Ford has refused to sedans

26 April 2018

Rate will be made on the crossovers

The automotive world is changing, and last but not least the reason for this be preferences of the customers. Worldwide the first decade there is a growing demand for crossovers of all kinds, so paying them more attention. Thus the main victim of this movement were the sedans. For example, in Europe, this format has long remained only in the luxury segment, while the lower classes are much more popular, if not the crossovers, then at least the station wagons, and hatchbacks liftback. But if this all have been accustomed to, the fresh news from the company Ford is shocking: the "blue oval" plans to completely abandon the production of sedans.

While this intent applies only to North America market. But isn't USA are home to sedans? There has always been held in high esteem large chetyrehdverki! Yes, the first line of sales traditionally is the pickups, followed by crossovers. Yes, the demand for sedans steadily declining for years. But in the TOP 10 best selling models included at least three cars in this format: Toyota Camry (387 081 vehicles by year-end 2017), Toyota Corolla (329 196 units) and Honda Accord (322 655 pieces).

Another thing is that American brands have long lost this segment to the Japanese. In particular, for the same in 2017 sales Ford Fusion (known in Russia as the Ford Mondeo) fell by 21 %. On the other hand, even this relatively unpopular model in 2017, bought 209 623 Americans. Here again it is necessary to add 41 236 copies of the big Ford Taurus, as well as a portion of total demand for Ford Fiesta (46 249) and Ford Focus (158 of 385), which is also available as a hatchback. In sum, it turns out a very respectable number of cars. So why is Ford just wants to give this piece of the market to its competitors?

Chief Executive officer Ford James Hackett (Jim Hackett) said that the company will play there "where she can win". Apparently, that means Ford is losing money in the market of sedans, so it is easier to just walk away from this segment than the negative.

It is not known how the decision will affect its policies in other regions. For example, in Europe viewed the Ford sedan, so for the Old world, nothing will change. But the Chinese are still gravitating to the classic three-box body, so Ford probably will continue to develop new models at least for China. It is unlikely that the manufacturer somehow takes into account the tastes of the Russians in developing such a global strategy, because our market for Ford has long been very modest (compared to 2000 and early 2010s, the company's sales greatly subsided).