Ford Dunks On GM And Chrysler In New NBA Finals Ad

One of the best things Ford ever did was not go bankrupt. This sounds like damning with faint praise, but it isn’t. By leveraging every asset he could get his hands on, then-CEO Alan Mulally was able to just survive the global financial crisis without having to declare bankruptcy. This had the advantage of saving the company and, as an added perk, of giving Ford something to quietly crow about. They’re being a little less quiet about it now.

The Morning Dump today is all about America, or, more specifically, all about Americaness. Ford’s newest ad will air during the NBA Finals and correctly points out that by some measures, Ford is the most American car company. Looked at another way, Honda is pretty darn American, as is Hyundai, and certainly Tesla.

A lot of this pro-American-ness has to do with tariffs on various countries and a general spirit of current politics. It’s not only patriotic to be American, it’s also financially a better position to be in for many manufacturers. For British automakers, American-ness is going to be less of an issue as a recently signed trade deal points to reasonable trade terms. For Japanese automakers, it’s a little less certain.

The price to be paid for cars that are more American? Probably higher prices, at least in the medium term, but that might be a price worth paying.

Ford’s New ‘If They Were Like Us’ Ad Uses Bailout Against Detroit Competitors

First, there was Kendrick Lamar with “Not Like Us.” It’s probably the most devastating diss track in the history of devastating diss tracks, and Lamar’s performance of the song at the Super Bowl was like Kano ripping out Drake’s heart on national television. What’s another way of saying “Not Like Us” without being quite as explosive? “If They Were Like Us,” which is the name of the ad Ford will run during the NBA Finals.

You can see it above, but here’s a quote from Ford explaining what that means:

Ford employs 56,500 hourly autoworkers in America — more than anyone else — and you will meet four of them in our new Ford Motor Company: From America, For America ad that airs first during the NBA Finals.

Our employees assemble more vehicles in America than other automaker. And 80% of the vehicles we sell in America are assembled here.

Ford avoided bankruptcy and a taxpayer-funded bailout during the Great Recession. Since then, the company has added 13,000 American jobs and increased the percentage of our global production that we assemble in the U.S. Today, more than half of all vehicles Ford sells around the world are assembled in America.

That bit about the bailout also lands in the advertisement. Is it fair? Yeah, sort of. GM kept handing out dividends almost until the end, and I’m not sure what the Chrysler Corporation’s plan to avoid bankruptcy was, which means I have a lot in common with Chrysler execs at the time. Ford, though, took a lot of heat for borrowing as much money as it could to both finance the development of new cars and also to have enough money to survive the looming meltdown. While Mulally, by his own admission, was not a car guy, he was a shrewd financial mind. He realized that in the best case, Ford could have exciting new products, and in the worst case, Ford would survive. The worst happened, and GM and Chrysler had to be bailed out, while Ford didn’t.

Looking back, it’s important to remember that Mullaly argued that the government should bail out both Ford and Chrysler in Congressional testimony and has long stuck to his view that this was the right thing to do:

“If GM and Chrysler would’ve gone into free-fall they could’ve taken the entire supply base into free-fall also, and taken the U.S. from a recession into a depression,” Mulally says in the accompanying video, taped Friday at Ford’s world headquarters in Dearborn, MI. “That’s why we testified on behalf of our competitors even though we clearly did not need precious taxpayer money.”

Hmm… “precious taxpayer money.” The inter-Detroit competitiveness is always there. The company wants its neighbors to do well, but there’s always that Dorothy Parker-esque reminder that Ford didn’t need the help. Or, as Ford Chairman William C. Ford, Jr. said, “I don’t take any joy in watching GM and Chrysler struggle,” before adding, “I wish them well, but I wish us better. I want us to win.”

That’s fair! I sort of have the same feeling about our competitors. I don’t like seeing them struggle. I don’t like seeing them sold to AI-fueled digital sweatshops. I wish them well, but I wish us better and, yeah, I want us to win.

In this turbulent time, it’s not a bad thing to be an American car company focused on America, which Ford is. It also doesn’t hurt to make a lot of cars in America, which Ford does. But are they the most American?

Honda Has The Most Cars In The Top 20 Most American Cars List

Cars.com is out with its list of the “most American” cars from its American-Made Index, and your view of who is the most American will depend a lot on how you want to count things. The publication determines American-Made based on “location of final assembly; percentage of U.S. and Canadian parts; country of origin for available engines; country of origin for available transmissions; and U.S. manufacturing employees relative to the automaker’s footprint.”

Honda is out with a press release pointing out that, if you look at the list, no other automaker has as many cars in the top 20, starting with the Honda Ridgeline at #7.

A lot of these vehicles are made on the same platform, which helps spread the American-ness around. The top cars, though? The Tesla Model 3, Model Y, Model S, and Model X are actually the four most American-made cars, followed by the Jeep Gladiator and Kia EV6. How does Tesla get the top spot even though there are plenty of other automakers also building cars almost entirely in the United States with parts sourced from Canada and the United States? Cars.com explains:

It’s not just that these vehicles feature a high percentage of U.S./Canadian parts content or major components assembled here in the U.S.; it’s also the fact that they have so many people building these cars. The manufacturing workforce component, explained in more detail below, always plays a major role in our rankings, but this year it was a decisive factor in Tesla’s dominance atop the index.

Tesla now makes almost all (if not all) of its cars for America in America, which is a bit of a departure from the past when more components might arrive from other places, specifically China. This puts companies that import a lot of cars from other places or have large workforces in Mexico or elsewhere at a disadvantage.

The UK Gets A Trade Deal, Japan Does Not

President Trump left the G7 gathering early as the Middle East makes its semi-annual tilt towards a conflict that spirals out of control. Before doing so, though, he finally got a signed trade deal with another country. Granted, he dropped the papers and called it a deal with “the EU” instead of “The UK,” but Prime Minister Starmer didn’t seem in the mood to correct the President. I get it! When you get the answer you want, just stop talking.

Assuming the details are similar to what was previously outlined, this seems like a huge win for the UK car industry with minimal benefits for American automakers, though it’s being touted as a win for American cattle producers. It also doesn’t appear to address steel imports. Why did the United States do this deal first? Per the AP:

Trump said “the U.K. is very well protected,” from tariffs. “You know why? Because I like them.”

That’s nice. You know who President Trump must not like enough? Japan’s new government, according to this Bloomberg report:

U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba failed to reach an agreement on a trade package on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit, another setback for Japan’s automakers and an outcome that leaves the Asian nation inching closer to a possible recession as the pain of U.S. tariffs hits its economy.

“There are still some points on which the two sides are not on the same page, so we have not yet reached an agreement on the trade package,” Ishiba said to reporters on July 16 in Calgary in between G-7 meetings.

The failure to reach a concrete agreement will raise questions over Ishiba’s effectiveness as leader ahead of a crucial upper house election next month, after he touted the summit as a possible “milestone” opportunity in tariff negotiations that have continued for about two months.

Maybe they’ll work it out.

Vehicle Affordability Remains Stuck

As you can see from this Cox Automotive graphic, the improvement in vehicle affordability we’d all been waiting for has been hit by the Trade War and, while it’s better than the height of pandemic shortages, it’s still not great.

“The U.S. economy remains fundamentally strong, but the recent tariffs have had a swift and measurable impact on vehicle affordability,” said Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke. “After reaching the lowest affordability point of the year in April, the market essentially flatlined at that level in May. The forces that typically drive improvement – like incentives and income growth – have been neutralized by stubbornly high interest rates and stagnant prices. Without meaningful gains in wages and further easing of rates, we’re likely to see affordability limit demand as we move into the summer months.”

Something has to give, eventually, and there’s a way to look at all of this “Hey, look at how American we are” as both a patriotic boast and a way of preparing consumers for higher prices in the near-to-medium-term as carmakers realign production.

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

This video for Tame Impala’s “The Less I Know The Better” came up in Slack yesterday, and I realized I’d never actually seen it (though I love the song and have listened to it hundreds of times). While the focus of it is teenage lust and heartache (therefore, it might not be work appropriate for everyone — NSFW), it approaches the subject in an increasingly surreal and hilarious way that involves a giant gorilla. It’s quite amusing and worth your time.

The Big Question

What makes a car American?

Top photo: Ford