Ford Motor Co. recently announced that it was cutting domestic auto production by a whopping 15% this year, putting into doubt the effectiveness of their turnaround plans and the safety of many auto workers jobs.
The majority of the manufacturing cutbacks announced will come from the larger vehicles in the Ford lineup. Unfortunately, these vehicles, like the F-series trucks and Expedition monster SUV, represent its most profitable vehicles per unit sold.
So why aren’t there more fuel efficient vehicles available from Ford? Why didn’t we have the Fiesta subcompact fuel sipper sooner? Greed and short sightedness at the corporate level, that’s why.
In the boom times, when gas was cheap and houses were expensive, everyone wanted to live the American dream and drive the biggest gas guzzler they could find. These were boom times for the truck heavy lineup.
Ford has learned, though, but application has been spotty. While the automaker does have the Escape Hybrid in its lineup, the technology is an exact copy of that found in Toyota hybrids and requires a fee be paid to its rival for every model sold. So while this hybrid makes Ford appear green, it does little or nothing for its bottom line.
The redesigned Ford Focus is a more successful example. While it doesn’t have an F-450-like profit margin, the up marketing of the Focus has no doubt contributed to the small amount of profit the automaker has seen of late.
Our take? President Roosevelt once promised every American a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. Motoring is an American birthright and Ford, more than most any other automaker, got the United States into cars en masse via the Model T. It’s time for Ford to take the next step and find us a Model T for a new era. One that doesn’t run on gasoline.