2014 Ford Explorer Xlt on 2040-cars

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Ford picks Fiesta ST, Transit Connect as this year's SEMA darlings

SEMA is more than nine months away, but the reveille bugle for the show has just sounded with Ford's call to aftermarket companies for its project-vehicle program. The 2014 Ford Fiesta ST and 2014 Transit Connect van and wagon are the cars The Blue Oval wants to feature, but applicants can submit project vehicles for any product except the GT500, the Raptor, or anything from Lincoln.
Submissions must be completed in two parts, the first being an email to Ford with an overview of the project, like vehicle theme, promotional plan and location display. The second part must be mailed in on company letterhead and gets down to the nuts and bolts of the vision and the provision of company bona fides. The complete proposal is due on March 1, winners will be notified by May 1. Click the link below to get all the details, and for show attendees, get ready to see some funky Fiestas and wild shaggin' wagons in Las Vegas come November.

Ford defends plan to shareholders: ‘We're simply reinventing the American car’

Ford's top executives took heat from shareholders over their plan to do away with sedans as we know them in Ford's North American lineup, as the company held its annual meeting Thursday. Critics said the plan to shelve the Fiesta, Focus and Taurus, reduce the Focus to one crossover model, and concentrate on high-margin trucks and SUVs was a shortsighted abandonment of entire market segments of affordable vehicles. "This doesn't mean we intend to lose those customers," Ford CEO Jim Hackett said. "We want to give them what they're telling us they really want. We're simply reinventing the American car." Ford has said SUVs/crossovers and pickups will constitute 90 percent of its North American lineup by 2020. And though only the Mustang and new Focus Active will remain, it plans to add new vehicles going forward that offer better fuel economy and utility, including EVs and hybrids. Hackett characterized the shift not as an abandonment of traditional cars but as a transformation of them. "We don't want anyone to think we're leaving anything," Hackett said. "We're just moving to a modern version. This is an exciting new generation of vehicles coming from Ford." It was Hackett's first annual meeting as CEO, and for the second year it was conducted online rather than in person. The change to Ford's lineup is part of Hackett's overall plan to cut $25.2 billion in costs by the year 2022. Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. blamed the negative reaction to the lineup plan on media coverage. "I wish the coverage had been a little different," he said. "If you got beyond the headline, you'll see we're adding to our product lineup and by 2020 we'll have the freshest showroom in the industry. The headlines look like Ford's retreating. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth." While Ford was clear about its plans for the Blue Oval, it has been less clear about the Lincoln brand. Hackett on Thursday said only that the Lincoln Continental, re-introduced just two years ago, would continue "through its life cycle" — but it has been such a slow seller that rumor has Ford killing the Continental again after that, and Hackett made no mention of a new generation. Presumably the MKZ sedan will go away when its twin the Ford Fusion does, but although Ford has outlined end dates for other models, the Fusion's departure is open-ended. The stock price has been a frustration for investors for years and has fallen 12 percent since the first of the year.

Bosch fined $57.8 million by DOJ for price fixing and bid rigging

The US Department of Justice has been investigating bid rigging and price fixing among automotive parts suppliers for years, and so far the agency has leveled nearly $2.5 billion in fines against 34 companies. The latest business to be caught in this ongoing crackdown is Germany's Robert Bosch GmbH (Bosch), the world's largest independent auto component maker, and it agrees to pay a $57.8 million criminal fine to the Feds. According to the DOJ, Bosch has agreed to plead guilty to pricing fixing and bid rigging for spark plugs and oxygen sensors supplied to the former DaimlerChrysler, Ford and General Motors. The rigging is said to have occurred between January 2000 and July 2011. Bosch also allegedly played foul with starter motors sold to Volkswagen from January 2009 until at least June 2010. Bosch and other companies allegedly conspired on the pricing for bids to submit to automakers, and sold the parts at noncompetitive prices. The DOJ filed a one-count felony charge in US District Court for these actions. The company's plea is still subject to court approval, though. Bosch is only the third European company to be charged in this investigation, according to the DOJ. So far, many of the fined businesses have been from Japan, including Takata, NGK and others. Some execs have claimed price-fixing has been the standard operating procedure in the auto parts industry for a long time. Robert Bosch GmbH Agrees to Plead Guilty to Price Fixing and Bid Rigging on Automobile Parts Installed in U.S. Cars Robert Bosch GmbH, the world's largest independent parts supplier to the automotive industry, based in Gerlingen, Germany, has agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $57.8 million criminal fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices and rig bids for spark plugs, oxygen sensors and starter motors sold to automobile and internal combustion engine manufacturers in the United States and elsewhere, the Department of Justice announced today. According to the one-count felony charge filed today in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan, Bosch conspired to allocate the supply of, rig bids for, and to fix, stabilize and maintain the prices of, spark plugs and oxygen sensors sold to automobile and internal combustion engine manufacturers such as DaimlerChrysler AG, Ford Motor Company, General Motors Company and Andreas Stihl AG & Co., among others, in the United States and elsewhere.