Funniest part is around the 1:20 mark, where Ingraham spools out the usual talking points about how other countries prevent USian cars being sold there. Farley doesn’t address that point at all, because he is pulling Ford back to nothing but North America.
Steve
China is going to do everything it can to help those competitors?
China has let 150 of the EV companies bankrupt.
“Last four years”? Where was he before that?
He wants exceptions.
He said 40, then repeated, as “four decades”. He has been CEO of Ford for four years. He followed Jim Hackett, former CEO of Steelcase. Hackett was flamed for not expressing any real plan at Ford. He just blathered about “fitness”.
Farley wants his imported parts to be really cheap (“balance between affordability and a strong industry”), but he wants protection from competition (“so we can compete in our home market in a fair way”). He’s an idiot. He is a greedy idiot. During his tenure as CEO, he has clearly said he doesn’t care about building better products, outside of fending off criticism of Ford’s sky-high warranty claims expense, and he doesn’t care about growing the company.
His only priority is taking more money off the people who do buy from Ford. He brags about how much money he will take off of people with “subscription fees”. He whines that he wants to get out of the two row SUV business, because there is “too much competition”, so he can’t charge as much as he wants.
Ford was circling the drain. Their SUV line, as a group, was down 16% y/y in Q1, 2025, after being down 1.6% for calendar 2024. Their biggest, most expensive SUVs, the ones Farley wants to sell, because he makes the most loot off them were down the hardest. Explorer down 37%, Expedition down 18%,
TIG has created the perfect environment for Ford, by tariffing much of their competition out of the market. When TIG announced the tariffs on Mexican and Canadian cars, Farley wailed that he wanted protection from Japanese and Korean cars. He didn’t want his Mexican cars tariffed. Well, now he has his protection from everyone outside of North America. This synthetic “shortage” will allow Farley to gouge the living daylights out of people, for their shoddy product.
Yesterday, my Ford stock was one tiny flicker of green. This is a short term hold. As the competition adjusts to the new environment, and move more production to the US, people will, again, run away from Ford. But Farley will have pocketed a huge bonus in the interim, and that is probably all he cares about.
Steve
Even with tariffs the quality and price points will both decline.
The collective wallet is declining.
Ford’s quality can’t get much worse. But people will not have a choice. Half the car volume sold in the US will now be tariffed out of the market. People who leased, because they could get a bigger, more garish, car for the same monthly payment, will be frelled when their lease runs out. They will have no choice, but pay up.
According to Experian’s State of the Automotive Finance Market Report: Q2 2024, leasing increased to 25.35%, up from 21.14% in Q2 2023 and 19.30% the year prior.
Steve…has an appointment to have the trans fluid changed in the VW next week, ready for another 40,000 miles.
It can get worse.
They need to compete for a lot fewer buyers. Car sales are going to slump and then slump some more. To compete they will cut prices. You can slap a car brand sticker on anything.
GM and the foreign brands do not need to produce more in the US. Demand will drop. No shifting production or increasing production.
Look at Autotrader. It looks like they are pulling used vehicles out of inventory. Is it because they are expecting to start charging more because of the Tariffs?
Dear Andy,
Blip in time possible expectations.
People are sitting in the vehicle they have now. It is not a good time to spend on a car.
They don’t care about volume. I can’t find the specific article, but Google’s AI answer gives me this, in one of Farley’s long string of excuses and assurances about their product quality.
Ford CEO Jim Farley has publicly stated that fixing quality issues is his top priority, emphasizing that until quality is addressed, nothing else matters, even if it means sacrificing short-term volume goals
2025 Farley excuses about quality.
https://fordauthority.com/2025/01/ford-ceo-jim-farley-says-2025-will-usher-in-more-gains-in-quality/
2024 excuses about quality:
2023 excuses about quality.
2022 excuses about quality
https://fordauthority.com/2022/12/ford-ceo-jim-farley-says-quality-fixes-will-take-years/
late 2020, when he became CEO, excuses about quality.
Global warranty claims, as a percent of revenue, by manufacturer.
Farley bragging about how much money he will take off customers with “subscription services”.
https://fordauthority.com/2022/06/ford-ceo-jim-farley-says-adas-revenue-stream-will-be-massive/
Having abandoned the sub-compact, compact, midsize passenger car, and subcompact CUV segments, Farley saying he next wants to abandon the 2 row SUV segment, because it isn’t as profitable as big SUVs and trucks. He doesn’t care about volume.
https://fordauthority.com/2023/02/ford-ceo-farley-says-company-is-done-with-two-row-ice-suvs/
Farley aiming to push prices, and profit margins, to Porsche levels.
https://fordauthority.com/2025/01/ford-ceo-jim-farley-says-company-will-be-porsche-of-off-road/
What a stinking pile of hubris.
Steve
Dear Leap I think you are missing my point. I think car dealers are pulling cars thinking they will be able to raise the prices. I agree that it isn’t a good time to buy a car because the prices have not still come down to earth. But that doesn’t mean they can’t go higher.
Dear Andy,
I doubt they go higher. But by May they go lower.
Hence:
“blip in time possible expectations”…by the dealers.
Hope
Just get a golf cart.
I have been rolling over the “employee pricing for everyone” offer that Ford is running right now, and bouncing it off Farley’s goals. The thought crosses my mind he wants to use an old trick the Soviets did: either replace the current models with new models that are decontented from the current models, at the same price, or offering the same content, at a higher price, with a “new” model name, all to cover up the degree to which he is gouging people.
Steve
When a Brand new F350 costs over 100,000 dollars it looks like they will be decontenting.
Never underestimate Farley, his greed, or his hubris.
Steve
