At a dinner with journalists this week, Ford’s new CEO, Alan Mulally, said that the company will revamp its entire line-up by 2010.
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According to the Detroit Free Press, Mulally spoke of replacing or significantly upgrading the entire product range. Previously there had been talk of updating 70% of the line-up by 2008.
Mulally reportedly sat between two favoured executives – Derrick Kuzak, the new global product development chief at Ford, and Mark Fields, Ford’s president of the Americas.
Mulally spoke repeatedly about his admiration for Toyota. He traveled to Tokyo at the end of December and met with Toyota chairman Fujio Cho. Investors jumped to the conclusion that a potential alliance might be on the cards, but the companies have played down any such speculation. In fact Mulally said at the dinner that he was meeting with all his competitors and that he has already met with GM, DaimlerChrysler and BMW.
On the UAW and talks on contracts he said, “we need to improve our competitiveness and we need to do it together.”
He also said that Ford is making good progress towards integrating engineering systems around the world, which should help reduce complexity in the design and manufacture of new products.
Finally, Mulally said he expected to have a deal in place to sell Aston Martin by the end of this year.
