Batteries: Ford keeping it a little too real
Time for a bigger hybrid statement
Kick it up a hybrid
If you follow this blog, then you know I’m a big fan of Ford’s CEO Alan Mulally. Financially, Mulally has completely revitalized Ford.
“The folks led by Mulally are on track to sell more cars and trucks and deliver a lot fatter profits than the conventional wisdom expects,” summarizes Daniel Howes this morning.
But Mulally has been more than a super accountant. He’s a visionary driving Ford forward via efficiency and constant progress.
That’s why when Mulally took over he didn’t promise hundreds of thousands of hybrid sales were just around the corner, unlike his well-meaning predecessor. Instead, he kept it real.
Ecoboost, for instance, would be Ford’s first big step towards efficiency as the company put its financial house in order, enabling a real world road map to hybrids and plug-in vehicles that is beginning to fully evoke itself today.
In Japan, they would say Ford is driven by kaizen. Consequently, one super efficient product isn’t going to make or break Ford. Instead, every employee, every business practice, and every product is expected to continually become ever more efficient, to progress forward. Thus, neither hybrid cars nor plug-in vehicles are the solution. Everything Ford does is part of the solution.
Unfortunately, while I’ve been impressed with Ford’s hybrid cars, I’ve also been disappointed with the lack of Ford’s hybrid sales. Nevertheless, I’ve been willing to cut Ford some slack. Since Ford didn’t invest in NiMH supply chains before Mulally, a big focus on hybrids and plug-ins simply wouldn’t have made sense until lithium.
Well, lithium is finally here.
Soon Ford will be rolling out the Transit and Focus electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid cars and conventional hybrids. By 2020, up to 25 percent of Ford’s fleet could be hybrids and plug-in vehicles. Ford is methodically progressing forward with its battery-powered vehicles. Instead of battery-powered hype, Ford is just keeping it real.
Yet, I cannot help but be a little disappointed.
Certainly, overall, Ford’s path forward makes great sense. Nonetheless, I dare say there isn’t another automaker in the US that has more street cred in America than Ford. Therefore, if Ford put a legitimate Toyota Prius contender on the road, Americans would suck up supplies faster Ford could produce them.
Sure, such a move might not be the most short-term profitable move for Ford, but I’d bet the PR opportunities alone would recover any loses.
Without question, Ford is an American success story today, but it’s time for Ford to make a statement. It’s time to take on the Prius, and to take Ford to the next level.
I need to frequent this website a lot more often, information similar to this is hard to find.
not sure, larry. toyota has claimed it has made a profit off every prius sold for years. others say that might be true, but that original production costs still haven’t been recovered. even if profitable, the prius still is less profitable than other vehicles.
if your focus is the most short term profits as possible, then hybrids aren’t the way to go, nor are small cars. of course, even if Ford wanted to be aggressive, such as 300,000 hybrid sales per year, it would have been almost impossible for Ford to achieve so far under Mulally’s term unless based on lithium. it took Toyota many years to develop the supply chains for such production.
along these lines, what really interests me, is why has Toyota been so very aggressive?
years ago they predicted they would be selling 1 million hybrids per year early this decade while other automakers and analysts claimed they were full of it. yet, they might actually achieve this goal. today, such a goal seems not that aggressive, but when Toyota made – more than 5 years ago – it was received as a joke.
are they sacrificing short term profits for long term gains – and could do this because of a huge bank account built on decades of profits? i don’t know.
i’ not really sure how toyota has justified their hybrid bullishness, but i’d love to know.
at one time, i think that toyota believed it was all about fuel cells. toyota’s fuel cell vehicles are hybrid vehicles that use much of the same powertrain as toyota’s current hybrids. via these hybrids they’ve created a pretty massive patent portfolio leading to fuel cell vehicles. plus, they have the foundation for what the research claims is the most cost-effective plug-in hybrid architecture. so, toyota seems pretty well rounded which might have been the point of hybrids all along – a foundation for future orientated development.
I like CEO Alan Mulally, because he drive the Ford from at their downhills to present competitive contender of major automakers, but i was missing something from Ford line up which was more fuel efficient vehicle which was much waited, they need to act now with speed, determination, innovation which only can make more competitive with Toyota hybrid line up
and this is interesting about the Volkswagen Diesel:
” Earlier this year the Jetta TDI set a new Guinness World Record for Lowest Fuel Consumption as it averaged 58.82 miles per gallon as it traveled through the 48 contiguous states. EPA research has concluded that if diesels were to power one third of all light duty vehicles in the United States, the shift would save approximately 1.4 million barrels of oil a day—equal to the daily shipments from Saudi Arabia to the U.S.”
http://www.vw.com/vwbuzz/browse/en/us/detail/Volkswagen_s_2009_Jetta_TDI_Clean_Diesel_awarded_Green_Car_of_the_Year/271
that’s clever marketing on their part, eh?
I think another good thing that can be said about Ford is that it has similar unions to GM and Chrysler which proves that US Car companies can compete even with Union Labor if they are well run and pay attention to the important things.
A friend just brought a VW diesel Jetta and on his trip from Oregon to Chicago – got 55 mpg.
Ford makes a Fiesta Diesel overseas that gets similar mileage.
both use what is known as clean diesel (ultra low sulfur I think).
but Ford has said that at this point, they won’t market that car in this country because they’d have to sell 300,000 units to be profitable. That would be more than twice the number of Prius sold in the US – right?
So… I wonder if the same would hold true for a hybrid for Ford. Would they have to sell 300,000 to be profitable?
I’m speculating but my premise is based on that same number – 300,000 threshold ….
does that make any sense or am I on the wrong track?