oh no! ford has fuel efficient cars that beats the japanese!

[madrchsod]

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/11/19/la-2008-ford-fusion-hybrid-all-the-details-and-press-pictures/

is ford going to build european fords in the usa?...does it depend on the front bumper and air bags?

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB122064537687304741.html


i guess it`s best not to lend them any money...would`t want them to actually succeed.

[Oregone]

1. Lend me a couple million to see if I succeed.

I promise Ill employ people (in Mexico).

[gratuitous]

2. Has Ford dropped its opposition to California's request for a waiver?

Cornered like rats and watched closely even the Big Three American automakers will eventually do something right. But it seems to take the combined, concerted, sustained might of their union labor, state and federal governments for them to do that. When the feds denied California's request for a waiver to enact stricter clean air regulations on cars, where were these manufacturers? Spending a great deal of money to bribe the EPA.

[icnorth]

3. Big Three CEOs Flew Private Jets to Plead for Public Funds

The CEOs of the big three automakers flew to the nation's capital yesterday in private luxurious jets to make their case to Washington that the auto industry is running out of cash and needs $25 billion in taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy.
The CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler may have told Congress that they will likely go out of business without a bailout yet that has not stopped them from traveling in style, not even First Class is good enough.
All three CEOs - Rick Wagoner of GM, Alan Mulally of Ford, and Robert Nardelli of Chrysler - exercised their perks Tuesday by flying in corporate jets to DC. Wagoner flew in GM's $36 million luxury aircraft to tell members of Congress that the company is burning through cash, asking for $10-12 billion for GM alone.


http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/WallStreet/story?id=6285739&page=1

[dysfunctional press]

5. yeah...so what? it's not like they bought those jets this week...

and it's also not like selling those jets would raise the amount of cash they need.

:shrug:

[spoony]

7. The bastards were probably wearing suits too

instead of sackcloth and ashes.

[retread]

22. They could sell them on Ebay like ... oops nevermind. n/t

[Greyhound]

24. It is a matter of propriety, when you go begging in the people's house it's

not a good idea to rub their noses in your wealth.

Looks a lot like Raygun's mythical "welfare queen" driving her brand new Cadillac to pick up her pile of free money.

[dysfunctional press]

30. i really have no problem with it- although if they could have all piled in ONE private jet...

it might have looked a little better, i suppose.

[Greyhound]

33. Yes, it would have and I'm sure some reporter would have hit the ride-share angle. n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Well, their overpaid staff and servents wouldn't fit into their limos.

[ogneopasno]

4. UNPOSSIBLE! Toyota makes cars that run on unicorn farts, and look like an angel designed them!

Kidding. Our focus gets 46 mpg, looks great, and was made by the UAW in the USA. Three for three.

[ContinentalOp]

17. Your focus gets 46mpg? Are you sure?

Those are Prius numbers. I find that hard to believe. The official rating for the Focus is only 24/35 or 28 combined.

[ogneopasno]

28. It's a standard and we only have highway miles.

A Prius would do nothing for us.

[trof]

21. Mine got 26. Traded it for a Prius.

[spoony]

6. I think you have your answer

A lot of people really DON'T want them to succeed. I mean, clearly any business that won't manufacture goods separately for one state and actually has the audacity to use jets it owns deserves to go down, workers be damned. They have this fantasy that killing the big three will leave a magically clean planet where everyone rides bikes to work (jobs they magically get once they lose them at auto plants...).

[gratuitous]

12. The auto makers haven't been good citizens

Not only California, but 16 other states petitioned for Clean Air Act waivers, hoping to do something about air pollution. Instead of being good corporate citizens, automakers maneuvered the Bush administration into blocking those applications for waivers. People are left to breathe dirtier air, thanks to automakers' refusal to be part of the solution. Now the automakers want taxpayers to pony up to save them.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1697442,00.html

Yes, there are many jobs at stake. But that's not the sole measure of a corporation's contribution to society, or at least it shouldn't be. And because there are people who want these large corporations to be better citizens of the society they're part of, it doesn't mean they don't want them to succeed. We're just tired of watching them fail on their own terms; how about trying to succeed on different terms?

[spoony]

13. They were already floundering

You admit they failed on "their own terms" but you somehow think they'd succeed with MORE DIFFICULT terms? How about we get the situation stabilised before we demand the patient run a 5k alright?

[gratuitous]

18. How about we put a string or two on our donation?

I'm afraid I don't see what's wrong with insisting that the automakers drop their opposition to the Clean Air Act waivers, and begin operating as if they want to be good citizens, contributing to the general environmental health of the society they want billions of dollars from. The technology exists and has existed to make cars less polluting, but the automakers have fought against doing that for decades. In the meantime, our air has gotten fouler, more people have endured respiratory illnesses, and some folks have even died. Now they'd like the same people they've poisoned to hand over a lot of money to them. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that they at least promise to be better citizens, and to start acting better.

It's as if someone broke his toe kicking someone else in the ass, and then demands that his victim pay the medical bill without any promise of reform from his ass-kicking ways. I'm compassionate, but I'm not stupid.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. Now, all they have to do is sell them to people who have no money...

and would buy Japanese if they did.

Good luck with that.

[goforit]

10. The proof is in the pudding ford. Put up or shut up!!

[flvegan]

11. I also like the seat material made from recycled goods.

I do hope they keep the price reasonable.

[Initech]

14. Damn, those are nice but they had better be built in Detroit, not in Hermosillo, Mexico.

[ContinentalOp]

15. That Fusion looks pretty cool but I don't see how it beats the Japanese.

The article says that it will get 5 mpg better in the city and 2 mpg better on the highway than the Camry. So that would make it 38/36. The Prius gets 48/45.

How does 10mpg worse than the Prius beat the Japanese? :shrug:

[progressoid]

27. Because they are only comparing it to the similarly sized Camry

They are ignoring the Prius.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2008-11-18-ford-hybrids-toyota_N.htm

Ford says it benchmarked its new Fusion and Mercury Milan Hybrid midsize sedans against the Toyota Camry Hybrid.

The new Fords will get government fuel mileage ratings of at least 39 miles per gallon in city driving, a 6 mpg improvement over the similar-size Camry Hybrid, says Nancy Gioia, Ford's hybrid chief. In highway driving, the Fords should be at least 2 mpg better than Camry.

"What we're going to target is customers who do a lot of city driving, (who) really see the benefit of hybrids," Gioia (JOY-ya) says.

The Ford hybrid also will cruise at up to 47 miles per hour on electric power alone, much faster than rival models. And the engine will shut off more often than in the past to leave the car running only on electric power.

[lumberjack_jeff]

29. Oh, that's right. It's only fair in reverse: when you compare the Prius to a full size pickup.

e.g. "teh detroit sucks! they only build gas hog pickups and Toyota builds Prii!"

[Javaman]

16. Oh no!! and it took them this long to figure that out!!!

:banghead:

[Missy Vixen]

19. We're driving a Focus right now

Our fourteen-year-old Sentra's in the shop. If I were in the market for a new car (when my husband gets another job, and things settle down financially,)I would buy the Focus. It's fun to drive. It's roomy. The ride's nice. It's well-engineered -- in other words, the mirror adjustment's on the door frame, so I don't even have to take my eyes off the road to deal with it.

Even if it is not a hybrid, it's 35 mpg on the freeway. We drive less than 100 miles a week; it's a great car for those who aren't long-haul driving or have a bunch of kids. Plus, at $14k for the base model, it's affordable. Contrast this with the numbers for a new Sentra or a new Civic. Hybrids start at over $25K.

It's unfortunate that it's way more sexy to bail out brokerage firms than companies that bring good, well-paying, union jobs to Americans.

Julie

[pampango]

20. "Even if Ford's European models take off in the U.S., it isn't clear how much profit they might

generate. A car maker's profit margin on cars can be just a few hundred dollars, and Detroit's Big Three have often lost money on their small-car sales." "Moreover, any profit on small cars would be unlikely to offset the impact of declining truck sales. Each full-size pickup and SUV Detroit sells generally generates a pretax profit of about $8,000." Do any of the Big Three know how to make money producing small cars?

The WSJ article said that Ford lost $8.7 billion last quarter. If they get a third of a $25 billion bailout, it will be gone in three months at that rate and that assumes that the economy doesn't get worse than it was last quarter.

[spoony]

25. So they trash them for not making small cars, that they say "people want"

then they trash them for taking risks with...small cars...

Detroit can't win with some people. They WANT the Big 3 to fail.

[pampango]

32. I'm not trashing them for taking risks on small cars.

If I am trashing them, it is for not taking risks to produce small cars years ago and learn how to make money producing them, instead of SUV's and vans. Now they want me to bail them out while they learn to produce small cars with no guarantee that they ever will.

[PM7nj]

23. And they're built in Mexico!

Oh... wait...

[nichomachus]

26. A lot of cars that are sold in Europe

are way more fuel efficient than the exact same model sold in the US. We could have been saving oil for years and the Big Three wouldn't have been losing market share to the Europeans and Japanese.

But, I guess that's all the unions' fault. After all, they were the ones who lobbied Congress to prevent meaningful fuel efficiency standards.

[grace0418]

31. Sadly, it's not fuel economy alone that makes a good car.

If I'm going to spend 15-20,000 dollars on something, I don't want to be fixing every little thing on it within months of driving it off the lot. That was my family's experience with Fords. I've had two Hondas since and never have that problem. My Civic is almost 10 years old and runs like a charm. Basic maintenance is all that's needed. I'm all for buying American but I'm not going to waste my money because the American car-makers have been too busy building monster SUVs for the last decade to put any real effort into more reasonable vehicles.