November 2015: Ford Motor Company

[William Maley]

STRONG F-SERIES, VAN DEMAND BOOSTS TRUCK SALES TO BEST NOVEMBER SINCE 2007; NEW PRODUCTS GROW YEAR-TO-DATE SALES

• Ford Motor Company U.S. sales of 187,794 vehicles, up slightly at 0.4 percent versus last November 
• F-Series retail sales increase 16 percent, driving total F-Series sales to a 10 percent gain, with commercial vans up 59 percent; best November Ford Truck performance in eight years
• All-new Edge sales up 6 percent; new Explorer up 1 percent on strong demand for new high-end Platinum series

DEARBORN, Mich., Dec. 1, 2015 – Ford Motor Company November U.S. sales totaled 187,794 vehicles, up slightly at 0.4 percent compared to a year ago.

 

Through November, overall Ford sales are up 5 percent versus the same period a year ago.

 

Ford’s lower incentive spending and strong model series mix in November boosted average transaction prices $3,800 versus year-ago levels – the largest gain among any major automaker. Ford cars, SUVs and trucks all delivered higher transaction prices.

 

“We saw strong customer demand for our cars and SUVs with the latest technology and sold a very rich mix in November,” said Mark LaNeve, Ford vice president, U.S. Marketing, Sales and Service. “F-Series and commercial vans also were very strong, with an 18 percent gain for the month and our best November sales performance for Ford Trucks in eight years.”

 

F-Series sales totaled 65,192 trucks in November, with retail sales increasing 16 percent and a 10 percent total F-Series gain.

 

Ford commercial van sales increased 59 percent, with 17,815 vehicles sold last month. November’s van performance marked Ford’s best November sales month since 1984. The all-new Transit sales totaled 9,584, almost doubling year-ago sales. Transit Connect sales of 4,237 vans reached best-ever November sales, a 94 percent increase.

 

All-new Edge delivered a 6 percent increase versus a year ago, with 8,137 vehicles sold. Ford’s new Explorer sales gained 1 percent last month, with 15,141 SUVs sold, marking its best November since 2004.

 

[Guest Wings4Life(BANNED)]

Pretty much flat across the board for most.

I guess renaming their end of year sale has more to do with the industry than just Ford.

 

And yeah, Mustang pummeled camaro yet again

[El Kabong]

I'm a bit shocked that you would bring up the Mustang. It's month-over-month sales drop is the second-largest in Ford's portfolio (and for the purposes of your dig at the Camaro, far worse relative to it as well).

But as long as you brought it up, I will point out that it appears to prove the point many of us have made about the car: the me-first crowd and rental fleets appear to be saturated now, so I would expect to see the car settle back to previous-gen sales levels. Given that the platform is brand new and standalone, I'm not sure this is necessarily a good thing.

The fact that Ford has sold over 100,000 less passenger trucks than GM is also a worrying sign for Dearborn.

[Drew Dowdell]

Pretty much flat across the board for most.

I guess renaming their end of year sale has more to do with the industry than just Ford.

 

And yeah, Mustang pummeled camaro yet again

 

 

           

 

The Camaro has been winding down substantially over the last few months as they lead into the new model.  The first Alpha Camaros just got delivered in the past 2 weeks.   

 

I heard the Mustang outran grandpa on his hover round too!!

[smk4565]

I am surprised Lincoln sales were down.  I was under the impression that they were the hottest and fastest growing luxury brand.    The MKS topped 500 units, the friends and family pricing must have caused a surge of buyers.

[El Kabong]

What's even more troubling is that Lincoln currently has twice as many entries in the SUV/CUV segments as Cadillac, but still can't catch them.

Statistically speaking, you will be almost as likely to see a 2015 Corvette on the road as either of Lincoln's sedans from the same model year.

[ccap41]

The fact that Ford has sold over 100,000 less passenger trucks than GM is also a worrying sign for Dearborn.

Does anybody know what difference in costs for making both the GM twins vs the F150 or Ram?

[Drew Dowdell]

Per unit costs are likely the lowest for GM at the moment because they have more vehicles to spread the costs over. Ram doesn't have any SUV to share the truck parts with and the Ford F-150 is quite different from the SUVs at the moment, so component cost sharing there would be lower.

This could very well change in the future as the FoMoCo SUVs switch over because they have fewer brands to maintain, but I imagine the additional parts cost (not the marketing cost) of producing a GMC is very very low.

[Guest Wings4Life(BANNED)]

Can't wait to see a Ranger or Bronco concept.  That will really generate some buzz.  

 

And Mark Fields barely gets any press I noticed.  Look at all the impressive product driven changes that man has already gave us, not to mention saving Lincoln for what will easily be an impressive rebound next year.  Shoot, Alan got a ton of press out of bringing back the Taurus name.  Yet we will be getting a Conti, GT, Ranger, Bronco, Ford Performance brand, extensive aluminum on a large scale, etc.

 

And the D6 derived products should be impressive as well, given their complete flexibility, and I understand that Mark pushed hard for this whole approach.

 

 

Mark is on the mark.

 

And lets not forget the record profits Ford is seeing. Also impressive.

Edited December 2, 2015 by Wings4Life

[Drew Dowdell]

Can't wait to see a Ranger or Bronco concept.  That will really generate some buzz.  

 

And Mark Fields barely gets any press I noticed.  Look at all the impressive product driven changes that man has already gave us, not to mention saving Lincoln for what will easily be an impressive rebound next year.  Shoot, Alan got a ton of press out of bringing back the Taurus name.  Yet we will be getting a Conti, GT, Ranger, Bronco, Ford Performance brand, extensive aluminum on a large scale, etc.

 

And the D6 derived products should be impressive as well, given their complete flexibility, and I understand that Mark pushed hard for this whole approach.

 

 

Mark is on the mark.

 

uh... you've said it yourself that product planning is years if not decades out.  Mark has been at the helm since July 1, 2014... or almost 18 months.  He's barely warmed his chair up much less made any substantial product changes that we'll see in the next 2 years.  Everything you mentioned would have needed to be at least in the works before he got to the corner office. 

[ccap41]

Per unit costs are likely the lowest for GM at the moment because they have more vehicles to spread the costs over. Ram doesn't have any SUV to share the truck parts with and the Ford F-150 is quite different from the SUVs at the moment, so component cost sharing there would be lower.

This could very well change in the future as the FoMoCo SUVs switch over because they have fewer brands to maintain, but I imagine the additional parts cost (not the marketing cost) of producing a GMC is very very low.

I guess I've just been curious for awhile now on what it costs to build one Silverado, one Sierra, and two F150's and two Rams. I ask because obviously there are pieces on the GM twins that are and are not shared(cosmetic). And seeing 1,000,000 sales of the GM twins split across two vehicles has to cost more for those extra pieces made but I have absolutely no clue how much it costs to reengineer and produce mostly just cosmetic pieces.

[FordCosworth]

695,000 F Series YTD

114,000 Mustangs YTD

Nice!

[Guest Wings4Life(BANNED)]

Mark had plenty of input and influence many months, if not years before Alan left.  

And again, he saved Lincoln, so I think it's safe to say that Black Label and Conti and AViator and Alum Navi, etc. are all his doing.

Bringing back Ranger and Bronco are also all him.

 

Not sure about the GT or Ford Performance, but I would bet my profit sharing check that he was the main cheerleader.

 

Don't you dare give Alan an ounce more credit than he deserves

695,000 F Series YTD

114,000 Mustangs YTD

Nice!

 

I wonder what Alum SD will do for F series sales next year.  

 

http://cars.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b3c669e201b7c7d2d2bc970b-pi]/img]

Edited December 2, 2015 by Wings4Life

[Drew Dowdell]

 

Per unit costs are likely the lowest for GM at the moment because they have more vehicles to spread the costs over. Ram doesn't have any SUV to share the truck parts with and the Ford F-150 is quite different from the SUVs at the moment, so component cost sharing there would be lower.

This could very well change in the future as the FoMoCo SUVs switch over because they have fewer brands to maintain, but I imagine the additional parts cost (not the marketing cost) of producing a GMC is very very low.

I guess I've just been curious for awhile now on what it costs to build one Silverado, one Sierra, and two F150's and two Rams. I ask because obviously there are pieces on the GM twins that are and are not shared(cosmetic). And seeing 1,000,000 sales of the GM twins split across two vehicles has to cost more for those extra pieces made but I have absolutely no clue how much it costs to reengineer and produce mostly just cosmetic pieces.

 

 

The split for GM is more than just Silverado and Sierra though, there's the Suburban, Tahoe, Yukon, Yukon XL, and Escalade also.  The trim pieces are largely superficial to the rest of the vehicle between Chevy and GMC, though GMC is using more upscale materials on the higher end models.

 

But all of the mechanical bits that you don't see can get shared. master cylinders, power steering pumps, door switch actuators, drive shafts and rear differentials... by being on the same platforms, the GM can share a lot of that stuff that doesn't matter if it is the same.   At the moment, Ford doesn't have that advantage due to not sharing as many parts with the SUVs, nor do they have the sales volumes in the SUV side of things.  

[smk4565]

What is funny is when brands want to bring back old names, in this case Aviator, Continental, Bronco, and Ranger.  But why did they dump all those products in the first place?  If Continental was such a good name why did they kill the name for MKZ and MKS?  Why did the Taurus name plate die for Five Hundred?  Are we to get excited if Chevy brings back the Cavalier or Buick brings back the LeSabre?

 

I personally don't like the MK-blank names or CT-number names that Lincoln and Cadillac have gone to, I think they should have stuck with the word names and the history.  But it goes to show the inconsistent product planning and marketing that these brands have, and it is puts them in the position they are in.  Consistent products like Accord and Camry build that reputation and sell well over time.

[Drew Dowdell]

I don't mind at all Lincoln correcting the naming snafu.

 

I just have to sit and wait till Johan retires before they'll fix the same thing at Cadillac

[Suaviloquent]

Ford did not do well in November.

 

Mustang sales being down is a bit off. I would think the buzz created by the GT350 would mean more people would come in to check it out, and possibly leave in a lesser model due to sticker shock of inflated prices above MSRP....

 

A lot of the sales losses were buoyed by the dominance of the Ford vans.

 

Like I said earlier about Lincoln... the MKC is losing steam because it just doesn't do enough things that are different and at the same time vastly superior to its Ford counter-part. It doesn't matter if its a relative bargain in its class, when you can sweeten the bargain by just getting the Ford. And speaking of bargain, why would the Escape be down?

 

And the Edge just being up a few points?

 

This was not a good showing by Ford. And seriously, with VW losing sales, you'd think a the way Ford is positioned in the market that they might get some sales their way...

 

It's not all bad, Ford like many others have already exceeded previous year sales. But this isn't the running finish that Ford wanted.

[Guest Wings4Life(BANNED)]

Behind the Numbers with Erich Merkle: November, 2015 Why not more? That might be the question you’re asking after seeing a gain of 0.4 percent over last year. The overall industry was a bit stronger, showing about a 2 percent gain. Why didn’t our U.S. sales increase more? There are two basic parts to the sales equation in a highly competitive industry like automotive. The first is share, and the second is revenue. Similar to a teeter totter, you look for balance. So while our sales lagged slightly behind that of the industry, our average transaction prices (revenue) on a per-vehicle basis for our entire lineup of cars, trucks and SUVs were up $3,800 over a year ago. Great news! Not only is it the biggest increase among any major automaker, but it also shines a bright spotlight on our new products. As I mentioned in last month’s column, a well-executed new product generally commands a higher price point, as it is something people want and they perceive it to be of higher value. If you look across the Ford portfolio, trucks really stole the show in November. Combined sales of F-Series and commercial van sales were very strong with an 18 percent gain for the month, marking our best November sales performance for trucks and vans in eight years. The Friends & Neighbors promotion offered to consumers throughout November played out better on the truck side of the business than it did with cars. F-Series sales charged forward with an increase of 10 percent over last year, with retail sales up 16 percent. F-150 had its best-ever sales for the month of November. We will continue to get better volume with F-Series as we continue to fill more fleet orders. Sales of our commercial vans have been robust all year, and November was no exception. Our commercial van sales increased 59 percent, marking the best November sales performance since 1984. Most of you by now probably have come to expect… what was Merkle doing in 1984? My mode of transportation was yellow – a school bus – and I was listening Duran Duran. Getting back to vans, Transit volumes almost doubled compared to last year and Transit Connect set a November record with sales up 94 percent. Through November, our SUVs had their best sales performance since 2003. There were a couple of standouts in November. Sales of the new Explorer increased 1 percent with 15,141 vehicles sold, marking its best November since 2004. And the all-new Edge delivered a 6 percent increase over a year ago. Cars. What can I say? It was a difficult month for cars. It is tough segment, as more customers are picking up stakes and moving to SUVs. The start of our holiday sales event should be more favorable for our car sales as we finish out the year in December. With a hot industry, good stock levels and our holiday sales promotion in place we should all be able to look for a good December and a strong finish to the year.

[Guest Wings4Life(BANNED)]

Higher ATP's is a good thing, as long as it is created by premium pricing options.  Raising base MSRP is of course never a good thing.  So with the introduction of more Platinum and Titanium trim models, I am sure that explains the ATP levels. But I wonder how much impact a Platinum Explorer or Edge will have on sales of Lincoln equivalents?  There has to be some impact.  

 

Anyway, as long as profits keep rising, life is good as a Ford investor (and employee).

[El Kabong]

GM cut way back on their fleet sales and yet had a greater increase in overall sales.

That's a big deal.

[Drew Dowdell]

Higher ATP's is a good thing, as long as it is created by premium pricing options. Raising base MSRP is of course never a good thing. So with the introduction of more Platinum and Titanium trim models, I am sure that explains the ATP levels. But I wonder how much impact a Platinum Explorer or Edge will have on sales of Lincoln equivalents? There has to be some impact.

Anyway, as long as profits keep rising, life is good as a Ford investor (and employee).

Why would raising MSRP be a bad thing?

[ocnblu]

I can say something congratulatory:  GO TRANSIT!

[Guest Wings4Life(BANNED)]

 

Higher ATP's is a good thing, as long as it is created by premium pricing options. Raising base MSRP is of course never a good thing. So with the introduction of more Platinum and Titanium trim models, I am sure that explains the ATP levels. But I wonder how much impact a Platinum Explorer or Edge will have on sales of Lincoln equivalents? There has to be some impact.

Anyway, as long as profits keep rising, life is good as a Ford investor (and employee).

Why would raising MSRP be a bad thing?

 

 

Really?

So you like paying more?

 

Or did you just meet your quota for jokes this week

Edited December 3, 2015 by Wings4Life

[Suaviloquent]

 

 

Higher ATP's is a good thing, as long as it is created by premium pricing options. Raising base MSRP is of course never a good thing. So with the introduction of more Platinum and Titanium trim models, I am sure that explains the ATP levels. But I wonder how much impact a Platinum Explorer or Edge will have on sales of Lincoln equivalents? There has to be some impact.

Anyway, as long as profits keep rising, life is good as a Ford investor (and employee).

Why would raising MSRP be a bad thing?

 

 

Really?

So you like paying more?

 

Or did you just meet your quota for jokes this week

 

Well, okay if that's the case...

 

I hope the MKS replacing Continental does not see a base price increase over the MKS.

 

(I've used up my quota too, if you can stomach what the statement above implies)

[El Kabong]

I think the reason he's against raising the MSRP is because if you do that with no corresponding lift in the ATP you just lose face.

[Suaviloquent]

ATP does nothing to tell you the range between the highest and lowest priced units for a specific product.

 

Your base price can go up, and at the same time the ATP can be the same, because you can just get rid of low-end trims that wouldn't sell anyways.

 

There is nothing wrong with raising base prices for a new model generation.

 

Besides, having a higher price of entry in many cases can allow manufacturer to build a base model that is built to a specific content level, not to a price floor. Like how Honda doesn't sell DX trims in the U.S. anymore.

[Drew Dowdell]

Higher ATP's is a good thing, as long as it is created by premium pricing options. Raising base MSRP is of course never a good thing. So with the introduction of more Platinum and Titanium trim models, I am sure that explains the ATP levels. But I wonder how much impact a Platinum Explorer or Edge will have on sales of Lincoln equivalents? There has to be some impact.

Anyway, as long as profits keep rising, life is good as a Ford investor (and employee).

Why would raising MSRP be a bad thing?

Really?

So you like paying more?

Or did you just meet your quota for jokes this week

Clearly I am speaking of it in terms of Ford's financial health.

[Guest Wings4Life(BANNED)]

 

 

 

Higher ATP's is a good thing, as long as it is created by premium pricing options. Raising base MSRP is of course never a good thing. So with the introduction of more Platinum and Titanium trim models, I am sure that explains the ATP levels. But I wonder how much impact a Platinum Explorer or Edge will have on sales of Lincoln equivalents? There has to be some impact.

Anyway, as long as profits keep rising, life is good as a Ford investor (and employee).

Why would raising MSRP be a bad thing?

Really?

So you like paying more?

Or did you just meet your quota for jokes this week

Clearly I am speaking of it in terms of Ford's financial health.

 

Yeah but, you responded to my original remarks where I was clear that as a customer, I want increases in ATP to come from premium trim levels, not base MSRP. 

 

Of course raising prices is good for Ford. I am confused then at why anyone would bring that up.

 

And the continental is an entirely new product.  Pricing there is expected to change.  Again, I was talking about current new products that maintained MSRP, like Mustang, Explorer,  MKX, Edge.....yet all offer more on the top end.

 

Simple concept folks.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Wings4Life