Ford Motor Company recently introduced their 2009 lineup and the promise to accelerate product transformation for better fuel economy. Their new EcoBoost engine, will produce up to a 20 percent boost in fuel economy and reduce CO2 emissions up to 15 percent. EcoBoost is the cornerstone of our near term sustainability plan as Ford continue's to advance research in the areas of electrification and hydrogen. Mark Fields, president of the Americas says the transformation is well underway.
Click on 
to hear audio. Use right mouse click to download.
| Cut #1: | "We're investing in these new technologies and products aimed really at safety, environmental friendliness, and in-car connectivity into the vehicle, but very importantly as we do these products, do them with quality.." :13 sec. |
Fields went on to say that "quality is the ticket to entry" and says according to the RDA research group, Ford can stand shoulder to shoulder with it's competition. This fact is already paying big dividends to Ford's bottom line. |
| Cut #2: | "The repair rate for Ford Lincoln and Mercury under warranty in the US has decreased by more than half since 2004 and to be exact, it's 60 percent. So 60 percent reduction in the repair rate, and that's helped us as a company reduce our warranty costs world wide by 1.2 billion dollars over the last 18-months." :20 sec. |
| While Mark Fields focused on the quality of vehicles, Derrick Kuzak, group vice president Ford Motor Company Product Development honed in on the portfolio of products ranging from the Ford Focus, to crossover vehicles like the Flex and summed up his presentation by emphasizing the need for better fuel economy which will be obtained via EcoBoost engines coming to market next year available in the Lincoln MKS. |
| Cut #3: | "An unrelentless, unrelentless focus on fuel economy, but with an important difference in the near term. Focus on technologies that are affordable for our customers they go across a hundred percent of our vehicles, so all of our customers benefit from better fuel economy and we get the better fuel economy in high volume quickly, but providing EcoBoost to hundreds of thousands of customers. Volume and affordability is what our fuel economy and CO2 strategy is about." :33 sec. |
| Fields said the combination of EcoBoost V-6 engines will be introduced on several vehicles next year, inconjunction with doubling their Hybrid volume, but at the end of the day Fields feels consumers will be bullish about Ford because of two things. |
| Cut #4: | "Our products and our quality and when you get customers into our showroom, who have not been there in a long time, a lot of them are not only surprised, they're shocked." :08 sec. |
| Ford's relentless push toward quality leadership will be evident across the board in their 2009 lineup. |
# # #
