Ford Will Kill Off Most Of Its Cars By 2020 As SUVs And Pickups Take Over

As consumer tastes continue to change, Ford has announced that by 2020 the Mustang and Focus Active will be the only cars it sells in North America

Matt Robinson

26 Apr 2018

Ford Will Kill Off Most Of Its Cars By 2020 As SUVs And Pickups Take Over

For most car buyers in North America right now, it seems one simply must have either an SUV or a pick-up truck. So where does that leave all other passenger vehicles? In the case of Ford, kicked to the kerb.

In the firm’s latest quarterly report, Ford confirmed that “by 2020, almost 90 percent of the Ford portfolio in North America will be trucks, utilities and commercial vehicles.” The company added: “Given declining consumer demand and product profitability, the company will not invest in next generations of traditional Ford sedans for North America.”

What this means is that Ford’s North American car portfolio “will transition to two vehicles,” those being the Mustang (above) and the incoming Focus Active (below). The latter vehicle being a kinda/sorta crossover itself, rather than a normal car. The Fiesta, Fusion, C-Max, Taurus and all other versions of the Focus are for the chop.

In the meantime, Ford says it is also looking into “new ‘white space’ vehicle silhouettes that combine the best attributes of cars and utilities, such as higher ride height, space and versatility.”

It should should come as no surprise that electrifying all the things is also on the agenda. Hybrid versions of “high-volume, profitable vehicles” such as the F-150, Mustang (sorry, purists), Explorer, Escape and Bronco. Ford’s first battery-electric vehicle will be here in 2020 meanwhile, and by 2022 the company will have 16 EVs in its line-up.

Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.

Comments

Yeah. That’s absolutely fine. No problem Ford!
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cries for hours

F**k you Ford

F*k you average consumer it’s not Ford’s fault people have a stupid desire for SUVs

Oh HELL no.

I feel you

Does this mean the Focus RS isn’t coming back?!

Yes it does.

oh dont you get me started with more crying cat memes

I blame average Joe for this. He wants a large vehicle because he’s now being paid handsomely. So he must have the largest car which he’d assume are the SUVs with massive front grille, lots of tech features inside which would give him the road presence and ego when he commutes on the road. 🙄

As “the average joe” I have to disagree. I have a lifted 2017 Ram 1500 as a daily. But I have a 2018 Challenger SRT in the garage lol. A truck can’t replace a performance car, and the ego-mobile is definitely the challenger, but I like the truck for practicality. I can carry whatever I want, I don’t mind getting it dirty, it fits 6 people if I need it to, it’s nice in traffic to be higher up than everyone else to see what’s ahead, it’s safer, etc etc. I’d blame more the manufacturers replacing minivans with SUVs. Now suddenly “mom cars” are “cool” because they’re not vans, their SUVs. So more people are ok with having them, thus they sell more, etc etc. I’d explain that better but I’m out of comment space and you get the idea

yea sure blame the average joe but if it weren’t for him almost all car companies would seize to exist :p (not to mention that most exotic companies are also owned by regular companies i.e BMW, Volkswagon, etc)

A good discussion would be when this happened.. like when exactly did people stop caring about driving. Last stat I saw said that (in the US) just 12% of all cars sold were FR layouts. I get practicality and all that, and speaking from the US the war in 03’ and inexorable gas crises followed closely by the 08’ recession meant people were very much so pinching pockets but certainly it didn’t bread a whole generations of spiritless pragmatists who want nothing to do with fun on the open road? Right? Especially with the bonanza of AMAZING cars on tap in the last 10 some odd years it’s bizarre to me that people just… stopped caring.. I mean sniffles it’s part of our culture dangit!

I blame soccer moms.

The shrinking market for sedan is only part of the story though. Four sedans, Toyota Camry/Corolla, Honda Civic/Accord, made it into the 2017 best selling vehicle list in US. What drives Ford to make this decision, imo, is the strong presence of Japanese manufactures in sedan market. Ford knew that the Fusion is not going sell well against completely overhauled Camry, Accord and Altima, therefore they probably cut it for good.

This is why my username consists mostly of screaming

This is what the big three were doing in the mid 2000s; portfolios full to the brim with SUVs. If there is even a minor hike in fuel prices again it will bite Ford in the arse, and you’ll have the early 70s and late 2000s all over again.

People who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it. Sadly it looks like that’s what we’ll witness again.

That’s why the smaller pickups f-150, ram 1500 are using hybrid and diesel powertrains now. They also have active aero to make them more slippery

Even thouhh fuel prices are steadliy going back up to 3 dollars down here in the south

It should should come as no surprise that electrifying all the things is also on the agenda. Hybrid versions of “high-volume, profitable vehicles” such as the F-150, Mustang (sorry, purists), Explorer, Escape and Bronco. Ford’s first battery-electric vehicle will be here in 2020 meanwhile, and by 2022 the company will have 16 EVs in its line-up.