The Death of Ford in the US?

[Whelan]

If you want to start a topic on governments, economies, and unions, please start it in the Political Forum. I wanna keep this on track somewhat. Thanks!

[joatmon]

well, this debate has been going on here spanning multiple threads and years. THere are some strong opinions, I doubt there will be compromise. Although not your intent, perhaps the thread title is what keeps knocking it into asylum territory. The Death of a US company as huge as Ford would be devastating to so many people, and yet there are people who feel that if Ford can't adapt to sell cars people will buy, then they should die off. A sort of darwinian capitalism However, there are probably plenty of Ford owners who feel the same way about GM, and of course everyone hates Chrylser, as they should (j/k) So perhaps it would have been better to have titled the thread something like "Are there any new Ford's you would consider buying?" or perhaps "I don't like any of the current Ford vehicles", that might have let it stay more on discussions about the merits of the individual vehicles and more away from those fillthy greedy backstabbing scum sucking CEOs, workers and consumers who are ruining everything and they should rightly all die and be buried in a Chinese coffin (with lead paint)I can honestly say there are no Fords I would buy, but that's just because there are no GM vehicles I would buy, or Toyotas, or Mazdas, or VWs, or anything else. I have a car, it will be years before it dies and I need to buy another one. Hopefully, when that time does come there will still be a US company making a car I want to buy.

[Whelan]

Rightly so I could have put a different title on here, I think my main purpose was to point out their vehicles more than their internal dynamics. I would never expect nor want Ford to close down, that would be devastating, but I guess I was looking for insight into their product line more than their business model internally. On the other hand, I would not buy a Chrysler, except a Jeep. But I would totally give serious thought to purchasing a GM over a make of Honda or Toyota when my next car purchase comes around.

[jimincalif]

Quote, originally posted by Whelan »I'm still getting a kick out of people talking about executives, shareholders, employees, etc. The reason being I still say as I said above that it all comes down to their core business, selling automobiles. If you don't sell them, then you have no profit. Yes it comes down to good products. But who makes the product development decisions? Management. And management is responsible to the board which has a fiduciary duty to act on behalf of the shareholders. Union/non-union, health benefits, jobs banks, whatever. None of it matters unless they build good cars that people actually want to buy. If management keeps offering up warm-over Focuses somebody should be fired before everyone there is out of a job.Who designed the new Mustang? How did they get that by the boring product approval committee? Looks great, I wanted a convertible the day I first saw it. But I don't trust Ford to build a car that won't fall apart, and I don't want to spend my money on a throw-away car.

[scherry2]

Quote, originally posted by Petrucci914 »Are you saying that the North Koreans have unions? duh! no the south Koreans have unions just like japan does. and this country had industry as its economic base. textiles, steel work, auto industry. but its all gone to CHINA a communist country. all for the sake of more profit. how many Chinese people live above the poverty level? 35% graduate from high school. with a country with the largest population per square mile thats not a good number. so that tells me the Chinese communist government could care less about it people. so their lifestyle will never be as good as Americans so that only leaves 1 thing in your capitalistic global society and thats lower everyone else's pay down to their level. read a frikin newspaper and get back to me.

[Petrucci914]

Quote, originally posted by scherry2 »duh! no the south Koreans have unions just like japan does. and this country had industry as its economic base. textiles, steel work, auto industry. but its all gone to CHINA a communist country. all for the sake of more profit. how many Chinese people live above the poverty level? 35% graduate from high school. with a country with the largest population per square mile thats not a good number. so that tells me the Chinese communist government could care less about it people. so their lifestyle will never be as good as Americans so that only leaves 1 thing in your capitalistic global society and thats lower everyone else's pay down to their level. read a frikin newspaper and get back to me.Hmm. I'm going to pretend that I understood your sentence structure. I'm not talking about South Korea, I'm talking about North Korea which is communist. China is socially communist and economically capitalist. Their social and humanitarian views are what makes the people poor and crapped upon. We have a high standard of living and we are a capitalist country. Is there still something you're not understanding?

[GMJAP]

All this discussion about Executives vs. Unions is utterly moot. (In other words, pointless.)All levels of the American auto industry have become comfortable relying on past successes and ideas that once worked to line their pockets. As such, they are all very interested in keeping the status quo and opposed to change. The world moved on, but they have been too comfortable to follow. Thus the industry and Ford particularly find themselves in the mess they are in today - relying on large truck sales with few new products of any interest and existing products that are largely warmed over.They're only now beginning to squirm a bit as the drop in the flow of cash into their pockets is proving not to be temporary but is even getting worse. However, they're probably too late and certainly too dumb from years of not doing anything new to know how to change.(The Eupropean arms of the American auto makers are by contrast "younger" and less comfortable in that market - actually having to work for their daily bread in a very competitive market - but to bring those products to the US would admit to failure by the home team, something the egos are not open to.)(And what North Korea has to do with Ford's troubles is beyond pointless into the completely unrelated.)

[NibCrom]

When Bill Ford Jr. said "we are paying more for healthcare than we are for steel" he should have said "not many people are actually interested in paying money for our vehicles".

[Petrucci914]

Well, he is right. The unions and cost of healthcare really hurt the domestic auto companies. That doesn't mean they haven't made bad decisions, because they have made a lot of them. I do think, however, that the domestic companies at least have a few models that are very nice and interesting. They finally looked towards the europeans for more inspiring designs.

[NibCrom]

For me, the bottom line is that their vehicle lines are not selling well. Currently Mercury is selling less than 200,000 units per year, which is less than the number of vehicles Oldsmobile and Plymouth were selling when they were retired. Are they having problems paying their unions? Yes, that is one of their problems. But they are a car company and they are not selling cars. That goes against their fundamental purpose.

[Whelan]

Quote, originally posted by NibCrom »For me, the bottom line is that their vehicle lines are not selling well. Currently Mercury is selling less than 200,000 units per year, which is less than the number of vehicles Oldsmobile and Plymouth were selling when they were retired. Are they having problems paying their unions? Yes, that is one of their problems. But they are a car company and they are not selling cars. That goes against their fundamental purpose.Bingo!And look at GM now, tons of new models, sales figures going up, and a bright future if they stay the course.

[NibCrom]

Quote, originally posted by Whelan »Bingo!And look at GM now, tons of new models, sales figures going up, and a bright future if they stay the course.I think you are right, GM has the brightest future of the big three. There are a ton of cars that interest me right now: Corvette, G8, Cobalt SS, Astra, CTS, Enclave, and...oh yeah, the Vibe.

[TJinPgh]

Quote, originally posted by Whelan »Rightly so I could have put a different title on here, I think my main purpose was to point out their vehicles more than their internal dynamics. Understood. But, the problem is that the internal dynamics play a huge part in their lineup of vehicles.An auto manufacturer's ability to design, produce and market new vehicles is directly related to their ability to generate a profit. An auto company spends millions just to get a car to the prototype stage. And, for every vehicle that actually moves beyond prototype into production there are probably a dozen that don't.A lot of that money comes from investors. But, it's pretty hard to convince John Q. Public to invest his hard earned money when their CURRENT investments aren't doing well.

[Whelan]

Good point in the internals. I also feel there is blame to put on the US Ford trying to keep their noses and chins pointed upward are the Euro designs. Why I am not sure, but their uneasiness to bring such models over really baffles me. They are doing the opposite of what GM is doing. The new Saturns are all based on European Opels, and so far are doing well, the Sky, VUE, and new Astra which has a lot of hype and fanfare about it. Not to mention it gets a nice engine and probably will outrun an XRS in the Astra's XR trim with 18"s and a hatch. Oh and they are putting a redline version out so expect it to have the Cobalt SS new turbo engine, so 260hp! woohoo!

[TJinPgh]

I can't speak to why Ford wouldn't bring vehicles they produce elsewhere here to the states.If I had to speculate (and, trust me, that's all it would be), I might say that here in the states they have three brands to concern themselves with, versus one overseas, so the needs are different.It may also be difficult to justify the cost of converting all of their American production lines over to producing new cars built on different platforms.Like I said, I don't know.Personally, if I were running Ford I'd consider dropping the Mercury line and using those production facilities to produce some of the more successful European models over here.One needs to remember, however, that when it comes to creating a new vehicle, the cost of doing so is not a company expenditure. Just as drug companies don't factor in the costs of developing new drugs until AFTER the profit margins have been calculated (something never discussed when talking about the "excessive" profits of drug and oil companies), I'd imagine the same would hold true for designing new cars.Somebody feel free to correct me on that if I'm wrong.

[NibCrom]

I think Ford is trying to globalize their platforms like GM has started to do (and Toyota has been doing for even longer). The problem is they are far behind Toyota and a few years behind GM as well.

[Whelan]

Global platforming is used. Here are examples.Fusion/Milan = MondeoMazda 5 = Ford S MaxxRanger = RangerThey did not choose to use the new Focus platform, I am not sure if the Euro Focus uses the same base framing, but basically they have used some global, but the exterior/interior designs have varied greatly. The Mazda group is doing far better than Ford, as is their Volvo group. I would not disagree with them letting Land Rover, Jaguar, and Aston Martin go. But I would keep Volvo and Mazda as they are both money makers for the company. I am not sure why they did not use either the Euro Focus platform or the one for the Volvo C30 to make the new Focus. They went to their parts bin and created something that is an improvement, but still I feel at least two generations behind the Civic and Corolla. Just like I feel GM's Cobalt is about a generation behind them as well. I think the updated Cobalt will be a big improvement for GM when it debuts which should be soon, since they are coming to the freshen up portion of the cycle. Ford is unfortunately stuck with a product that does not compete well except for rental fleets, whom now use a lot of Hyundai's and Kias for their small cars.