Ford chairman and CEO Bill Ford yesterday criticised government regulation of the car industry and corporate malfeasance, according to an Associated Press (AP) report.
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Ford told an annual motor industry conference organised by the University of Michigan’s Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation and the Centre for Automotive Research that a lack of trust coupled with over-regulation have caused Americans to fall out of love with the car industry, AP said.
“In California, people used to write songs about T-birds and Corvettes. Today they write regulations,” AP quoted Ford as saying during the management business seminars at the Grand Traverse Resort.
Ford said that legislation restricting emissions and mandating fuel economy is in the pipeline because citizens and governments do not trust the industry to make the improvements on its own, AP reported.
“Costly mandates that focus on existing technology run the risk of taking human and capital resources away from the development of potential breakthrough technologies,” Ford said, according to AP.
AP said that Ford cited federal figures showing that fuel economy has been improving steadily since the 1970s, and that current small pickup trucks are more fuel-efficient than compact cars made 30 years ago.
According to AP, Ford said the car companies are doing their best to be good corporate citizens, but that recent scandals regarding companies in other industries have caused a general distrust of big corporations.
Briefing reporters later in the day, Ford said that the company has plenty of cash and employee morale is improving, AP said.
“Morale was an issue, but I think our morale today is better than it has been for a long time,” Ford said, according to AP. “People understand what we’re trying to do.”
AP cited Ford as saying his company had no “Plan B” alternative to the restructuring plan it announced last January.
“Really, it’s an incremental process. You never declare victory,” Ford told AP.
