Rising demand for small cars has pushed Ford Motor Co. to revisit its decision not to bring the tiny European Ka model to the United States, Ford’s chief executive said today.

“We’re assessing that right now,” CEO Alan Mulally told a Detroit radio station, adding that many people share the opinion that Ford should sell the Ka in the United States.

A new version of the Ka was unveiled last week at the Paris Motor Show. It will be launched in major European markets by late this year or early 2009.

The Ka is far smaller than the Focus, which is Dearborn-based Ford’s only U.S. compact car. Focus sales are up 24% through September, even though the U.S. auto market is down nearly 13% for the year.

Mulally said on WJR-AM’s “Paul W. Smith Show” that Ford decided to give the Ka another look because of high fuel prices pushing up demand for small cars and the response to introduction of the Fiesta subcompact. Ford had said previously it wouldn’t bring the Ka, sold mostly in Europe, to the United States because the markets are different, with European cities having more congestion and narrower roads than U.S. cities.

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When Marty Micallef, the football coach and president of the athletics booster club at Edsel Ford High School in Dearborn, is looking to raise money, his team usually turns to the standards: candy sales, pizza kits and concession sales during sports games.

But last week after school, he and his team held a different kind of fund-raiser that promised a bit more cash than usual: convincing would-be customers to test-drive Ford cars and trucks.

As part of Ford Motor Co.’s “Drive One 4 UR School” fund-raising program, Ford and its local dealers are kicking in $20 for every test drive that the students arrange. The school can raise up to $6,000 a year, and many schools are finding it’s an easy and fast way to raise money.

“We hope to make over $4,000,” Micallef said. “It would take weeks to make that in concessions.”

Student-athlete Stephen Eads, 18, who was working on the program and wearing a special Drive One T-shirt, said this was one of the more effortless fund-raising programs.

“Fun and easy,” he said, while sitting in a tent signing up participants. All he had to do was call a few family members and friends over age 18 and ask them to test-drive a car.

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TYCHY, Poland : September 25, 2008 — The first volume production example of the new Ford Ka rolled off the production line at a special ceremony today in Tychy, Poland, 12 years after the original Ka was launched to great acclaim.

Polish Deputy Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak was guest of honour at the ceremony.

With sales due to begin across Europe from early next year, the new Ka will be fully revealed to the public at the Paris Motor Show next week.

The new Ka is the result of a joint vehicle development and production co-operation agreement between Ford and Fiat.

While it shares some components with the Fiat 500, which is also built in the Tychy plant, both vehicles look completely different and are true to the individual brands’ identities.

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By George Gao  From:Gasgoo.com      September 25, 2008

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General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. have joined a list of stocks that the government bars from short-selling, or betting by investors that a stock’s price will fall.

The move appeared to have little effect on GM shares, which fell nearly 11.5% Monday after the company drew $3.5 billion from a line of credit. GM and Ford are among the shares most often sold short on the New York Stock Exchange.

Short-sellers borrow shares and sell them, anticipating that they will buy new shares in the future for a lower price.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission barred short-selling in nearly 800 companies last week in an attempt to moderate share price declines that regulators argued were worsening the financial crisis.
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Ford Motor Co.’s plan to morph itself from a truck to a car company in North America is backed by market research showing that a new line of global small cars will be well received in the U.S. when they go on sale in 2010, company executives said.

But getting from now until then will take more cash incentives in a shrinking U.S. market with fearful consumers and tight credit, the automaker’s top marketing executive told reporters Monday night.

Ford, trying to allay concerns about how it will be profitable as its primary market shuns high-dollar trucks and sport utility vehicles, put three top executives before reporters inside the factory just north of downtown Detroit that made the first Model T almost a century ago.

Added cash incentives could be good news for consumers. Many of them need the money to increase down payments to qualify for financing, said Jim Farley, vice president of marketing.

Ford’s revamped revival plan will bring the 105-year-old automaker closer to its Model T roots, focusing more on fuel-efficient cars and crossovers and less on the big pickups and SUVs that have made up the bulk of Ford’s sales in recent decades.

The “core DNA” of this new plan is the new Ford Fiesta subcompact car, which Ford is launching around the world through 2010, when it comes to North America, said Jim Farley, Ford’s group vice president for global marketing and communications.
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Empty water bottles, old carpeting and even old jeans are ending up in cars — and not just thrown in the backseat or trunk.

They’re being recycled and turned into car parts, such as insulation and instrument panels, as automakers increasingly use recycled parts to cut costs and waste.

For years, automakers have used recycled steel and aluminum in vehicle structures, hoods and engines. Almost all of the metals in the engine are recycled. Other recycled parts, particularly those made of plastic, have traditionally been kept out of the drivers’ sight.

Now these recycled plastics and fabric, which typically would end up in landfills, are taking a more prominent role in vehicles, as part of dashboards and exterior parts.

The change comes as high oil prices, a key ingredient in plastics, send plastics prices up and as a broad public interest in environmentalism grows.

Still, it’s not a simple transition to replace new materials with recycled ones. The recycled plastics and fabrics that automakers are moving toward must make economic sense and pass stringent testing to make it into a vehicle.

“You have to make sure that the quality is there,” said Carol Kordich, Ford Motor Co.’s lead designer for fabric strategy and sustainable materials. “That’s the one common denominator.”

Recycled plastics typically don’t take paint as well as new plastics, which is why designers have kept them under the hood or body carriage and behind tires.

“The customer doesn’t see a lot of this,” said Lora Herron, a bio- and recycled materials engineer at General Motors Corp.

In the Cadillac XLR, CTS and STS models, GM uses a mix of new plastic and recycled tires as insulation to keep engine noise out of the vehicle interior. Nissan Motor Co. uses recycled front bumpers to make splash shields to go around the tires and also brackets that reinforce new front bumpers.

Ford uses recycled plastic battery cases to make fender liners, which protect the underbody from debris.

The automaker also uses recycled jeans and scrap fabric as padding fortrunk liners.

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Who cares if this is one of the worst pickup markets in decades, with high gas prices, dueling housing and credit crises, and a sour mood pushing sales down 25%?

The pickup wars are still on. They’re just moving in a new direction.

Ford Motor Co., which is gearing up to launch the all-new version of its best-selling F-150, announced Thursday that it would offer an SFE, or superior fuel economy, edition in its new lineup, which goes on sale in October.

News of Ford’s optional truck package follows General Motors Corp.’s announcement in August of a Chevrolet Silverado XFE, which stands for extra fuel economy.

The special fuel-sensitive editions of the Silverado and F-150 — longtime truck rivals — will both get 15 m.p.g. in the city and 21 m.p.g. on the highway.

But Ford’s engineers and marketers, who are under intense pressure to maintain the F-Series’ 31 years of truck leadership, boasted during a media event at Ford’s test labs in Allen Park that their SFE would get its fuel economy “while still providing 7,500 pounds of towing capability.”

For those who are keeping track, that’s more than the Chevy XFE, which will tow 7,000 pounds.

“In the past, there was a trade-off — more fuel economy meant less capability and vice-versa,” said Matt O’Leary, the F-150’s chief engineer. “With the new F-150, we didn’t accept tradeoffs.”

Ford used the announcement of the SFE as an opportunity to promote its overall fuel-economy story with the new F-150 lineup, which Ford says has improved 8% compared with the outgoing model, and to start building anticipation and marketing for the new F-150, which Ford delayed by 11 weeks because of the slumping truck market.

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Three months ago, Ford Motor Co. decided to delay the launch of the all-new 2009 F-150 until later this year, as high gas prices and a souring U.S. economy took a bite out of pickup sales.

Through August, U.S. sales of full-size pickups and Ford’s F-Series line are down a harsh 25%.

But now, the long summer sales slide seems to be stabilizing, with the help of easing gas prices and high incentives, and the launch of the F-150 is around the corner.

On Sept. 22, nearly 2,000 workers, who have been on temporary layoff, head back to the Dearborn Truck Plant to build the F-150, which is the volume model of Ford’s mighty F-Series lineup.

The F-Series has been the best-selling truck line in America for 31 years.

Already this week, a few dozen Ford hourly and salaried workers have started heading back to the factory, where they are reviewing every part and assembly station to make sure they are building the new truck as efficiently and competently as possible.

Since Monday, hourly workers have been teaching salaried workers how to build one F-150 truck, station by station, through the plant, using the same instructions and tools given to hourly workers.

Mike Horvath, a 15-year Ford employee and a UAW-represented team leader at Dearborn Truck, said Wednesday that this validation process helps ensure the instructions, parts and assembly line for workers are up to par and ensure the best quality.

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