[Okc] great news from Ford

[Jennifer Gooden]

Great news following our discussion of automobile production at Green
Drinks last night...

 

Ford poised for big hybrid push


Auto maker plans fuel-efficient versions of half its models, wants to
produce 250K by '10.


September 21, 2005; Posted: 12:19 p.m. EDT (1619 GMT) 

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Ford Motor Co. plans to speed up its hybrid
strategy and offer the fuel-efficient gas-electric cars on half its
models in the next five years, according to a published report. 

Ford Chairman and CEO William Ford Jr. announced the plan Wednesday.

Ford plans to ramp up hybrid production from several thousand this year
to 250,000 by 2010. The company also plans to increase the number of
flexible fuel vehicles, which can run on either pure gasoline or
gasoline blended with ethanol, too 280,000 units by 2006.

Ford started selling its first hybrid vehicle, a version of its compact
sport/utility vehicle Escape, in August 2004, and a hybrid version of
its twin, the Mercury Mariner, in July this year, a year earlier
<http://www.cnn.com/2005/AUTOS/07/12/ford_hybrids/>  than originally
planned.

William Ford has been a longtime champion of environmental causes, but
the nation's No. 2 auto manufacturer's main source of profit in recent
years has been pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles that get poor
gas mileage. But record gasoline prices and concerns that oil prices
could stay high in the long term have auto manufacturers and car buyers
taking a closer look at fuel economy of vehicles.

The U.S. auto manufacturers have trailed their Japanese counterparts in
development and sales of hybrid vehicles.

Even with the new hybrid push by Ford, it won't necessarily close the
gap with competitors such as Toyota Motor Co., which announced at the
Frankfurt auto show last week that it intends to offer hybrid versions
of all of its models, although it did not give a time frame to reach
that target. Toyota also said it expects to make as many as 400,000
hybrid vehicles in 2006.

Ford Chief Operating Officer Jim Padilla complained to reporters Tuesday
that it could be offering more hybrid vehicles if it weren't for the
shortage of specialized components, and he blamed some Japanese auto
manufacturers for the shortage
<http://www.cnn.com/2005/AUTOS/09/20/bc.autos.summit.ford.hybrids.reut/i
ndex.html> .

"It is a supply issue, and it's supply of several technologies," Padilla
said at the Reuters Summit in Detroit. "The Japanese have shown a little
bit of a predatory approach."

 
 
Jennifer Gooden
Program Coordinator
The Homeless Alliance
 
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