Ford CEO - Americans need to “get back in love” with small cars

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Dr Smith

Sorry, I disagree...taking advice from people who lobby is one thing but if you have NO understanding of what it takes to have an idea, design it, build a factory to make the components or source the components, assemble it, employee the staff to get your product from design to out the door....you are open to influence more easily than if you actually cut your hands on the floor in your younger days....

And yes I know some will say you didn't have to experience it to understand it, but by god if you did understand it better wouldn't decisions at least have some balance rather than self-interest always taking over.

Here's the thing though, those people don't have what it takes to be politicians, nor are they capable of playing the game to make it through major party pre-selection processes to be even offered on the ballot paper to you and I to vote for.

They can certainly offer advice to the people who make it through though, assuming someone wants to actually listen to them

The best manager I've ever had wasn't even from the automotive/manufacturing industry, he was a personal trainer managing the head office of a manufacturing company, who was younger than me, he actually listened to what I had to say though.

What skills he did have was building soft influence/power and relationship management, he had the guys with the experience behind him and he backed us.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Thats why you don't sign one sided free trade agreements with these clowns, I'm pretty sure Ford Australia warned the Howard government about signing the FTA with Thailand.

Why would you build at Ford Australia who can only produce 60,000 cars annually at maximum capacity when you have Thailand in your back yard who can do 400,000+ and for bowl of rice a month wages?

Then the federal government incentivised it with a free trade agreement.

Same thing happened to our tyre manufacturing industry, if you're interested in a read check out what south pacific tyres had to say about the whole drama.

I’d put it to you that the Government of the time knew exactly what it was doing,
massive exports of coal, iron ore and gas to major partners like Japan, Korea and China
Imports of finished goods back from those major trading partners meant that Australia
were well in the positive. FTA with Thailand was supposed to provide low cost vehicles….
LOL, WTF happened there? Thinking deeper, those Thai finished goods was a way of
eliminating all those pesky unions and businesses that continually looking for tax breaks
and offsetting losses against revenue. Clearly, they didn’t care about the loss of business activity
here and the impact on whole communities.

Everywhere I used to see manufacturing plants, I see warehouses or storage tanks in place of refineries..

Its that way by design, Ford Australia is content with having two big sellers they dominate the market with, its plain to see their thinking behind deliberately letting everything else fall by the wayside.

If Ranger and Everest supply was threatened like the Euro models are, do you think Ford Australia would sit on its hands and say 'oh well'?

Or would they try everything within their powers to rectify the situation?

You need to understand that Ford Australia doesn’t call the shots with head office,
it’s a constant battle of justifying why they should even exist and all Ford cares about
in todays world is selling the most profitable mix of vehicles. So yeah, we are fortunate
that buyers are embracing Ranger and Everest in record numbers but yes, the on going
disappointment is how Ford fails to leverage low cost production in China to deliver all the
other vehicles it should be selling…..It just seems like it’s cheaper and easier to do nothing
and take the low hanging fruit…

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by jpd80

I’d put it to you that the Government of the time knew exactly what it was doing,
massive exports of coal, iron ore and gas to major partners like Japan, Korea and China
Imports of finished goods back from those major trading partners meant that Australia
were well in the positive. FTA with Thailand was supposed to provide low cost vehicles….
LOL, WTF happened there? Thinking deeper, those Thai finished goods was a way of
eliminating all those pesky unions and businesses that continually looking for tax breaks
and offsetting losses against revenue. Clearly, they didn’t care about the loss of business activity
here and the impact on whole communities.

Everywhere I used to see manufacturing plants, I see warehouses or storage tanks in place of refineries..


You need to understand that Ford Australia doesn’t call the shots with head office,
it’s a constant battle of justifying why they should even exist and all Ford cares about
in todays world is selling the most profitable mix of vehicles. So yeah, we are fortunate
that buyers are embracing Ranger and Everest in record numbers but yes, the on going
disappointment is how Ford fails to leverage low cost production in China to deliver
all the other vehicles it should be selling…..It just seems like it’s cheaper and easier to do nothing
and take the low hanging fruit…

I don't think it was about eliminating unions, its not like the AMWU had significant influence and control over anything, sure they had some influence in our manufacturers but its not like the CFMEU and its stranglehold over the VIC Government through funding one of the major political parties and control over all its infrastructure projects.

Some of it would be driven by ideology but its short sided thats left us in a huge mess.

I'm aware Ford Australia doesn't call the shots but they can also kick, scream, jump up and down and have a sook constantly - but they don't.

The only time they'd make an effort to fix some of the problems is if Ranger and Everest supply was threatened.