After the company’s crushing defeat for the Motor Trend Truck of the Year Award, and the continued defeat in sales against the Ram EcoDiesel. Ford is finally stepping up its pickup game, but we’re not so sure it’s in the right direction.
After the press announcement yesterday from MT about the Truck of the Year, Ford “confirmed” they were working very hard on putting together a hybrid F-150. The Hybrid engine will most likely use a version of the 2.7L EcoBoost V6 engine and will likely return 19 mpg in the city and 26 mpg on the highway.
That’s still a considerable ways off of the EcoDiesel figures, but since the project is still very new, those numbers are likely to change. And if Ford wants to beat the Ram in mpgs, they definitely need to retool it.
According to Raj Nair, Ford’s Global Product Development Chief, even though gas prices are falling, building a hybrid F-150 is the “right thing to do.” This belies Ford actually has a choice to build something better.
Consumers now have a whole range of options when it comes to pickups, and right now, Ford is losing that battle. Ford needs to do something in order to pull back those buyers lured away by Ram and Chevy, and we’re not sure if this is the right way.
Ford’s at a tipping point right now. They can either push forward to where the market is going, or stagnate like GM did in the early 2000s. As of right now, it seems the truck portion of the business is taking the latter path.
