Ford is still fresh off an executive shakeup but the problems for the second biggest automaker in the US demand the immediate attention of its new CEO.
The company’s new CEO James Hackett, who was in charge of Ford’s self-driving strategy last year, is called to offer a solution to the drop in US sales and stop GM from grabbing a portion of its market share.
Ford is currently stuck in a product drought that shows no signs of easing until 2019, according to two sources who spoke to Reuters. That’s mainly because of the industry’s long product cycles and no one really knows what Hackett can do immediately to solve this problem.
Ford is dealing with a lack in new models, which was partly caused by former CEO Alan Mulally, who preferred to use much of the company’s resources on an expensive 2014 update of the Ford F-Series pickup truck.
That might have safeguarded America’s best-selling vehicle but it also prevented Ford from developing other new models. And the fact that it typically takes three or four years for a new or an updated model to get into production means that Mulally’s questionable tactics are now hitting Ford hard.
Even if Fields had immediately started ordering product launches when he took over from Mulally in July 2014, the first of those would not reach the market until the autumn of 2018. If things don’t change, Ford will have to wait until early 2019 for its first big batch of new models to hit the market.
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