- Oil Next Week: What Traders Will Be Watching
- Hedge Fund Billionaire Paulson Reports New Citi Stake
- Cramer: 5 Earnings Reports to Watch Next Week
- Court Rejects 'Clawbacks' for Alleged Stanford Victims
- Tax Credit Sparking First-Time Home Sales: Realtors
- Investors Cut Back US Stocks for Bigger Growth Abroad
- Cities With the Most Home Price Reductions
- White House Plans to Freeze Spending to Cut Deficit
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
- Oil Next Week: What Traders Will Be Watching
- Dollar is Not Plunging—So 'Calm Down': Market Strategist
- Strategists Say Markets Have More Upside — But How Much?
- Hirschhorn: Risk-Averse Traders
- Roginsky: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Financial Reform
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
- TV Series Inks Unique Deal For Fight
- First Time Buyers Rescue Housing: Realtors
- Dollar General Trades Higher After Its IPO
- Fed Reform? Not So Fast.
MOST SHARED
- Seeking Innovation in Health Care
- Driving Health Care Innovation
- Downturn is Prime Time for Airport Infrastructure Projects
- Cramer: 5 Earnings Reports to Watch Next Week
- Next Week’s Top IPO
- Hedge Fund Billionaire Paulson Reports New Citi Stake
- Has Twitter's Finest Hours (Seconds) Come and Gone?
- Gold Rises, Nears Record High as Dollar Drops
- Web Extra: Where Will The Next Bull Come From?
- Microsoft's Bill Gates Praises Apple's Steve Jobs For 'Saving the Company'
Text Size 
Ford Motor on Friday said it's going to have trouble breaking even by 2009 and slashed third-quarter production by 25 percent.
 |
Gene J. Puskar / AP |
The Detroit auto maker also said it will delay the launch of the new model its top-selling F-150 pickup truck by two months.
Ford lowered its forecast for U.S. industry auto sales for 2008 to between 14.7 million and 15.2 million units, including medium and heavy-duty trucks, from its previous outlook of 15 million to 15.4 million.
The company said automotive results this year would be worse than 2007's and it would be "difficult" for the U.S. auto maker to break even in 2009 because of a deepening slump in U.S. sales.
Due to the tough sales conditions, Ford said it will cut third-quarter production by another 50,000 vehicles, or 25 percent. It now plans to produce 475,000 vehicles. The company also says fourth-quarter production will drop 8 to 14 percent compared with the same quarter last year.
"As gasoline prices average more than $4 a gallon and consumers worry about the weak U.S. economy, we see June industrywide auto sales slowing further, and demand for large trucks and SUVs at one of the lowest levels in decades,'' Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally said in a statement.
Ford delayed the launch of the new model of its F-150 pickup truck as it tries to work through inventory of the current model. The company now expects the 2009 model to go on sale in late fall.
The forecast for continued losses marks the first significant setback for Ford since Mulally took over as chief executive in 2006.
Both Ford and General Motors have announced plans to shift more of a focus toward cars from trucks and develop hybrid cars amid blazing demand for energy-efficient vehicles but they're struggling to keep up with foreign rivals like Toyota Motor that are way ahead of them.
Ford shares are down 25 percent since their May peak around $8.50; GM shares have plunged 50 percent from a February high near $30 a share.
In Friday's action, Ford [F
Loading...
()
] was off about 6 percent and GM [GM
Loading...
()
] was down 4 percent.
-- Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this article.
Print
Email
- Warren Buffett and Bill Gates spoke to Columbia students, and Buffett made the students a startling offer.
- For the chief of cable company Comcast, growth has been about making deals – generally very large deals.
- Some companies may start using insurance to shift carbon risk from their balance sheets to maybe... yours?
- The president and founder of Genesis Today wants to improve America’s health, and thinks Wal-Mart can help.
- Switzerland's privacy watchdog is taking legal action to force Google to make changes to its Street View service.
- A wealthy, distracted Texas driver crashed his million-dollar Bugatti Veyron sports car into a salt marsh, say police.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes