The 65 mpg Ford the U.S. Can’t Have
If ever there was a car made for the times, this would seem to be it: a sporty subcompact that seats five, offers a navigation system, and gets a whopping 65 miles to the gallon. Oh yes, and the car is made by Ford Motor (F), known widely for lumbering gas hogs.
Ford’s 2009 Fiesta ECOnetic goes on sale in November. But here’s the catch: Despite the car’s potential to transform Ford’s image and help it compete with Toyota Motor (TM) and Honda Motor (HMC) in its home market, the company will sell the little fuel sipper only in Europe. “We know it’s an awesome vehicle,” says Ford America President Mark Fields. “But there are business reasons why we can’t sell it in the U.S.” The main one: The Fiesta ECOnetic runs on diesel.
Automakers such as Volkswagen (VLKAY) and Mercedes-Benz (DAI) have predicted for years that a technology called “clean diesel” would overcome many Americans’ antipathy to a fuel still often thought of as the smelly stuff that powers tractor trailers. Diesel vehicles now hitting the market with pollution-fighting technology are as clean or cleaner than gasoline and at least 30% more fuel-efficient.
[…]only 3% of cars in the U.S. use diesel. “Americans see hybrids as the darling,” says Global Insight auto analyst Philip Gott, “and diesel as old-tech.”
[…]
A $1,300 tax deduction available to buyers of new diesel cars could bring the price of the Fiesta to around $24,400. But Ford doesn’t believe it could charge enough to make money on an imported ECOnetic.
This has already been hashed over here.
Of course Ford won’t tweak this for the US market. That would tend to end all the spending without the making of the money.
Does anyone out there know of one single person who got fired for saying Detroit is filled with lame-brained idiots?
Big car company culture makes the TV show The Office look serious in comparison. The higher up in the tower you go, the lower your business IQ gets. Tests have shown that the CEO of any car company has forgotten more than college graduates walk through the door with.
Look how long Ford’s Ka has languished in Europe/UK only, never even being considered for the US market until oil hit a billion dollars a gallon. Then all of the sudden, “Hey, I’ve got an IDEA!!”
And tonight’s news included a PR hurl (with chunks) from Chrysler bragging about a new vehicle in their list that gets -whoopie- milage in the mid-20s!!!!
As if that were some sort of pregnant incentive.
The article is from early September, and the British Pound has dropped against the dollar considerably since then, so the manufacturing cost rational isn’t as valid anymore.
If they import it to the US, they’ll start to make money. Then they won’t get bail out money from the taxpayers.
Either way they win and we lose.
Unless . . .
1) we prevent the bailouts
2) keep buying Toyotas
Then we get better cars while they learn to run their business – or die.
If they die – that’s free enterprise. Certainly, nobody is going to bail my independently owned company out. That’s free enterprise also.
The only bailout of private business that worked (in my memory) was the LOAN to Chrysler – and they were only saved for a while.
Ford diesels are no trackers. I’ve got a 1.8 Ford Focus turbo diesel and it’s very fast with tons of pick-up. It gets 560( could get better if I drove like a farmer) miles on a 60 liter tank.
The first time we discussed this: http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=23715
Not interested and neither should Obama administration.
America needs to invest in battery powered vehicles. Enough in burning fossil fuels for ground transportation (other than freight, of course).
Start with gas/battery hybrid and eventually make it an ALL ELECTRIC SOCIETY. We need to stop listening to Republican hashed ideas. They are full of shit and have no new ideas. They should STFU and do as their told.
#4 jim “Ford diesels are no trackers. I’ve got a 1.8 Ford Focus turbo diesel and it’s very fast with tons of pick-up. It gets 560( could get better if I drove like a farmer) miles on a 60 liter tank.”
That’s ~35 mpg. I can get that in a gasoline powered Hyundai.
What’s the big deal?
#6 Where will that electricity come from? In much of the country that means coal. Coal is much dirtier than burning gas or some type of biofuel. Clean coal plans are bunk. Either they don’t work, they present other nastier dangers, or they make the whole process too expensive to be competitive.
That car is HOT! I don’t care what engine they put in it. If it was sold here people would buy it, assuming credit markets ease enough for them to get a loan.
People are primarily emotional about cars. As long as the car won’t bankrupt them and it is sexy they will buy it.
This looks like the Ford WRC car, but a bit smaller. Mitsubishi and Subaru remade their corporate images using the evo and the wrx. Ford, once again, squandered a golden opportunity.
# 8 chris said, “#6 Where will that electricity come from?”
Every lib knows it comes from the Electricity fairy.
#9 Let me help. Read slowly from an electrical engineer to a dumb ass.
Lecture 1. Electricity can be generated from a MULTITUDE of energy sources, including but not limited to fossil fuels. The distribution system of electricity is ubiquitous.
Lecture 2. Burning fossil fuels in a car is far less efficient than energy from a power plant, including electric distribution losses.
Lecture 3. Burning fossil fuel in power plan is far more clean than burning in a car engine. The expensive scrubbers on a power plant cannot be installed in your tail pipe.
#10 Dallass,
If we switch to all electric where is the additional base power production going to come from?
Obama has no concrete plans for additional base power production.
#7
35 to a gallon with a driver that has a lead foot. If I drove normally I could get over 600 miles to the liter. Plus, I get the vat (added tax) back with diesel. You don’t with unleaded petrol. I wouldn’t even consider buying another car unless it was a diesel.
My bike is powered by Huevos Rancheros and two double espressos.
#13 sorry, I meant post #8
#13 jim, “35 to a gallon with a driver that has a lead foot. If I drove normally I could get over 600 miles to the liter. ”
I drive ~80 mph on the highway, so similar to my car and diesel costs more per gallon than unleaded.
That’s reason enough.
Best looking Ford I’ve seen.
#16
But, can you run your car on cooking oil or bio-fuel? Also, my car is 8 years old. The newer Ford diesels are getting better per mile. I don’t know what the price is in the US, it’s 114 euro per liter here at the pump. But, I get Diesel in bulk with my business which makes it’s 20% cheaper.
# 18 jim said, “#16 But, can you run your car on cooking oil or bio-fuel?”
Why would I? That’s more expensive than gasoline.
BTW, Diesel is about $.78/liter in CA.
Why not RETOOL the US factories to build them HERE????
Forget importing them, build them here and keep US workers employed!
Geeze, the CEOs just don’t get it!
#20 Wally said, “Forget importing them, build them here and keep US workers employed!”
Well, that depends on the bottom line. Does that increase or decrease cost?
I drove a hired previous model Fiesta turbo-diesel about 300 miles in the last week. Motorway and Cross country average mpg 57.8. I wasn’t taking my time but I could have broken the speed limit by more.
I reckon a modern turbo diesel drives like a petrol engine with the same power from 30 or 40 years ago although maybe peak revs are 4000-4500 rpm rather that 5000 to 5500
#19
Well, it’s cheaper for me over here to run a Diesel and even cheaper on processed cooking oil from a chip shop. We seem to be arguing over cars owned by an Asian car company and the more profitable European division of Ford. These are the cars Americans should be designing and building. Instead they’ve got their hat in hand over in DC begging for a bail out.
“#6 Where will that electricity come from?”
From the power of Obama’s love.
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Seriously though- I’m a diehard Toyota fan, but it took years to develop that loyalty. If they came out with one of these I might consider it.
#12, No concrete plans isn’t the half of it. The environmentalists have pushed through so many regulation laws that it takes about four times as long to build a coal-fired power plant today as it did 30 years ago.
The first nuclear power plant took four years to build. Now it takes 10-30 years depending on all the permitting you have to go through first.
Assuming we could get our electricity from a power plant is a pipe dream until this is taken care of.
Unintended consequences.
It never changes.
“Corporations cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicate, for they have no souls.” 17th Century
With their losses compounding their own destruction, one would think they would develop the best solution and profit from it and save them and us from future problems. If you are the problem you simply get eliminated. Big auto seems set on self destruction as the numbers clearly prove. The government can’t do much to help a company that can’t help the consumer. If your product or service is defective or of poor quality and technology you will not last long. If it contributes to environmental damage, the losses can add up quickly. Clean should be rewarded in the marketplace, so it goes on the eve of destruction. Quality pays for itself. The future could well be ceramic turbines that run on nearly any hydrocarbon or synthetic fuels engineered to perform better than fuels from nature. We seem to think by burning the world, we’ll save ourselves from trouble and look at the trouble we are now in. Nature is inefficient when it comes to powering machines. It’s not designed to work with things the way we build them, so the things we build tend to destroy nature. It’s like DDT and all of a sudden we are looking at Silent Spring because we invented chemicals to rein in nature because we could design a better natural world than God. We played God and have lost, thus the worldwide crisis is now upon us. Get you motor running.
“Test everything and keep what is good.” Lots more junk to be tested and more elimination ahead. It’s just human nature.
That new Ford Fiesta isn’t made in the UK, neither is it’s engine, and they sell them throughout Europe, Australasia, Africa, Canada and South America. The new Ford “Ka”, diesel, is even smaller, nicer to drive, cheaper and more fuel efficient and less polluting than a Prius. And, you can’t have one. Sorry, it’s for your own good. So, stop asking, OK!
I don’t care how ‘clean’ the modern Diesel has become. Drive behind one for 20 miles once they get a few years old and you’ll have to roll your window down or wear a respirator. Trucks and buses are bad enough to drive behind. The smell makes me sick to my stomach sometimes.
Burning processed cooking oil from a chip shop would smell fine, but that means more large fries for everyone which means bigger cars to hall your fat ass around in.
In Ontario Canada right now (per litre) Diesel is $1.10 and unleaded gas is about $0.90. Do the math.
Remember that with electric, most people would be charging the thing during the evening hours. Rates are lower (with smart meters) and utilities actually have an excess of power production during the off peak hours.
I can’t help but think that when ‘not if’ batteries become half the weight and last twice as long, we will see some major changes on the electric car front.
# 25 LibertyLover said, “#12, No concrete plans isn’t the half of it.”
Yep, that’s why Dallass clammed up & didn’t answer…
I love cars like this…
Until..
you get a LOAD..
they are more designed to be a MOTOR cycle and have 1 passenger, then to HAUL 4- 200lb persons and a TRUNK full of food or camping gear.