[tortoise]

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/25/fo...-focus-active/

Ford to stop selling every car in North America but the Mustang and Focus Active

Signs of time to come? If fate of trucks in NA is bad..what does it mean for us Indians?

[Dieselritzer]

They are the largest exporter from India, I don't think we should be worried as of now. Ford should focus on the features part on all their offerings. They need to present a complete package for folks to walk out of their showroom with a booking receipt.

[Nilesh5417]

Originally Posted by tortoise

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/25/fo...-focus-active/

Ford to stop selling every car in North America but the Mustang and Focus Active

Signs of time to come? If fate of trucks in NA is bad..what does it mean for us Indians?

They are only talking of pruning the investments in future development of the existing sedan line up coz by 2020, they anticipate the US market to be dominated by SUVs. Am not sure what is your worry? If its that we will never lay our hands on the brilliant Focus RS, am with you!

[volkman10]

Ford Will Focus On Trucks And SUVs, Only Offer Two Cars In U.S- Focus Shift is due to achieving higher profitability.

Ford’s future product lineup will look sparse if you’re searching for a hatchback or a sedan. The Dearborn automaker plans to eliminate a slew of products – C-Max, Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, and Taurus – while focusing on the higher profits that come with crossovers, SUVs, and trucks. That means eliminating a majority of the brand’s sedans while leaving the Ford Mustang and all-new Ford Focus Active. Currently, Ford loses money on the Fiesta, Focus, and Fusion

The next few years, the Ford car portfolio in North America will transition to two vehicles – the best-selling Mustang and the all-new Focus Active crossover coming out next year

The slow rollout of a recovery plan has added a new layer to the challenges facing the No. 2 American automaker. It has trouble on several fronts: Operations in Europe, India, and South America are struggling; costs for key materials like aluminum and steel are rising; sales in China have stalled; and its model line is short on the new types of S.U.V.s and trucks that buyers are snapping up in the United States.

Shrinking or selling unprofitable foreign operations could also be part of the new strategy.

Will Ford- Mahindra alliance ultimately lead to Ford selling its operations in India?



Source:

Source1

[libranof1987]

Check this out; this PDF has Ford's North America sales for March 2018.

http://s22.q4cdn.com/857684434/files...ales-Final.pdf

Cars:
2017- 57244
2018- 52635 (-8.1%)

SUVs:
2017- 76625
2018- 82395 (+7.5%)

Trucks:
2017- 102381
2018- 109276 (+6.7%)

I'm surprised at Ford's decision; 50k+ is not a bad number for average monthly sales. While the US is indeed a traditional SUV/Truck-biased market, there is sizeable population going for sedans/hatchbacks as well.

Plus, most of the world is rapidly moving towards hybrids/EVs, even if it is something that Mr. Trump doesn't like. Gas is going up; if it keeps going up, trucks/SUVs may stop being the flavor of the season. What then?

Agree that Ford should look ahead towards EVs but what stops them from having sedans/hatchbacks alongside SUVs/Trucks in their line-up.

[moralfibre]

Mod note: Thread moved to the International Automotive Scene section.

[volkman10]

Ford expects to achieve an 8 percent global profit margin by 2020, two years sooner than planned.

- it plans to stop selling all Ford brand sedans in North America and that it is nearly doubling its cost-cutting target by 2022 from the plan it laid out only six months ago

- will either fix or eliminate unprofitable global operations

- will keep in North America beyond their current generations are the Mustang and the Focus Active arriving in 2019

- expects to achieve an 8 percent global profit margin by 2020, two years sooner than planned

- Will feed the healthy parts of our businesses

- Small cars and "most Lincoln products" are among those losing money

- Ford could reduce investment in certain geographic regions or exit them completely if it did not see adequate returns on the horizon

That echoes the strategy General Motors has employed in selling its European business and abandoning several other countries, including Russia.

- Can make different investments; can partner; can exit products, markets.





Source:

[benbsb29]

Comes as a surprise, more so when you consider how once upon a time the Ford Taurus was the highest selling family sedan in America.

A bit on that in this link:
https://www.autotrader.com/car-shopp...-taurus-238915

[GTO]

Anyone else thinks this is an incredibly stupid Wallstreet-driven short-sighted move? To me, it looks like a case of being penny wise & pound foolish.

- Sedans aren't disappearing. Yes, they are losing out on sales to crossovers & SUVs, but sedans still sell in huge volumes. Ford itself has sedans that bring in fantastic sales numbers. It's okay for a smaller maker to dump a volume segment altogether, but certainly not for a mass carmaker like Ford who needs to be present in all segments.

- The cost of development surely won't be much when you consider that R&D expenses can be shared with Ford's arms in other parts of the world.

- What's going to happen when petrol prices climb? Historically, in every major gas price hike, the USA market has moved to smaller cars bigtime. Ford will be caught with its pants down then.

- Crossovers are more expensive to build & sell than same-price sedans. That means Ford is abandoning many price segments.

- Abandoning small cars & sedans is also a bit politically incorrect in a world that is increasingly focused on the environment.

- Ford won't be giving an option to its loyal customers who want to stay within the same family, but want a sedan. Ford is forcing them to look at other carmakers.

Ford is basically handing the sedan & small car market on a silver platter to its USA competitors and those from Japan / Korea (Camry, Corolla, Accord & Civic will gain bigtime). Toyota & Honda sell well over a million of these every year in the USA .

I'm willing to bet a 1,000 bucks that Ford will recall this decision sometime in the future. It's just foolish on so many levels.

[sxenimit]

This is extremely stupid decision by Ford which I'm sure they will not follow through. Look at what happened with Mitsubishi in North America. From being one of the top sellers, to pulling out of North American market almost completely.

Ford is doing what Mitsubishi did, and they most likely will pay for it. Plus only reason for their slow sales is their reputation of being unreliable and plastic cars. That and peoples opinion and views changing for German manufacturers such as VW in purchasing sedans like Jetta or Passast as well as Hatchbacks like Golf. Before they were viewed as unreliable and bad. Now, they have worked on their image and not only that, but also quality control and actually make reliable cars. That and provide better customer service for when they aren't.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fords-p...uts-1524688854

Even after getting tax cuts and making profits, if they decide to do that, they would be missing out on so much. Problem is most companies in America and now addicted to huge profits and tax cuts. Most Ford cars you see on roads in America are usually Focus and Fusions. If they decide to scrap those two, it will be another blunder.

Sure Taurus is a joke of a car. It's not even a sedan. It's in it's own segment of a sedan. It's like a Elephant sedan rather than a Taurus. I would find cancelling that at least somewhat acceptable as the only people who really buy those are police departments.

Specially with oil market fluctuating so high, US consumers have a tendency to switch to more fuel efficient cars. That is the reason the 70's switch was so huge in US consumer market where new company named Honda dominated it, even though US cars were cheaper and better but less fuel efficient. (That, and US car markers didn't want to follow through with the EPA regulations and said it couldn't be possible and just added a catalytic converter, while Honda developed a whole new engine. Kudos to Honda for that.)

Anyways, I feel they will not follow through with this decision. But then again, it's Ford. Like their cars, they are unreliable.

[chaudh2s]

Please send the tooling for free to India and launch those cars here at competitive prices. That fiesta sedan, hatchback, fusion, c-max, etc. are such handsome vehicles, am sure they would be successful here if launched at competitive rates.

[srishiva]

So, its all about profits. Not total revenues and being a big automaker. Makes sense from that perspective.

But, wouldn't you lose on a big demography by halting sedans. What about people who move to bigger vehicles (SUVs from cars) with the same car maker ?

The bigger question is when the move is happening to electric vehicles, will they be only with trucks for Ford ? They would be costly and people might not buy Fords.

[Nav-i-gator]

Originally Posted by chaudh2s

Please send the tooling for free to India and launch those cars here at competitive prices. That fiesta sedan, hatchback, fusion, c-max, etc. are such handsome vehicles, am sure they would be successful here if launched at competitive rates.

We would still be buying the Dzires, balenos and brezzas though

US carmakers just don't know the term "frugal", neither their manufacturing processes, nor their engines. the former make them costly to buy, while the later makes them costly to maintain. And then, they are not brilliantly engineered either, unlike the Europeans.

[sxenimit]

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

We would still be buying the Dzires, balenos and brezzas though

US carmakers just don't know the term "frugal", neither their manufacturing processes, nor their engines. the former make them costly to buy, while the later makes them costly to maintain. And then, they are not brilliantly engineered either, unlike the Europeans.

That is a extremely outdated thinking. Ford Focus RS, Mustang GT500, Chevy Covertte ZR1 etc. are brilliant cars and engineered much better than lot of European counterparts. They do know the term "frugal", however they don't know the Indian version of being cheap.

It's not the manufactures but rather the Indian public who are the issue. They don't care about safety or engineering. They care about cost. They cannot change their whole engineer process for one market who they don't sell many cars too anyway.

There is a difference between the term "being frugal" and "being cheap".

[Nav-i-gator]

Originally Posted by sxenimit

That is a extremely outdated thinking.

There is a difference between the term "being frugal" and "being cheap".

I know the difference pretty well (I own a chevy ). Being frugal is not being cheap. There are more efficient ways of manufacturing, leading to lower cost of production without "cost cutting". It's called value engineering, that Japanese automakers pioneered. Toyota sells more than ford in US. Are they cheap? Heck, Toyota is expensive than ford in India!

There is no "India version", nor Indians buy "cheap". Infact, Indians buy more expensive cars vis-a-vis their purchasing power would necessitate.

Talk about outdated thinking ...