Ford’s North American marketing chief said he is optimistic about the company’s future despite massive job losses at the big U.S. carmakers and ever-increasing foreign competition.
Francisco Codina, speaking at the Denver Auto Show at the Colorado Convention Center on Thursday, said innovation will guide the country’s No. 2 automaker going forward.
He pointed to Ford’s new hybrid sport utility vehicles (that combine gas and electric engines) and crossovers, which are SUVs on car frames, as evidence of the innovative approach.
Codina’s comments came two months after Ford announced job cuts of up to 34,000 and the closure of 14 factories. Facing the same high gas and steel prices and shrinking market share as Ford, No. 1 U.S. carmaker General Motors has made similar moves.
“I’m very optimistic about our future because Ford is fighting back,” Codina said.
The industry is “in the middle of a pretty rough stretch of road. All you have to do is open the newspaper” to see that, he said.
Codina declared “the end of what we call the big three. … Today the right term is the ‘up-for-grabs big six,”‘ which are engaged in a “shootout like you’ve never seen before.”
Auto dealers and related companies employed 33,300 people in Colorado in 2004, according to the Metro Denver Automobile Dealers Association.
Sales at new-vehicle dealerships here exceeded $12.7 billion, with 461,000 new and used vehicles sold.
This year, hybrids are creating buzz at the auto show. Chevrolet is introducing a hybrid pickup; Lexus has a new hybrid sedan; and hybrid leaders Toyota and Honda continue to add new models.
“That’s what I’m looking at for my next vehicle – a hybrid,” said Gary Gable, whose engineering company, Farns worth Group, bought a table for the Codina speech and lunch. “I live in Arvada and work in the Tech Center, so fuel efficiency is very important to me.”
“I’m taking a wait-and-see approach. I don’t want to be the innovator,” he said.
Ford has a Mercury Mariner hybrid SUV on display at the show. It’s also making a Ford version called the Escape Hybrid. The company is making just 24,000 this year but plans to increase that to 250,000 by 2010, Codina said.
So far, the vehicles are selling well in Colorado, he said.
Codina said hybrid purchasers in Colorado get one of the highest state tax credits. The combined state and federal credit is more than $5,000.
“You get a lot when you buy a hybrid in this state,” he said.
Glenn and Sandy Garvey also were interested in hybrids on display Thursday. But the Highlands Ranch couple said hybrids are still too expensive.
The hybrid Mercury Mariner’s base price is $29,225. The non-hybrid Mariner on display Thursday had a base sticker price of $26,785.
Carmakers are trying to close that gap. The Mariner gets 19 miles to the gallon city, and 23 highway.
Its hybrid counterpart gets 33 miles per gallon city and 29 highway.
Staff writer Greg Griffin can be reached at 303-820-1241 or at ggriffin@denverpost.com.
