One of the profit puppies is sick... Ford makes nearly all its profit from SUVs and pickup trucks in North America. So when you're rolling out your first redesigned Explorer SUV (aka its best-selling SUV ever) in 10 years, you put top people on it. But Bloomberg now reports that the revamp was botched. And putting this thing in reverse is expen$ive.
This road trip is fun for nobody... Ford invested $1B to equip its Chicago assembly line with the right conveyor belts, hammers, heavy duty tools, and mojo needed to put a 7-passenger aluminum box on wheels together. The whole situation is now carsick.
- Defects: Details on what was wrong with the vehicles isn't totally clear, but the digital gauges that show the MPH and gallons of gas are reportedly glitchy.
- The fix: Some cars were already sent to dealerships and need to be hauled back.
- The root cause: The workplace environment sounds downright abusive, according to Bloomberg: "Roving groups of workers are intimidating other employees, creating a hostile environment."
Waiting until the news is official is often too late... Ford reports its quarterly earnings on Wednesday, and the CEO will probably be asked to explore this Explorer snafu. But plenty of investors on Wall Street have already acted by selling out of the stock — it's down 11% in the past 3 months.