Ford cancels Mexico plant, will invest in Michigan

You can't really compare US MSRP and European MSRP as the European one includes sales tax (VAT), among other taxes. The sales tax varies between European countries. In Sweden it is 25% for cars.
 
Hok said:
You can't really compare US MSRP and European MSRP as the European one includes sales tax (VAT), among other taxes. The sales tax varies between European countries. In Sweden it is 25% for cars.
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That's kind of the point, actually. The reason the cars cost more is because of governmental policies, as D here is saying would happen under a Trump tariff. They should be eliciting huge complaints and mass protests (especially from the Norwegians, and yes I know most of that huge price tag is .no tax, as I said earlier) if the world worked the way D-Fence thinks it will. Only thing is, it's not working that way. Still waiting to see huge protests over the prices of cars erupting in the European Union - particularly in France, where they will strike and mass protest for something far more trivial than this - like cold frogs legs, say.

Even if you add the average state sales tax on new cars (IIRC, somewhere around 8% though my own state is 6.25%) the US market cars are still considerably cheaper than .de and .no - and indeed most European nations.

What I'm getting at is that for the cars most people buy, a Trump-imposed import tariff on foreign manufactured cars isn't going to do anything significant to the prices, nor will it cause a huge outcry.
 
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I don't know the percentage of company cars versus privately bought cars in the US. But in most of Europe for larger cars the percentage is really high. This is one reason, the high prices, that most privately bought cars in Europe are small cars.
 
Hok said:
I don't know the percentage of company cars versus privately bought cars in the US. But in most of Europe for larger cars the percentage is really high. This is one reason, the high prices, that most privately bought cars in Europe are small cars.
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Yeah, I know about that. The vast supermajority of cars sold in the US are private sales except for some trucks; the last numbers I saw (link is well worth reading) implied that a bit less than half of cars in Europe are company cars.



That's actually even worse - you'd think that companies, who have more money to complain, protest and influence politicians, would protest more to get their bottom lines down. Add that to the millions of individuals getting shafted and you should see more chances of protests, not less. :p
 
Spectre said:
Mustang GT US MSRP: $34095, USD
Mustang GT UK MSRP: ?35,745, which as of this posting's currency conversion rate is $43,923.46, USD.
Mustang GT DE MSRP: ?43.000, which as of this posting's currency conversion rate is $45,290.81, USD.
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I'd like to point out that the $34k non-premium isn't offered for sale here.
 
narf said:
I'd like to point out that the $34k non-premium isn't offered for sale here.
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Still only adds $4K to the pricetag, and that includes the separate $900 destination charge - something that isn't assessed in the Euro cars I believe? I also left off the $1250 "cash back" discount as I do not know if Europe has similar incentives. If I were to include it the disparity would get that much worse.

That said, you almost never pay MSRP for a car here. I would expect to drive out the door with a GT Premium Fastback for $32K or slightly less.
 
Spectre said:
Used for amusing shock effect and as a cite that the car is selling well there and apparently in other countries where you might not expect it to. :D It's a US export into Europia that can't be that easily dismissed (as much as D-Fence tried).
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That thing starts with blatant non-facts: "In Germany, the Mustang has attracted more retail buyers this year than the home-country favorites Audi TT and Porsche 911."
Even if you reduce the year to what they had in September, January to August, it's also behind the TT and 911.

I stopped reading there :dunno:
 
narf said:
That thing starts with blatant non-facts: "In Germany, the Mustang has attracted more retail buyers this year than the home-country favorites Audi TT and Porsche 911."
Even if you reduce the year to what they had in September, January to August, it's also behind the TT and 911.

I stopped reading there :dunno:
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Hey, it's CNN, if you expected total accuracy outside of numbers, you're in for a disappointment.

That said, my usual source doesn't have the final numbers for the German market for 2016 so I'll concede that until they do (in fact, since the rename and redesign of the site after they had to change due to their last name being owned by someone else, I can't find the German numbers on there any more). They also don't have the Europe wide numbers for Q4 2016 yet either, but as of Q3, this was the Europe-wide numbers for the Mustang in its own segment.



And compared to the Europe wide numbers for the next class up where the 911 lives.



So as of Q3 2016, the Mustang was outselling all but one sports car in Europe - including the 911.
 
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Spectre said:
Something else worth noting - of the most popular cars in the American market the majority are *already* made here. That being the case, there's not going to be a lot of upward price pressure caused by such tariffs, not when the US-made products are numerous and will cheerfully take over any sales lost by more expensive competitors. In fact, Nissan (to name one) has found that manufacturing in the US for US sales has been a huge bargain and is significantly contributing to keeping the rest of the company (Renault especially) afloat.

For 2016, these were the top 20 cars and trucks sold in the US:


And here's where they come from for the 2016 calendar year:

1. Ford F-Series - US
2. Chevy Silverado - US and Mexico
3. Dodge Ram - Mexico
4. Toyota Camry - US
5. Toyota Corolla - US
6. Honda Civic - US
7. Honda CR-V - US
8. Toyota RAV-4 - Canada (basically US North)
9. Honda Accord - US
10. Nissan Rogue - US
11. Nissan Altima - US
12. Ford Escape - US
13. Ford Fusion - US and Mexico (two plants, though the US Fusion production was discontinued this year - which is part of why there's an uproar about this)
14. Ford Explorer - US
15. Chevrolet Equinox - Canada, formerly US from 13-15
16. Chevrolet Malibu - US
17. GMC Sierra - US and Mexico
18. Nissan Sentra - Japan, formerly US until 2014
19. Jeep Grand Cherokee - US
20. Hyundai Elantra - US

See a pattern there?

- - - Updated - - -



Second only to Germany in the EU. Had a higher nominal per capita GDP than Germany, less inflation than Germany, comparable unemployment rates (considering the rest of the EU's numbers...)

926px-2015_GDP_%28nominal%29_in_EU.svg.png




So, yes, yes, they were. You were saying?
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tl;dr basically.



You still leave out the tax other countries apply....you know, to fund public healthcare etc.


Also

bqyZAEs.png
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The Mustang is only available for direct purchase now, so why exactly is it not "new" like the 124? Also, you are telling me a 4-cylinder Sedan/Ford Mondeo is competing in the sportscar segment? Would be interesting to see the spread of 4-cyl Mustangs here vs. the V8 ones. I mean, hey, let's include the Skoda Octavia in this too, because there is an RS model of it.
 
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Spectre said:
That's actually even worse - you'd think that companies, who have more money to complain, protest and influence politicians, would protest more to get their bottom lines down. Add that to the millions of individuals getting shafted and you should see more chances of protests, not less. :p
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There are protests and lobbying for decreasing the taxes from some people/organizations here.

The tax level is actually less now than what it used to be 30 to 40 years ago, atleast in Sweden. So from our perspective it is better than it used to be. For example the sales tax varies. Now it is either 0, 6, 12 or 25 percent depending on the goods/service provided. Earlier it was always 25 percent except for things that was excluded from the sales tax.
 
D-Fence said:
Also, let's please have a moment of silence for the Mustang:

https://www.automobil-produktion.de...selt-mustang-produktion-in-flat-rock-102.html
http://www.drive.com.au/motor-news/ford-shuts-mustang-factory-for-a-week-20161011-grzjxr.html
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Reading comprehension fail.

Ford is shutting its Mustang factory in Michigan for a week after the iconic sports car suffered a 32 per cent sales decline in the U.S. in September and was outsold by the Chevrolet Camaro for the first time in almost two years.
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Especially since the Mustang still outsold the Camaro year to year. Perhaps we should have a moment of silence for the BMW 3-series, which had an ANNUAL Y-T-Y drop of a whopping 25.5%, which was far more than the average decline in car sales this year. Cars were down and trucks/SUVs/crossovers were way up for the 2016 USDM.

The U.S. auto industry reported record sales of more than 17.5 million units in 2016, a modest 0.4% uptick compared with record levels in 2015 that equals average monthly gains of roughly 6400 units.

Led by a surging Ford F-Series, the best-selling line of vehicles that generated more sales activity than any year since 2005, the pickup truck sector grew its market share to 15.3%, up from 14.6% one year ago.

U.S. Vehicle Sales Rankings By Model - November 2016 YTD
U.S. Vehicle Sales Rankings By Model - December 2015 Year End

SUVs and crossovers also made great headway, as well. The Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, and Nissan Rogue ? America's three top-selling utility vehicles ? combined for 91,144 additional sales in 2016.

Passenger car volume, however, tumbled 9% as the leader of the pack, the soon-to-be-replaced Toyota Camry, plunged 10%, and the second, third, and fourth-best-selling midsize cars all sold less often in 2016 than in 2015.
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Numbers for cars only, no trucks:


By your logic we should also have had a moment of silence for some BMW product a few years ago:
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/headlines/4047823.BMW__New_Mini_shutdown_at_Oxford_plant/
 
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And now do your fancy graphs for profits posted by companies worldwide - and make a little star on the side marking companies which were being held alive by government bailouts :D
 
I'm just happy the Mustang is finally being at least well received by rational Europeans since it has what they consider a "proper rear suspension". ;) I don't care what out sold what and how much this cost here vs there (because this shit is expensive EVERYWHERE). Lets just calm down and focus on what we all like, cars, and not arguing over useless points (nothing personal but they are useless points on all sides). :lol:

Spectre said:
Less than you might think. Nissan made the first fully-robot-assembled car in the world with the Z32 300ZX - and they found out that for some jobs humans really are better. Likewise the new plants that many marques have been opening in the US in the past decade-plus - not as automated as you'd think. Even Tesla, the new hotness in some sectors, employs thousands of people to build their cars despite heavy automation. 2500 line workers make cars during the day shift and 2000 work the night shift. And they only make 2000 vehicles a week.

As countries with "build here or bend over" laws know, it's not just the direct jobs putting the vehicles together that having a plant creates - there's the jobs at suppliers, delivery jobs, people employed to provide services to the employees, housing and rental employment and revenue... When Toyota opened a plant in San Antonio, Texas to make trucks in 2003, they directly employed 2900 people. If you add in direct employment by suppliers, that brings the number up to 5700 - but it is calculated that the knock-on effects caused another 7300 to 16000 to be employed indirectly full time (depending on how you calculate it), and there's no telling how many are employed providing services to those people (because the math breaks down). There has been a huge improvement in San Antonio's economic fortunes.

There's other advantages too - since San Antonio now actually has a modern industrial infrastructure due to suppliers setting up shop and local businesses gearing up to serve the industry, there are now aerospace and other manufacturing firms looking to set up there as well, for even more jobs and revenue.
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I mainly came in here to comment that while its great people in SA got that factory and all those jobs it doesn't negate the fact that living there is about the worst place in Texas to live that isn't named Austin. SA is a cesspool of boringness and dumb drivers. The workforce there isn't as detail oriented or has the work ethic of more civilized metropolitan areas in the state. I won't make any other comments about my opinions but after living there for a few years I grew to detest that horrid place. Its just a bad place to be. Go visit for 1 weekend to see the historical stuff which is great but never come back. :mrgreen: Sometimes you'd want a vehicle build somewhere else... I'd buy something made in Canada or in another area versus that SA factory.
 
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