Aussie Motoring

This year Ford America is looking down the barrel of a $US12 billion loss as Ford cars continuen to be shunned by the American motorists.

The only solution Ford sees to their financial woes is to offer redundancies to all of its 75,000 workers and hope that somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 take up the offer. Along with the redundancies Ford hopes to close 14 plants.

The cost to the company? Possibly $US140,000 for every worker who accepts the company’s offer.

Are you one of those really advanced techno-geek revheads that would love to be able to intergrate your iPod into the dash of your car? Well you’re not alone, it seems that there are many people around the world who would love to be able to do that and dispense with the current non-tech plug-in-cigarette lighter solution.

Ford, GM and Mazda are all working with Apple on ways to intergrate the iPod into their vehicles’ audio systems. Initially Ford is looking at simply plugging the iPod into the face plate of the radio but further down the track there will be an interface in the glove box that will allow the iPod to be operated from the audio controls on the dash.

GM will be starting with a similar system to Ford and once again it will require the iPod to be placed in the glove box.

Mazda is not saying much at all except to say that it will offering an iPod interface on all its vehicles worldwide.At the moment Ford and GM are only looking at offering the interface on US vehicles from the 2007 model onwards.

Somehow shoving the iPod in the glove box seems like a rather clumsy way of doing things to me - surely there’s a more elegant and geeky alternative they could have used.

Who am I kidding, I don’t even own an iPod or any other sort of MP3 player and even the TivX controls leave me confused

You can read the full story here

Ford in the US has announced plans to reduce their focus on producing hybrid technology motor vehicles (the Toyota Prius is a hybrid) and turn their attention to building vehicles powered by biofuels.

Around September last year Ford committed itself to building the production capacity required to roll 250,000 off the production line by the end of 2010 but now Ford has changed its mind.

Instead Ford now wants to look at a broad range of alternatives including clean diesels, biodiesels, E85 (the ethanol/diesel mix that is available in the US) and more advanced engine technology.

Ford does offer two hybrids in the US - the Escape Hybrid and the Mercury Mariner Hybrid (as seen here). Both these vehicles fall into the SUV market but neither model is a big seller.

… then the news from Ford America must look good.

The word is that sometime this decade Ford will release a 4.4 litre V8 diesel for it’s F-150.

The Auto Blog is reporting that the new engine is currently in the development and planning stage. You can read more about it here

Over the last little while Aussie Motoring has been reporting on some of the ways that GM in the US has been struggling to make a profit. I guess that might give you the idea that GM is the only one of the big car manufacturers who is really having a problem but that is definitely not the case.

Ford in the US is also struggling to stay afloat and some analysts suggest that it’s only their ‘truck’ division - and the F series in particular that are keeping them in business.

Just how desperate they are can be seen from a peek inside their truck division’s war room. You can get that peek at “Ford’s War Room Not a Substitute For Judgement“. It makes interesting reading and gives a rare insight into just how Ford sees its customers.