4 hours ago
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How do car manufacturers react to ever-changing legislation? We asked Bill Ford, the boss of one of the biggest in the business.
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Bill Ford is passionate about reacting to demand rather than command. The Blue Oval's executive chairman is certain that customers should steer future products and not politicians.
“If they tighten too much, they really get out of sync with what the customer demand is,” he explains.
“One of the things that we've been impressing to governments around the world is that it's dangerous to get completely disconnected from what the customers want in terms of regulations. As long as that disconnect doesn't get worse, we're going to continue to work on the stuff that we do very, very well,” he says.
Regulators are the bane of most major manufacturers around the world, and Ford is no exception. That said, the company has almost become used to this element of uncertainty. How does it handle the polarised environmental positions of the two key political parties at home in the US?
“In a perfect world, we'd have certainty because our product lead times are longer than political lead times,” he notes.
“However, if you look back in the last 20 years, particularly in the United States, it's been very much a variable regime in terms of regulations, because we've changed Democrat, Republican, back and forth, back and forth. We haven't had the luxury of certainty for quite some time.
“We've gotten quite good at reacting to, I don't want to say capriciousness because that would be the wrong word, but the change in sentiment.
“We really would love certainty because it would make our life a lot easier. But we've proven to be a very resilient company, whether it's COVID, whether it's regulation change, whether it's major disruptions in our supply chain, tariffs, all those things that have impacted our business. And yet, I think we've navigated ourselves through it quite well.”
Quite well is apt phrasing. Ford was smarting after the company's largest quarterly earnings miss in four years in its fourth-quarter results released on 10 February, while targeting 2026 to be a rebound year. That's been attributed to unexpected tariff costs of roughly AUD$1.28 billion related to credits for auto parts not taking effect as early as expected.
Beyond that, the projections for this year look reasonably rosy, with projected adjusted EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) of between AUD$11.4 billion and AUD$14.2 billion, up from AUD$9.7 billion last year.
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Andy brings almost 30 years automotive writing experience to his role at Drive. When he wasn’t showing people which way the Nürburgring went, he freelanced for outlets such as Car, Autocar, and The Times. After contributing to Top Gear Australia, Andy subsequently moved Down Under, serving as editor at MOTOR and Wheels. As Drive’s Road Test Editor, he’s at the heart of our vehicle testing, but also loves to spin a long-form yarn.
