sti_eric

Ah, I see, you're just cherry-picking the data that makes the numbers look the best. Despite a 21.7% (not 30%) increase in April sales, Mercury is still down 5.6% on the year.

bascho

I never said Ford was 'fine' right this second......obviously laying off 30,000 people is not something a company doing 'fine' does. I realize I cannot disclose the things that I have seen.......but, I can tell you that everything you've bashed Ford about is not a secret.....Ford understands the problems facing the company. Toyota & Honda are doing great right now because they were able to forecast the change in American market segment interests far sooner than the domestics. They had small cars ready to go when gas went over $3. They have nailed down their quality processes in design and production which resulted in quality products. Even more powerful is the perception that everything they make is going to be high quality. The domestic companies face the exact opposite market perception of every product they make will be unreliable.

Ford is paying attention and can see what the customers want. We are moving towards more fuel efficient car-based SUV's......the largest SUV's will have more efficient diesel engine options in 2007 starting with the Navigator. There is more......but I cannot say at this time. I am not trying to convince you buy Ford vehicles.......just to make you understand that Ford understands their problems and is working to fix them.

bascho

Not cherry picking exactly. You think the entire brand needs to be killed even though most of the nameplates have increased significantly.

Grand Marquis +32.7%
Montego +26%
Mariner +39.5%
Milan N/A

Ford disagrees with killing the brand and would rather cut the loser nameplates instead. The Monterey minivan at neg 51% really brings the entire brands #'s down.....don't you agree? After looking at that chart....do you still think that Ford should kill Mercury? I mean REALLY kill the brand when so many of the nameplates are doing very well.

sti_eric

Again, taking one month's sales figures doesn't tell you very much. Is it an anomaly? Or maybe April 2005 was a particularly slow month for Ford? Or it could be any of a number of other reasons. The trend so far for the year is a decline in sales.

Yes, I believe it is absolutely the best thing to do for Ford as a company to ax Mercury because I think that the Toyota and DCX models for branding are the correct way to go. Mercury has no identity. All Mercury does is take Ford products and rebadge them. It is a very narrow view to say, "Well, Mercury had x number of sales, so we need to keep it afloat." Think of the effect on the company as a whole if they restructured the way I said. Many of those Mercury sales will go to the equivalent Ford vehicle. Plus, Mazda, Ford, and Lincoln/Volvo could have their own identities, also helping sales.

sti_eric

Every company has problems and is trying to fix them, even the Toyotas and Hondas of the world. What matters is whether or not what they are doing will really help. Ford has shown me nothing over the past 15 years that would make me believe that they are capable of turning the company around, especially since all the other companies around them are also continually improving. I guess only time will tell.

Red Devil

But Mercury now has a VERY hot spokewoman on their commercials. If this line must be dropped, move her to the Mazda ones becuase they're kind of lame.

bascho

I agree that some Mercury products too closely resemble Ford products....but the NEW Mercury product offerings should show that has changed. The Milan looks nothing like the Fusion. Mercury is not going to get a version of the Edge/MKX vehicle....but rather a completely different CUV which will only be from Mercury. I completely disagree that Mercury needs to be killed. I think the image of a female marketed brand is genius and will be well received by woman in the US.

I respect your opinions on what you think Ford should do with it's brands......but I don't agree with any of them.

therm8

Subaru setting sales records isn't too difficult to imagine considering their shitty sales history.

There's a fanboi in the room, and he doesn't work for Ford...

sti_eric

How about if you don't have anything to contribute to this conversation you keep your mouth shut, you rednecked retard. There is absolutely nothing in this thread where I promote Subaru, except to say that they have set sales records every year for the past three years, as supplementing evidence to my argument that high performance divisions improve sales of other product lines. I also say that Toyota and Honda have increasing sales this year. Does that make me a Honda and Toyota fanboi?

At least Subaru can turn a profit. Loser.

rob.rotor

North Americans are financing a huge war machine - China!

Most only see quarter profit earnings, the more sophisticated might see trade imbalance and debt, but it goes much further than that.

Some day you will see China rise and rear it's ugly head (no thanks to the lucrative North American economy).

Paul_in_DC

And this relates to the Big 3 in what way?

bascho

The Big 3 like many other big companies are investing heavily in China right now. I think his comment is definitely on topic.

Red Devil

This will be a bit off topic, but I think the fears over China are overblown. I don't want to contrue that I support their government, or any of their political agendas. That said, U.S. investment in them, and vice versa, brings us closer and closer and more dependent on each other. When has economic co-dependence led to war? Will we in the future be fighting over fossil fuels - if you listen to the Doom and Gloom report, of course we will. But until it happens, it hasn't happened, and North America has huge oil reserves. Is China building a huge military industrial complex, maybe so, but our economic ties still remain.

Further, China is a socio-political anomaly. They allow wide sweeping free enterprise in Hong Kong and many of their other industrial cities now - Shanghai, etc...yet they have a strict quasi-communist government in control (read Marx's manifesto, they don't completely match the description). This government takes over most successful private enterprises consistently and aborbs it back into their bureaucracy. I don't believe these two sides, the government vs. free enterprise, can in the long term co-exist. It creates too much a society of the haves and have-nots. And once the have-nots become more educated and catch on to what they are missing, that's when the party is over. Funny, I thought that was one of the primary reasons behind political revolution in the Manifesto.

In short, I don't see any issue in investing in China, or them investing in us. A policy of Isolationism has never worked for the U.S., and we are not the power we are today by following such political/economic policy.

bascho

I agree 100% that the more the US is integrated into China and vise versa that the lower the probability of a military dispute with them becomes. However, China is not a country that cares about the US staying the 'world leader'......the Chinese want that title for themselves. I am not against globalization because I am an educated person who will have options no matter what occurs in this country. However, I am not blind to the fact that many Americans are not educated and are being hurt by globalization. Globalization is an world equalizer.......countries like the US which are the richest in the world will only be brought down during this equalization. Countries like India, Russia & China in which the majority of the country is below the poverty level, they can only go up through globalization.

The disappearance of a middle class is a dangerous thing for a nation. Like it or not a large part of the US middle class is not considered 'skilled labor'. Many of these people do not have the ability to be retrained to become 'skilled labor'. Some certainly will.......but not most, most will have to take lower paying jobs and drop from the middle class. When people are poor they become desperate......crime inevitably increases. One cannot deny that the destruction of the middle class in the US will make some parts of the country more dangerous to live in. Quality of life for most US citizens will decrease in the next decade.

Japan8

I agree with much of this.

Honda's auto division would be in serious trouble without the US... something like 90% of their sales. Hondas are no longer inexpensive, new and interesting, nor a great value. Hondas sell on their reputation. Much of the same applies to Toyota as well... some of the most boring cars I have ever seen. Even the Scion's don't interest me...

18bsTiRX8

Granted my views may be skewed coming from a manufacturing background, and working in the Auto industry now as an engineer...

But I can say that if the Big 3 (or Detroit 3 since they are shrinking) went under, the US economy would be hurt badly. The auto industry (globally) would also suffer because all auto manufacturers with facilities in the US share about 90% of the tier 1 and 2 auto suppliers. If GM for example went under, the suppliers would lose a HUGE customer and eventually lose money. This in turn would affect their ability to maintain the low costs resulting from high production, and it would certainly begin affecting Toyota, Nissan, Honda, DaimlerChrysler, etc etc in terms of quality and cost of parts.

Also consider the loss of jobs, as the auto industry supports many small towns employing upwards of 7000 per assy plant. With those people out of work, nobody is going to spend any money on luxuries and the economy crashes there as well.


And about China (strictly speaking mfg, etc), I am not concerned at this point. Cheap labor isn't everything....at this point, China's manufacturing is behind about 20 years worth of technology. Many of their workers have no clue what the parts they are making do, and are only trained in their process. This means workers can't multi-task like the skilled auto workers here, and can't recognize quality probs as easily b/c they don't know what the part they are making is for a car (this isn't a slam or generalization...this is from an article about employee training....in an effort to save cost, Chinese factory workers are not trained to understand/improve their processes like the workers are in the States).

They have some catching up to do before they are a real threat. The main way to fight it though is to value quality, and not always buy the cheapest thing available.

Lastly, a lot of auto companies are building factories in China..........but this is NOT to save cost and move our factories overseas. It is very expensive to ship cars, and China is expected to be the new automotive gold mine. The economy in China is starting to improve where more and more Chinese people are able to afford to buy cars....it is expected to explode into a new automotive market with the dense population. A lot of the companies, like Toyota, Ford, GM, Nissan, etc are building factories THERE to sell cars THERE! They are not being imported to the US.

As for the future of Toyota/Honda in comparison to the Detroit 3, you are comparing apples and oranges. Toyota is a conservative company building reliable cars for the masses (and can be boring, yes), but design isn't the key to success. You can't please everyone. The main reason Toyota/Honda are doing well is because they are building to match demand, not in a production race like the Detroit 3 were in the 80's and 90's. We build what will sell. It's also about technology....while GM sat back and reaped the rewards of big trucks and SUV's, Toyota was thinking about the future and developing one of the most high-tech hybrid systems yet (not all hybrids are created equal...Toyota sold their technology from 10years ago to another auto manufacturer in the past year). As a result, the Detroit 3 were crying for legislation to limit Toyota's hybrid production but the reality was they had an opportunity to develop something themselves, but instead kept making large SUV's without developing something to cope with future gas prices.

This forward thinking and safe, long-term planning = business success.


In short, don't believe everything you read in the paper...a lot of it is tainted with politics, etc..................

therm8

I agree to a certain extent, however gas-electric hybrids are still dependent on a failing resource. Once the true cost of ownership hits Joe consumer, demand for such vehicles will rapidly decrease. It's a stop gap measure, that Toyota had the forsight to take advantage of, but it will not sustain them in the long run. The Camry is becoming the Japanese version of a Buick sedan, and just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Short of an injection of inspiration, Toyota and Honda will be losing market share vice gaining. It's hard to stay motivated once you're on top, while it's very easy to be motivated from the bottom (just look at Hyundai, Toyota and Honda's next big threat).

bascho

Well put, I agree 100%.

....and 7,000 is really just automotive sector jobs......start counting the grocery stores, salons, restaurants, bars, etc that service these small automotive towns and you basically kill the town as a whole. It's a sad and scary thing.

Absolutely true. You can say that American manufacturing labor is too expensive.....but it is the best in the world next to Japan. Chinese labor will take many many years to get to the same standard as the US which has been in the manufacturing business for more than 100 years.


I don't think finished automobiles will ever be built in China by GM, Ford & DCX for shipment to the US. However, I know for a fact that components for our domestic autos are currently and will continue to be sourced in China. I have seen major increases in Chinese suppliers for domestic auto components in the last 2 years. I agree the the large investments by the Big 3 are more about getting their foot in the China door before Toyota closes it. But the automotive suppliers want into China to supply the world.....not just the Chinese market.