The IT Nerd

Seeing as I do review cars, this announcement by Ford caught my attention. In their latest financial release [Warning: PDF], Ford “will transition to two vehicles” — the Mustang and an unannounced vehicle, the Focus Active as being the only cars that they sell in North America. Everything else that they will sell will be a pickup truck, commercial vehicle, or SUV as those are what Ford says that North Americans want.

Another tidbit that caught my eye was that Ford was going to invest in a new type of vehicle that will “combine the best attributes of cars and utilities, such as higher ride height, space and versatility.” That sounds like a crossover to me.

To me this seems like a huge risk to me. But I am a computer nerd and not a car executive. I get that car sales are dropping and truck/SUV sales are way up. But that’s only going to last as long as gas is moderately affordable. When gas skyrockets in price again, customers will ditch vehicles like trucks and SUVs for more fuel efficient cars. When that happens, because it’s a case of when and not if, Ford might be in trouble. And the Honda’s, Toyota’s, and Hyundai’s of the world who sell both cars and trucks will be there to take advantage of that. And Ford will be left scrambling. Or, perhaps they’re on to something that nobody else sees and they’re simply way ahead of the curve.

Time will tell.

This entry was posted on April 26, 2018 at 8:55 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Ford. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.