How did Ford screw this up?

[Bob The Builder]

Ok throughout all history of car sales, vehicles have been offered with a "standard" or "base" model set of features.
The "standard" generally represents the cheapest/easiest to build version, upon which other options are added to, at greater cost/complexity.
For these reasons, it is generally accepted that this will be the top seller, or at least the most built version which can easily be further optioned/upgraded to XLT, Lariat, etc.

The maverick "standard" or "base" model is the HYBRID XL.
Adding ecoboost, AWD, Lariat, etc. costs the customer thousands more dollars. A significant cost increase on a $21k vehicle.

Looking at the numbers for both last year and this year, they got it COMPLETELY BACKWARDS!
They received orders of approximately 2/3 Hybrids and 1/3 EB....exactly what one would expect.
And yet they can produce the exact opposite: approx. 1/3 Hybrid and 2/3 EB

How did they get it so wrong?

If they would just issue a statement saying something like "we cant produce enough batteries to fulfill hybrid demand" it would be more understandable, as that is a part unique to hybrid models. But I haven't seen anything like that, maybe I missed it.
Offering a base model that is 'harder' to build than an optioned one is just backward to me.

Are the escape hybrids also having this same difficulty in being built?
The fact that they can build twice as many EB's leads one to believe that there is some constraint on the hybrid building process. What is it? Why was it offered as the standard?

I absolutely acknowledge that it is a new model and there are lots of production problems to be worked out in the first year or two...but still the standard model should be easiest to produce and where all that problem solving should be focused. I have hard time accepting that they just "underestimated demand" for the hybrid, because they chose the hybrid to be the standard model.....meaning they expected to sell a lot of them. If people want a small 4 cyl gas pickup, there are several other options available.

Enough ranting, any thoughts?

After last year's issues, I went out on a limb and predicted that Ford would make the hybrid at least a 2K option in an effort to limit sales to what they could build. I am no car builder and never worked in the automotive industry whatsoever except at a corner gas station pumping gas and washing the windscreen back in the day. Lousy credentials. LOL. It just seemed like the logical thing to do when demand outstrips supply.

Choosing not to take that route it seems to me that the next logical thing would have been to have the big Ford super computer monitor incoming hybrid orders and automatically reject all orders over a predetermined amount. Instead, it seems like that took a different tack based on overall orders regardless of hybrid or EB.

Once again, more unhappy customers with waiting times measured in years. Not trying to be a jerk are smartass here, but they act as if this is their very first rodeo.

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[groovesocket]

Well ford doesnt call anything a passenger car, so that's meaningless.
"Passenger car" is an EPA/DMV/DOT registration designation, based on primary purpose. "SUV", "Crossover", "Sedan", "Compact", Wagon, "hatchback", etc. Are all body styles OF PASSENGER CARS. look at the registration of any of them

Just arguing semantics at this point. What the poster should have said, and what Ford meant was that "Ford announced far and wide a few years ago [2018] they would no longer build and sell car body style vehicles [sedans, hatchbacks, coupes, etc] to the North American market." The only one left is the Mustang. The rest are SUVs, truck, and van body styles. Here's an article about the announcement:
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/25/f...rth-america-but-the-mustang-and-focus-active/

 

[BradnChristine]

Times change. When I bought my 2017 C-Max Hybrid in January 2018, it had actually sat on the dealer's lot for a FULL 12 months. There was a time when it was obvious that Ford only produced them to up the average mileage of their vehicles. No one particularly even talked about them.

They hardly marketed them after initially getting the intial EPA mileage rating wrong as they pushed to try to compete with a Prius. The fact that a C-Max is much more posh than a Prius, Ford just seemed to focus on getting "2nd place" in the mileage race. The C-Max Hybrid is easily flat-towable, while the Prius is not. The Honda CR-V WAS the tow vehicle of choice for those who didn't want to spend the money for a Jeep, until Honda declared it unsuitable after 2014.

No ad came from Ford saying "Hey everyone, we have a light, comfortable vehicle to tow that gets far better mileage than the now untowable CR-V". But no, they made no such ads. A person had to dig deep into the Ford manual to see that it was a great, lightweight choice to tow behind a motorhome. Ford ended its production after having made them from 2013-2018, having a difficult time selling them.

Ford seemed to think no one wanted a hybrid...I think they just failed to find their customers. Now there is enough buzz to let people know that the Maverick Hybrid IS towable, and is even a better choice than a C-Max because it carries the same number of people AND has a pickup bed. As usual, Ford ignored the sector of RVs towing vehicles...so the demand may have surprised them.

 

[NJ Pinelands]

For companies that have been around for 20 minutes, like Tesla, Bollinger, Polestar, Fisker, etc., you could excuse how this has been so badly bungled. Ford has been around for over 100 years. More than not knowing what they are doing, what has turned me off is they intentionally lied to us in August about September builds .

 

[APD]

Does anybody know how many maverick hybrid batteries they could build with one Lightning Pro Ext?

Zero. Different battery chemistry, and the manufacturing size/shape/configuration is specific to each vehicle.
But in terms of capacity, the Lightning is 98Kwh vs 1.1Kwh for the mav, so essentially 90x the available power.

 

[Old Ranchero]

Not sure what you mean as there are plenty of ford passenger cars available. I know that they consider the F150 to be flagship, and that has been their focus over the years, but they have not eliminated passengers cars.
Order mix = what people want
Demographic sales figures = what people can actually buy (cant buy a vehicle that isnt produced)


No, but 2/3 of people do


Agreed at the maverick price point....which is why they should have expected high demand, and not made the base model something they dont have the ability to produce


Yes just noticed this....which is an appropriate reaction to the situation where they oversold something they couldn't produce, and is in agreement with the point I made. By doing this they are essentially making the EB 2wd the standard model, not an optional upgrade.


From Ford's perspective, yes, they created a unique vehicle with high demand. Are you saying Ford doesn't wish it could better meet customer demand for Hybrids and they are perfectly happy with this scenario? Nobody believes that.

But from a customer's perspective it is pretty bad, they are selling lottery tickets, not vehicles.

So you weren't really interested in other people's thoughts- unless they agreed with yours. Much easier to keep repeating your own position as standard rebuttal. Got it. Adios

 

[Old Ranchero]

Just arguing semantics at this point. What the poster should have said, and what Ford meant was that "Ford announced far and wide a few years ago [2018] they would no longer build and sell car body style vehicles [sedans, hatchbacks, coupes, etc] to the North American market." The only one left is the Mustang. The rest are SUVs, truck, and van body styles. Here's an article about the announcement:
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/25/f...rth-america-but-the-mustang-and-focus-active/

Yeah I thought that point was self-explanatory and didn't expect someone most interested in splitting hairs to "win" his flawed argument. Cleanup on Aisle 6!

 

[APD]

So you weren't really interested in other people's thoughts- unless they agreed with yours. Much easier to keep repeating your own position as standard rebuttal. Got it. Adios

Discussions usually take the form of Point, then counter point. I stated that I agreed with you on some points, and also mentioned points that I disagreed. That's how discussions work. Did you not read it? You are the one leaving because I disagreed.

 

[APD]

Yeah I thought that point was self-explanatory and didn't expect someone most interested in splitting hairs to "win" his flawed argument. Cleanup on Aisle 6!

All I said was "NOT SURE WHAT YOU MEAN", I just had a different idea of what "PASSENGER CAR" means. Not accusing him of being stupid or wrong. Man the internet....if this was a face-to-face it would have been clear

 

[gte105u]

OP has a set of opinions which they decided to pretend are facts. Then they expect Ford's build and sales models to match. When people make these sort of assumptions is easy to get disappointed. Clearly Ford doesn't feel that building most number of the least expensive trim and engine makes sense. Doesn't mean they got it wrong, simply different goals from what OP thinks they should do.

 

[Shay]

What a car company will always choose to build the most of is the most expensive and highest profit model. They don't make money building more of the cheaper ones. Nothing got "screwed up", it's the business plan.

 

[Saul T Knutz]

Hmmm...sounds like a loaded Lariat hybrid might have the best chance of getting built rather than a XL or XLT hybrid for the 23 model year...I guess we'll see

 

[PlantMan]

Corporate financial people love to see healthy backlogs. The best way for the Maverick program office to demonstrate that they need more Ford resources is to have a solid backlog of unmeetable orders. The factory was upgraded recently to build ~320K vehicles a year, but that capacity is limited by parts and labor and I suspect that labor is less of an issue than it would be in the US.
The dealer network is powerful, so Ford is not just at liberty to build the most profitable vehicles. They have to use some method of allocation to achieve fairness.

 

[2022EOW]

Because they can’t get all the supplies they need, like many other products. Why is this so hard to understand. So tired of how wrong Ford is. Do you really think they don’t want to build and sell these vehicles? SMFH

 

[CRM]

Ok throughout all history of car sales, vehicles have been offered with a "standard" or "base" model set of features.
The "standard" generally represents the cheapest/easiest to build version, upon which other options are added to, at greater cost/complexity.
For these reasons, it is generally accepted that this will be the top seller, or at least the most built version which can easily be further optioned/upgraded to XLT, Lariat, etc.

The maverick "standard" or "base" model is the HYBRID XL.
Adding ecoboost, AWD, Lariat, etc. costs the customer thousands more dollars. A significant cost increase on a $21k vehicle.

Looking at the numbers for both last year and this year, they got it COMPLETELY BACKWARDS!
They received orders of approximately 2/3 Hybrids and 1/3 EB....exactly what one would expect.
And yet they can produce the exact opposite: approx. 1/3 Hybrid and 2/3 EB

How did they get it so wrong?

If they would just issue a statement saying something like "we cant produce enough batteries to fulfill hybrid demand" it would be more understandable, as that is a part unique to hybrid models. But I haven't seen anything like that, maybe I missed it.
Offering a base model that is 'harder' to build than an optioned one is just backward to me.

Are the escape hybrids also having this same difficulty in being built?
The fact that they can build twice as many EB's leads one to believe that there is some constraint on the hybrid building process. What is it? Why was it offered as the standard?

I absolutely acknowledge that it is a new model and there are lots of production problems to be worked out in the first year or two...but still the standard model should be easiest to produce and where all that problem solving should be focused. I have hard time accepting that they just "underestimated demand" for the hybrid, because they chose the hybrid to be the standard model.....meaning they expected to sell a lot of them. If people want a small 4 cyl gas pickup, there are several other options available.

Enough ranting, any thoughts?

Ford should have launched the Maverick with the ecoboost to get things rolling. The hybrid should have been a later release date to deal with the supply issues.

Ford put the cart before the horse IMHO.

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