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Fiat boss Elkann being mentored by... Bill Ford?

Fiat Chairman John Elkann has been turning to an unusual source for advice on the car business. While speaking during an interview with The Detroit News, Elkann said he often asks Bill Ford Jr. for advice on how to proceed with the turnaround at Chrysler. "It's great to have the opportunity to share this with someone like Bill, who has experienced many things and gone through many things ... especially linked to Detroit." Elkann said.
As the Agnelli family heir, Elkann has inherited a long and fruitful friendship with the Ford family. While Giovanni Agnelli built his first Fiat four years before Henry Ford created his first vehicle, it was Ford that showed Agnelli the benefits of mass production and helped pave the way for what would become the Fiat empire.
Giovanni's grandson, Gianni, helped mentor Bill Ford when he was elected chairman of Ford Motor Company. Now, Ford is returning the favor by helping Elkann navigate the automotive industry's tumultuous waters.

Ford 'working very hard' on F-150 hybrid

The lighter, aluminum-bodied 2015 Ford F-150 gets (at best) 26 miles per gallon. That's not bad for a truck that size – and we should always remember that improving gas guzzlers can make a big difference – but what if the popular truck came with a gas-electric hybrid powertrain? How efficient would that be? We heard Ford talking about such a vehicle last year, and now we learn that Ford is still "working very hard" to make a F-150 hybrid happen. You want details? Well, we all want details, but those will not be coming for quite some time. Last year, Ford's global product development chief, Raj Nair, said that the company was planning to have hybrid pickups and hybrid SUVs on sale by 2020. With fuel prices dropping, Nair is now saying that a hybrid F-150 makes more sense, financially, than a diesel, but Ford could make both options available, depending on customer demand. The diesel wouldn't require all that much work, Nair said, since "we've got diesels in the portfolio." To date, the only hybrid F-150s we've seen have been conversions, often PHEVs, like this example from HVET or this one from Quantum. Pickup trucks from other manufacturers haven't been greeted with huge sales numbers. General Motors stopped making its big two-mode hybrids and cancelled the next-gen program.

Toyota sells six of 10 of hybrids in California

In an apparent shot back at Ford's increasing market share of electrified vehicles and claim that it accepts more Prius trade-ins for its own hybrids than any other car, Toyota has flexed a muscle and played the numbers game to put the Blue Oval in its place.
Leaning on its hybrid market dominance in California, the Japanese automaker stated that six out of 10 hybrids sold in the Golden State are Toyota models. And it keeps coming: Year-to-date through May 2013, Toyota sold five times more hybrids than Ford. One of every two hybrids in California is a Prius model. In addition, Toyota notes that it has sold 1.5 million Prius vehicles in the US, 90-percent of which are still on the road today.
Want more? We'll let Bill Fay, Toyota's group vice president and general manager of sales lay the smack down: