i honestly think part of the proble is our executives just aren't as good as the people running some of these other car companies. look at toyota &honda. people keep buying them because they are reliable and they give customers what they want. now you have the rav4 passing the f150 and that should be a pretty big wake up call. the f150 has been one of the biggest things ford has going for it for years.
then look at the edge. ford got rid of it and maybe the edge had problems and maybe sales weren't great, but meanwhile toyota keeps selling the rav4 like crazy. korean companies are doing well too. so somehow everybody else keeps figuring out what people want while we keep changing plans. we used to benchmark toyota and honda all the time. from what i remember we would look at a few things they were doing, copy a piece of it, and then go right back to doing things the ford way. we never really changed the whole system. that is what bothers me.
toyota is not doing magic. honda is not doing magic. they just seem to make better decisions over a long period of time. at ford we cancel products, start new programs, reorganize, change priorities, bring in new leadership ideas, talk about software, evs, subscriptions and whatever the new thing is. then a couple years later the direction changes again. and when something doesn't work the explanation is always complicated. regulations. interest rates. china. labor. dealers. suppliers.
customers didn't understand the product. whatever. at some point maybe the answer is simpler. maybe the people making the big decisions at toyota and honda are just better at their jobs. you can make fun of toyota all you want, but customers keep walking into their dealerships and buying their vehicles. that is the scoreboard that matters.