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So they should have voted for Hillary Clinton and higher taxes, more regulations, more expensive health care, etc?
Pretty sure you'd find about the same breakdown at Ford or anywhere else as the general population... half the eligible voters voting, and half of those for each of the R or D, and a handful voting for something different. No matter what, voting for more of the same gets us more of the same, and not voting is still a vote for more of the same.
I don't believe Hillary would have started a trade war, but they voted with who they thought had their best interests, looks like either they were conned or they were foolish.
So they should have voted for Hillary Clinton and higher taxes, more regulations, more expensive health care, etc?
Pretty sure you'd find about the same breakdown at Ford or anywhere else as the general population... half the eligible voters voting, and half of those for each of the R or D, and a handful voting for something different. No matter what, voting for more of the same gets us more of the same, and not voting is still a vote for more of the same.
There's that Mike Pence guy that was running for president. He seemed to be a pretty good guy. It's kinda hard for Pence to compete against Trump and his reality TV supporters like the Kardashians and Kanye West. Somebody from Indiana is not going to have as much attention as the coastal elites from Manhattan.
Every auto manufacturer does things differently to an extent, but every single one of them is currently working on designs for models that are five and ten years down the road. Ford Motor has made a calculated decision to focus almost entirely on trucks and SUV’s because they are far and away the most profitable vehicles in their lineup. If you were running the company, would you want to build 500,000 cars that net you a profit of $2-4 thousand dollars each or 500,000 trucks and SUV’s that net you a profit of $8-15 thousand dollars each?
As to their manpower reductions that some ridiculously assert that a monkey could do, the simple fact is they won’t need those people from the car side. They need truck people. Only time will tell if their gamble will pay off, but my years in the industry tell me they are on to something with this strategy.
Just remember, at the end of the day it is all about profitability. Always has. Always will. And every company operates that way, like it or not.
Ford is dropping cars as car sales are rapidly declining, so those assembly lines can be converted to trucks and SUV, where sales are rapidly taking over the industry.
If the assembly line can handle Trucks at a good profit, it does not make sense to keep building low profit cars on that assembly line, so they will convert them to become more profitable and fill the demand. The see demand for cars is declining, and makers are going to be cutting prices, again lowering profits.
They now have car engineers with nothing to do. They will have model builders to make full size cars for evaluation, and nothing to do, just for a start. Note they have not announced lay off on assembly lines as they can build trucks. There are other jobs with workers and nothing to do.
First thing companies in this position is to ask older workers to volunteer with a big severance many will jump at it with pleasure from both the car and truck divisions. They then re-valuate and offer severance packages to other employees. In the end few people will be laid off with severance packages depending on pay rate and length of service.
Things like this have been going on, for many decades.
Most people on this thread are thinking companies are terrible. Remember Ford is unionized and it will be negotiated with the auto workers union.
Ford Motor Company stunned the world this week by announcing that it would stop selling cars in the United States over the next few years, except for only two: the iconic and ever-popular Mustang, and the Ford Focus Active, a crossover hatchback/SUV that goes on sale next year..."By 2020, almost 90 percent of the Ford portfolio in North America will be trucks, utilities and commercial vehicles. Given declining consumer demand and product profitability, the company will not invest in next generations of traditional Ford sedans for North America."
Ford is one of those companies that would benefit from tax cuts, which could help offset losses due to tariffs. Oldtrader and Serious Convo both nailed it: it's now an SUV/truck game. What's the point of having these engineers around especially with sales already declining? Toyota does the basic car thing better anyways.
Every auto manufacturer does things differently to an extent, but every single one of them is currently working on designs for models that are five and ten years down the road. Ford Motor has made a calculated decision to focus almost entirely on trucks and SUV’s because they are far and away the most profitable vehicles in their lineup. If you were running the company, would you want to build 500,000 cars that net you a profit of $2-4 thousand dollars each or 500,000 trucks and SUV’s that net you a profit of $8-15 thousand dollars each?
As to their manpower reductions that some ridiculously assert that a monkey could do, the simple fact is they won’t need those people from the car side. They need truck people. Only time will tell if their gamble will pay off, but my years in the industry tell me they are on to something with this strategy.
Just remember, at the end of the day it is all about profitability. Always has. Always will. And every company operates that way, like it or not.
Your math doesn't add up. I don't think the market is big enough for trucks/SUVs - just because you stop making xthousand of one doesn't mean you'll automatically be able to sell the same xthousand SUVs and get to pocket all the extra. And those SUVs don't build themselves - are you telling me the jobs are so different they can't retrain their current to go from cars to SUVs? They all work on all different models depending on what line they're working on.
But hey, we're talking white collar, not line workers...so even less retraining...
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