In a press release issued by the company, Mark Fields, Ford's President of The Americas said, "Rapidly rising commodity prices – particularly steel prices – and higher gasoline prices that are accelerating consumers' shift away from large trucks and SUVs together are having a tremendous impact on our sales, our manufacturing operations and our profitability as we look to 2009." According to Automotive News, rising gasoline prices in May were the tipping point for Ford's sales shift.
The lower overall production, dramatic model mix shifts, and substantially higher commodity costs are forcing a change in Ford’s near-term financial outlook, the company said. “Unless there is a fairly rapid turnaround in U.S. business conditions, which we are not anticipating, it now looks like it will take longer than expected to achieve our North American Automotive profitability goal,” said Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally. “Overall, we expect to be about break-even companywide in 2009 – with continued strong results in Europe and South America.”
In all Ford said it now plans to produce 690,000 vehicles in North America during the second quarter, a further reduction of 20,000 units from previously announced planned production levels and a decline of 15 percent from the second quarter of 2007. The company plans to produce between 510,000 and 540,000 units in the third quarter, down 15 to 20 percent from the same period last year. Fourth-quarter production is expected to be between 590,000 and 630,000 units, down 2 to 8 percent from year-ago levels.
Although there was no word on an increase or decrease in production of the Mustang, Ford does plan to up the production numbers for the Ford Focus, Fusion, Edge, and Escape. The only mention of the Mustang in Thursday's news release involved the EcoBoost engine and the 2010 Mustang. Ford said, "By the end of 2010, 100 percent of the [Ford] product lineup will be new, including the next-generation Mustang in 2009, [and] new fuel-saving EcoBoost engines in 2009."
