Jim FarleyCEO of forddoubles down on the company’s strategy for light trucks, vans and emotional vehicles, as well as its policy of partnerships rather than acquisitions.
In an interview with The nation At the automaker’s plant in Pacheco, Argentina, Mr. Farley was asked about his childhood in Buenos Aires, where he was born and lived until age nine while his father ran the local branch of Citibank.
He also spoke about his 17 years at Toyota, where he helped launch the first Yaris in Europe. After joining Ford in 2007, he pushed for Ford to introduce the European-developed Fiesta into the U.S. city car segment, long dominated by Japanese and South Korean vehicles.
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Mr Farley described it as a “spiritual moment for Ford to become a full-line manufacturer, but I learned so much from it because perhaps that was a mistake” because Ford’s “costs were not competitive with Toyota and Hyundai/Kia”.
As in Latin America and many other parts of the world, Ford wants to be the “Model T company” with a very “democratic” setup, but that makes business “almost impossible.”
This ultimately led the company to focus on work vans, vans, off-road vehicles and emotional vehicles.
The process for this began in North America, where the Focus, Fiesta, Fusion and now Escape have been phased out in favor of the Bronco, Bronco Sport and Ranger, as well as the evergreen F-Series, Transit and Mustang.
In Australia, since local production of the Falcon ended, the company has largely focused on Ranger, Everest, Transit and Mustang, with Fiesta, Focus, Mondeo, Puma, Escape and Endura gradually withdrawn from the market.
The company has also closed factories in South America and Europe and limited its product range to small cars, vans and SUVs/off-roaders. Mr Farley described the process as “very difficult” and said it caused “a lot of pain”.
The CEO claims: “We don’t want to build cars for everyone, we want to build beautiful off-road machines and work vehicles.”
Given the rise of Chinese automakers and the Chinese government’s strategy to “dominate the industry globally by switching to electric vehicles and intelligent vehicles before anyone else,” he believes that “moving forward quickly” is a great advantage.
This led to the company quickly investing in the F-150 Lightning electric car and the Mustang Mach-E SUV and buying and later closing Argo AI, a startup that develops self-driving vehicles.
He admitted that while the company had “made mistakes,” it had learned a lot from its first generation of electric vehicles. When Ford launches its second generation of electric vehicles in two years – some of them based on the affordable Universal EV Platform announced in August – its competitors will be at least three years behind.
Asked about possible mergers and acquisitions, Mr Farley said: “We’re not looking to buy to grow” but that “intellectual property and affordability partnerships are critical for us”.
“There are many Chinese companies we could buy,” he continued. “But what we found in the past when we bought Mazda and other companies in South Korea, we never really learned from them. I think we’ve learned as a company that it’s better to change as a company than to delegate the future to someone you buy.”
The company has an extensive relationship with Volkswagen. The two companies work together to develop and manufacture the Caddy/Transit Connect, the Transit Custom/Transporter and the Ranger/Amarok. Ford also uses Volkswagen’s MEB-EV architecture for the Explorer and Capri SUVs available in Europe.
Earlier this month, Ford and Renault signed a deal for the French company to produce two affordable electric vehicles for the Blue Oval, likely based on the Renault 5 E-Tech and 4 E-Tech. The two car manufacturers will also work together on a transporter.
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