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Hot-selling Ford Expedition, Lincoln Navigator get production boost

Ford is investing an additional $25 million in its Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville to increase by 25 percent production of the hot-selling and all-new Lincoln Navigator and Ford Expedition SUVs. The investment adds to $900 million in previously announced spending at the plant, which also builds F-Series Super-Duty pickups and employs 8,400 workers. Assembly-line workers are putting in overtime and working voluntary weekend shifts to keep up with demand. The new investment will cover upgrades to the assembly line but does not involve further hiring, Ford spokeswoman Kelli Felker says. The popularity of the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator is a bright spot as Ford stock has been battered by Wall Street amid concerns concerns about the automaker's future vision and slowness to detect trends. Ford says the investment is an example of its bid to improve "operational fitness," one of CEO Jim Hackett's common refrains. Ford says Navigator retail sales more than doubled in January, and Navigators are spending an average of just seven days on Lincoln dealership lots as customers trade in vehicles including Land Rovers and Mercedes-Benz. Nearly 85 percent of buyers are opting for high-end Black Label and Reserve trim packages, contributing to an average transaction price increase of more than $21,000 in January compared to a year ago. The 2018 Navigator won the North American Truck of the Year award and also topped a Detroit News poll of public favorites at last month's Detroit Auto Show. Sales of the Expedition, meanwhile, were up almost 57 percent last month as the full-size SUVs also spent an average of just a week on dealer lots. Platinum trim models represented 29 percent of sales, pushing transaction price increases up $7,800. Ford gave the 2018 Expedition an all-aluminum body to save mass in its first significant redesign since 2007. The plant last year got nearly 400 new robots, mainly in the body shop, to help increase line speed, and Ford added a robot lab where employees can test software tweaks or troubleshoot issues away from the factory floor. The Louisville plant also benefits from extensive new data analytics, with seven big-screen monitors providing minute-by-minute updates showing progress against hourly targets or alerting workers to pending parts shortages. A huge spare-parts "vending machine" lets workers more quickly locate needed parts and keep inventory at necessary levels.

Lincoln Sync 3 Infotainment Review | Clean and eminently usable

Many of the newer Lincoln products might be vastly different in design and experience than their Ford counterparts, but infotainment software is still heavily shared between the two brands. That said, Lincoln has made a great effort to make its version of Sync 3 feel more upmarket and premium compared to Ford’s. If you can think of it in terms of Android smartphones, Sync 3 in Ford vehicles is like stock Google software. Sync 3 in Lincoln products is akin to SamsungÂ’s UI, which amounts to a totally new look and added features. The core interface remains the same across the two brands. LincolnÂ’s snazzy new look can be customized with a few different color combinations, but they generally all consist of muted tones that exude old-world luxury more than the heavy-handed blue hues on Ford's version of Sync. One convenient commonality between the two is Apple CarPlay and Android Auto capability, both of which require wired connections. Some may find the functionality of the Apple/Android interfaces to be compromised as detailed in our Ford Escape interior driveway test). Sync 3 has a bottom bar of quick toggle, commonly-used apps, and a Home button in the top left corner. It makes getting to any particular set of menus quick and painless. Squared-off icons are used within menus with large font and intuitive scrolling functionality. There are no redundant scroll wheels or touchpads to control the screen interface in any of LincolnÂ’s vehicles, so youÂ’ll need to be comfortable with a touchscreen. Thankfully, there are hard buttons on the dash for the climate controls and common audio functions.  Lincoln Sync 3 Infotainment View 10 Photos In the Lincoln Navigator weÂ’re using to demonstrate the technology, Sync 3 is smooth and generally free of hiccups. However, itÂ’s not infallible and tablet-smooth as plodding through BMWÂ’s or MercedesÂ’ latest infotainment systems is. Lincoln uses Sync 3 on all of its current models, and in the Navigator, itÂ’s playing on a large 10-inch screen. The added luxury features for Lincolns tends to dictate all of the extras you see in the software. There are settings for a vast array of ambient lighting, hugely complex seat controls (for the 30-way massaging seats) and a number of customization options for the excellent Revel audio system (optional). Lincoln differentiates itself even further with the fully digital instrument cluster flanking the big screen.

Ford gets out of car subscriptions, sells Canvas to rival Fair

Ford says it’s selling its Canvas subscription service to competitor Fair, getting out of the subscription game after less than three years. Terms of the deal were not announced. Ford acquired Canvas in 2016 as a wholly-owned subsidiary based in San Francisco as a service to pilot subscriptions to Ford and Lincoln vehicles, eventually rolling out to Los Angeles and Dallas. The company said it had amassed around 3,800 subscribers in that time, who will have the opportunity to join Fair when their current subscriptions end and will receive more information from both subscription companies. But that number pales in comparison with Santa Monica, California-based Fair, which claims more than 45,000 subscriptions in 30 markets since launching in 2017. Ford was always fairly quiet about Canvas, and Automotive News last year reported that Lincoln executives expressed surprise over soft demand, saying that subscribers were looking for short-term solutions and often dropped out after just a few months. Ford is also in cost-cutting mode under CEO Jim HackettÂ’s $11 billion restructuring plan. The Blue Oval joins Cadillac, which put its $1,800-a-month Book By Cadillac subscription service on ice late last year, citing higher costs and fewer customers than expected. Cadillac has pledged to eventually relaunch the service as a pilot in select cities, but mumÂ’s been the word since. More recently, VolvoÂ’s Care by Volvo subscription service has come under scrutiny from dealers and an investigation from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and has made changes to its program. Thought it also has added the XC60, XC90 and V60 to the list of available vehicles. Fair touts itself as a “commitment-free” solution, with all-inclusive plans covering 24-7 roadside assistance, routine maintenance, insurance and other perks. It uses a mobile app to get customers prequalified, and it analyzes their eligibility and targets an affordable range of monthly payments. Customers then shop for cars and sign up for one via an initial payment that ranges by vehicle type, with the ability to keep the cars as long as they want and drop the service at any time. It peddles used cars from more than 30 different brands, none more than six years old or with more than 70,000 miles on the odometer. Fair on Tuesday announced it has raised $500 million in loans from a group of creditors, including Mizuho Bank and Japan's SoftBank, as it looks to expand its leasing services to Uber drivers.