Ford Announces Plans to Get Out of the Sedan Business

Ford has made some waves in the automotive world this week by announcing that they will not be investing in next generations of their sedans here in North America, meaning that by 2020 Ford’s lineup will consist of Trucks, SUV/CUVs, commercial vehicles, the Mustang, and the upcoming Focus Active. While still surprising, the writing appears to have been on the wall for this in recent times as sedan sales have continued to plummet with majority of the market looking for trucks and crossovers. It should be noted that this is strictly a North America situation as the Blue Oval will continue to offer next-generations of their cars in other markets such as the recently redesigned Fiesta and Focus. It appears Ford will be using the money saved on not investing in sedans to put towards bringing more sophisticated hybrid systems to already existing models such as the F-150, Mustang, Explorer, Escape and the all-new Bronco. They state that their battery electric vehicle rollout starts in 2020 with a performance utility and will bring 16 battery-electric vehicles to market by 2022. The lone surviving nameplate here in North America will be the Focus which will be carried by the aforementioned upcoming Focus Active, which appears more like a sedan/crossover combination, much like the Subaru Crosstrek. No official timetable has been given for the departure of these models so its anyones guess as to when they will actually stop being sold. Another thing not mentioned in Ford’s statement was the impact it will have on the Lincoln brand, which shares many of the same platforms as Ford’s current sedans.