Even More Production Cuts Prepared by Ford

A new production cut may be announced by Ford in the near future, analyst George Pipas told Autonews, this time concerning the North American production of crossovers. Ford already confirmed several US production cuts a few months ago, obviously caused by the global economic crisis which reduced demand for Ford's models, mixed with thousands of job losses.

"You could probably be looking for Ford to get car and crossover inventories more in line with the demand for those products in this kind of 11 to 12 million industry environment," Pipas was quoted as saying by Autonews.

Crossovers are currently experiencing a continuously decreasing demand in the United States, with majority of buyers looking for fuel-efficient models, usually imported from European brands. In this context, a new Ford production cut would be somehow understandable, with the American carmaker likely to concentrate on small cars, similar to other US companies.

As mentioned, Ford already reduced the production of the F-150 truck model this summer from five to three shifts, according to the aforementioned source, plus several weeks of inactivity scheduled for multiple production facililites.

"We have taken our medicine. The second and third quarter production cuts were very severe. If anything, we overreacted,” Ford marketing chief Jim Farley commented on the F-150 production cut.

Ford recently says that its planned fourth quarter North American production totals 470,000 units, more than 150,000 vehicles lower than the same period of the last year. Moreover, the car manufacturer assembled approximately 1.8 million units between January and September 2008, a production cut of about 18.3 percent when compared to the first nine months of 2007.