After the announcement that the Ford-Mahindra joint venture is now officially over, the former seems to be going through a tough phase. Now there are few media reports claiming that Ford India will shut shop soon. We try and analyse if this is indeed true. If you see, no new Ford cars have been launched in quite some time and except for their SUVs like the EcoSport as well as Endeavour, most of the other cars from the stable, though very capable, don’t seem to be the first choice for many buyers. There was news last year that Ford India will be launching the Figo automatic and finally, after a long wait the car is now being readied for launch. That said, the second-gen Figo was already late in coming to our market and on top of it, it didn’t boast any significant feature or powertrain advantage over the competition. One thing it did well was have sorted dynamics. The price tag too did undercut well-established brand names.Is Ford India going the GM way? Quite possibly. In early 2015, GM did showcase the India-bound new Cruze globally but shortly thereafter the company had to wind up its sales operations in our country. This is despite Mary Barra, the then CEO assuring that GM is all set to invest in India. Without any new products, investment, or path-breaking technology in its Indian products, Ford India might be looking at the writing on the wall.
Turnaround? Only if Ford gets into a joint venture with some other company wherein the other party brings in investments and optimises the existing production lines. The Mahindra bit could have pulled Ford out of the brinks in India, however as they say “there is no use crying over spilt milk.” It is also rumoured that Ford India was in talks with many other players for a JV but the conversations seem to have had no concrete conclusion. We also appreciate the fact that the Blue Oval has continued with its diesel engines post the BS6 implementation, something that biggies like Maruti Suzuki, Toyota, Renault couldn’t.
We, at Express Drives, sincerely hope that Ford India quells these rumours and comes out strong. Maybe the boffins sitting at the Detroit office will see merit to invest in our market as well as infuse interest and the only way to do that is by launching products developed for Indian consumers on a regular basis. Resting on the success of a single model at any given time has brought Ford India this far but that strategy might not work any longer.
