Thread regarding Ford layoffs

@fg+1 Thats ridiculous thinking. Would you buy a washing machine where you cant use the delicates cycle unless you buy a subscription? Would you buy a lawn mower if you had to subscribe to alter the height of the blades? Of course not! People get mad when they pay for a feature and then find out that they cant use it unless they pay more. This brilliant idea was doomed from the get-go because some dolt thought this up after downing a half bottle of bourbon but thought it would get him noticed up the chain.

Ford doesn't have the hardware or software teams needed to make viable subscription based model. We just have bunch of wannabes with inflated egos or try hards. Our focus has been all over the place because of these goons who are just looking to build their empires without bringing any real revenue. Just focus on quality, rest is just noise.

The data and subscription sales model still makes the best sense for future revenue with auto sales on a downward trend. Making money after selling the vehicle is not a bad thing people. Get real.

MBA =/= credibility

There I said it

I wrote a lengthy explanation a few years ago about the subscription model not working for the car industry. The main reason is that the consumer is already paying for the hardware embedded in the vehicle. There is no additional service provided through a subscription, since the subscription is just enabling the hardware in the vehicle.

When you use a phone to pay for goods or to play a video game online, the device has only a client, that connects to a network and everything else is done outside the phone. That's why they can charge for it.

I mentioned also the legal ramifications, including that if the consumer is paying a subscription for BlueCruise, means the consumer is not responsible for the accidents that happen under BlueCruise. And one legal battle will spend more money than all the money made by the subscriptions.

Hopefully, as @OP is saying, reality is setting itself in the C-suite.

The philosophy behind the DF iPhone vehicle deign, combined with the sycophantic approach below, highlights why Ford is heading in the wrong direction, one that does not align with consumer expectations.

People want vehicles that are high quality, reliable, cost-effective, and able to last beyond five years.

If car companies fail to meet these demands, perhaps it's time for government and society to shift focus toward investing in mass transit options.

I’m an anonymous poster who happens to have an MBA in Marketing. These subscription features will never be popular. The issue is customer perception. When you ask them to pay for features like, heated seats which have long been a feature in vehicles, they are going to view the idea of paying a monthly fee for this in a negative way. For features like Blue Cruise, the customer is going to ask themselves, do I really need this? Most of the time the answer is going to be “no”.
These subscription features are already being studied in Marketing classes for the failure that the are.

@ ab+1jjf3wn3z

“we just need to get on-board must quicker before we won't be able to lead the market.”

You clearly don’t understand that we will NEVER lead the market. We have been losing market share on our vehicles ever since Farley joined as VP Marketing. If we had any traction in selling subscriptions, they would be publishing the number of subscribers and dollar volumes every quarter. Until they start doing that, subscriptions are not reality.

You must be in Model eh.

What you are failing to understand is that Ford had been trying this for 9 years now. It's not that it will be a failure, is that it had been a failure!

DF is a reject from Tesla and Apple. he failed there so he softlanded here at Ford. Stop trying to make Ford into a SW or tech company. get to know the Ford customer instead of forcing something down their throat.

I think DF knows the tech market and what our customers want more than some anonymous post here.

Other OEM's have adopted the subscription and data models for revenue, we just need to get on-board must quicker before we won't be able to lead the market. This is the same reason why Telsa is the leader in the BEV market.