The leaders of Ford Motor Co. have been talking about vehicle affordability for at least a year — it was a topic Executive Chair Bill Ford and CEO Jim Farley addressed one year ago at the Detroit Auto Show — and now the two say Ford will make it top priority, they are developing a fundamentally new approach to lower car prices, and the company has upcoming news to announce about it.
"Affordability is a big issue," Bill Ford told the media on the sidelines of this year's Detroit Auto Show on Jan. 13. "It’s one we talk about a lot internally and we actually have a lot of plans to address that … some of which we haven’t announced yet, but will shortly because I do think that’s really important.”
So does President Donald Trump, who on Dec. 3 in the Oval Office with executives from the Detroit Three around him, proposed that carmakers start thinking about making tiny, inexpensive cars for the U.S. market that are similar to ones popular in Japan. Trump said it would offer Americans access to more affordable new cars.
Those tiny cars are a topic Trump is not letting go of, according Farley, who recounted an exchange between himself and the president during Trump's tour of Ford's Rouge Center in Dearborn on Jan. 13.
