No U-Turns in Ford's Future, Farley Says
After being named as Ford’s next CEO, the automaker’s current chief operating officer, Jim Farley, says the company is on the proper course, with no need to reverse the tech-driven direction taken under the outgoing Jim Hackett.
Speaking to Reuters, Farley said the hunt for new revenue streams in a rapidly evolving technological landscape will continue.
Under his leadership, Farley, who takes the top job on October 1st, said Ford might dip its toes into software, fleet management, and electric vehicle recharging, claiming that, “These are new growth initiatives that could create a lot of value for the company.”
Speaking of Ford’s continuing work in the realm of self-driving vehicles, a field that’s been slower to advance than we were led to believe in past years, the future CEO said “these are concrete areas that will change Ford,” adding, “They’re going to impact the company’s future look and feel.”
Most telling comment of the Ford press conference from incoming CEO Jim Farley on Ford's competition today: "It's Amazon, Baidu, Tesla, Apple, Toyota and others." $F
— Phil LeBeau (@Lebeaucarnews) August 4, 2020
Autonomous and electric vehicles seem to be the catnip investors like, but Ford’s past efforts, which were not unsubstantial, failed to set Wall Street on fire. The automaker’s sliding share price traces an uninterrupted line through the tenures of both Fields and Hackett; it will be Farley’s job to reverse the slide, and it’s his job that’ll be on the line.
Ford has to prove to investors and analysts that it’s positioned to make money chasing the future. The shareholders must be rewarded.
For now, however, Ford’s bread and butter remains its lengthy menu of trucks and SUVs — the latter group growing so crowded, Ford might have to ditch one long-running nameplate. Pandemic troubles aside, the company’s pre-existing $11 billion restructuring plan is another effort that must be completed under Farley. For now, he has the complete confidence of his bosses.
Per Reuters, the company’s executive chairman, Bill Ford, said that it wasn’t necessary to search the industry looking for a replacement for Hackett. With Farley, “our board felt that we were on the right path,” Ford said, adding that he doesn’t “expect any big surprises” with regard to upper management switcheroos.
In a media call reported on by the Detroit Free Press, Ford did say the possibility of looking elsewhere came up while discussing the transition of power.
“We clearly talked about taking a look outside,” he said. “Increasingly, everybody was getting inspired by Jim Farley’s leadership. While we talked about it and did throw some names around, every time we did that, we always felt Jim Farley rose to the top.”
As for Hackett, the outgoing CEO claims the time felt right to pass the torch.
“I said we ought to do it now, the wind in our sails is really starting to pick up,” Hackett said during the call. “Jim’s grasp of products is legendary.”
While tech and fancy gadgets wow certain journos and sometimes investors, if the core business isn’t running efficiently, all is lost. Farley implied his top focus will be on getting lucrative products like the next-generation F-150 and upcoming Bronco and Mustang Mach-E into buyers’ hands without any screw-ups.
He also added, interestingly, that he remains committed to expanding an “affordable” lineup for buyers, suggesting that there’s more low-end product to come from an automaker that’s already ditched all but one member of its passenger car stable.
[Image: Ford]
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- Bd2 Let's Go Brandon!
- JMII Given the number of minor fender benders I see due to people rear ending others I am all for emergency braking via some kind of foward collision sensor. Speeding, tailgating, or messing with phones / screens the majority of accidents I see I just people plowing into others. If front collision braking was mandatory in all cars such accidents would be reduced. Is the tech perfect? No... but human drivers can't seem to pay attention so I guess the car has to do that job now. Humans had their chance but they are just too easily distracted behind the wheel. Both my mother and my wife have been rear ended thru no fault of their own so I'll admit some basis here. In my mother's case it took her several months to recover.
- Zipper69 " including numerous examples of the Cybertruck"I could only see four in the lead photo, but they are kinda anonymous from above...
- FreedMike These were great cars, but I don't think they're particularly novel or collectible. You can get a newer beater for that money that'd be easier to keep fixed.Good to see these soldiering on, though.
- Funky D The only piece of technology introduced in the last 10 years that is actually useful is the backup camera. Get rid of the rest. All I want is a car with that and phone connectivity and zero driving nannies.
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