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Ford and VW partnership


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What’s everyone’s opinion on the partnership with VW? I know this was discussed a while back. Over the weekend, I decided to play on Netflix and found the show “dirty money” and it was about the VW emissions scandal. We all know Ford has a history, like a lot of big corporations, of being greedy and having a money over morals mindset. However, I’m not sure VW is a great parter. Today this showed up 

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/foreign/2019/04/15/volkswagen-fraud-ceo-charges/39346031/

Edited by fordtech1
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Volkswagen carried out a software update costing 23 million euros in 2014 in an attempt to cover up the true reason for the elevated pollution emissions during regular driving

Volkswagen has paid more than 27 billion euros (currently $31 billion) in fines and civil settlements with authorities and car owners in the months and years since being caught.

Volkswagen says it plans to spend 30 billion euros to develop electric vehicles by 2023.

Reading these massive amounts of money pouring out of VW,  I find it amazing they can still operate with any confidence. But compared to the announced amounts Ford is spending on future stuff, makes Ford look like a small player. So the VW friendship could be very lop-sided. Also Ford N.A and FoE have always had big difficulties working together with the cultural differences and opinions, how the hell are they going to get anything done with one of the biggest, hard headed, arrogant companies on the face of the earth?

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Relatively minor stuff so far, the rumored big cooperative projects, have yet to happen.  Developing EV's and AV's requires a great deal of $$$$.  VW going in on Argo will be big, if it happens.  Here are Bill Ford's thoughts:

"We fit together geographically really well, product line-wise, we fit together well," Bill Ford, the great-grandson of founder Henry Ford, said Tuesday at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston. "We both came to the same realization that as big as our balance sheets are, no company can do this alone."  

"We're really in the early days of exploring what the possibilities could be," Ford said. "We have some clear ideas of where we want to go with it and they do, too."

https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/bill-ford-we-fit-together-vw?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20190313&utm_content=article7-headline

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Bill Ford's comment about "no company can do this alone" is right on. With the automotive industry now undergoing the biggest transformation in its history as electrification and autonomous vehicles and platforms start becoming common, Ford doesn't have a choice but to find a partner. Like Bill Ford said, VW is a good fit.

The big incumbent automakers globally all have some history of being greedy and screwing over their customers, employees, shareholders, and the general public. Hopefully the partnership between Ford and VW will help both companies rebuild trust they desperately need. 

Edited by rperez817
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Would VW  have been so willing to share development  if hadn't suffered a $30 billion nose bleed from dieselgate...

XW is  outsource Amarok and Transporter vans to Ford saving a few billion on development costs and \ Ford is also keen to pick up the extra production and sales VW. 

The big carrot here for Ford is cutting its own development costs on AV and EV by partnering with VW who I suspect is playing the long game of reducing its own costs....electrification is more important to VW's home European market where the group's sales are around four times bigger than Ford Europe. America will be much slower adopting BEVs but it is coming and VW is positioning itself now as a supplier and asking Ford to get on board...

The question is whether Ford is buying a ticket on the right bus....

Edited by jpd80
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Maybe they can build halftracks again and our guys can find parts stamped fomoco....that was a real morale booster....oh hell they can email birfday cards again like they use to and not have to wait for the ship to cross.........mah feels here is this is a stupid idea....they were better off with mazda

Edited by snooter
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On ‎4‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 2:30 PM, jpd80 said:

America will be much slower adopting BEVs but it is coming and VW is positioning itself now as a supplier and asking Ford to get on board...

It will happen here just based on the moves of California and states that adopt their emissions standards. Colorado is the latest state to adopt them and Illinois, Minnesota and Georgia are currently considering it. The development costs of vehicles and markets they are sold in by default means those vehicles will be sold here as part of the portfolio to recover costs that for the most part were paid for in US dollars. Also at the end of it VW and Hyundai/Kia are all that is really left to tie up with, that fit with Ford and their world wide product/sales market positions.  Even though there will be issue with VW, it is less cultural difference than what Hyundai/Kia would bring and going it alone isn't really an option.

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1 hour ago, Joe771476 said:

Who wants to take a trip to Europe on a Boeing 737 MAX?  I'll buy the tickets for ya!!

Thanks for the offer Joe771476 sir. Which airlines have been doing trans Atlantic flights using 737 MAX? I know Norwegian Air Shuttle had flights between New York Stewart International Airport and Edinburgh Airport using that aircraft, but those are currently grounded.

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On 4/16/2019 at 1:09 PM, rperez817 said:

Bill Ford's comment about "no company can do this alone" is right on. With the automotive industry now undergoing the biggest transformation in its history as electrification and autonomous vehicles and platforms start becoming common, Ford doesn't have a choice but to find a partner. Like Bill Ford said, VW is a good fit.

The big incumbent automakers globally all have some history of being greedy and screwing over their customers, employees, shareholders, and the general public. Hopefully the partnership between Ford and VW will help both companies rebuild trust they desperately need. 

You really would put Ford in the same boat as VW in terms of "screwing over customers, employees....etc"??  Yeah Pinto gas tanks were an issue-bad engineering.   Explorers and  Firestone tires?  In my book Ford should not have been the goat in that deal and Jac screwed that up-can't think of a better guy to blame.  Employees?  what?  Typical hard nosed bargaining in particular when you are battling the non-union Japanese, Koreans etc. that are building in this country.  Aside from the usual gripes my bet is most Ford employees are happy to be where they are-even the new hires.

The VW issue IMO is strictly one of an arrogant corporate culture that thought they could get away with.

Hope it works....just remember Chamberlain's triumphant return to GB after he..."secured peace for out time".

Yeah I know-that was 80 years ago-things have changed.

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On 4/19/2019 at 4:14 AM, 630land said:

Someone on the 'truth about cars' site was saying "Golf can be a new Focus, Jetta a new Fusion!".

Keep dreaming fan boy.

 

Not entirely correct but I don’t completely trust Ford management to not outsource next gen small cars.

something like that sounds great to accounting but dreadful to fans and techs that have to work on them 

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24 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

Not entirely correct but I don’t completely trust Ford management to not outsource next gen small cars.

something like that sounds great to accounting but dreadful to fans and techs that have to work on them 

All I can picture is another villager/Nissan quest. No support.  It was difficult enough in the early 90s with Mazda engine controls in probes. Plus you would open ford box and get a Mazda box inside plus twice the price. 

However as long as its not as bad as Chrysler crossfire. Talk about a mutt. Dodge didn’t want to support it. Mercedes was too snooty to help even though it was a old SLK.

I can see it now. Kraut can fusions with torx plus bolts and wiring diagrams with German color abbreviations. Ugh! 

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  • 10 months later...
2 hours ago, akirby said:

 

Looks like a lifted Flex to me.

LOL, drilling for the nerve.,...,

 

 that journo still doesn't realise that next gen Amarok is based on Ranger, not the other way round.

Or am I being overly sensitive and reading more than what was really said

Edited by jpd80
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20 hours ago, passis said:

It just confirms that VW and Ford need each other in Europe, the sharing arrangements between the two make a lot of sense

by saving both companies billions in unnecessary duplication of mostly unseen engineering.

 

Mind you, I wonder if financial losses from covid-19 kills off buyer interest with higher priced BEVs

for a year or so.

Edited by jpd80
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1 hour ago, 7Mary3 said:

My take is VW does not need anyone in Europe, and would like to have Ford's European operations too. 

I think VW's business model for EVs in Europe rely on large scales. So large I assume they realized they can't make the numbers work alone (not even with their many brands only). I guess that's why they decided to share part of their technology with a company that already has that knowledge, such as Ford (and not FCA, e.g.)

Edited by passis
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