When is Ford Converting Another Plant to Build Mavericks?

[Bamajim]

Oakville is ending Edge production this year. Flint Rock used to make Mustangs. The Escape is rumoured to be ending production soon at Hermasillo. Nobody is buying the Fiesta or Focus that are mostly made in Europe. Fire up the mothballed original Dearborn plant. Volkswagon has purchased the St. Thomas truck plant to make their EV-series battery packs, so do a deal and buy back some capacity. The Escape is also made in Louisville, so they already build vehicles with the correct C2 platform parts. The 2.0 engine originally came from Spain, where they have at least one plant fully idle now. The 2.5 is a Mazda-sourced design, and could be built in any of a half-dozen plants including several in the far east. The Hybrid eCVT is a design sourced from Toyota, and will probably also be built in Oakville at some point. Weird shortages like the trailer hitch or the tonneau cover is just poor parts sourcing, as there are at least a dozen manufacturers in North America alone. The chip shortage is fake - has anyone else looked at the collapsing PC industry lately and how that frees up many millions of chips?
Is that enough, or do you need the other half dozen plants that could also be making Mavericks pretty easily? For the last 25 years, Ford has been putting together "flexible" assemby lines at every plant, that can make many different models on the same line, so it should be pretty easy.

The Mustang is still built at the Flat Rock Michigan plant. The Mach E is made in the Cuautitlan plant. The Escape is made in Louisville Ky

Sponsored

 

[paneubert]

Yeah, that's only 30,000 Mavs, or nowhere near enough to even build the unfulfilled MY23 vehicles in MY24 and maybe even MY25. If they add in dealer stock, fleet, phev, awd hybrids and held-off purchases, they're going to need 10x that much production capacity.

Definitely. They would need to massively expand production if they wanted to fill all customer orders while also supplying a healthy amount for dealer stock.

 

[Maverickman74]

My brother works for Ford and he said that there is a rumor that one of the Louisville plants is going to be getting vehicles to build that Mexico can't keep up with

That is similar to what I heard with moving the BS up there to allow room for Mavericks. Also heard that once EV of PHEV Mavericks or BSs come around they will be built closer to Blue Oval City, once its built.

 

[CuriousGary]

Just looking at the production numbers, it seems like Ford is not going to ever catch up their Maverick production capacity to their outstanding orders. This extreme lack of capacity is especially obvious for the hybrid production. Some people still do not have their 2021 orders built. It feels like multiple levels of management need to be fired for their part in this extreme debacle.
Aside from the ordering process incompetence, Ford have multiple other plants either running below capacity or building end-of-life vehicles. It seems pretty obvious looking in from the outside, that they need to more than double their Maverick production capacity, and if you account for the presumably large number of buyers who have held off ordering because of the production mess, possibly even triple the existing production capacity. I realize that they are adding 80,000 vehicles in Hermasillo in 3 months, but that probably means that about 50,000 of those are Bronco Sport models, not Mavericks. Pushing buyers to frustration with 500-day wait times and forcing a move to a Ranger, Nissan Frontier or Chevy Colorado that don't even fit in a standard garage and get wose gas mileage than the F150 seems to be the wrong move on every front. It looks like finally adding that third shift is going to be totally inadequate to fulfill the order backlog in less than 4 years.
So, the solution is also totally obvious - When is Ford management going to fix the problem and convert at least one underutilized or soon to be idled plant to build Mavericks?

And here i thought my Maverick hybrid was an end-of-life vehicle.

CG,
an old guy, still enjoying the driving experience

 

[fossil]

wonder what portion of Maverick orders were entered simply because it was the new flavor and not an actual need. a couple years from now, or less, the demand will stabilize with what Ford can build in Mexico and they have no reason to produce any where near what another plant could add.

I just don't think there's a multi plant demand there for the long haul. another plant is a 10yr investment whether it's refurbished or ground up new. it's bad business to build more than you can sell.

Ford is actually trying to pump up Maverick demand already with BAP, Tremor and hinting about a ST and to a lesser rumor, Raptor hoping for a 10yr life cycle to cover product development costs.

that's the thing about the auto business, they're hot till they're not, tastes and needs change. the old Ranger was a hot two plant model for a while then finally couldn't keep one plant profitable. now it's been reborn as another half plant deal.

 

[Darnon]

The Escape is rumoured to be ending production soon at Hermasillo.

The Escape isn't built at Hermosillo in the first place.

 

[Crance]

You been around the last 3 years ? Lot's of stuff on what's called "back order". Demanding a MFG build more of what appears to be a "not so profitable" vehicle is definitely on the outside looking in .

Am I wrong in thinking they produced millions of focuses and fiestas? They’re the car version of the Mav and I think both post production now. I think it’s valid that they absolutely stand to profit off building more. Now where the profit margins are for the two vs the mav could be different and very well be their reasoning for sticking with just Hermosillo but increased price theoretically should increase profit…raise the price

 

[OleFordGuy]

If they keep raising the price at the rate they have been going since the initial introduction of the Maverick they'll be getting to the mid-size truck pricing and kill the value proposition of the Maverick. There's a decent size offering of mid-size trucks buyers could choose from. I could see hybrid versions of those mid-size trucks being offered in the near future. Just my opinion.

 

[MakinDoForNow]

My brother works for Ford and he said that there is a rumor that one of the Louisville plants is going to be getting vehicles to build that Mexico can't keep up with

Hey, maybe it will be AWD PLUG IN HYBRID!

 

[Greg_in_GA]

Some random points;

1) With the higher trim levels and options the average selling price of a Maverick is likely close to, if not over, $30K now. Ford would make plenty of money selling Mavericks if they were not having to pay so much for recalls and warranty work.

2) The Maverick is a new truck with lots of recalls that the dealerships have a hard time keeping up with. If they had made 10 times as many mavericks the recall situation would be at least 10 times worse. I would not expect that the production numbers increase dramatically until they get the quality up and stable.

3) Blue Oval City is scheduled to be operational in 2025 so I would expect the factories to have major changes and shifts even with models not directly made at Blue Oval City.

4) Ford is spinning off their electric vehicle models off into a new company which will be better able to manage the dealerships. An affordable electric Maverick could be a game changer for businesses and individuals. A downside to that is that it will cannibalize the sales of Hybrid and Ecoboost Mavericks so they will need to be cautious about expanding production of those. I would not be surprised it the Ecoboost is discontinued as soon as the supply of hybrid parts catches up with demand. There is little reason for the Ecoboost to exist other than that they cannot make enough hybrids.

 

[Hoagus]

I'd be highly surprised if they're not making money. The higher trims and packages are subsidizing the barebones builds, if I were to guess.

They probably make a little money, but if the high ends subsidize the low ends, as you say, it’s not big money like the bigger trucks.

 

[Hoagus]

I can guarantee you if I don't get my 2023 Maverick Hybrid built, I will not reward Ford buy purchasing a different Ford model that I did not want to begin with. Another manufacture will get my Maverick money before Ford.

They are quaking in their collective boots.

 

[AznMav]

Oakville is ending Edge production this year. Flint Rock used to make Mustangs. The Escape is rumoured to be ending production soon at Hermasillo. Nobody is buying the Fiesta or Focus that are mostly made in Europe. Fire up the mothballed original Dearborn plant. Volkswagon has purchased the St. Thomas truck plant to make their EV-series battery packs, so do a deal and buy back some capacity. The Escape is also made in Louisville, so they already build vehicles with the correct C2 platform parts. The 2.0 engine originally came from Spain, where they have at least one plant fully idle now. The 2.5 is a Mazda-sourced design, and could be built in any of a half-dozen plants including several in the far east. The Hybrid eCVT is a design sourced from Toyota, and will probably also be built in Oakville at some point. Weird shortages like the trailer hitch or the tonneau cover is just poor parts sourcing, as there are at least a dozen manufacturers in North America alone. The chip shortage is fake - has anyone else looked at the collapsing PC industry lately and how that frees up many millions of chips?
Is that enough, or do you need the other half dozen plants that could also be making Mavericks pretty easily? For the last 25 years, Ford has been putting together "flexible" assemby lines at every plant, that can make many different models on the same line, so it should be pretty easy.

PC's use state of the art chips at 10 nm and lower. Automobiles use 28nm typically as it's super mature and reliable. When the auto makers canceled their orders. Their capacity was reallocated to someone else. Chips are used in a variety of applications whereas an engine plant only makes engines. Not so easy to get reallocated.

 

[LumberJack36]

I don't think it is in fords plans to use another facility. The plant in Mexico isn't at full capacity or efficiency as it is. Also no way they are going to bring production of the maverick to the United States. I think currently the Mexican works are getting paid some where between 5 and 10 dollars an hour. If anything Ford will move all the plants to Mexico

 

[ClemsonU88]

I'm sure Ford has looked at this from every angle and estimated the best, most profitable path moving forward. Between supply chain issues (can't build 100k hybrid Mavs if you can only get 50k batteries), competition entering the market, and profit margin (to name a few), they've probably figured they'll ride the demand wave as long as they can and slowly increase the price until supply=demand...and then start advertising.

As ticked off as some of us are/were with the time to get our Mavs, people are still ordering them in droves. If Ford isn't making a profit on each Maverick, it's their own fault. With demand what it is, they could easily have raised the price to make it profitable and still have demand > supply. At least for now.

Sponsored