn-around stories, and I wish and hope Ford scripts one here.

[CarNerd]

Originally Posted by kiku007

Did Hyundai and Ford have to deal with the same set of rules and bias? Yes. Did Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai/Ford have to deal with the same bias? No.

To be competitive and profitable in India, global automakers have to make huge compromises. I don't have to explain how Hyundai, KIA, Toyota or Honda have diluted their global standards in India. I have seen first hand on how Ford went to make the Gen-1 Figo cost competitive. One can clearly see the difference in quality between the Fiesta and the Figo at that time.

If Ford exits India, remember that Ford actually cuts it's loses. So who is the loser then?

If Hyundai/Ford had to deal with the same constraints, why is Hyundai ahead of Ford in sales? If Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Honda etc have diluted their global standards in India and if Ford too did the same, why is it not successful? Because it has only one model which is cost competitive unlike others who either have many such models or have one model as the segment leader. Since Ford has neither, it should have kept bringing more such models in different segments in order to survive. Also, Ford is not a luxury car maker to get accolades for quality. Doesn't Ford know the proverb: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do"?

If Ford exits India, then the loser is Ford not anyone else. The gainers on the other hand will be the Koreans and Chinese.

[Stribog]

Originally Posted by kiku007

Did Hyundai and Ford have to deal with the same set of rules and bias? Yes. Did Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai/Ford have to deal with the same bias? No.

The emission, safety, vehicle size/engine capacity regulations mostly favored Maruti Suzuki. The 4M rule never made sense for India and is a classic case of how one company benefited and most others went back to the drawing board to chop their cars.

It is not a level playing field when one player that commands about 50% of the market share gets preferential treatment.

Due credit where it is due and I'm not saying Maruti Suzuki had everything handed over to it in a gold platter. They worked hard for it as well but that doesn't mean the playing field was level.

To be competitive and profitable in India, global automakers have to make huge compromises. I don't have to explain how Hyundai, KIA, Toyota or Honda have diluted their global standards in India. I have seen first hand on how Ford went to make the Gen-1 Figo cost competitive. One can clearly see the difference in quality between the Fiesta and the Figo at that time.

Now I see posts on Skoda's misadventures with the Kushaq. It is just sad. The suppliers can make components of high quality but it can't be done when they desire lower cost. The standards auto-makers have for their export and domestic markets are different.

If Ford exits India, remember that Ford actually cuts it's loses. So who is the loser then?

Ford set up shop in 96, the sub 4 meter rule was imposed in 2008.

Hyundai which was a contemporary of Ford had already got a commanding second place position in the market with its Santro doing immense volumes.

Where was Ford's small car strategy at a time when the 800, Alto and Santro were the kings in the market? Ford even had the Ka available to it, but it never made it to our shores.

Hyundai reinvented the CSUV game with the launch of the Creta THOUGH Ford had created the market with the launch of the immensely popular Ecosport, but where was Ford when Hyundai created the above 4, but below the proper butch SUV segment? To this day, the Korean siblings of Creta + Seltos sell volumes far in excess of the entire Ford portfolio in India.

Heck, SAIC came up with a compelling value proposition like the Hector, where was Ford now? Doing feature deletions in the Endy?

Ford had huge product gaps - if a customer was looking for a product in the 15-30 Lakh bracket, they had to compulsorily look elsewhere.

If SAIC, Hyundai, Kia all can come up with products that sell like hot cakes, why did Ford stop with its last best seller, the Ecosport.

Even with the ecosport, how long will Ford continue to hawk what is now a close to a decade old platform. Ford launched this in 2012, and minus cosmetic changes and the addition of a touchscreen ICE, the product is essentially the same. In the meantime a Hyundai launched 2 gens of the Creta and both are rip roaring successes.

This is what I was talking about in my earlier post. The likes of VAG, Ford, Toyota never understood the pulse of the Indian market, continued to produce and sell either a global product force fitted to the Indian market or actually once popular products but way past their sell by date.

What stopped a Ford from coming up with a Creta? What stopped Ford from coming up with a compelling small car? What stopped Ford from coming up with a volumes segment when the Uber / Ola business was driving taxicabs like crazy? What stopped Ford from launching another gen of the Ecosport? Or piggy back on their own super sucessful Icon? An aspirational car for the Indian middle class of the late to early 2000's?

What product did Ford make that drove customers to the showrooms last? The Ecosport? This was launched in 2012! Since 2012, what has Ford done?

TaMo and Mahindra, homegrown, but the former was a very low scale (in terms of image) cabbie car company or Sumo only and Mahindra didnt even exist as a consumer car company in 2010. TaMO has BRILLIANTLY changed their game, upped their market share and are rapidly rising up the sales charts. Where is the Ford version of the XUV 500 or now the just out of the planet level pricing and feature load of the XUV 700?

What policies aided these companies but hurt Ford?

The only answer is the Ford management sucked! never understood the market and are on their way out.

As an auto enthusiast I feel sad, but this is the process of creative destruction and many companies from Kia to SAIC are waiting to simply occupy that space and pump in billions more into the market.

[Hayek]

Think the “exit?” of Ford is a function of three factors:

1) the mismatch between Ford’s global portfolio and the demands of the Indian market;
2) the failure of the Indian market to develop in a manner that global players expected - both in terms of absolute growth and in terms of mix
3) the unique regulations in India which made the benefits of local scale economies far more important than global scale economies

Ford has been amongst the most serious players in India - having set up massive capacity, invested in localisation all the way from the Ikon (which was an India specific product), built an export base, and introduced several products over the years.

However unlike Hyundai or Suzuki who had small car products globally, Ford (and others like GM, VW et al) did not have products that fitted into the A or B1 segments - and came into India with the expectation that over time, import duties would fall, the market would shift towards larger cars, and they would benefit from their global scale economies over time.

Instead, the sub 4 m rule, changing directions on fuel prices (a rapidly expanding petrol diesel price differential from 2008 to 2014, and a swing in the opposite direction since then), increasing rather than decreasing duties, and a flat market for several years (PV sales of 2.6 mm in FY12 and 2.7 mm in FY21) have convinced boards of global auto makers that India is not a market where global players have any kind of advantage and they have therefore had to find strategies to build local scale economies. Ford attempted that with the Mahindra tie up - but with that falling through, they are clearly in a very hard place.

Of course it is a loss for Ford to have to exit India after a 25 year haul where they made massive investments and saw no returns. But the bigger loss is for the Indian customer - who is faced with a smaller and smaller set of quality cars to choose from.

[peterjim13]

Being a Ford owner for the last 7 years, this is some news that I have been closely watching across portals. Within one of the owners group I am a part of - people are struggling to keep good faith on the manufacturer essentially on the way they handled the DPF clogging issue.

If they want to do the numbers business they should have at least 2 good cars within 10L and 20L category, if they are not keen or not sure - they should exit.

The Ecosport have been doing 3.5 k per month until the DPF clogging issue became viral. The TDCI was meaty enough for the way it drove.

Looks like the Figo Automatic was an outcome of a similar car being exported.
Same with the EcoSport facelift which is in line.

As a an owner I am not concerned as my car is almost 7 year old and I can get almost all the spares in the market already. This is surely going to affect the resale value at least.

[Sunderdeep]

Ford actually cut the branch it was sitting on. Their first generation Figo was doing fine numbers (above 3000 pm) but still Ford went ahead and launched new gen Figo with a price increase of around 50-60K. It didn't appealed to the masses and the sales never really took off. Something definitely was little off in the design of Figo/Aspire that potential customers found other cars more appealing despite Figo twins offering the best Diesel Engine in their respective segments.

Ford should have been proactive to understand the pulse back then and should have arranged some alternative models that could become their bread and butter products. They started losing marketshare 5 years back itself because Figo Twins sales never really brought them the numbers they were looking for and Ford left a void between them and a middle class customer.

They tasted good success with Ecosport & Endeavour over the years and they could have cashed in with some globally popular products. But they rather relied too much in finding a partner for JV instead of investing in R&D to come up with some Indian specific cars.

[kiku007]

Originally Posted by CarNerd

Also, Ford is not a luxury car maker to get accolades for quality.

What you are you implying here? Do only luxury car makers deserve accolades for quality? What is the correlation?

Originally Posted by CarNerd

Doesn't Ford know the proverb: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do"?

They tried that as well. Remember the Gen-2 Figo/Aspire? My heart sank when I drove that car. Ford wanted to do a Maruti Swift/Dzire with the Gen-2 and it was an epic failure.

Originally Posted by Stribog

Ford set up shop in 96, the sub 4 meter rule was imposed in 2008.

I can also provide a big list of things that Ford India did wrong and that was not the point of my post. Trust me when I tell you how disappointed I am when I compare Ford's progress (or the lack of) when compared to Hyundai.

You called the Indian auto market as having a level playing field and I disagree with that.

[Red Liner]

Ford and Honda cars remind me of Yamaha amd Suzuki motorcycles.

- Great global portfolio, rubbish indian portfolio
- No halo product line up (maruti known for small cars, Hyundai/kia known now better for csuv)
- Trying to compete with established products like Suzuki Dzire throwing huge money down the drain
- Trying to be a mass market player in a very crowded mass market segment
- Not staying true to the global brand ethos - built tough/suv with more suv related options and instead trying much harder in the price conscious small car segment
- Built a halo product like the ecosport but did absolutely nothing about that car or what comes after it like what Yamaha did with the R3. Could have moved quickly and built a suite of small SUVs in the 10-20 lakh bracket far before the Creta or Seltos made an appearance.