Ford chief: Automaker won't have hybrid engines in half its lineup by 2010

Ford chief: Automaker won't have hybrid engines in half its lineup by 2010
Posted 6/29/2006 9:22 AM ET

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Ford Motor (F) will fall short of its goal of producing 250,000 hybrid vehicles a year by 2010, chief executive Bill Ford says.
The company's top executive announced the goal in September. He said then that gas-electric hybrid engines would be available in half the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury lineup by 2010.

The goal of 250,000 hybrids a year would have been 10 times the number Ford was building at the time.

In an e-mail message to employees Wednesday, he said the company instead would focus on other alternative fuels, according to The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press.

"What I didn't foresee at the time was how rapidly other technologies would evolve," he wrote. "Now, I am convinced that the objective we had set earlier to build capacity for 250,000 hybrids at the end of the decade is too narrow to achieve our larger goals of substantially improving fuel economy and CO2 performance."
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http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2006-06-29-ford_x.htm

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Thursday, June 29, 2006
11:13 AM

Ford Breaks Yet Another Promise to Provide American Consumers with Fuel Efficient Vehicles

Sierra Club Statement by Dan Becker, Director, Global Warming Program

Yesterday, Bill Ford announced in an email to Ford Motor Company employees that Ford was walking away from its promise to produce 250,000 hybrid vehicles annually by the end of the decade. Instead, as Ford also announced yesterday in a letter with GM and DaimlerChrysler to Congress, it intends to focus on doubling its production of flexfuel vehicles.

“We were pleased to applaud Ford when it made a promise to build 250,000 hybrid vehicles annually by 2010. Today we are appalled that Ford is abrogating this promise. Ford is rapidly becoming the automaker that cried wolf. In 2000, Ford promised to increase the fuel economy of its SUVs by 25% over five years; it walked away from that promise in 2003. By swapping out more clean and efficient hybrids for more flexfuel vehicles, Ford is engaging in a classic bait and switch. Even the Bush administration admits that flexfuels run on regular gasoline 99% of the time, since E85 is only available at an infinitesimal .003% of the nation’s gas stations. Instead of taking concrete steps to save consumers money at the pump by giving them efficient hybrids, Ford is saddling consumers with the same gas guzzlers that will run on the same gasoline they have for the past 100 years.

“Ford already has the least efficient fleet of the Big 6 automakers and it can and should do better than simply using clever marketing to disguise its exploitation of the SUV-sized flexfuel vehicle loophole in the CAFE law. This loophole allows Ford and other automakers to make more gas guzzlers than the already weak CAFE law would allow if they simply make a certain number of flexfuel vehicles—even though the vast majority of these vehicles never actually run on E85.
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http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0629-03.htm

it was looking for it's 3rd engine after 4 years.

Never again, hybrid or no hybrid.

...and when it's time to get a new car, it'll be another Toyota. Ford sux. The only Ford I ever owned was a constant source of problems. It was the most unreliable car I'd ever owned. Then, there's the fuel efficiency and hybrid issue...and the fact that Ford and GM still have not gotten up to par on building fuel efficient or hybrid/alternative fuel vehicles.

Far too many problems and repairs. Ford just keeps digging it's own grave.
The rental company told me they just ordered some Japanese cars because renters seemed to all want good mileage.

That way they can both drive of the cliff together.

to support US workers and so on.

Ford & other US auto makers actively destroyed this goodwill by peddling substandard products for decades.

Now people have no compunction at buying foreign cars. They really are much better quality and more efficient.

US car companies have failed massively due to typically short-sighted corporate management.

This is just their latest failure.

Toyota, Honda, Subaru, and Hyundai all have lots of US production capability. It blurs the line between 'foreign' and 'domestic'. Ford is expanding its Mexican production.

However...much of the design work and high paying, highly educated jobs are kept in Japan/Korea.

HA!

God what a bunch of idiots. I have NO sympathy for Ford, GM, et al. They made their Hummer/SUV/gaz-guzzling beds and they can die in them.

But the best car I've driven recently was a compact Chevy. It felt very safe and handled well.

or do they use scab labor for assembly?

My understanding is all that it takes is a sensor and ECU programming in modern fuel injected IC's, about $125. Since cars sold today have to be ethanol compatible, fuel system materials are not a problem.

As the NRDC states, they are simply gaming the politicians.

available in your area. Only 1% of flex fuel vehicles actually use a fuel other than gasoline, but the auto companies love to make them because it is assumed the vehicle will be used 50% of the time with flex fuels when calculating mpg. This makes their fleet average higher than the true mpg, so there is no incentive to improve mpg in their vehicles.

on cars.

The one thing positive I have to say about Fords is that they can turn on a dime...

All the Toyota's I own aren't so hot in that department...but otherwise they are great cars.


I have owned one Ford ..a great little Ford Escort wagon and I gave it to Goodwill when she went over the 140,000 mile mark.