Next Gen Ranger to be Made and Sold in China with a Couple of Mods

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

They've made a right hash of their EV program so far, big coin for poor results, then instead of trying to fix it they just took their bat and ball and went home, cutting back their EV program massively.

But what else are Ford to do if buyers in their own home market are not embracing BEV Lightning.
The change in interest in 2023 was breath taking, the 200k odd reservations for Lightning virtually
disappeared in a matter of months once those higher interest rates began to bite.
Ford is currently building a huge plant in Kentucky to make 600k/year BEV F150s but if
they can’t sell over 50,000 Lightnings in a year, that plant must be heavily curtailed.

I don't think they have the ability in management for change, its not their engineering team thats the problem, it’s the way their management thinks and moves.

This is a big issue with Ford, Jim Hackett and Farley took advantage of Bill Ford’s
impatient desire to rapidly transform Ford into a high volume electric vehicle producer.
As a corporate, Ford is guilty of rushing around like a single focused elephant that
ignores other important parts of its business and when it all falls over, there’s no plan B.

Its going to be an extremely expensive transition, or they'll be hobbled modifying existing platforms for EV retrofit because of their huge capital investment in tooling, where as people like Tesla had the advantage of having nothing and being able to make things in modern ways and designs.

I look with interest to the plans already in place, Chinese Mach E production and sales is a joke,
it’s in the hundreds but Ford can’t bring itself to confess that in official sales figures.
Similarly, other vehicles developed for China only by the Australian team are not working.
The sad fact is that those vehicles developed for China would have probably sold better here…

For vehicles other than Ranger and Everest, Ford Australia is supposed to rely on Europe
but painfully, they cannot supply us with what we want or even their own markets.
A request of interest in Ford Maverick and Bronco Sport was made by Ford Australia
but as far as e know that fell on deaf ears due to parts shortages over the past few years.

Ford has gone back to regional areas looking after their own self interest, ROW like us now
need to be better supplied but how or wher those vehicles comes from is anyone’s guess..