The last thing some car executives want to do is build a vehicle people actually want to buy. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:
A measure of just how divorced from reality the car industry is can be gleaned from a news story making the rounds about General Motors electing not to build a rival to the massively successful Ford Bronco and Jeep Wrangler 4x4s.
At least, not one with an engine.
GM’s president, Mark Reuss, stated the other day that “I’m not gonna do a Bronco” because he doesn’t want to be “late to the party.” This is logic akin to GM deciding not to build the Camaro back in 1967 because Ford had already built the Mustang – which was selling in the hundreds of thousands annually. GM, of course, ended up selling millions of Camaros (and sister car, Pontiac Firebird) over the next couple of decades – because there was a market for cars like the Mustang.
Just as, today, there is clearly a market for 4x4s with engines like the Bronco – which is the most successful vehicle Ford has launched in a decade, at least. Sales of this model were up 234 percent in 2022.
That’s not a typo.
117,057 were sold. That is a huge number in absolute terms but when put in context, it is even huger. The Bronco is not a mass-market vehicle. Unlike, say, the F-150 pickup – which is Ford’s best-selling vehicle.
Except for the electric version of it.
Ford sells about half-a-million non-electric F-150s every year, to people who need a practical vehicle. Ford has only sold about 15,000 electric F-150s, because they are not practical.
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 