Ford Motors shoots itself in foot.

[oldRoger]

Ford announced on Wednesday that it will be spending $550 million to convert its Michigan Assembly Plant from a large SUV factory to a fully modern, and flexible, global small car plant. The Michigan Assembly Plant was one of the most profitable plants of the late 1990s, building the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator.

And now for the kicker-----they will manufacture Electric Cars in the new plant.
Isn't that special, a new greenmobile, what sort of return on that investment do you think they will see?

I thought for a while the Ford was getting serious but this is not a good omen.

 

[Spotteddog]

Gee?
I wonder why the phrase that keeps running through my head is "standing knee deep in a river, and dying of thirst"?
Even with no competition they can't make a good business decision!

 

[DeathGrip]

Prayers sent.....and no I'm dead serious.

 

[mod34]

......so much so that their stock surged today and is up after hours. The market sure liked the sounds of it.

 

[Gutpile Charlie]

They are dead! That is insane.

 

[VAdoublegunner]

I think they are going to make a bundle on this venture. IF...and that's a big IF ... it is a decent product. Very forward thinking.

 

[NFrameFred]

For a great number of places in this country, an affordable electric vehicle is an idea whose time is past due. But pie-in-the-sky attitudes aside, the internal combustion engine will continue to be required for service for many types of locomotion and I'm here to tell you, and I'm sure folks in like parts of the country will concur, a little electric beater ain't gonna make it in the winter time in some of the places I go here in West Virginia !

 

[Uncle Larry]

Originally posted by Spotteddog:
Gee?
I wonder why the phrase that keeps running through my head is "standing knee deep in a river, and dying of thirst"?
Even with no competition they can't make a good business decision!

Just a question and not meant to sound snarky, but what would a good business decision be?
Being profitable 10 years ago doesn't mean being profitable now...
The market for land yacht SUV's has all but dissapeared..would you rather they just tear the plant down, layoff/fire the staff and workers OR convert the plant to something that has a pretty good chance of being profitable again.
I don't see why they couldn't build small cars and export them to Europe/Asia/wherever...the third world is growing by leaps and bounds; better to try and grab some of that market than do nothing and eventually go broke/bankrupt.
JMVHO & YMMV.

 

[mod34]

This plant isn't strictly for "electric cars" (actually they plan to be battery powered) as they plan to build the very, globally popular Focus and make it profitable through economies of scale as it will be the same as those sold in Europe and Asia. Ford sure has hell seems to have a clearer clue than than the other two that have all but ceased to exist.

 

[m1gunner]

GM is the one that really shot itself in the foot when they scrapped the gas turbine automobiles. This was just before the muscle car craze that continues even to this day.

Imagine being able to pull the trigger on a street legal 1000 HP production car in 1968 !

What would their cars and trucks look like today?

 

[m657]

IMHO it is the right move at the right time.

More people are going to find ways to downsize. I believe petroleum costs will continue to make alternatives seem like an increasingly better deal.

I live rural and NEED my 4x4...some of the time, not ALL of the time. But I DO need to get around a lot more for a lot less than that Hemi will cost to run as years go by.

And I believe there are manyManyMANY in the same situation....and FORD looks better than the alternatives in business model at the very least.

 

[charlie sherrill]

I don't have a problem with electric cars as long as other options are available. I can see where they might work as a city scooter but those of us in rural areas need things that work for us. The biggest question is what are they going to cost? You can't pay folks $70.00 an hour to build cars to sell to people who make less than half of that. The math ain't there. 95% of the people around here can't afford cars over $25,000.

 

[Bullseye Smith]

How many people drive 5 to 10 miles to work, NY, Windy City, to name two where one would pay for it self in fuel cost. Sitting in a line for a hour, how much gas is burned in that time? They will make money off it, sounds like the oil co. don't rule anymore. This will also lower the gas price for us that need it, or lose more to the electric car

.

 

[Spotteddog]

Oh,
Perhaps a better decision would have been to hold your fire till you could check your two domestic competitors for a pulse. Considering that Ford is likely going to be the only producer of consequence, someone's going to have to be able to make something other than a Prius/Volt clone? And make a profit at it I'd add!

 

[7.62foryou]

This isn't Europe(yet)lots of people like myself drive a long way to work everyday and want power,comfort and protection in their cars. That's what drives the SUV sales. We still need to drill our own oil. We need it for everything we do and should be using our own resources. What happened to the drill here now drive? The price of gas goes down so it's ok to continue to enrich our enemies? We're nuts!!

 

[Gun-runner]

Yep they've been blasting away! They haven't asked for any bail out and have gone from $1.03 a share to $5.93 a share! What are thes morons thinking?

 

[jag312]

Originally posted by m1gunner:
GM is the one that really shot itself in the foot when they scrapped the gas turbine automobiles. This was just before the muscle car craze that continues even to this day.

The gas turbine engine was dirty and it was impossible using the technology of the time to meet the upcoming EPA exhaust emmission standards. Maybe it is time to revisit the turbine engine. Who knows what can be done with computer-controled fuel systems and three-way catalytic converters?

Remember the Howmet turbine racing car? That was an interesting car that wasn't fully developed before it was dropped.

 

[Spotteddog]

The thing about the turbine was not only the particulate', but the HEAT! I doubt even today 45 years later there's an effective enough heat sink to keep the thing from melting pavement as well as cars in close proximity!

(BTW, never confuse short term market blips with long term engineering selection choices being successful. It takes a lot more than a one week spike in a brands stock prices, to equal a vision of what the "future" looks like.)

 

[Stubborn Dutchman]

Originally posted by m657:
IMHO it is the right move at the right time.

More people are going to find ways to downsize. I believe petroleum costs will continue to make alternatives seem like an increasingly better deal.

I live rural and NEED my 4x4...some of the time, not ALL of the time. But I DO need to get around a lot more for a lot less than that Hemi will cost to run as years go by.

And I believe there are manyManyMANY in the same situation....and FORD looks better than the alternatives in business model at the very least.

Agreed! Plus if it doesn't work out they still have a modernized plant that can be converted to another platform. Michigan needs the jobs so I hope it works out!

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

Originally posted by charlie sherrill:
I don't have a problem with electric cars as long as other options are available. I can see where they might work as a city scooter but those of us in rural areas need things that work for us. The biggest question is what are they going to cost? You can't pay folks $70.00 an hour to build cars to sell to people who make less than half of that. The math ain't there. 95% of the people around here can't afford cars over $25,000.

There you go again Charlie-talking sense