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2018 Sales Report


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Having a better more cohesive utility line up also means Lincoln becomes more attractive to the rest of the country, not just California, New York and Florida. Fleet sales are sometimes frowned upon but I think that some fleet business is important if only to give travelers exposure to just how good the new breed of Lincolns are. Just seeing that Lincoln front a little more around the place can do wonders for brand recognition.

Edited by jpd80
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Ford is probably aiming  new Escape for 20-25K a month since they are cutting a shift and moving those employees.  I also believe they will stop exporting the Corsair for Chinese consumption and instead build them locally which further reduces demand from the plant.  Ford is also diversifying it's utility range which squeezes Escape a bit from both ends with EcoSport and Maverick (CX430) about to take a share of interested compact utility customers.  I'm a little skeptical of Maverick pulling much volume, maybe 8K a month at best. 

As for Lincoln, they have 2 all-new utilities arriving alongside a revised and renamed Nautilus and Coah Door Continental in the same year.  This is as ambitious as it gets for Lincoln.  

Edited by Assimilator
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3 hours ago, Assimilator said:

It's a little curious to me that Ford is struggling to keep up with demand for Navigator, when in reality we're only talking about sales increases of about 10,000 units between Expedition and Navigator, which doesn't seem like that much.  Expedition definitely not the phenomenon that Navigator ended up being.  

I think the Expedition is a great vehicle but I do think it may be hindered by the price and the use of the complete F150 dash.

Even the low end XLT models are still pretty expensive for the average person, and as soon as you start adding many options the price jumps pretty quickly.    

Regarding the dash, I like it in the F150, but it may not be the best fit for the Expedition for the money they want. I found it to be a bit bland in the $79k Limited that I had for a loaner. I’ve been trying to convince my wife, who would be the primary driver, to get one, but she is reluctant because she doesn’t really care for that dash in the Expedition. Perhaps if they added a full length screen in the center stack like the Ram truck, that would enhance the look. I feel it is something that needs addressed in the next refresh. 

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I've never seen a company so reluctant to update its interiors as Ford, they will carry the same interior designs for 10 years before they'll replace them.  It's really frustrating, it needs to be a bigger priority.  The Nautilus is another example of this, an interior that badly needed a major overhaul was not touched AT ALL.  Their MCEs use to come with major interior overhauls, now the only thing they'll do is update the center console inserts or maybe the steering wheel.  So if the design didn't work the first time, there is no changing it.  The NEW Nautilus is still using the same dash design that was originally intended for touch controls and retrofitted for buttons last minute as the MKX.  That vehicle is too expensive (like the Expedition) to be running around with such bad interior design. 

Edited by Assimilator
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3 hours ago, rmc523 said:

They're sure to pass Ford next year, with no help until the latter end of the year for Ford.

Looks that way. I've been tracking this for a few years now and Toyota is definitely on track to pass Ford even if Ford wasn't planning discontinue a bunch of models. But we know Ford is going to stop selling 7 models sometime in 2019 so yea... looks like 2019 will be the year Toyota passes Ford as #2 in the US.

Ford won't be adding a new model (on net volume basis) in 2019. The 7 models going away accounts for 230k volume and the 3 new ones will add maybe 145k volume so Ford will be down by 85k assuming everything else holds steady.

- Taurus (no replacement) -29k

- Taurus PI (replaced by Fusion PRS) -7k

- Focus (no replacement) -113k

- Fiesta (no replacement) -52k

- C-Max (no replacement) -7k

- Flex (no replacement) -20k

- MKT (replaced by Aviator) -2k

+ Ranger (new) +125k?

+ Aviator (replace MKT) +15k?

+ Fusion PRS (replace Taurus PI) +5k?

Net change -85k

Before someone say Ford is still selling all these discontinued model in 2019 so the math is wrong... I'm using annualized sales so I'm projecting Ford will sell 125k Ranger and 15k Aviator on average in a full year. Deliveries for those models won't start until late spring or perhaps summer so on annualized basis, -85k is probably pretty close guess.

Even if you are super optimistic about Ranger and new Escape and Explorer surpassing their performance this year, it's hard to see how Ford will make up that 85k gap unless they open the floodgates on incentives... which they probably won't do.

Edited by bzcat
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31 minutes ago, bzcat said:

Looks that way. I've been tracking this for a few years now and Toyota is definitely on track to pass Ford even if Ford wasn't planning discontinue a bunch of models. But we know Ford is going to stop selling 7 models sometime in 2019 so yea... looks like 2019 will be the year Toyota passes Ford as #2 in the US.

Ford won't be adding a new model (on net volume basis) in 2019. The 7 models going away accounts for 230k volume and the 3 new ones will add maybe 145k volume so Ford will be down by 85k assuming everything else holds steady.

- Taurus (no replacement) -29k

- Taurus PI (replaced by Fusion PRS) -7k

- Focus (no replacement) -113k

- Fiesta (no replacement) -52k

- C-Max (no replacement) -7k

- Flex (no replacement) -20k

- MKT (replaced by Aviator) -2k

+ Ranger (new) +125k?

+ Aviator (replace MKT) +15k?

+ Fusion PRS (replace Taurus PI) +5k?

Net change -85k

Before someone say Ford is still selling all these discontinued model in 2019 so the math is wrong... I'm using annualized sales so I'm projecting Ford will sell 125k Ranger and 15k Aviator on average in a full year. Deliveries for those models won't start until late spring or perhaps summer so on annualized basis, -85k is probably pretty close guess.

Even if you are super optimistic about Ranger and new Escape and Explorer surpassing their performance this year, it's hard to see how Ford will make up that 85k gap unless they open the floodgates on incentives... which they probably won't do.

For Ford, 2019 will be about hitting bottom with losses from car sales so I see it as building sales bridges for 2019 before adding more new products in 2020 and 2021. Holy crap, that was once a long ways off...

Ranger will basically replaces losses from Focus and C-max

New RWD PIU will basically swallow up existing PI and PIU sales.- keep in mind Ford will still have Taurus inventory for H2  2019.

New Aviator for second half will cover losses of MKT and Flex...Ford will still have some Flex inventory for H2 2019

First full year of Ecosport produced 53,000 sales and hopefully, Ford builds on that in 2019

From the sales call, the lead up to Escape changeover is preceded by slowing of production to reduce incentive spend and Ford is also dialing back its lease penetration, the way LaNeve was talking, Escape and Explorer are their two key product changes in 2019 so you can bet thay will be looking to get back to three shifts later in the year...an all new Escape is a big investment and they are expect a lot form it.

 

Frankly, I think some of Ford product plans for hybrid versions Utilities out of Mexico are up in the air, they want to do them but the price of fuel appears to be staying low and  the ICEs are a priority. The need for CAFE offset is basically gone for now, so maybe delayed until really needed?

Edited by jpd80
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1 hour ago, bzcat said:

Looks that way. I've been tracking this for a few years now and Toyota is definitely on track to pass Ford even if Ford wasn't planning discontinue a bunch of models. But we know Ford is going to stop selling 7 models sometime in 2019 so yea... looks like 2019 will be the year Toyota passes Ford as #2 in the US.

Ford won't be adding a new model (on net volume basis) in 2019. The 7 models going away accounts for 230k volume and the 3 new ones will add maybe 145k volume so Ford will be down by 85k assuming everything else holds steady.

- Taurus (no replacement) -29k

- Taurus PI (replaced by Fusion PRS) -7k

- Focus (no replacement) -113k

- Fiesta (no replacement) -52k

- C-Max (no replacement) -7k

- Flex (no replacement) -20k

- MKT (replaced by Aviator) -2k

+ Ranger (new) +125k?

+ Aviator (replace MKT) +15k?

+ Fusion PRS (replace Taurus PI) +5k?

Net change -85k

Before someone say Ford is still selling all these discontinued model in 2019 so the math is wrong... I'm using annualized sales so I'm projecting Ford will sell 125k Ranger and 15k Aviator on average in a full year. Deliveries for those models won't start until late spring or perhaps summer so on annualized basis, -85k is probably pretty close guess.

Even if you are super optimistic about Ranger and new Escape and Explorer surpassing their performance this year, it's hard to see how Ford will make up that 85k gap unless they open the floodgates on incentives... which they probably won't do.

You have to factor in EcoSport as well, although I suspect that's a nearly zero-margin vehicle as a relatively costly import.

Flex/MKT should easily be absorbed by new Explorer and Aviator, especially at a global scale.

And like I said, Bronco, Maverick, Courier, Mach-E are also arriving over the next 2 years.  They seem to be doing a good job holding things level while shifting to profits. 

Edited by Assimilator
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Just want to point a few things out... Ford "Oh sedans sales are tanking, crossovers is where it''s at"...well Ford Crossovers are all down across the board (we can blame that on old products, but it's a fact, majority of crossover products are down in number".  As I've been saying (Along with Borg) past few years, look at the competition, Ram is running a muck on sales, they are catering to low credit consumers, and they are going to be surpassing Silverado soon enough, they have a better product, they are listening to the buyers, GM is listening to Old Guard, whos willing?... AutoBlog

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3 hours ago, Assimilator said:

Ford is also a substantially less profitable company than Toyota, sales ultimately don't matter until Ford fixes its margins.  

 

Last time I checked, Toyota North America was running at a 4% margin while Ford was closer to 8%.

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15 minutes ago, ANTAUS said:

Just want to point a few things out... Ford "Oh sedans sales are tanking, crossovers is where it''s at"...well Ford Crossovers are all down across the board (we can blame that on old products, but it's a fact, majority of crossover products are down in number".  As I've been saying (Along with Borg) past few years, look at the competition, Ram is running a muck on sales, they are catering to low credit consumers, and they are going to be surpassing Silverado soon enough, they have a better product, they are listening to the buyers, GM is listening to Old Guard, whos willing?... AutoBlog

In the sales call Mark LaNeve said that Ford had been very disciplined with incentives and alluded to slowing production of Explorer and Escape ahead of product  change over...he also mentined reducing leasing penetration. So a lot of the reduced utility sales is on Ford not defending older products and and maximizing return on fewer builds...(saving costs by reducing resources expended )

Edited by jpd80
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2 hours ago, jpd80 said:

GM December figures  and 2018 are up in Competition thread....https://www.blueovalforums.com/forums/index.php?/topic/66307-gm-sales-number-december-and-2018/

With Ford going to quarterly sales reporst it looks like I'll be doing tis every month for GM and Ford.

You're welcome :)

Cadillac survives from XT4, XT5 and Escalades. I'm shocked at how much of XT4 the CADILLAC has been able to sell. Cadillac XT5 inherited the success of the SRX. Nautilus surpassed the 3000 barrier this month. I'd like some Lincoln to arrive at 4k or 5k sales per month

Edited by RadicalX
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3 hours ago, Assimilator said:

You have to factor in EcoSport as well, although I suspect that's a nearly zero-margin vehicle as a relatively costly import.

Flex/MKT should easily be absorbed by new Explorer and Aviator, especially at a global scale.

And like I said, Bronco, Maverick, Courier, Mach-E are also arriving over the next 2 years.  They seem to be doing a good job holding things level while shifting to profits. 

It is a futile thing to import with sales volume if there is an upward impairment. I prefer to see Ford as the third or fourth American, but with health and profitability to accompany the market and electrification.

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4 hours ago, Assimilator said:

I've never seen a company so reluctant to update its interiors as Ford, they will carry the same interior designs for 10 years before they'll replace them.  It's really frustrating, it needs to be a bigger priority.  The Nautilus is another example of this, an interior that badly needed a major overhaul was not touched AT ALL.  Their MCEs use to come with major interior overhauls, now the only thing they'll do is update the center console inserts or maybe the steering wheel.  So if the design didn't work the first time, there is no changing it.  The NEW Nautilus is still using the same dash design that was originally intended for touch controls and retrofitted for buttons last minute as the MKX.  That vehicle is too expensive (like the Expedition) to be running around with such bad interior design. 

I've been following the reviews of YouTube reviews on the Nautilus. People usually love the design, but the interior looks something dated. Shortly thereafter, some type comments relating the Nautilus to the edge on account of the dated interior, etc. They might as well have used an interior in the style of the Aviator, since it is a car of a volume segment, the most disputed luxury segment. Apart from the fact that the Nautilus will be a good time with this interior until 2023, while rivals present modernity.

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1 hour ago, akirby said:

Last time I checked, Toyota North America was running at a 4% margin while Ford was closer to 8%.

I think Assimilator was referring to each company as a whole, not the NA business units alone. In its latest Annual Report, Toyota's corporate net income as a percentage of revenue was 8.5%. Corresponding figure for Ford corporate in its latest Annual Report was 4.9%. Toyota earned $22.5 billion net (USD using conversion rate of 111 Yen = 1 USD). Ford earned $7.6 billion net.

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