No offense, but unlike you, I do not feel like they need to provide any convincing reasons to eliminate some of their products. They are a for-profit corporation and they feel there is more money to be made by moving away from sedans and small cars. They're decision. I'm fine with it.

Also, gas prices have already come back up (I paid $4 this week) and yet, buyers are not flocking back to cars and ditching their SUVs/CUVs.

 

I don't think people are going to switch from Ford cross overs to small Ford cars. I think Ford knows this. I think Ford knows people will move to Toyota or Honda cars is gas prices starts to affect consumer buying decisions.

 

In addition to that, the current crop of SUVs and CUVs just aren't that bad for mileage anymore. The most efficient vehicle in my garage is my Highlander, which uses about half as much gas as my sedan (GS). All of those CR-Vs, RAV4s, CX-5s, etc. are not bad on gas.

 

Don't get me wrong....I greatly respect your opinion (always have) But, the way I see it, if these companies want our money spent on their new vehicles, privately-owned/for-profit or not, they have to treat us like we have at least half a brain. Not only that, but laying thousands upon thousands of people doesn't help their PR any.

Some them might not be able to afford to....they are stuck in lease-contracts and/or already in over their heads in SUV payments.

 

Yes, I do agree with you that the new cross overs are better than before.

 

Here's what a Morgan Stanley analyst says about Ford's decision to make the salaried job cuts.

Ford is “being proactive to extract profit from cost savings as global production slows and vehicle mix probably doesn’t have much further to run,” Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in a note.

The move is simply one of the things big car makers will have to contemplate in a new world in the industry, Jonas said.

“Auto companies globally are contemplating life where global production has greater downside risk than upside,” Jonas wrote. “Particularly as we see the impact of China (which accounted for 80 percent of the industry’s unit volume growth since 2007) not participating in the growth anymore.”

 

Appreciate that, thanks.

Honestly, if I were to buy a Ford, it'd be an SUV or truck anyway. But I'm not really in the market.

And as I've mentioned before, I am probably a bit more numb to mass layoffs than many, as our last round of layoffs here was over 20k people. Not to lack compassion for those folks, but to understand that it's just part of an engineering career these days.

 

This seems logical. But why are we not seeing similar layoffs at Toyota or Honda for their engineers?

 

OK, folks, I'll shut up now. I've posted a lot in this thread, and I'm sure some may disagree. Let them have some responses, if they want.

 

I don't know. It might have something to do with Toyota and Honda current staffing levels. Maybe they are lower than Ford's. Not sure though.

 

Seems to me, Toyota and Honda find ways to whether the storm better than GM or Ford. Different ways of managing I guess. I think these layoffs have a lot to do with not producing in the US/Can and finding ways not allocate product to North American plants.

 

Many (if not most) of the Ford layoffs are in Europe where the market is not very good for them. Even Honda is feeling the pinch and are closing a plant in the UK. One of the big issues at Ford is their management structure where the average "manager" has only 5 people reporting to him. Part of this restructuring is to reduce the management bloat.

 

According to the article, Ford (and GM) are cutting back staff now so that they will have the money to invest in developing electric and autonomous vehicles.

As to why Toyota and Honda are not cutting back staff, it may be a difference in culture. North American companies are more likely to reduce staff, while Japanese companies do not, keeping staff on until the problem is over.

My question about cutbacks of white collar staff, including engineers, is this: If Ford and GM want to invest in developing new types of vehicles -- electric and autonomous vehicles -- do they not need engineers to design these new vehicles? What happens if they find that they lost the engineers and other professional staff they need in the cutbacks?

 

This EV push by the governments in EU, US etc will kill 50% of the existing automakers.

Its completely rediculuous to think that car companies can go from mass production of ICE to 100% EV.
The idea is on same level of lunacy as eliminating all the Glass buildings in Manhattan for greater efficiency as our wonderful mayor wants to do lol.

 

It will be interesting to see what this does to Testa's future. Not long ago, a number of people were predicting their bankruptcy....but, of course, EVs is all they produce. They still need too recognize, though, that they bit off more than they could chew wth all of these company-owned facilities.

Ford has an all-electric Focus, but that will do them no good if they drop it along with all the other Focus models.


Your wonderful mayor is now talking about running for President. Your previous mayor, Bloomberg, considered it, but then decided no.