(Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co., the world's third- biggest automaker, posted a record quarterly loss of $8.7 billion and accelerated a conversion to fuel-efficient vehicles to wean itself from money-losing trucks.
| Just a piece of advice: keep producing trucks if you want, stop producing anything that runs on gasoline or diesel. Produce nothing but trucks and cars that'll run on natural gas or propane in the interim, with the ultimate goal of running them on hydrogen without major modification. If you build it, they will come, and the distribution system with them. Most of us by this point will be happy to avoid any of our dollars going to any Arab or African oil producing nation, and happy enough to see Exxon, Shell, and Citgo in penury. |
Ford shares fell the most in almost seven years after the company reported a second-quarter deficit of $3.88 a share compared with a profit of $750 million, or 31 cents, a year earlier. The figure included $8 billion in pretax writedowns for plant closings and the declining value of truck leases at Ford Motor Credit Co.
| Don't timidly try and compete in the hybrid market. Make a bold break and go for CNG/LNG. |
The automaker said it will double production of hybrid vehicles, sell more European autos such as the Fiesta in the U.S. and convert three North American truck factories to make a redesigned Focus and other small cars.
| The Focus isn't half-bad. It gives them something to sell while they figure out what to do. Guess they thought they could sell the Explorer forever ... |
The revamping is a response to record gasoline prices that have ravaged sales of large pickups and sport-utility vehicles and derailed Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally's turnaround plan. ``They believe this is a permanent shift in buyer sentiment that they have to adjust to no matter how hard it will be,'' said Maryann Keller, an independent auto analyst and consultant based in Greenwich, Connecticut. `This is going to be expensive.''
| Converting a car from gasoline to CNG/LNG costs about $100 in parts. Approaching the problem from the ground up you may come out with negative costs. |
The loss marks the sixth in eight quarters under Mulally, 62, recruited from Boeing Co. to revive the Dearborn, Michigan- based automaker. Gasoline approaching $4 a gallon and plunging sales of F-Series pickups forced the CEO in May to abandon his target of returning to profit in 2009.
| Six losses in eight quarters sez the old imagination factory's getting a little run down. |
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