[vibbs]

Originally Posted by anb

Toyota raised this point. They stopped developing new products for India and started to sell Baleno and Brezza instead. While Ford failed to do same with Mahindra. https://www.business-standard.com/ar...1500157_1.html

Oh yes I know. We have debated that in this forum as well. While there is no doubt that tax structure impacts the industry as a whole, but I dont see how a company can choose to blame all its misfortune on tax.

This is why I would like to know what in the taxation makes it difficult for Ford to sell in India but does not affect Hyundai or Kia.

[Maky]

The GoI's response read through an Economic Times article:

Doesn’t reflect business environment, India's story intact, says top babu on Ford's exit

Ford’s exit from India is due to operational reasons and no reflection on the country’s business environment, a top government official said.

The country’s automotive sector has seen investment of $35 billion in the past six years and a host of global players including Tesla, Kinetic Green Energy, Bahwan International Group and Nidec are evaluating India plans, he said. Yazaki, Daicel, CKD and C4V had acquired land to set up manufacturing facilities or have inked memoranda of understanding to invest in the country, he said, underlining the point that India remains an attractive destination.

“India’s automotive growth story is alive… There is growth seen both on the domestic front and export front,” said the official.

The government is also working on a production-linked incentive scheme for the automobile sector, which is one of the 13 identified for the government's big manufacturing push. He said the sector continues to attract foreign investments and had achieved critical mass with total exports of $27 billion.

[satyasathy]

Hello Members
Need a valuable advice.. I drive a Jan-2018 Ford Endeavour 3.2 and my 4th year warranty is going to expire this year end.. I took a quote from the dealer on the day this news was announced for Warranty Extension with RSA for 5th and 6th Year for Rs. 74K or so... Is it worth investing this money now after this news.. Pls advice your expert comments and suggestion.

Worried after the news of Torque Converter Failures.. The vehicle has been driven for only about 32K Kms. (no long drives due to Pandemic from last year +)

[petrogeek]

Truly disappointing but not unexpected. Ford's India saga will surely be a case study on business strategy in B-schools if it is not there already. Mid 90's they did have the Ford Ikon 1.6 which had decent numbers. The Ecosport Ecoboost was a pioneer and started the sub Compact SUV trend, the Figo was not bad as well. I suppose the earlier Endeavors were capable of going head to head with the Fortuner. Alas! in a sign of things to come, they tinkered with the Endeavour in terms of engine options, transmission, features ec.

All in all, Fords India story shows that to be in this car market, you need to have deep pockets and the commitment to stay in the game for the long run. Suzuki got a head start and is reaping the benefits, it stuck to its strength- value for money, decent performance and solid brand value. Hyundai - the second in the pack does India specific vehicles, feature rich and sweet spot in terms of pricing. Tata- after many iterations now does good numbers with its portfolio, Mahindra- has its own segment and will continue to have steady numbers, Kia- read the India market well and both the Seltos and Sonet are winners.

Other players such as Datsun, Volkswagen, Honda are gasping for breath and may soon be next unless they do a major course correction.

[padmrajravi]

I think it is unfair to blame the tax rates and the market preferences for Ford's failure. India is a developing country and so the market dynamics will always be different from western countries. The market dynamics are similar to most Asian and South American countries. That does not mean a global manufacturer has to accumulate loss after loss in India. If there is intent, it is possible to succeed in India, or any other developing country for that matter. If you have come here for low-hanging fruits, then you are in trouble, because there is none here.

Toyota entered India with the same constraints that Ford had. They were a global manufacturer and their quality standards clearly did not match the players that were here at that time. The difference was that they were intelligent enough to identify untapped areas in the market and place their products there. They were successful even before its alliance with Suzuki and at the higher end of the spectrum. Suzuki alliance was a masterstroke. And even that is a result of a carefully thought out management strategy. They wanted to stay in India and kept working to make that possible.

The failure of Ford in India is because of one single reason - Lack of intent from management. Ford had successful products every now and then. Ecosport's success should have been the turning point in Ford's journey. They had the 10-30 lakh SUV/MPV market wide open till 2015 with the only significant players being M&M and Toyota for some time. Toyota was selling 6000 Innovas every month even when XUV500 had every feature from two segments above it. So there was a part of the market that clearly gave preference to global standards in that price band. And Ford had multiple products in their global portfolio that they could have placed there. They did not do that. There is no reason other than lack of intent for that.

And It's not like Ford is exiting only from India. They pulled out of Japan, Indonesia, Brazil, and then India. There is a pattern there. They haven't succeeded in most Asian and South American markets. And now that, they are not doing well financially, they think their capital is better invested in North America, where the brand pull already does half the marketing and sales for them.

[ajmat]

After giving it some thought. Key reasons for the pull out


BRICS Product Strategy - After Mullaly took over, the focus was on other areas US and Europe. Any product focus beyond the EcoSport was not pursued with full intent.

Small Cars are Dying - India was the sourcing hub for these. Tighter emission and safety, disincentives for city cars, electric vehicles are killing this market

Screwed Up Investment - You are not utilising MMNagar effectively, you have no clear product roadmap for India - Why invest in Sanand? The sirens enticed Ford there and sucked the tax out of them. Focussing on MM Nagar might have been sustainable.

Screwed Up Manufacturing Strategy- In relation to above - The Ecosport, Figo, Aspire etc are all based on one platform. Why split them across two factories on either end of a vast country.

Lack of Scale - The reason why MSIL , Hyundai and Kia are successful is due to sharing of platforms and components giving economies of scale. VW, Renault-Nissan survive due to this. Ford might have had a chance with M&M but they blew them off first!

[sumeethaldankar]

When the Escort was launched I always dreamed of owning one. It's too bad they are leaving. I had this back of my mind desire to own a brand new Ecosport one day. I hope the Indian government takes note of such exit by such large organisation's like Ford/GM and take steps to make it a bit easier for them to stay in the long run. Slowly it's possible we may end up to what it was in the HM & Premier Padmini days where there are only two manafacturers (Hyundai/Kia & Maruti). I also hope this void left by the biggies is not filled by the likes of cheap Chinese copies in the auto sector.

[Kapany]

Originally Posted by poloman

15K thread views in 4 hours. This is one of the most viewed thread in such a short period of time. Unlike other exits, this has really shocked and saddened the motoring community due to the driving pleasure and iconic brand value associated with Ford.



On the contrary this may further alienate risk taking customers from such brands. Buy only Maruti and Hyundai. No uncomfortable questions. Family happy, Friends happy, neighbors happy. Everyone happy, so you can also pretend to be happy.

Not related to this discussion, but that last line is super deep.

[speedfreak01]

Originally Posted by eternalck

I believe an unregistered car cannot be delivered to a customer in Delhi- please correct me if I’m wrong.

Well you can take delivery of a unregistered car in Delhi. Have seen it been done twice on a friend’s Rapid and Sonet.

Anyway, congrats for your new Ford

[shancz]

Came across an article related to the topic by T. N. Ninan.
He makes some good points which we haven't discussed on the downfall of GM and Ford.

Some excerpts (Credits to Providers) :

- loss of momentum in India’s consumer markets.

- The other feature of the car market is that export success has to be built on a domestic base. Ford set up a second, large-scale car plant in Gujarat (adding to one in Tamil Nadu) because it looked forward to a free-trade agreement (FTA) that would open up the European market to cars from India. The FTA has not happened. And because the company has had only one moderately successful model in India, it has not been using three-quarters of its production capacity. An exit then became inevitable.


- In the end, car markets are sticky. No one has been able to challenge Maruti’s early-bird ownership of India’s market. It’s the same in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea; the early local car makers dominate. Nor does ownership of one segment (like small cars) spell success in other segments — witness Maruti’s failure to make headway with its Ciaz sedan against Honda’s City. It’s a tough world and success has to be earned, in each market and each segment.

[m8002?]

Originally Posted by ajmat

After ...

Screwed Up Investment - You are not utilising MMNagar effectively, you have no clear product roadmap for India - Why invest in Sanand? The sirens enticed Ford there and sucked the tax out of them. Focussing on MM Nagar might have been sustainable.

Screwed Up Manufacturing Strategy- In relation to above - The Ecosport, Figo, Aspire etc are all based on one platform. Why split them across two factories on either end of a vat country.

Lack of Scale - The reason why MSIL , Hyundai and Kia are successful is due to sharing of platforms and components giving economies of scale. VW, Renault-Nissan survive due to this. Ford might have had a chance with M&M but they blew them off first!

I totally agree with this. Why open another plant when the first one is not fully utilized. My guess is that it was a political ( either to please the powers or was coerced ) and they paid a huge price for it.

I was looking at the Ford UK website and they have cars which are competitors to the Creta and Innova. And they could not bring those in our country? The CSUV market is so wide open that Hyundai starts a subsidiary and becomes the second biggest player on day 1 and these guys couldnt figure out what to do with cars they already had in the stable? In spite of all this, I dont understand people blaming the govt. policies and the general public for Ford's failure.

Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar

When the Escort was launched I always dreamed of owning one. It's too bad they are leaving. I had this back of my mind desire to own a brand new Ecosport one day. I hope the Indian government takes note of such exit by such large organisation's like Ford/GM and take steps to make it a bit easier for them to stay in the long run. Slowly it's possible we may end up to what it was in the HM & Premier Padmini days where there are only two manafacturers (Hyundai/Kia & Maruti). I also hope this void left by the biggies is not filled by the likes of cheap Chinese copies in the auto sector.

Why should the government interfere to help them for making bad management decisions? If every company in the industry is impacted, then govt. can step in.

[svsantosh]

One stark comparison that comes to my mind is after 20 years, two very different American efforts (in Asia) failed after pumping in $2B to $2T.

What was the real effort made in two decades?

Why none of that mattered, yet they leave behind an expensive array of machinery and infrastructure for photo ops and media houses to wraith about!

Two subsets of people who believed the American' can make a change, and they come out of their desolate homes (or tin + soap box cars )

After the dust settles, guess who has the final laugh!

Ps - I know the pain of Ford guys today more than anyone else here, ask me how? I had a Chevy (can compare it to the Russian effort in 80s, for the sake of analogy, in case your still havent got the drift) ... and they too came, saw, left our land leaving it back in the hands that are used to ruling them for 4 decades.

I got my new Maruti last week, after selling my Chevy!

[vensum]

Really sad. But i saw this coming three years before. I was having a discussion with a friend of mine who has good number of friends from Ford in Chennai. When i mentioned to him that Ford is going to close down its indian operations, he was very sure that it is not going to be the case. I offered to take a bet with him for USD 10,000 but he was not ready.

I had an endeavour automatic as soon as they introduced it in 2010. I choose this over Fortuner as at that point in time i felt the Fortuner was too spongy and i did not feel safe in that. It served me well for eight years and overall i was really happy with the vehicle.

Today, i called the two ford dealers in Bangalore and offered to buy a new endeavour provided they are willing to give me a good discount. One guy said, he will call me back in ten minutes but even after three hours, there has been no call from him. The other guy was so firm in telling that he can give a maximum discount of one lac only. I, in fact, wanted to make him an offer but he was not even willing to listen to me.

If they are going to offer some decent reduction (I am not expecting anything huge as they do have their manufacturing cost and the Govt. is really ripping off the customers with their unreasonable tax structure) in the price, i will still go ahead and buy the endeavour.

[volkman10]

Ford seems to prune its product-line world-wide.

Ford EcoSport Will Leave American Market In Mid-2022.

The EcoSport didn't last very long in America. It debuted in November 2016 at the Los Angeles Auto Show, although sales didn't start until early 2018. At launch, the little crossover was available with a 1.0-liter three-cylinder turbocharged or a 2.0-liter four-cylinder. The larger powerplant was available with all-wheel drive.

The vehicle will continue to be available in the US through mid-2022. Production for Europe will still take place in Romania, and the EcoSport will remain in the model range there.

Link

[Venkatesh]

Ford EcoSport is now all set to be discontinued in the United States as well.

The EcoSport will be built and exported to the U.S. through mid-2022.

Meanwhile, Europe will continue to get its supply from a factory in Romania with no plans to stop

Source