Ford CEO Mulally shares Toyota's vision

Right now I respect Ford the most of the big three U.S. automakers, since they are not having to beg the government for a loan (my comments about the "gas filler location" issue not withstanding). They do indeed seem to have been taking a long term look for their corporate planning.

I wonder about the last line of Mr. Mulally's quote, in reference to Toyota using "minimal resources" for bring products to market. I thought that I read that 2000 engineers worked on the G3 Prius?

 

Ford was lucky to get money before the economy went bad.
Just look at their sales. Ford has money to last till the end of the year if the situation does not improve.

I also like Ford better among the big three. At least, the Ford Fusion shows me that they are putting their action behind their words. There is a good chance that Ford will survive this one w/o a big scratch.

 

I don't totally recognize the descriptions of Ford and GM I see on here. Ford of Europe has been building some reasonably good cars for the last ten years or so, primarily starting with the 1998 Focus. They're #1 in the UK. Opel (GM's European subsidiary, badged as Vauxhall in the UK) I've always seen as more boring, but their cars are again pretty good now - Ford raised the stakes and Opel had to follow suit. Vauxhall are #2 in the UK.

However, GM's European operations only made a small profit - $55m - in 2007 and a huge loss of $1,633m in 2008. Ford had made $223m in 2007 and lost $330m in 2008.

It's clear looking at the results, though, that both companies were losing money on the sale of cars, but supporting themselves on profits from finance. When the finance market turned, they lost ground.

 

There's a lot of noise around about their Fusion Hybrid...i liked reading that they're bringing in some of their Euro cars/trucks over here and will be setting them up for use as part of their hybrid or electric fleet. They at least are moving in the right direction with respect to hybrids and beyond. Their Escape hybrid is no joke and the couple people that I know that have them, say they're a fabulous vehicle to drive.

I think it was the same guy who when first taking the job with Ford a few years ago, indicated that they were way too fragmented with their parts. One particular dash for this car, completely different for that car, grill for this, grill for that, grill for that one over there...he said that one of the better features about a Honda and Toyota, was that drivers of a Civic can get behind and Accord and know where everything is...as they decide to "upgrade" their vehicle. That brand familiarity was somewhat comforting to the consumer. Shortly after you saw the Fusion and Edge sharing similar front hardware, etc, etc.

I hope Ford is able to pull it out...i actually invested some cake in their stock...at $1.89 a share, it was easy to get into. I think they'll be around and may benefit from GM or Chrysler going tits up.