No element is more important to Ford’s plan than accelerating the production of new vehicle customers want and value.
Ford plans to achieve a better vehicle segment mix by recognizing the shift to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, while still maintaining leadership in our areas of traditional strength. Highlights from the section of the plan that address new product development include:
- By increasing car and crossover segment mix from 48 percent to 60 percent in the next four years, Ford will have a balanced and complete portfolio of small, medium and large vehicles in the car, utility and truck segments.
- Ford will continue to build product excellence through leadership in fuel economy, innovation, quality, safety, and leading edge “comfort and convenience” technology. For example, by 2010 half of the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury light duty nameplates will qualify as “Advanced Technology Vehicles” under the Energy Independence and Security Act– increasing to 75 percent in 2011 and over 90 percent in 2014. In fact, Ford will achieve annual fuel savings of 2.5 billion gallons by 2012 model year.
- Ford has made immediate and significant improvements on a wide scale and accelerated electrification, including next generation hybrids and all-electric vehicles.
- On the heels of improving our engineering costs and facilities and tooling costs for a new vehicle by 60 percent and 40 percent, respectively, between 2005 and 2008, Ford continues to make substantial improvements in engineering and investment efficiency facilitated by leveraging the global assets of “One Ford” and a reduction in the number of vehicle platforms, engines, transmissions, and customer offered complexity.
- To ensure profitability of small cars, Ford plans to increase volume of Ford Focus sized vehicles to over 2 million units per year globally, and boost margins by improving revenues and costs.
To read the section on new product development, click here.
