Ford's latest tactic: free gas cards

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=06a6cab9a182e48c
Ford Motor Co. Thursday began offering zero-percent financing and a $1,000 gasoline debit card to new-vehicle buyers.

The initiative, which comes after another grim sales month for the No. 2 U.S. carmaker, runs until the end of July and includes the offer of a pre-paid MasterCard debit card that can be used to purchase up to $1,000 of gas, E-85 or diesel.

Buyers of select trucks and sport utility vehicles will be offered cards with $1,100 on it. Alternatively, customers can choose bonus cash of $1,000 which can be taken in cash or applied to the purchase agreement.
more...
How far will $1000 dollars in gas take ya in a Truck???

by producing gas guzzlers, while still attempting to make it acceptable by paying for the gas. Of course it doesn't address the environmental issues, but that was never an issue for them anyway.
Hence their lobbying of Congress to keep them from passing the air emissions laws.
Isn't that special...taking with one hand and giving with the other.

Hey maybe it will become a trend. Fast food giants can offer free gastric bypass and heart surgery with their supersized meals!

duh.

You know, I never understood the point of "get x dollars cash back" offers... why dont you just cut the bloody price down the difference?
Oh, you actually raised the price by 2x that cash back offer, I see :sarcasm::eyes:

would impact dealers' overall profitability.

2 examples:

$20,000 "cost" + 7% = 21,400 - $1000 rebate = $20,400 or $1400 in profit


$12,000 cost - 1,000 + 7% = $20,300 or $1330 in profit

Now $70 per unit may not seem like a lot of money but if you sell 600 cars per year you are looking at gross profit loss on the order of $42,000 (or 1 full time employee).

To the next gas station ? :shrug:

About to the first oil change. That's gone up, too.

4 months worth for an average family. even at 15mpg, that's around 5 months. i can see people being swayed... they used to be swayed by $1k rebates, and i remember much larger ones.

I had to rent a car recently because my Miata was in the shop. The rental agency didn't have any cars left, so they gave me the keys to a brand-new Ford pickup - all of 63 miles on the clock. I was terrified of leaving a ding or dog hair in it, because it was NEW. I was careful and, by my standards, gentle with it.

Well, couple days later I filled it up before I returned it. The thing had averaged 11 miles to the gallon, most of it on the highway.

I couldn't live with such a thing. Can't understand why people living in the suburbs want to commute in these things. Now, if I lived in Wyoming and had to pull a horse trailer, or load the bed with farm tools every day, that would be a different matter. I can even see it as a weekend toy, a giant ATV. But, commuting from Northern Virginia to DC? Please.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5040562.stm

Fuel fears puncture US auto sales

Surging fuel prices have weighed on demand for sports utility vehicles (SUVs)and trucks, cutting into US sales for big name Detroit automakers.

Both General Motors (GM) and Ford have cut production as total May sales fell 16% and 6% respectively. Sales at Chrysler Group also fell 11%.

But Japanese carmaker sales continued to grow as consumers opted for smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles.

Toyota revealed sales surged 12.3% while sales at Honda grew 11.4%.

Meanwhile, overall sales at South Korean carmaker Hyundai rose 5% during the month, despite a sharp drop in SUV and truck sales.

The market share of the so-called Big Three - GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler - sank to 52.9% in May compared with 57.6% a year ago, while Asian carmakers now account for 40.2% of US sales.

:eyes:

Let's bail them out gang!

That's why they cram these oversized gas burners down our throats. GM was bought out in the 1920s as an investment joint venture of Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company with DuPont chemical. Nothing has changed since. See, Social Science Quarterly
Volume 83 Page 726 - September 2002
doi:10.1111/1540-6237.00111
Volume 83 Issue 3
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1540-6237.00111

Elite Interlocks in Three U.S. Sectors: Nonprofit, Corporate, and Government
Gwen Moore1, Sarah Sobieraj2, J. Allen Whitt3, Olga Mayorova4 & Daniel Beaulieu1
This study traces elite interlocks between the economic, political, and civil sectors of the United States in the late 1990s. We assess integration and fragmentation through analyzing patterns of overlap and interaction among influential organizations and leaders in these sectors. Network analyses are conducted with UCINET 5 on the Elite Directors Database, a new data set composed of the directors/trustees for the largest organizations in the business and nonprofit sectors in addition to individuals holding positions on federal advisory committees. The complete data set contains individuals holding 3,976 seats from 100 businesses, 109 nonprofit organizations, and 98 government committees. The network structure reveals substantial linkages between organizations and elites within and across the three sectors. Major corporations and their directors are the best integrated in the intersectoral networks. In spite of the tremendous growth of the nonprofit sector, nonprofit organization linkages fail to offer compelling evidence of elite pluralism in the United States.

I remember wondering where the heck you'd get E85 around here anyways.

GM Pitch: Buyers Get Cheap Gas

GM's gas rebate is intended to help older, slower-selling SUVs like the Hummer H2.

DETROIT — General Motors Corp. this summer will try to grab the attention of buyers in Florida and California with a new, simple pitch that rival carmakers soon may be forced to follow — cheaper gas.

Under the promotion, GM will offer prepaid gas cards to California customers who buy 2006 and 2007 full-size SUVs and Florida buyers who purchase select midsize cars.

The cards — which will cover any amount that a customer pays over $1.99 per gallon until the end of 2007 — are intended to ease the pain at the pump after a recent spike sent prices near $3 per gallon nationwide.

Ford announced a few months back that they were going to "go back to the roots" of what henry ford first envisioned. No, I'm not talking about white supremacy, but an affordable car for the masses.

And this new car was or is to be a hybrid.

Once again, one of the "big 3" drops the ball. This offer is nothing more than the repackaging of moron frists 100 buck rebate.

So after this grand is gone, then what? you are still stuck with a fuel sucker.

I'm now referring to the U.S. as bizarro land because nothing makes sense anymore and what is correct is looked upon as being bad. You know, like the concept of an affordable hybrid car for the masses...Oops, did I just repeat myself?

sigh.