Subject: Re: No more affordable cars

>>You mention this a lot, but sometimes I wonder if this is the right read on what he said. He decided that Ford was going to discontinue ICE 2-row SUV's.<<

Ford have stopped making the Escape 2-row crossover.

Exactly what I was going to mention. Last December, Ford ended production of the Escape, their second best selling SUV in 2024, after the Explorer, it's platform mate, the Lincoln Corsair, and closed the plant, laying off some 2800 USians. Supposedly, Ford will retool the plant for an "affordable" EV pickup. I suspect that "affordable" EV is vaporware, as "affordable" is not in Farley's business plan, and the US is extremely EV hostile now.

My theory about why automakers went ape over EVs: they looked at the ATP and GP that Tesla used to show, and thought EVs were easy money. Then the market started to mature, more players entered, and Tesla had competition. Their ATP and GP started to erode. EVs no longer look like easy money. Ford sank Billions into EVs. It's "Blue Oval City" EV pickup plant, completion having been delayed a couple years, is now, supposedly, being completed to build ICE F-Series trucks. That invites the musical question: does Ford really need that much additional F-Series capacity, or is Farley just trying to avoid writing off the plant, even if it cannibalizes other Ford truck plants? Ford also started building three battery plants. Now, Ford says one of the plants will be used to build home backup battery systems, to avoid writing it off.

The CFO of Volkswagen, several years ago, said the brand was being taken "upmarket", and he didn't care about the impact on volume. The same plan was expressed publicly by an Audi honcho in the UK. Se, we can look forward to VWs priced like Audis, and Audis priced like Bentleys.

April 6, 2022

VW to scrap models and focus on premium market -CFO tells FT

BERLIN, April 6 (Reuters) - German carmaker Volkswagen will axe many combustion engine models by the end of the decade and sell fewer cars overall to concentrate on producing more profitable premium vehicles, its finance chief was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

"The key target is not growth," Arno Antlitz told the Financial Times newspaper. "We are (more focused) on quality and on margins, rather than on volume and market share."

https://www.reuters.com/busine...

I think these guys are all being sold the same "plan" by McKinsey. rather than really looking at what they are doing. VW wants to be "upmarket", but looking at Warranty Week's annual table of global warranty claims expense, as a percent of sales, shows that VW is now building some of the very worst cars on the planet, for which they are charging premium prices. Ford is also routinely flamed for their sky high warranty claims expense. As a typical "JC", Farley blames the crap product on his predecessors. Ford shattered the previous record for recalls last year, but warranty claims expense isn't as bad as VW.

Ford shatters decade-old recall record with 152 safety alerts issued this year alone across multiple models

Ford Motor Company logged far more recalls in 2025 than any other automaker, according to federal safety data, eclipsing a decade-old industry record and underscoring ongoing quality issues affecting millions of vehicles across multiple model lines.

According to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Ford logged 152 recalls in 2025. The manufacturer with the second-most recalls was Honda, with 53, followed by Forest River with 32, General Motors with 27 and International Motors with 26.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/ma...

Every year, since being promoted to CEO in 2020, Farley has promised to address their wretched quality. Every year, the number of recalls grows.

On the wire today:

Ford Has Already Recalled 7.4 Million Cars This Year

Last year, Ford Motor Company issued more recalls than any other automaker ever. It surpassed the previous record holder, General Motors, by more than double, with 153 recalls affecting nearly 13 million vehicles.

It’s unlikely that Ford will issue as many recalls this year, but based on what we're already seeing, the number of affected vehicles could actually surpass 2025’s number. So far in 2026, the Blue Oval has issued 18 recalls involving 7,396,427 vehicles

https://www.motor1.com/news/78...

And they want you to pay premium prices for that.

Steve