David Cole
David Cole
cars ford gm horse marry race seems
It seems as if GM and Ford are in a real horse race to marry cars and technology,
europeans ford growth koreans loss market means suffered three
Everyone was up in volume, but if some are up more, it means redistribution of the market, ... The real growth has come from the Koreans and Europeans while the Big Three (GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler) really suffered loss in market share.
basically believe betting company ford inside major people
This is a major restructuring. The people inside of Ford basically believe they are betting their company on this restructuring.
chance ford last major points views
Ford views Monday's announcement as the last restructuring in the sense that they may not have a chance to do something more after this. It's one of the major pivot points in their history.
ford serious views
I think Ford views this as 'change or die,' frankly. It's a very serious effort.
giving great sort
It's sort of like giving yourself a great big garage.
chemicals critical drop eight mix sort
It's sort of a critical ingredient. It's like when you mix eight or 10 chemicals and nothing happens. Then you drop this in and all of a sudden, boom, you get an explosion.
aware change cost driven everybody faces per plays problem produced profitable three vehicle
Every one of the Big Three faces a problem right now of about $2,000 to $2,500 per vehicle produced cost disadvantage. If that plays out over time, they're all dead. It's change or die. Everything is driven by a profitable business. If you can't be profitable, you can't be in business. That is, I think, recognition that everybody is aware of.
active average costs employee medicare savings
The average costs of an active employee is $130,000 a year, and the average cost for a retiree before Medicare is about $50,000. The savings are enormous.
bad certainly news
The bad news certainly isn't going to end for a while.
auto educated future industry jobs workers younger
The auto industry of the future will be a younger and more educated workforce. High-paying jobs for educated workers are not going away.
additional gives
They've really outgrown their Georgetown facility. This gives them a little additional capacity.
alignment capacity create sales
They've got to create alignment between capacity and sales volume.
benefit certainly chance competitor cuts enter factory field hot incentives lose maybe move price stay volume
There's the thought that if this is going to be so hot, why not price it higher? But if you do, maybe you lose volume and it doesn't stay hot as long, or you have to move to incentives and price cuts sooner, or you give a competitor a chance to enter the field sooner. The dealers certainly are making money. But the factory doesn't benefit from that.