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Runtime: 9:54
0:00 Ford Really Needs 4-Door Mustang
0:51 Ford Ignored 4-Door Mustang for Over 20 Years
2:05 Piech & Porsche Families Back VW Restructuring
2:57 VW Wants Pickup for U.S. Market
4:47 Daimler Truck Says Emissions Regs = €1 Billion Fine
5:32 India Car Market to Grow Over 6 Million/Year
6:25 Toyota Faces Another Production Disruption
6:54 Tesla Extends Cybertruck Warranty
7:47 Ford Leaks How UEV Modules Joined
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This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
FORD REALLY NEEDS 4-DOOR MUSTANG
You’ve probably heard that Ford is going to come out with a 4-door version of the Mustang. The news broke last Friday after Autoline Daily came out. But here’s our Autoline Insight on why the company would make this move. Ford desperately needs to boost capacity utilization at the Flat Rock plant in Michigan where the Mustang is made. If they’re lucky they’re going to make about 60,000 Mustangs this year, including exports. We estimate the plant is running at less than 30% capacity, which means it’s probably losing a bunch of money. A 4-door Mustang could double production at the plant, which would at least make it feasible to make money on one shift.
FORD IGNORED 4-DOOR MUSTANG FOR OVER 20 YEARS
And who knows? Maybe they could sell a lot more. When Ford owned Volvo as part of its Premium Automotive Group, Vic Doolan ran Volvo’s North American operations. But before that Doolan was at BMW, and he told Ford that it should build a 4-door version of the Mustang. He pointed out that the BMW 3-series never sold that well until they came out with a 4-door version. And the 4-door went on to account for something like 60% of the sales mix. He told Ford they could easily double sales of the Mustang. That was over 20 years ago, but Ford didn’t act on it, until now. Ford, especially Bill Ford, was always worried that Mustang purists would revolt over a 4-door Mustang and he wanted to protect the company’s most iconic brand. We hear that Bill Ford had to basically be dragged kicking and screaming to approve the Mustang Mach E. But the model proved that it could expand the Mustang line without hurting sales of the classic 2-door. So we bet that Jim Farley didn’t need to do much convincing to get Bill to approve the new 4-door program.
PIECH & PORSCHE FAMILIES BACK VW RESTRUCTURING
The Volkswagen Group wants to seriously restructure the company, slashing jobs and closing assembly plants in Germany by 2030. But the VW supervisory board, which has a majority of local politicians and labor leaders, are dead set against doing that. On Friday, the owners of the company, the Porsche and Piech families, came out in full-throated support of what management wants to do. That prompted IG Metall, Germany’s largest industrial union, to accuse the Porsche and Piech families of placing dividends above workers. Hans Dieter Poetsch, the chairman of Porsche SE, the holding group that controls Volkswagen, says the company is at a historic crossroads, and the longer it waits to make any decisions, the worse the problems are going to get.
VW WANTS PICKUP FOR U.S. MARKET
Volkswagen also wants to revamp its lineup in the U.S., including adding a pickup truck and a big sport utility vehicle. Now the question is, what kind of pickup will it sell? The VW Amarok pickup, which is sold in almost every major market of the world except the U.S. and China, is actually based on the Ford Ranger, and made at Ford plants in Argentina and South Africa. Volkswagen would probably have to make its pickup at its Chattanooga plant in Tennessee, since the Michigan Truck Plant that makes the Ranger and Bronco, is pretty much running at full capacity. Or….would VW look at getting a pickup version of the Scout, since we think the Scout plant that’s getting built in South Carolina is going to have a lot of open capacity.
DAIMLER TRUCK SAYS EMISSIONS REGS = €1 BILLION FINE
Europe’s auto industry is in deep trouble, and one reason is the stringent emissions regulations it faces, backed up by billions in fines. And it’s not just with passenger vehicles, it affects commercial trucks, too. Daimler Truck says it faces big fines if the EU sticks to its emissions plan. The company’s CEO says it is on track to fall 10 to 15% short of the 2030 target, which would result in a fine of €1 billion. While the company has developed several zero-emission models, Daimler says it will fall short of the goals due to a lack of charging and the higher cost of those models. BEVs currently only account for 6% of the truck market in Europe.
INDIA CAR MARKET TO GROW OVER 6 MILLION/YEAR
Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest automaker, thinks its home market is going to grow quite a bit. By the end of 2031 it expects passenger vehicle sales to reach 6.1 to 6.3 million units, which would be up from about 4.5 to 4.6 million last year. Those numbers are about even with Japan, which is currently the third largest automotive market in the world by country. But India could easily overtake it. Maruti Suzuki is even forecasting its own sales will increase from 2.4 million to 3.6 million by the end of 2031. That growth will be driven by recovering demand for small cars, Maruti said it had a backlog of 130,000 orders at the end of last year, as well as strong SUV sales.
TOYOTA FACES ANOTHER PRODUCTION DISRUPTION
Just when the industry gets through one emergency, another one pops up. At the end of July, Toyota was forced to suspend production because of an earthquake. And just a day after it restarted production from that situation, Toyota suspended production at 9 plants in Japan due to a typhoon. But the good news for the automaker is it only had to halt production for a day and no other automakers were impacted by the typhoon.
TESLA EXTENDS CYBERTRUCK WARRANTY
Tesla is extending a warranty on Cybertrucks that came out years ago, which isn’t very common in the auto industry. The company says it identified the power conversion system electronics, which combine the onboard charger and the DC-DC converter, did not meet reliability standards in pre-2026 Cybertrucks. Basically, owners would lose home charging functions. So, it’s extending the warranty on the PCS from 4-years/50,000 miles to 8-years/150,000. However, Electrek reports that some owners were forced to pay anywhere from $5,000 to $7,200 to get it fixed, before Tesla rolled out a ‘goodwill’ discount that brought the price to $1,000 and it’s only now that it’s extending the warranty.
FORD LEAKS HOW UEV MODULES JOINED
Ford developed a whole new production system for the vehicles that will be built off its Universal EV Platform, where the major sections of the vehicle are manufactured on separate lines before being married together. Ford calls this part of the plant ‘the chapel of love,’ the IP from trim and the chassis from body, including its new large castings, are both bonded and bolted together. One worker says they’ve been assembling Ford prototypes for 27 years and that nothing has gone together as easily as this. Another engineer says the company’s choice to bring hardware and software development in-house is also slashing significant time from the platform’s development. At one point when all of the wiring harness and modules had been brought together in a test rig, the rear taillights weren’t working. At Ford this normally would have taken weeks or months working with suppliers and going through different departments within the company. But now that data can be provided right to the software engineer, who can work up a fix and send it right to the team.
But that’s a wrap for today’s show. Thanks for tuning in.
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CT5, all iterations and a rumored four door Camaro (on the same GM platform) as well as Ford being truck heavy with no car-based ICE models might have had a lot to do with green lighting a four-door Mustang.
Sean, Poor utilization at Flatrock is a good reason to build a Mustang Ranchero there. I have to believe that the Mustang buyers would accept that a Ranchero a lot easier than a Mustang 4 door. Also, any word on what the four door would be called? Personally I like Cougar, even if that was a Mercury. I could also see it being a Lincoln model (Continental anyone?)
Ford was all too quick to exit the shrinking but still significant compact and midsize sedan segments, squandering their equity in Focus and Fusion while their Japanese and Korean counterparts have carried on in their place. A sedan may have more volume potential than a coupe but in today’s market the potential may be greater as a four-door crossover–compact segments also abandoned prematurely by Ford. Self-described purists (who forget or don’t care that Mustang was derived from an econobox platform for all except the last 20 years of its history) will be butt hurt by a Mustang branded sedan or crossover but likely to have a negligible adverse impact on sales. By any name Ford may have difficulty re-establishing itself in any traditional passenger car segment unless it comes up with a true banger of a product.
If Ford is going to make a four door Mustang, it should be a wagon. It should be a real wagon, not lifted with 50 pounds of black plastic tacked on.
I’m also with Kevin A, regarding a Mustang Ranchero, with two doors. That would be cool, and if done right, should sell.
Ford tried the 4-door Mustang back in the early-mid 80s with the LTD LX. Not sure that many people will want a $35k+ Ford sedan.
Fusion was built in Flat Rock, along with Mustang. Fusion was prematurely axed at about the same time Ford declared it was going to export Mustang to Europe and was adding a RHD version. That volume never replaced the lost Fusion volume.
Similarly, Ford axed Europe’s S-Max and Galaxy at the same time it said will be exporting Edge to Europe. The Edge volume didn’t backfill the S-Max/Galaxy volume.
So, we have another couple of examples of Ford shooting itself. Any bets on the year of Ford’s funeral? While this may seem like a harsh question, Ford’s global volume is a fraction of its former self. It cannot sustain its bloated overhead (too many active and retired executives; legacy UAW costs; $billions of write-offs from poor AV and EV commitments).
I was waiting to see what the next generation Fusion hybrid would be like, before buying a 2018 Camry. Instead of there being a next generation, Fusion was axed. Either Ford announced by mid-2018 that Fusion would be dropped, or the rumors were strong enough that I was pretty sure Fusion would be gone.
A Mustang sedan will, presumably, compete with CT5, or a Chevy version of that platform if one exists. . If they’d have a hybrid version, like using the Explorer powertrain, that would give them something over GM.
The four door Mustang is rumored to be called Mustang Mach-4, like the Mach-E! IMHO, they should drop the Mustang in its name and just call it the Mach-4 and give it the Mustang’s styling, but we’ll all just have to wait and see what they call it. The thing is, the current Mustang platform is a updated an shrank Lincoln LS platform, so it would be interesting to see if they just undo what they did, or give the door and four door a new platform all together?! While I doubt them doing that, due to cost, with those ‘bones’ originating in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, the updated Alpha+ architectures that the GM triplets will be using will be much newer then what the Mustangs would be using. I wonder if Ford will take the opportunity to build a version for Lincoln? What is also rumored, is that the Mach-4 will offer a hybrid V8 as well! If true, will the coupe get it to?
It doesn’t make since for VW to get in the all ready crowded midsize pickup market. The Chattanooga plant already builds a compact FWD/AWD CUV/SUV, so, it seems that it would make more since to build a compact pickup, using the parts that are already at the plant! Building a compact Atlas Tanoak pickup would be cool!
Ford, make a Mustang 2-door wagon.
Ford and GM stopped making the compact and subcompact sedans because, they claimed, that they couldn’t compete profitably with the high quality, high content, highly fuel efficient, but relatively low prices of the low $20K and $30K sedans offered by Toyota, Honda and now Hyundai and Kia. The difference with a 4 door Mustang is that it would be RWD, not necessarily need to be the most fuel efficient (just the most efficient for its class and of its piers [other pony/muscle cars!]) and having a starting price around $40K! That would put it at a price point of the 3 Series, but would not be a direct competitor and offer a V8, as opposed to a straight six, in its highest state of tune! Purest mat protest, but having both a two door Mustang AND a 4 door V8 Mustang in your driveway, might be hard to complain about!!