The message no doubt resonated loudly throughout Ford’s floors (Well) headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.
This unexpected news certainly surprised CEO Jim Farley and his team as they work to bridge the gap created by Tesla (TSLA) in the highly competitive and lucrative electric vehicle market.
Farley turned Tesla Ford into number one competitor. From this rivalry, the CEO wants to emerge as the big winner. To do this, he decided to transform Ford from a legacy automaker into something between a start-up and a major firm. This involves removing a lot of redundancies and simplifying the decision-making process. In short, Ford wants to drastically cut costs.
“We have too many people,” Farley said at a Wolfe Research automotive conference in February. “This management team firmly believes that our [internal-combustion-engine and battery-electric vehicle] portfolios are underearning.”
He also said the company needs to cut costs by $3 billion or more by 2026. The company’s ambitious goal is to produce 2 million electric vehicles by 2026. It sold just 27,140 EVs in the U.S. in 2021 .
Verdict for $1.7 billion
The cost cuts aren’t random, but rather strategic to make the business more competitive early on, Ford says. This cost cutting will result in several thousand job cuts, the source said said TheStreet last month.
Ford separated its internal combustion engine (ICE) or gasoline vehicle manufacturing operations from its battery-powered vehicle (BEV) operations.
In this context, the company receives an extremely unfavorable verdict. A jury just ordered Ford to pay $1.7 billion in connection with a fatal crash that killed a Georgia couple in 2014, said Gerald Davidson of the law firm Mahaffey Pickens Tucker, LLP, one of the attorneys representing the family. to TheStreet by email.
“We hope this brave jury’s verdict will have the impact it was intended to have and Ford will do something about the millions of these super heavy duty trucks manufactured between 1999 and 2016 that are still on the road,” Davidson said. .
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The jury found that Ford sold 5.2 million “Super Duty” trucks with weak roofs that would crush the people inside in a rollover, Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported. The flaw was present in all Super Duty models between 1999 and 2016.
The jury reached that verdict on August 19 after a three-week trial. The punitive damages are reported to be the largest in Georgia’s history. The case was first heard in 2018 but ended in a mistrial.
“While we sympathize with the Hill family, we do not believe the verdict is supported by the evidence,” a Ford spokesman responded in an emailed statement.
For will appeal the sentence, the spokesman added.
$24 million in compensation
It is not certain that this huge amount will be the final amount. Indeed, judges and appellate courts often reduce punitive damages when they deem the amounts to be excessive, as is the case here.
Melvin, 74, and Voncil Hill, 62, were driving a 2002 Super Duty F-250 Crew Cab pickup when a tire came off, causing the vehicle to overturn and crush the roof of the vehicle.
The Hill family accused Ford of knowing all along that the roof design of this 2002 pickup would not protect the vehicle’s occupants if it rolled over. The roof design was flawed, the family claims. They also said Ford had been aware of the dangers of the roof being crushed for many years but failed to act to fix it.
Ford reportedly did not notify F-250 owners about the weak roof. Therefore, the car manufacturer must take responsibility for the fatal accident of their loved ones.
The jury seems to be on their side.
A day earlier, a jury awarded the Hill family $24 million in damages for the accident.