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Ford CTO Raj Nair on the future: Ford will look very different in 10 years


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That means building class 8 trucks, farm tractors, buses/school buses, lawn tractors, locomotives, aircraft, ships/marine engines, hoverboards, flying cars, dirigibles, right? If not, get out now.

dirigibles! happy.gif

but you forgot SUBMARINES!!

Edited by 2b2
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That means building class 8 trucks, farm tractors, buses/school buses, lawn tractors, locomotives, aircraft, ships/marine engines, hoverboards, flying cars, dirigibles, right? If not, get out now.

I wish they'd buy CNH back. I don't know if it's a good business move or not--I just want a modern successor to my venerable old 8N, 861, 960, and 4000...

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Ford will not look very different in 10 years. Guaranteed.

I'm reminded of Bill Ford's sweeping statement in 2001 regarding the impending widespread sale of hybrids.

only to cancelled the escape hybrid a few years after that, I'm thinking that Ford'splans regarding EV cars

might have already hit a huge snag....we've seen them go from mega plant in Mexico to a $700 million

add on plant...I'm wondering if that gets scaled down further if EVs don't set the world on fire and

autonomous vehicles fail to clear legislative red tape regarding primary safety issues....

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In fact, the C-max sold more in each of its first 2 years than the Escape Hybrid ever did in a single year, and almost did it a third year. Oh yeah, those last 2 years were in the face of the MPG adjustment and falling gas prices.

 

Add in C-Max energi, Fusion Hybrid, Fusion Energi and MKZ Hybrid and they at least quadrupled hybrid volume

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I'm getting really tired of this notion that discontinuing the Escape hybrid was this massive critical error.

You completely missed the point I was making.

 

In 2001, Bill Ford said that Ford would improve fuel economy of its SUVs by 25% by 2005 and that most of it

would be achieved by the broad sales of the Escape SUV...,,, and then they cancelled the Escape hybrid

after years of trying to build SUV hybrid sales. The marketing men were proved right, ending Bill Ford's

dreams of disruptive technology..Ecoboost technology would ultimately supplant hybrids in Utilities.

 

In the context of what I was saying, that tells me that Ford is open to changing so called set in stone plans

when it suits them and for anyone to thing that they are 100% committed on EVs and autonomous vehicles

to the death should head Ford's history on technology.

Edited by jpd80
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In fact, the C-max sold more in each of its first 2 years than the Escape Hybrid ever did in a single year, and almost did it a third year. Oh yeah, those last 2 years were in the face of the MPG adjustment and falling gas prices.

 

Add in C-Max energi, Fusion Hybrid, Fusion Energi and MKZ Hybrid and they at least quadrupled hybrid volume

 

How much was that from being capacity restrained on the Escape Hybrid?

 

IMO slightly stupid to kill off a product in the biggest growing segment in the automarket to come out with what they considered a Prius fighter, a separate model with more or less its own unique styling that most likely won't see another generation after this in North America.

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In hindsight it would have probably been better market wise to keep the Escape hybrid and forget CMax altogether but that would have necessitated another Escape plant to keep up with demand. They could have also had a MKC hybrid.

 

Another area where Ford was way ahead of the market but lost that advantage and now they're playing catch up again.

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Didn't they use a loan from the DOE to help retool MAP? Which is getting retool again...go figure.

 

MAP was retooled to produce Focus and C-Max. In theory that could've been made Hybrid Escape production instead of C-Max production.

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Didn't they use a loan from the DOE to help retool MAP? Which is getting retool again...go figure.

 

Yes but what does that have to do with whether they could add another Escape plant? Isn't Escape currently in Louisville?

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Yes but what does that have to do with whether they could add another Escape plant? Isn't Escape currently in Louisville?

 

Correct.

 

As I mentioned in my previous comment though, could Escape Hybrid have been produced at MAP instead of C-Max (therefore meaning another Escape plant aside from Louisville and MAP wouldn't have been needed)?

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Correct.

 

As I mentioned in my previous comment though, could Escape Hybrid have been produced at MAP instead of C-Max (therefore meaning another Escape plant aside from Louisville and MAP wouldn't have been needed)?

 

Probably. That's what I was getting at - they could have kept the Escape hybrid (and added a MKC hybrid) by expanding to another plant somewhere even if it wasn't MAP.

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Probably. That's what I was getting at - they could have kept the Escape hybrid (and added a MKC hybrid) by expanding to another plant somewhere even if it wasn't MAP.

 

I do hope a MKC hybrid is coming with the new model (if not an "Energi" or electric model too).

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