The Fusion is Ford's mainstream mid-size sedan offering though (competes with Accord & Camry). It sold 43,176, more than the Explorer and Escape combined. Wonder what Ford will do with it?
Ford announces it will no longer design and manufacture cars (except the Mustang) i
- Thread starter james t kirk
- Start date
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2017/12/top-10-best-selling-vehicles-usa-date-2017/
If you look at the top 10 vehicles there are still some companies selling a LOT of cars. Fords cars are just shit. Since they cannot build good cars, sooner or later they will fall back in trucks ...or gas prices shoot up and people suddenly are driven to small cars... and Ford will be finished.
If you look at the top 10 vehicles there are still some companies selling a LOT of cars. Fords cars are just shit. Since they cannot build good cars, sooner or later they will fall back in trucks ...or gas prices shoot up and people suddenly are driven to small cars... and Ford will be finished.
Ok, so we shoulda read between the lines and supply what Ford didn't say outright: Most buyers no longer see our 'cars' as value for money. If they buy at all, they buy trucks and SUVs (kitted out with living-room luxuries), though there's still demand for cool Mustangs and cost-conscious Fusions. But plain-jane middle-market people movers are so yesterday, they can die.
I'm waiting for the day the guy on my street, with his shiny new Grande-Luxe CrewCab F150, rents a Home Depot van to bring home his half dozen bags of Triple Mix topsoil.
Yeah, one of the worst trends is the urban pickup driver. My neighbourhood is full of them. When parked (usually badly since it appears a lot of the drivers can't drive them), they turn a tight two lane residential street into one lane. I have yet to see one that looks like it has ever carried anything of substance that would require the bed. And yes, I have no doubt that many would hesitate before soiling the shiny bed of their pickups with anything dirty like Triple Mix. One problem in my neighbourhood: a lot of the garages are in the backyard and some of these trucks can't fit and are difficult to turn around (because of the wide turning circles of pickups) in the confines of a backyard. So a lot of new road warriors are finding that the two car detached garage, which they paid up for, is useless for their trucks and they end up parking on the street - hence turning streets into one lane.
You have driveways!! And Garages!!!!. In my hood we hafta make do with walkways. And share them with honkin' great Green Bins. But I visit relatives who live near Ford World HQ in Dearborn, and their world and mine are in separate universes.
Today's PickUp/SUV fad with its surround-sound widescreens won't likely last any longer than the fifties fad for two-tone tailfins, chrome and longer, lower, wider. The Beetle, the Mini, and the Japanese were already on their way to eat Detroit's lunch and they've never fully recovered. To say nothing of their North American market now becoming a sidebar to the bigger Asian and East Asian one. Between ride-sharing, car-sharing and autonomous automobiles, the era of owning what you drive to where your going is coming to its blowout end.
The hatchback that replaced my sturdy little sixteen year-old, haul everything PT Cruiser came from folks who are 'subscribing to' (not leasing) their next car from Volvo.
Today's PickUp/SUV fad with its surround-sound widescreens won't likely last any longer than the fifties fad for two-tone tailfins, chrome and longer, lower, wider. The Beetle, the Mini, and the Japanese were already on their way to eat Detroit's lunch and they've never fully recovered. To say nothing of their North American market now becoming a sidebar to the bigger Asian and East Asian one. Between ride-sharing, car-sharing and autonomous automobiles, the era of owning what you drive to where your going is coming to its blowout end.
The hatchback that replaced my sturdy little sixteen year-old, haul everything PT Cruiser came from folks who are 'subscribing to' (not leasing) their next car from Volvo.
Even the cheapest german car (you can buy a VW for $18,000) is performing better than anything Ford sells.
I think it is a mistake for Ford to get out of the car market, but they've made good financial decisions in the past. Only American car company that didn't go bankrupt a few years ago.
People don't care about fuel economy. If they did, there wouldn't be so many pickup trucks and SUV's on the road.
Fuel economy and emissions is actually an area where government intervention has been good.
People don't care about fuel economy. If they did, there wouldn't be so many pickup trucks and SUV's on the road.
Fuel economy and emissions is actually an area where government intervention has been good.
Seems that cars and trucks are in different CAFE pools. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpo...omy#Agreed_standards_by_model_year,_2011–2025
Ford didn't go broke only because they did a major round of financing just before the bottom fell out of the market. Otherwise, they probably would have gone broke too.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/business/09ford.html
Ironically, at the time (read the link) Ford said it was going to concentrate on cars and fuel efficient vehicles, not trucks and SUVs.
And well 10 years later, that's right out the window and it's the low hanging fruit of trucks and SUVs
Also Trump is trying to roll back the CAFE rules. That's one reason California is suing the Administration.
'Make what people want' has always been a valid concept. While I agree that regulation to enforce standards is good, necessary and what people have wanted from government for thousands of years, that's a distraction.
Once the auto-makers were compelled to make even the SUVs and trucks more fuel efficient, the small consumer trend which already preferred rugged, reliable (and less pricey) trucks and jeeps over sedate sedans turned into a wave. The manufacturers catered to that, turning them into a family vehicle sold for safety, capacity and go-anywhere under any conditions and gorped with all the toys and tinsel of any car or mini-van. But to consumers that all represented 'value' they wanted parked in their driveway and were willing to pay for. Cars didn't, and vans never had cachet. No one could imagine Matthew McConaughey switching a mini-van's automatic to 'Excite' driving off a ferry into the wilderness. But it sells oxymoronic luxury sport utility.
So now the SUVs and Pickups look more like fashion running shoes (another oxymoron) than the rough tough steel that started the trend a few decades back. Today 'cars' imitate the look of the SUVs (which no one would 'sport 'in or 'utilize' for anything rough or dirty). And even the PotUS wouldn't be driving up in a 'car'.
Ford's just letting its customers dictate its offerings, and like all big business, doing it a bit slow and a bit late even if they're out in fron of their competition. But I ask: If everyone's driving them, and they aren't sporting, hauling or utilizing them, aren't they just cars?
