Lakeland Ford

by Paul A. Eisenstein on Jul.15, 2010

While the U.S. car market has "clearly turned the corner" from last year's decades-low slump, this year's slow turnaround is treating some makers better than others - and threatens the very survival of some marques.

Domestic makers are, on the whole, gaining ground according to an analysis of first-quarter 2010 new vehicle registration data, though the clear winner is Ford Motor Co.

Significantly three of the top five "gainers," according to Experian, came from Ford: the F-150 pickup, Fusion sedan and Escape SUV.  Overall, Ford and Nissan showed the biggest sales gains of all brands during the first quarter.

Ford also showed gains in terms of improving customer loyalty - always a challenge for a brand.  According to Anderson, the Detroit maker had a repeat sales rate of 49%, a full point better than Toyota.  And among individual models, the Ford Fusion was tops, with a nearly two-thirds repeat sales rate.

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• Ford brand now has the highest initial quality among all non-luxury brands, according to J.D. Power's closely watched Initial Quality Study
• Ford rose to fifth place from last year's eighth place. This is the highest rank position Ford has achieved in the IQS since ranking 23rd in 2004
• Three Ford models rank highest within their respective segments: Ford Focus, Mustang and Taurus
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Ford Motor has improved steadily in recent years and in the 2010 IQS rankings of individual models by vehicle type, placed 12 models in the top three in their categories, more than any maker.
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Domestic brands, as a group, closed the quality gap with foreign brands for the first time since J.D. Power and Associates began tracking the initial quality of new vehicles 24 years ago. Quality is a big selling point for consumers shopping for new cars.

Excluding luxury makes, Ford was the No. 1 brand in this year's study, which measured 228 potential problems during the first three months of ownership of 2010 model-year vehicles. Ford, including Volvo, had 12 models rank in the top three in their segments -- more than other automakers.
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Ford predicts the electrification of America's auto fleet to happen a lot faster than most have expected.

Nancy Gioia, Ford's director of global electrification, told our colleague Jewel Gopwani at the Detroit Free Press that Ford expects 10% to 25% of its sales by 2020 will be vehicles that in some way run on batteries, up from about 2% now.

Of those electrified vehicles, 70% will be hybrids, 20% to 25% plug-in hybrids, the rest pure electrics.

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