Wow. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like Ford's future is going to be a struggle.
You can't simultaneously be late to a growing market, back out of a growing market, and refuse to invest in a growing market and hope to succeed...can you?
Well you can if you trust the government to bail you out .
Ford never took a bailout
A Ford TV ad slams competitors for accepting bailout funds, even though the company’s CEO lobbied for the bill. The company — the only one of the Big Three not to receive a bailout — feared a collapse of GM and Chrysler at the time would have hurt suppliers and, in turn, Ford itself. Ford Chief Executive Officer Alan R. Mulally also asked Congress for a “credit line” of up to $9 billion in case the economy worsened. In other words, Ford was for government bailouts before it was against them.
And ford took more money from Biden's green energy plan. Ford is definitely guilty as fuck as slurping up government surplus and firing workers the second they stop making them a profit.
I love how the OP said Ford never took a bailout, you reply confirming that, and OP gets downvoted into oblivion.
I love how the OP said Ford never took a bailout, you reply confirming that, and OP gets downvoted into oblivion.
Welcome to Lemmy. I swear this place is worse than Reddit at reading comprehension and mob-mentality downvoting.
I don't really know what's going on so I'm just gonna downvote everyone just in case.
I've found the same, but that it really depends on the topic.
There were more than ten words. I didn't read it either.
Ford never took that bailout
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like Ford's future is going to be a struggle.
They completely killed making any cars smaller then Trucks or SUV's in North America and I really hope it comes back to fuck them.
I'm not crying that they won't make Ford Focuses anymore or whatever, but pretty much only people left to buy affordable, small cars from anymore is the Japanese and Koreans.
Good riddance to Ford. They long outlived their usefulness.
but pretty much only people left to buy affordable, small cars from anymore is the Japanese and Koreans.
A big reason for that was that American car makers never figured out how to make decent small cars and were getting murdered by their Japanese and Korean competition.
American car makers never figured out how to make decent small cars
I'm pretty sure that the latest incarnations of the Ford Focus and Ford Fiesta were decent cars.
Funny you should mention those two. In the US market they both shipped with a quite defective Ford-developed DCT that would rarely last 50,000 miles before failing. I do not believe whatever the problem is with these transmissions are fixable because the replacements will also fail short of 50,000 miles. I actually own two Fiesta's, one with the 1.0l ecoboom which is currently dead at 84,000 miles due to the plastic used within the engine getting brittle and failing and causing it to catastrophically overheat very quickly (just about all of these 1.0s will fail between 75,000 and 85,000 from what I've seen). I also have a i4/manual version which is about to hit 200,000 miles and runs great. The key in the US market is to get a 5 speed version if you want mostly trouble free ownership. The Fiesta is almost the perfect small car that was mostly ruined due to cost cutting in areas that there shouldn't be any cost cutting happening.
No its because they have less safety and ecological regulations on trucks, as SUVs use truck platforms they no longer have to abide by the same set of regulations and production becomes cheaper. It's always been motivated by profit....
You should blame the EPA for that as well. Their policies incentivize the making of large ass trucks. So the US car manufacturers push them and abandon small cars.
Trucks had regulations for a purpose as they were deemed a utility vehicle for doing a certain set of jobs. Capitalism seeking profit noticed if they can have consumers like SUVs they can use the same regulations as trucks to save cost and increase profit. This is not an uncommon tactic in Capitalism and we have no laws saying it's illegal, you would need congress to give the EPA the ability to go after car companies skirting regulations by manipulating public perceptions to favor suvs and considering how in bed congress is with these big companies that's never gonna happen in the current political landscape we have, not to mention how do you prove that in court. The problem is we as a people have stopped getting involved and slowly watched as are rights writhered away all because we got seduced by convience.
They completely killed making any cars smaller then Trucks or SUV’s in North America and I really hope it comes back to fuck them.
They still make mustangs, but I know what you mean. I thought the Maverick was a step in the right direction though.
Ford? More like the whole Western auto industry.
They do pretty gangbusters in the pickup market. They also have a hybrid power-train available. If you look at the current year list of Q1 sales they're top of the heap.
Honestly if you want to use the vehicle for hauling it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The only reason Teslas and other cars do so well it by being a slippery and efficient as possible so they can get 100+MPGe. It doesn't work so well with a trailer on, or the shape required to carry things in the back.
I don't understand the sales argument. It's my understanding that there is still a huge waiting list for these vehicles. It's not like they're sitting on lots.. or are they?
It’s my understanding that there is still a huge waiting list for these vehicles. It’s not like they’re sitting on lots… or are they?
From what I've seen from folks that follow new car/truck sales it goes like this:
Yes, but Ford is also culpable. My understanding is they mostly made the higher end models to try to get profitable more quickly. Great, but no one can afford them. Part of the expected demand was for models people could afford to buy
“We had all these people on the waiting list for a $45k truck and we don’t understand why they’re not buying the $85k truck we’re mostly building”
It also doesn't have to be this way. Other auto manufacturers dictate the terms to the dealerships, specifically with the market adjustments. They ensure the people who want their cars can afford their cars, regardless of what the market is doing.
Ford isn't doing this and their cars are sitting on the lot because no one can afford them.
Could be the striking workers have disrupted component flow enough that these workers were running out of things to do.
Ford lays off 700 who were building electric version of F-150 | CNN Business::Ford is laying off about 700 workers who build the F-150 Lightning, the electric version of its best-selling pickup truck, and unlike other recent layoffs this one has nothing to do with the ongoing strike by the United Auto Workers union.
Not due to the strike, apparently.
Would a company ever admit to laying off workers because of a strike? Seems like a sure fire way to lose in court.
I guess it all depends on the motive
They've already said they would fire around 1000 of those striking workers. So this does not seem to be a concern.
Why produce more if you can stagnate production and just charge more per unit? It's not like you can go buy an electric truck from anyone else so your demand isn't going to decrease much. This is how OPEC operates when setting fuel prices.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Ford had temporarily closed the plant this summer to upgrade its production capability, and the company said this latest layoff is related to “multiple constraints, including the supply chain and working through processing and delivering vehicles held for quality checks after restarting production in August.”
Sales of the Lightning fell 45% in the third quarter compared to a year earlier, the company reported earlier this month, though Ford said it expected to post an increase in sales during the final three months of the year as capacity increases at the plant take effect.
The UAW’s targeted strike at a total of five assembly factories at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis have prompted all three companies to lay off workers.
On Thursday, company executives said there could be a total of 4,600 layoffs by the end of this week at its various plants due to the expansion of the strike to Kentucky Truck.
GM has laid off 2,300 workers that it attributes to the impact of the strike, although no additional layoffs have been announced in recent days.
But the F-150 Lightning workers who are laid off will be eligible for both unemployment and sub pay, according to Ford spokesperson Jessica Enoch.
The original article contains 510 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 61%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
