Posted on 09/09/2006 1:55:01 PM PDT by Zakeet
If only turning around a car company were as easy as turning around a car - or an airline manufacturer.
The new chief executive of the Ford Motor Co., in his most recent role, successfully guided aerospace giant Boeing through a wrenching downturn as the 9/11 terrorist attacks reduced demand for air travel.
At Boeing, Alan Mulally gained experience dealing with union labor, a global supply chain, and building products that contain everything from sheet metal to complex electronics.
Those are skills that Ford desperately needs. The No. 2 US automaker confronts declining market share, mounting losses, and a major shift in consumer preferences toward fuel-efficient cars.
But some of Ford's biggest challenges are ones that Mr. Mulally never faced at Boeing.
Where commercial aviation is dominated by two companies, the auto industry has become a tangle of global rivals - with Chinese automakers now scrambling to become exporters alongside those from Japan, Germany, and South Korea.
Where Boeing and Airbus sell their planes to dozens of airlines, success in the auto industry depends on catering to millions of consumers.
"Boeing is not that much like General Motors" or Ford, says Peter Morici, a University of Maryland economist. Carmakers "produce a complex consumer good that has to be mass-marketed and has substantial branding issues."
The fierce competition puts pressure on Mulally, even though he's an outsider, to move quickly.
The challenge is twofold, analysts say: to cut costs and to rev up the pace of new products that can provide future revenues.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Right there with ya!
GM may not be the best company to look to for Ford to reshape itself, but at least they're going to make this monster:
http://ww.autoblog.com/2006/08/22/another-round-of-corvette-blue-devil-rumors/
Some thing like that can't appeal to the green crowd, however, I am getting nearly 30 mpg in my 2006 'Vette
My experience agrees with that -- my Honda is now 8 years old, and never any trouble.
The kind of assembly line employee who is proud of hanging a dashboard with 2 screws instead of the 20 screws required is the cause of the problem. Shoddy workmanship causes customers to seek another supplier who doesn't do shoddy work.
Ford also donates hundreds of thousands to further the radical homosexual agenda.
MM
Killing the Tauras and the Escort was like killing the Carmry and the Corolla or the Accord and the Civic...not going to happen at smart companies. The good companies make the cars perform better and beat the crap out of the bad companies.
By 65,000 miles I had replaced 1 short block and two transmissions.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Amazing! I suppose I would feel the same way given such experience but I have owned a number of Ford products and have not had an experience nearly that bad. I had a 1980 Pontiac with a manual transmission that failed before 40,000 miles but never had a transmission fail on a Ford before 100,000. I have never had an engine fail on a Ford, my current pickup has almost 200,000 miles and has been severely abused (it was stolen and I got it back 10 months later with water in the engine oil) but the engine still runs fine.
Tell that to the thousands of people who have had Accord, Civic, or Odyssey transmission crap out on them in recent years.
"Ford put the Prius hybrid engine into the Escape"
Not true at all. Ford independently designed their hybrid system. However, it did infringe on some Toyota patents (thank you US patent system that allows for ridiculously broad patents). In exchange for allowing them to violate the Toyota patents, Ford allowed Toyota to violate Ford patents on direct injection technology.
The Ford Foundation is a non-profit and has nothing in common with Ford Motor Company except for the name. Old Henry gave his name to many organizations: the Motor Company, the Foundation, the Museum, and Hospital, the Community College, and they are entirely separate entities.
By 120k, I had replaced 2 engines on a Camry once.
My 97 Taurus has had about $200 in repairs over its 9 and a half years.
My 98 Camry has had about $1400 in repairs over the past 2 years alone.
Add up all maintenance and repair expenses, and I've paid out several thousand less for the Taurus.
Lousy Ford quality. I wish they built reliable cars /sarc
I agree they should have joined with them or Toyota more closely on hybrid tech. But in their defense, they have designed and built a hybrid model. GM, BMW, and DaimlerChrysler still haven't.
My wife had a honda element, we sold it to get our minivan. It was made in Ohio.
Actually, the hybrid drive system deveioped by that GM/BMW/DiamlerChrysler alliance just only unveiled their system just four months ago. Expect the first vehicles to use this system to come out in 2007 for the 2008 models--BMW plans it for the 3, 5, and 7 Series models and Mercedes-Benz plans it for the E-Series and S-Series sedans.
"Killing the Tauras and the Escort was like killing the Carmry and the Corolla or the Accord and the Civic...not going to happen at smart companies"
The problem is that Ford had destroyed the value of the Taurus and Escort names. The Escort they destroyed by neglect - it was actually a reliable vehicle historically, but they did very little to update it (sound familiar?), so it got a reputation of being poor in quality just from it being essentially obsolete. The Focus was a much superior vehicle, but they've let it wither on the vine as well (lesson not learned).
The Taurus they destroyed the name of with the old AXOD transmission and 3.8L engine. You still will see people trash the Taurus around groups like this because of these problems. Never mind that the transmission problems were all fixed by the 1995 model year (yes, failures still occur, as on all cars from all makes, but they are actually above average in reliability from the 96 MY on). Or that the 3.8L wasn't available in any 1996 or newer model. The reputation and value of the name was shot. The weird styling (which I don't mind) didn't help, either.
So when they finally got around to replacing the Taurus, they could name the new vehicle a Taurus and risk the negative image earned and still carried over from vehicles built over a decade before, despite it being a completely new vehicle, or they could give it a new name and try to build a reputation from scratch.
It is arguable that they chose the better solution. The Fusion has been getting outstanding reviews, and retail sales are actually very strong.
We'll see if they've learned any lessons by whether or not they do the necessary upgrades and restyling for the Fusion for the 2010 or 2011 model year (a product cycle on par with Toyota and Honda)....
That still puts them years behind Toyota, Honda, and Ford in terms of actually having vehicles on the market.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.