Ford wants you to buy more of their crappy cars.

The Ford motor company today released its new buisness plan for congress to review and hopefully incorporated within their decision when they grant this bailout.
FORD MOTOR COMPANY BUSINESS PLAN [CSPAN] PDF

overview & Key Points page 1-7 out of 33

What ford wants you to know:
-the Auto industry supports five million jobs in all 50 states and spends $12 billion
annually on research and development in the U.S. pg. 2

-"While we have much more work ahead of us, Ford did not wait until the current crisis to begin our restructuring efforts, but has already begun a fundamental restructuring in the way we do business. Our early efforts showed promise before the credit and economic crises hit earlier this year." pg. 2

-"The auto sector is one of the first to suffer from bad economic conditions –
indeed, spending on new vehicles historically represents about 4% of GDP and
therefore is closely tied to economic conditions." pg. 4

Translation, we were the first to suffer in this recession, because consumers stop consuming unnecessary crap. Like a new car every 2 years, why is it necessary to have the exact same car come out with relatively few improvements every year? The 07 Ford f-150 looks just like the the 06 f-150. How about alternating production lines every year to avoid over saturation

-The recession and financial crisis has resulted in automotive industry sales volumes at the lowest annualized level in 25 years. pg. 5

- We ask congress for additional incentives incentives for consumers to trade in

older vehicles and move to more fuel-efficient vehicles.
We need the consumer to buy more crap, and we will make it look like we are doing something environmentally friendly. If a person has a old Monte carlo that still gets 20 miles per gallon but have no note to pay or full coverage insurance. It is not in the persons best interest to buy a 21,000 dollar car at 350 per month(That is 5 years of payments with no interest calculated.) in financing fees and insurance for a new car will at least run 150 a month for full coverage insurance and drives 3000 miles a quarter. Then that cost a boat load more to drive and be environmentally friendly. 3000 divided by 20 equals 150 gallons of gas per quarter for the monte carlo equaling 420 dollars spent every quarter on gas which is 1680 per year. Mean while the "Fuel efficient" car gets the recommended mileage which is 35 miles per gallon. Using the same formula as for the Monte carlo would equal out to 240 a month in gas. That is 960 dollars spent on gas per year, now add in the 350 dollar a month car note and that is 4200. add in the additional 1800 dollars in insurance per year and that is a grand total of 6350 a year to go green. Hating the environment would save you $4670 dollars. Now this number doesn't include maintenance for oil tires and all other things that are necessary for maintenance of a car. But no way does the maintenance of the Monte Carlo wost 15,000 every 5 years. I vote no on this part, you want a loan from the people so that you can try to trick them in taking out a loan from you for the next 5 year?

- Ford plans to consolidate their 4 divisions(North America, South America, Asian Pacific, European) Deemed no longer neccessary do to the advances in communication. pg. 7
LAYOFFS

-blah blah blah blah blah lies blah blah lies blah 7-33
Im tired of reading it. Hope that is a good overview..

Sounds like a good start, I am sure they are way ahead of GM or Chrysler. Due to the fact Ford identified the market shift earlier than the others.

2008 Ford Recalls

May 14, 2008 Ford recalls over 650,000 pickups for brake hose
April 28 2008 Ford Recalls F-250, F-350 Trucks for Fire Hazard
Feb 27, 2008 Ford Recalls 470,000 Mustangs to Update Air Bags
Apparently Ford thought it would be fiscally conservative and install the wrong airbags
Feb 11, 2008 Ford Recalls 57,000 More Trucks, SUVS for Fire Hazard
Feb 11, 2008 Ford recalling vehicles over door handles and fuel hoses
Jan 21, 2008 Parts shortages delay repairs of fire-prone Fords
Dec 6, 2007 Ford recalls 1.2 million trucks for engine flaw
Aug 3, 2007 Ford recalls 3.6 million vehicles
in less than two years ford has recalled over 5.9 million vehicles in 2 years. If they made a good product they can sure save money from repairs and lawsuits. Or take their time building a car they can find these problems before you let these deathtraps on the road.
If every repair takes 200 dollars not including lawsuits that is 1.19 BILLION in loses over your own product.

Take the number of vehicles in the field, A.
Multiply it by the probable rate of failure, B.
Multiply the result by
the average out-of-court settlement, C.
A x B x C
equals X.
If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

Edward Norton "Fight Club'
Its clear that that is the formula, hurray unregulated capitalism.