Check out some of the Ford Heritage Vehicle Collection in Dearborn
Ford Motor Co. shows some of the famous heritage vehicle collections in its headquarters building in Dearborn, Michigan.
- Many of the carmakers’ recent decisions to delay and change their vehicle programs look reactive and short-term, opening gaps in the lineup, waste time and resources.
- If Ford uses this opportunity to modify those habits, he can turn the page into a brighter future.
Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan product development, rebuilding executive complexes – Global automakers are moving around global headquarters near where product design and engineering takes place – automakers give cars the opportunity to overhaul their product planning and vehicle development processes.
Ford has to do this right.
Many of the carmakers’ recent decisions to delay and change their vehicle programs look reactive and short-term, opening gaps in the lineup, waste time and resources. If Ford uses this opportunity to modify those habits, he can turn the page into a brighter future.
Otherwise, there is clearly a dramatic movement, like bulldozing the 70-year-old Glass House House Headquarters Building, and even older designs and engineering centres are nothing more than pouring old wine into new bottles.
Bright spots, big challenges
Ford’s current development process created a bright spot.
- The F Series pickup continues to be a challenging sales leader who has not swayed the hearts of 43 years, as America’s No. 1 sales model line.
- The gorgeous Maverick pickup has created a new class of attractive compact vehicles at an affordable price.
- The reinvention of the Bronco SUV has raised serious off-road expectations and created a welcome competition with Jeep Wranglers.
But these victories look more like isolated cases of glow than the result of a strict, repeatable system that efficiently allocates billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people.
Ford too:
- We have repeatedly delayed the second generation F-150 Lightning electric pickup.
- After years of expensive development, we have cancelled a new family of three rows of electric SUVs.
- We are about to bring our large factory in Louisville, Kentucky to an idle state. This has made two important vehicles, the Ford Escape and the Lincoln Cols Air Compact SUV, into two important vehicles to build a new family of electric vehicles.
“The end of the escape and the Corsair means that Ford sells fewer vehicles,” said Stephanie Brinley, S&P Global Mobility Principal Analyst. “It’ll take time for that factory to return to meaningful production measures.” Ford is not planning to build 150,000 vehicles in its first year, with 250,000 to 300,000 vehicles in its first year. “There are vehicles.
At the same time, the vast Blue Val City Manufacturing Complex in Stanton, Tennessee, was founded 340 miles from the Louisville Assembly, and will put EVs and batteries on Limbo in order for Ford to pause the next generation of early F-150 lightning in 2028.
“On the 5-yard line”
“Every reset will involve long-standing sales and lost investments of billions of dollars,” says Paul Watty, director of autofacifics for industry analysis. “There is a time and a place to make a pivot, but that’s not the case when you’re on a five-yard line.
“Ford set it up quite a bit behind.”
Ford has generated headlines launching a new generation of electric vehicles, but the ability to do so without fundamental change, or any plan, is causing concern.
The fact that Ford physically moved a 2,000-mile vehicle development team from the Dearborn Engineering Center to Long Beach, California shows just how corrupt the system is to work secretly.
The problem is that people working on secret projects, not Dearborn, can sullen the creative process by parking next to employees involved in the automaker’s current products.
“Skunk Works” cannot fix Ford’s illness
The problem is that Ford lacks and always has a disciplined product development and lifecycle planning process.
The automaker calls its secret office “Skunk Works” and is linked to the legendary Lockheed Engineering Center where the group is working on Advanced Aircraft, but its Skunk Works is working on a distant idea.
The Ford problem is not a lack of blue skiing thinking here and now.
The company develops outstanding vehicles almost regularly, allowing competitors to age irrelevantly while improving and replacing competitors on a regular basis. Taurus, Escape and Rangers all led the segment for years, then reduced due to inaction in management.
The F-Series Pickup is the only product that Ford Management maintains an alternative to a strict schedule and asserts clear leadership on measurable standards. Results: 48 years of truck sales leadership.
I hope that the team dispatched to Long Beach, California did it in the office where Ford developed the new EV, but that doesn’t matter unless Ford’s leader changes his approach to creating vehicles and staying competitive.
Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before Ford is searching for another magic bullet, rather than unfolding a steady stream of first-class cars.
Please contact Mark Phelan: mmphelan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan. Please read more Auto And sign up for us Automotive Newsletter. Become a subscriber.
