Ford Motor Company practically abandons small passenger autos

[pbrower2a]

Ford will only sell two kinds of cars in America

54 comments

9 out of 10 Fords in the US will be trucks and SUVs, alongside a hybrid version of the new Bronco



Ford has previously made it known it’s placing its bets on two major areas: the extremely profitable line of trucks and SUVs and a heavy investment in more forward-looking mobility solutions like connected cars and smart cities. But the automaker made that official, as it announced Wednesday it would be abandoning all of its traditional sedans and hatchbacks for the North American market.

In its quarterly earnings call, Ford CEO Jim Hackett said the company would offer only the Mustang and new Focus (in SUV-like Active trim) in North America at some point in the near future, after the current product cycle winds down. This effectively kills the Fiesta and Fusion ranges, while the new Focus arrives sometime next year — likely sourced from a plant in China. The Taurus and current Focus sedans were due to expire this year, too.

Ford does have to keep an eye on its fuel economy averages, though. Hackett confirmed the 2020 Bronco SUV, which will share components with the 2019 Ranger pickup, would get a hybrid version. The Bronco is set to compete with the likes of the Jeep Wrangler and Toyota 4Runner. Jeep added a 48-volt mild hybrid system to the 2018 Wrangler, but it’s unclear if the Bronco will get a similar system or a plug-in hybrid format. Hybrid versions of the F-150, Escape, Explorer and Mustang have previously been announced.

With Ford now mostly getting out of its loss-making sedan business, however, the company could be on a better track to invest in new technologies. It’s already made further investments in its mobility services this year, as well as being fully invested in its “smart city” concept for the long-term.

Ford reported its first quarter net income for the year at $1.7 billion, up 9 percent year over year. However, its mobility division reported losses of $102 million for the quarter, which the company attributed to a one-time $58 million investment.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/25/17282...arnings-q1

Some more data:

If you have been thinking that you might buy a Mercury -- that division has been defunct since  January 4, 2011.

I haven't seen any news on the Lincoln division. Lincoln vehicles, I understand, are pricey -- and profitable, so I would not expect those to quite being sold.

If you are thinking of buying a new small car in the next five years, you might not have a Ford in your future.

[Eric the Green]

I don't know what "mobility services" means.

[Ragnarök_62]

(04-26-2018, 04:32 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Ford will only sell two kinds of cars in America

54 comments

9 out of 10 Fords in the US will be trucks and SUVs, alongside a hybrid version of the new Bronco



Ford has previously made it known it’s placing its bets on two major areas: the extremely profitable line of trucks and SUVs and a heavy investment in more forward-looking mobility solutions like connected cars and smart cities. But the automaker made that official, as it announced Wednesday it would be abandoning all of its traditional sedans and hatchbacks for the North American market.

In its quarterly earnings call, Ford CEO Jim Hackett said the company would offer only the Mustang and new Focus (in SUV-like Active trim) in North America at some point in the near future, after the current product cycle winds down. This effectively kills the Fiesta and Fusion ranges, while the new Focus arrives sometime next year — likely sourced from a plant in China. The Taurus and current Focus sedans were due to expire this year, too.

Ford does have to keep an eye on its fuel economy averages, though. Hackett confirmed the 2020 Bronco SUV, which will share components with the 2019 Ranger pickup, would get a hybrid version. The Bronco is set to compete with the likes of the Jeep Wrangler and Toyota 4Runner. Jeep added a 48-volt mild hybrid system to the 2018 Wrangler, but it’s unclear if the Bronco will get a similar system or a plug-in hybrid format. Hybrid versions of the F-150, Escape, Explorer and Mustang have previously been announced.

With Ford now mostly getting out of its loss-making sedan business, however, the company could be on a better track to invest in new technologies. It’s already made further investments in its mobility services this year, as well as being fully invested in its “smart city” concept for the long-term.

Ford reported its first quarter net income for the year at $1.7 billion, up 9 percent year over year. However, its mobility division reported losses of $102 million for the quarter, which the company attributed to a one-time $58 million investment.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/25/17282...arnings-q1

Some more data:

If you have been thinking that you might buy a Mercury -- that division has been defunct since  January 4, 2011.

I haven't seen any news on the Lincoln division. Lincoln vehicles, I understand, are pricey -- and profitable, so I would not expect those to quite being sold.

If you are thinking of buying a new small car in the next five years, you might not have a Ford in your future.

Bill Ford,Company Chairman Wrote:..he vision has to be there and you have to work toward it. If you can get people out of poverty and getting to where the work is and deliver health care and food easily in city centers, we will enhance the quality of life and standard of living around the world and that’s a worthy goal. ...

This is the usual horseshit. IIRC, laying folks off and importing cars from China doesn't get people out of poverty.  Same as always bloviating about technology as a be all to end all.

[Ragnarök_62]

(04-26-2018, 04:42 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know what "mobility services" means.

It means technonarcissism wrt vehicles. Obviously, nobody's thinking mass transit here. I have confidence that an integrated bus/light rail/shuttle solution work better. After all, we've used buses and rail for quite a while and are ground proven. If you want high tech, just have a mass transit app where you can set when you'd like to be picked up and where to drop you off. The input to that can be used to determine current routing.

[pbrower2a]

The economy vehicle market is not a profitable market in the sense that the vehicles dedicated to 'luxury' vehicles and gas-guzzlers are profitable markets. People who want their cars cheap and economical are unwilling to buy the profitable add-ons that make a sticker sting for a customer and sing for the manufacturers and dealers. if the car companies had their way there would be nothing but gas-guzzling pickups, SUVs, and sports cars. People who do not ask about gas mileage are the ones who buy the expensive upgrades of seats, electronics, trim, and engine options.

It could also be that Ford has lost all desire to compete with KIA, Toyota, Nissan, etc... It is ironic, as Ford introduced the first car (the Model T) that had the workingman as a target market. But that was more than a century ago. Maybe the people buying the low-end Fords were not going to become buyers of the expensive, profitable, gas-guzzling vehicles that Ford wants to sell.

Chrysler has dropped at least two of its smaller cars (the 200 and the Dodge Dart). I would not be surprised if General Motors drops most of its small car lines.

[Warren Dew]

Small cars make no sense when the fuel economy standards let SUVs consume 50% more gas than comparably sized cars, and let larger cars consume more fuel than smaller cars, without penalty.

Fix the fuel economy standards, and we'll fix this idiocy.

[Ragnarök_62]

(04-26-2018, 08:39 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Small cars make no sense when the fuel economy standards let SUVs consume 50% more gas than comparably sized cars, and let larger cars consume more fuel than smaller cars, without penalty.

Fix the fuel economy standards, and we'll fix this idiocy.

I'd prefer an oil import tax set high enough to pay for the US continuance in the Mid East shitshow. Folks who shout USA, USA can then show their support in a real way, People will buy more fuel efficient cars due to permanently high gas prices.

[Warren Dew]

(04-26-2018, 08:47 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(04-26-2018, 08:39 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Small cars make no sense when the fuel economy standards let SUVs consume 50% more gas than comparably sized cars, and let larger cars consume more fuel than smaller cars, without penalty.

Fix the fuel economy standards, and we'll fix this idiocy.

I'd prefer an oil import tax set high enough to pay for the US continuance in the Mid East shitshow. Folks who shout USA, USA can then show their support in a real way, People will buy more fuel efficient cars due to permanently high gas prices.

That would make sense, yes.

[Another Xer]

The Japanese companies profit very well from smaller cars. American manufacturers just aren't interested in selling small cars. When I went to a Ford dealership to inquire about a small car, the salesmans boredom with me was plain to see.

I went back to the Toyota dealership where I have now bought 5 cars (2 of them SUVs).

[pbrower2a]

Big Business may be doing some of its own economic planning in trying to shape the consumer to be what giant corporations want -- people with no sensitivity to price or cost, and incapable of making valid comparisons on what they buy. They can always go deeper into debt, and they can be satisfied that paying more is evidence of prosperity. So it is with everything from automobiles to education to housing. So don't be a penny pincher... it's great to have a vehicle that gets 5 mpg instead of one that gets 30 mpg.

We will soon have self-driving vehicles, vehicles smart enough even to tell you where to go. Did anyone say that we would not get suggestions from the car? (or really its computer?) Time to go to work! Ler's go to the casino/Disney resort/overpriced restaurant... and maybe even "The new Ford SUVs are coming out, and you might want to see one".

Economic power used to arise from control of production, and it will soon be coming from power over consumption.

[David Horn]

(04-26-2018, 04:42 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know what "mobility services" means.

That can be many things.  Uber is a mobility service, so are buses.  In this case, I think they're talking about an automated future with <insert the transport options of your choice>.  The automobile, as we know it, is on its way out, and no one knows that better than the companies in the cross-hairs.

[David Horn]

(04-26-2018, 08:47 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(04-26-2018, 08:39 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Small cars make no sense when the fuel economy standards let SUVs consume 50% more gas than comparably sized cars, and let larger cars consume more fuel than smaller cars, without penalty.

Fix the fuel economy standards, and we'll fix this idiocy.

I'd prefer an oil import tax set high enough to pay for the US continuance in the Mid East shitshow. Folks who shout USA, USA can then show their support in a real way, People will buy more fuel efficient cars due to permanently high gas prices.

Let's not forget the Scott Pruitt move to kill, or severely alter, corporate fuel efficiency standards.  If the fuel efficiency of large trucks isn't a problem for the manufacturers, why try to offset it with money-losing small cars?

[pbrower2a]

(04-27-2018, 07:20 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-26-2018, 08:47 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(04-26-2018, 08:39 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Small cars make no sense when the fuel economy standards let SUVs consume 50% more gas than comparably sized cars, and let larger cars consume more fuel than smaller cars, without penalty.

Fix the fuel economy standards, and we'll fix this idiocy.

I'd prefer an oil import tax set high enough to pay for the US continuance in the Mid East shitshow. Folks who shout USA, USA can then show their support in a real way, People will buy more fuel efficient cars due to permanently high gas prices.

Let's not forget the Scott Pruitt move to kill, or severely alter, corporate fuel efficiency standards.  If the fuel efficiency of large trucks isn't a problem for the manufacturers, why try to offset it with money-losing small cars?

This is the most environmentally-unfriendly administration since... I dunno. Coolidge?

Consumption is not prosperity if it means the devouring of resources -- especially if it means depletion of non-replaceable assets or the degradation of the environment.

[Warren Dew]

It was Obama's regulations that removed the need for companies to build small cars, and allowed them to concentrate on gas guzzling large SUVs - a failed attempt to recover the government's investment in GM.

[Kinser79]

(04-26-2018, 08:47 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(04-26-2018, 08:39 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Small cars make no sense when the fuel economy standards let SUVs consume 50% more gas than comparably sized cars, and let larger cars consume more fuel than smaller cars, without penalty.

Fix the fuel economy standards, and we'll fix this idiocy.

I'd prefer an oil import tax set high enough to pay for the US continuance in the Mid East shitshow. Folks who shout USA, USA can then show their support in a real way, People will buy more fuel efficient cars due to permanently high gas prices.

While I have no real dog in this fight....my newest car was manufactured in the late 1970s  (seriously I stopped being interested in autos sometime after they all started looking alike).  I would support having a huge tariff on imported oil.  Conviently this would raise prices for oil and oil products in the US leading to even greater use of fracking and other domestic sources.

I'm not so sure that the fuel economy standards have much to do with the trend away from smaller cars by the big three.

[Kinser79]

(04-26-2018, 09:36 PM)Another Xer Wrote: The Japanese companies profit very well from smaller cars.  American manufacturers just aren't interested in selling small cars.  When I went to a Ford dealership to inquire about a small car, the salesmans boredom with me was plain to see.

I went back to the Toyota dealership where I have now bought 5 cars (2 of them SUVs).

Interestingly, my mother reported a similar experience when she replaced her Saturn Vue.  (The engine in it died after running for 14+ years).  Fortunately she was able to find a dodge Dart for fairly cheap, and since my Grandmother has died we don't require more than one SUV should we need to evacuate during hurricane season (and I don't evacuate for anything less than a Category 3).

[pbrower2a]

(04-27-2018, 09:33 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: It was Obama's regulations that removed the need for companies to build small cars, and allowed them to concentrate on gas guzzling large SUVs - a failed attempt to recover the government's investment in GM.

The economic meltdown of autumn 2007-spring 2009 was as severe after a year and a half as was the economic meltdown that began in the autumn of 1929, and it was on course to become every bit as bad as the meltdown that began the Great Depression. America got out of the danger of a protracted meltdown of the sort that became the Great Depression. Rescuing the lenders was essential to saving businesses that relied heavily upon consumer credit (housing and cars, especially),

It may be that President Obama ultimately rescued the economic interests that wanted a second chance at establishing an absolute, pure plutocracy, and used their economic power (for that class, the full-blown meltdown of autumn 1929-autumn 1932 utterly destroyed their political power. That class had to humanize just to meet the new political consensus and recover a bit more slowly than others -- people who by late 1932 saw the wold (hunger) at their door. In a sane society, basic human needs come before elite indulgence.

Today we have Donald trump as President and a Congress and most state legislators best described as (in majority) as lackeys of people who believe that no human suffering can ever be in excess so long as those elites get what they want. I interpret the slogan "Make America Great Again" as a desire to return to the economic norms of the 1920s or earlier, when Corporate America in the North and landed elites in the South had nearly-complete dominion over the economy. To describe the ethos of those elites as "Suffer for my greed, power, and indulgence, you peons!" may be an exaggeration, but a return to such an ethos would look like that now.

The 1920s? Ohm those halcyon days of 60-hour workweeks, no industrial unions, ten-cent-an-hour industrial wages, 45-year lifespans for industrial workers and farm laborers (which was an improvement from the 70- hour workweeks and 40-year lifespans for industrial workers of the true Gilded Age), minimal taxes, children having to leave school to work in factories because their 40-year-old parents were worn out, little environmental regulation, a tax structure that coddled the economic elites... try to bring that back, as Donald Judas Trump dreams (and he is the Judas Iscariot to the American worker -- make no mistake!), and our economic elites might have good cause to support gun control -- to prevent the proletarian revolution, or at least a reprise of the French Revolution.

The use of neo-Marxist rhetoric on my part reflects not so much what I want as what I dread -- an economy predicated upon control by economic elites devoid of any moral compass. If Karl Marx saw control of the decisions of production as the cornerstone of economic and political power, someone 133 years his junior might see the control of  consumption as the essence of economic and political power. In essence, Big Business dictates "You will buy (or lease) this, and you will do so at a time of my choosing, and you will adjust your life accordingly".

And, of course, you will support politicians like Donald Trump and Pat Toomey who are either part of that class or are stioges of that, instead of people who might support something more humane and satisfying. "Suffer for my holy greed, ye peons!"

I thought that I was in the market for a used car a couple years ago, and I found that used SUV were surprisingly cheap. The explanation: there is little used-car market for them unless they are heavily discounted. Depreciation on those vehicles is simply horrible. But if one trades them in every four years for a new one, one makes a huge profit for the manufacturers of them. Pick-ups? Not so bad if you actually use them for work, as on a farm or in construction work, or in places in which low-clearance vehicles fare badly, like Montana (where one might have an encounter with an elk). But there are millions of people who have bought them on 72-month payment plans... an indication that one can't really afford them.

We are seeing much the same with consumer electronics. Goodwill does not want old TVs or computers. Hazardous disposal.

...and let us not forget the influence of Big Oil, a firm backer of the lurch to the Right in American politics. Fuel consumption per capita has stagnated except where people are new to the vehicle market (Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia) , perhaps because people are not lengthening their commutes and loving them (which would be ideal for Big Oil) -- unless they are buying gas-guzzling vehicles such as SUVs or pickups to replace economy sedans.

So much for my rant. Plutocracy is horrible no matter how it administers the toil of others for the indulgence of a few. It always creates or enforces mass suffering -- and economic waste.

[David Horn]

(04-27-2018, 09:33 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: It was Obama's regulations that removed the need for companies to build small cars, and allowed them to concentrate on gas guzzling large SUVs - a failed attempt to recover the government's investment in GM.

Based on my reading of legislative history, you are simply wrong on this.  This was killed in 2013 and is still pending since 2017.  That means that only Presidential intervention has been employed, and not by Obama.

[David Horn]

(04-28-2018, 05:16 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(04-26-2018, 08:47 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(04-26-2018, 08:39 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Small cars make no sense when the fuel economy standards let SUVs consume 50% more gas than comparably sized cars, and let larger cars consume more fuel than smaller cars, without penalty.

Fix the fuel economy standards, and we'll fix this idiocy.

I'd prefer an oil import tax set high enough to pay for the US continuance in the Mid East shitshow. Folks who shout USA, USA can then show their support in a real way, People will buy more fuel efficient cars due to permanently high gas prices.

While I have no real dog in this fight....my newest car was manufactured in the late 1970s  (seriously I stopped being interested in autos sometime after they all started looking alike).  I would support having a huge tariff on imported oil.  Conviently this would raise prices for oil and oil products in the US leading to even greater use of fracking and other domestic sources.

I'm not so sure that the fuel economy standards have much to do with the trend away from smaller cars by the big three.

If gas is cheap and CAFE standards are killed, the public will buy larger less fuel efficient vehicles.  You can argue that this is OK if you wish, but those results are well established from past experience.

[Warren Dew]

(04-28-2018, 10:51 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-27-2018, 09:33 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: It was Obama's regulations that removed the need for companies to build small cars, and allowed them to concentrate on gas guzzling large SUVs - a failed attempt to recover the government's investment in GM.

Based on my reading of legislative history, you are simply wrong on this.  This was killed in 2013 and is still pending since 2017.  That means that only Presidential intervention has been employed, and not by Obama.

You're confusing regulation with legislation.  I'm talking about Obama era regulatory changes to the EPA fuel economy standards, not any changes to legislation.  Obama's EPA changed the rules to make fuel economy requirements a function of car size, with a formula that encouraged production of large SUVs.  Prior to Obama, there was a single fuel economy standard that was independent of car size, which provided an incentive to produce small vehicles; the Obama administration reversed that incentive to one for producing large vehicles.