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Originally Posted by bobthebilda
I suppose they wont make any hasty decisions until they see how the first few months of the year pan out. Obviously they have been caught a bit short by the poor sales of Falcon and Ute in January (probably planned for high 2000's sales at the very least). AT least with down days, they can retain the employees, still cut costs, and just see how things pan out.
But you got to admit, in early december, there werent really any obstacles in the way of maintaining normal sales. Now they are faced with depressed conditions in QLD, a 1/3rd of NZ buyers who have bigger things on their mind, and potential buyers who are watching the price of crude oil sky rocketing in the last few days. These things wouldnt be too much of an issue in good times, but coming from a low base, they may be insurmountable.
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They didnt have anything big planned for January.. 2000+ units was never going to happen without LPG or a wagon anymore...
They need LPG tomorrow, and Diesel on Friday to survive. They have the technology but are too affraid to invest in it, because they are simply too far behind the 8 ball... Global V6 has indiscretely killed Falcon, while it may have been inevitable its going to happen sooner then later. They spent too much time with the V6 and neglected the I6 (especially from a Gas perspective), which was common sense when they were going to phase the I6 out for euro 4 compliance.
So what do fleet customers do? Go buy Hybrid Camry's and LPG Berlinas instead. Once you start changing a fleet over to anther brand its hard to go back, especially when your costs start to reduce and you see better resale at auction time. (fixed price servicing on toyota, and a good resale on hybrids for taxi market at auction time!!).
Ford have well and truely made some huge mistakes over the last few years!!