Ford - August was a bad month

Toyota Surpasses Ford

Toyota Motor surpassed struggling Ford Motor in July to rank as the second-biggest-selling auto company in the United States, behind General Motors, sales figures showed. Toyota's victory over Ford was slim, just 487 vehicles. Toyota sold 241,826, up 16.2%, while Ford's sales dropped 32% to 241,339. Three months ago, Toyota passed DaimlerChrysler to rank as the third-biggest company in terms of American sales.

Note: The story has a huge error. It says that Toyota's sales in July gave it 16.2% of the American market compared with 15.9% for Ford. That is absolutely not correct; the margin of 487 vehicles represents a gap of 0.03% not 0.3%.

Ford Cuts Production

If you’re a major automobile manufacturer and you are struggling to sell all the cars you make, what do you do? Do you try new incentives, aggressive marketing, or actually making cars people want? If you’re Ford, you don’t do any of that. Instead, you just make fewer cars. Ford has cut production levels of their vehicles in the fourth quarter of this year by 21% compared to last year. It means that Ford will make 3.048 million vehicles in North America in 2006, that represents a drop of 9% from last year.

Rubin Resigns Board

Robert Rubin has resigned from the board of Ford Motor Company, citing a potential conflict of interest with his duties as a member of the chairman’s office at Citigroup. One analyst said the move may be a sign that the Ford family will need financing for an alliance with another company or to take the struggling automaker private. Another said Citigroup may also advise Ford or a buyer on the sale of the company’s credit arm. In a letter dated Thursday to Ford Chairman and Chief Executive William Ford, Rubin said he needed to step down as the board begins a review of the automaker’s strategic options.