One of the few automakers that reports monthly sales is Ford, though the practice is something the company may regret after a kinda miserable May. That it was an off month nationally isn’t a huge surprise given some of the moves Ford has made, as well as just plain bad timing. There is something a little deeper going on, and the solution is obvious to me.
Yes, The Morning Dump is advocating for the possibly imaginary Mustang Mach IV sedan this morning. It just makes sense, and I’m going to prove it to you by showing the big hole in the Ford lineup where a Mustang Sedan would fit. I’m not alone in this! Ford leadership has sort of hinted this is maybe on the way. While Stellantis has been using AI to show its ass, GM’s Mary Barra told NBC News that the company is using it to do more without letting people go.
I don’t know if I buy that, but I do know that if I lived in Europe I’d be tempted to purchase the new Škoda seven-passenger EV.
Ford Can’t Escape A Bad May
I’m going slowly today after a great night of sports, featuring both the Knicks forcing their way to a victory and the Astros hanging half a dozen runs on the Pirates with two outs in the bottom of the 8th to erase a four-run deficit. I also won my pickup game of ultimate frisbee, but I’m not Ice Cube, so I’m not gonna brag about how I performed in a pickup game.
Unlike Ice Cube, Ford didn’t score a triple-double or anything else in May, with self-reported sales down 13.6%. Even with employee pricing being offered, the blue oval brand is on its back foot to start the year. While it’s not a huge number of vehicles, Ford was still taking advantage of the tax credit last year and so there’s been a 43.9% drop in EV sales (this isn’t bad news since Ford last money on every one). Ford isn’t getting the F-150 back to full production until probably September, so that negative 13% swing is enough to account for a third of the lost sales.
Also significant is the loss of the Ford Escape, which was the easily approachable vehicle at the affordable end of the range. Is the Ford Bronco Sport a reasonable replacement? Given that sales are down this year, I’m guessing not. The Ford Explorer is up this year, but that might also be picking up customers from the departed Ford Edge. The newish Ford Expedition also saw a drop in sales, which makes sense given the high gas prices.
What Ford is doing right is the Maverick, which is now the most affordable Ford product and also comes in hybrid form. In fact, The Detroit News reports that the Maverick Hybrid had its best month ever. The Bronco also remains strong.
When gas prices are up, it is logical that bigger vehicles might suffer. When the economy is shaky, affordability is important. What Ford is lacking at the moment is something that’s affordable-ish and efficient and not a truck. That’s probably a sedan. Ford doesn’t have a sedan. Personally, I think Ford should import a European platform and make it the Escort, but that’s just me. There’s another more likely alternative and that’s using the Mustang platform to build the long-rumored Mach IV sedan. I’m not alone in thinking this.
‘It’s Going To Have To Make Sense Within A Family We May Already Offer’
Ok Andrew Frick, president of Ford Blue and Model e, I know what you’re doing. I see you. I think I understand it. He spoke to Automotive News and reporter Michael Martinez asked the right question:
Jim Farley has hinted you might bring back sedans. Why might that body style make sense now?
There is a percentage of the customer base that still buys sedans. It’s a lot smaller than it once was. It used to be 50 percent, now it’s 16, 17 percent. We have a really great Mustang that people consider a car. We look to expand on the Mustang family as we move forward. I think, for us to do it, it’s going to have to make sense within our portfolio. It’s going to have to make sense within a family that we may already offer. And it’s going to have to be very cost-effective for us to do it. That’s what we’re focused on in general with a lot of our new affordable products. We want the concepts to be right and the costs to be even better.
The important line there is “It’s going to have to make sense within a family that we may already offer.” The Mustang’s platform only supports the Mustang and nothing else. Ford already made an EV crossover and called it a Mustang and no one died. Dodge does it, why not Ford?
GM Will Use AI But Won’t Lay People Off Because Of It, Maybe
I got an email from NBC News saying that Mary Barra was going to be on Nightly News last night. I can’t find the segment online, but that doesn’t mean anything. I assume they didn’t bump the CEO of GM, and I have some of the transcript:
CEO of General Motors Mary Barra tells NBC News’ Christine Romans that AI is moving car design into the fast lane, explaining that it allows the company to ”explore more concepts, more ideas to make sure we get the right one.”
Asked whether AI will allow GM to make cars with fewer people, Barra responded “I think it’s how we give the tools to the people to be able to do better work. To me it’s how do we do more with the people that we have, because we’re using AI tools.”
Talking to designers, there’s some flexibility to being able to use digital imaging (and AI) to quickly form up some ideas. That’s fine. I do wonder how this squares with GM laying off hundreds of people as it “transforms” it’s IT department.
Will The Skoda Peaq Be The Last MEB Model?
The fact that the new flagship, seven-seater EV from Škoda will be called the Peaq and probably be awesome is not something that’s necessarily relevant to all of our audience. I love the brand, though, so I’m going to write about it. The look of this is what the company calls “Tech-Deck Face,” which is amusing to me.
What you might care about is that this is maybe the last new car to be built on the Volkswagen MEB platform that’s underpinned everything from the ID.4 to the ID.7 and ID.Buzz. It was the first big swing EV attempt from Volkswagen and not exactly successful, so maybe it deserves a swan song from the company’s best brand.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Doja Cat got mad at the loss of some feature on X/Twitter, and roasted Tesla CEO Elon Musk with the incredible nonsense burn “u look like u eat sand.’ In honor of that burn, please enjoy Doja’s “AAAHH MEN!” which uses the Knight Rider theme to achieve something kinda sublime.
The Big Question
What should the Mustang sedan be?
Top graphic base image: Thomas Hundal
“We have a really great Mustang that people consider a car.”
Clearly, the Mustang sedan should be a car, oor at least considered to be one by people.
If Ford is going to dilute one of their core brands to bring a sedan to market, they need to give the people what they want: a F-150 sedan!
I’m going to argue it probably shouldn’t be, period. If they want a mustang platform RWD sedan, bring back the Crown Victoria. If it’s on a FWD crossover platform, call it the fusion. This weird obsession Ford has with attempting to expand the Mustang as a product family really seems to make no sense. S650 mustang sales are pitiful. The Mach E has desperately out developed by every rival. The sedan market is a LOT smaller than what the Escape occupied, and many sedan buyers want either value (Hyundai/Kia/Nissan) or Quality (Toyota/Honda) products, and a Ford built RWD sedan that mimics the Charger will be neither.
That said, Ford being Ford will lengthen the Mustang to a 4-Door, it’ll lose it’s athleticism from the growth spurt, gain no power to account for the weight, be more expensive than the coupe, and sell far below expectations.
The Mustang Sedan should be a stretched S650. And called Falcon. Mustang Falcon if you have to. There’s really not much else to it. The original Mustang was based on the Falcon, it’s high time it returned the favor.
Here’s your Mustang Falcon…
Make a Mach E sedan. This is the perfect time for it. Slam it, carve out a trunk and full send to the dealers. It’ll go further and be faster on the same mechanicals (or is that electricals?). Plus the economy of scale will help lower Mach-E prices.
Copying Dodges homework. Well Mr Ford, we will see how that works out.
So the Maverick is their most affordable vehicle, and has hit sales records? Maybe Ford should offer a Maverick based CUV, and perhaps a hatchback or wagon to have more variety of this sales winner, and Focus on their more basic offerings. /s?
This is a solved problem, thanks to Emperor Busey: https://www.theautopian.com/if-there-was-only-one-car-allowed-to-be-built-and-sold-in-america-it-should-be-the-ford-maverick/
Its coming, not soon enough but it is (Tier 1 Supplier here)
The Maverick shares its underpinnings with the Escape and Bronco Sport, right?
You mean like the Escape its platform was based on? Naw, they cancelled that.
Bring back the Falcon nameplate!
Bullscheiße
Ford’s whole claim on the Mach-e is that it was profitable from the start.
They buried massive write-offs on the Lightning.
What’s the status of the German-built Ford Explorer EV? It’s built on the VW MEB, it should be reasonably financially stable.
Just bring back the Taurus
I’d rather see an entirely new sedan body shape (on the same s650 platform). A stretched Mustang 4-door just cheapens the brand.
What should the Mustang sedan be?
NAMED SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN MUSTANG!!!
What should the Mustang sedan be?
Nonexistent.
Ford has a gaping hole in their lineup, completely self-created. Killing their sedans and going with a single “car” left over was highly quesitonable at the time, but the other domestics wound up doing the same. They still had Escape as a “tall car” option for those who didn’t want a lifestyle vehicle, just transportation at a decent price. Then they killed that one too. In the meantime, GM did something very smart – they turned the Trax into the very vehicle that the afore mentioned customer wants. It looks good, performs well, and doesn’t pretend to venture into the world of “offroad lifestyle” (it’s FWD only) that Ford wants to steer these people towards. They’ve also sold over 200k of those things in North America every year since the redesign. Escape and Trax aren’t true sedans of course – but you can argue that Trax has started dipping toes in that direction again.
And if they try to fill in that gap by stuffing it full of, “Mustangs,” then they deserve to fail.
Somethingsomething Ford Maverick.
GM has done the responsible thing and kept a varied lineup across price ranges and powertrains and been able to capture multiple markets because of it. Ford has decided to pull a Stellantis and chase trends, higher margins, and tribalistic truck buyers. A souring economy and rising gas prices will inevitably prove GM to be the victor, and I genuinely have to give Mary Barra credit for doing it.
I adore that Topshot. I don’t care about the car, just the image. Chuckle chuckle chortle. Pete sets a high bar early in the day!
I can’t come over today. My car is in the Photoshop.
Wait, what?
Notice that the guy being quoted is out of Ford’s “E” division, so he’s talking about the Mach E, not the actual Mustang.
Ford already made a 4-door ‘Mustang’ in the Mach-E.
While ICE-ing a Mach-E isn’t viable; a 4-door Mustang should resemble or simply replace this car in the lineup. Perhaps a hybridized Mach-E could be done, maybe with a ‘notchback’ body style instead of the SUV-aping shape it has now.
A stretched S650 is not what Ford should be attempting.
P.S. – I daily a 5.0 S197, all of this is heresy.
I don’t see the Mach-E as an SUV, but rather a tall-ish hatchback. I do quite like it’s side profile.
Very soon every Ford will be a Mustang-Something, Bronco-Something or F-Something. How original and inspiring.
I keep waiting for them to drag up the F-100 and rename the Maverick so they can wrap in into their sales numbers for the ‘Best Selling Truck for the last Bazillion Years’ marketing crap.
Actually, upon reflection, I guess the Maverick would have to be the F-50 and the Ranger would be the F-100.
The “F-it” solution.
I wasn’t aghast at the MachE being a “Mustang” so much as it felt like a Ford sub-brand was born, because it is so different from the actual Mustang coupe.
You got me thinking, though: Maverick used to be a car, and isn’t it a shared platform with the Bronco Sport? Couldn’t they remix it into a hybrid sedan and call it the Maverick Mach Whatever?
TBQ: The Mustang sedan should be, as it was in the past, the Falcon or the Fairlane. Mustangs are sporty coupes. The Mach E is not, and never will be, a Mustang. Sedans can share the platform, but, much though marketing may argue, sedans are not coupes.
Fecking marketing departments. Into the volcano with the lot of them.
Yes, let the circle complete. Mustang was born from Falcon, to Falcon it must return.
Ph*ck Ford. They dropped sedans to gorge of the fat profits of trucks and SUVs. They made their own bed.