Ford: US Lacks Hybrid Suppliers

17 August 2004

Wall St. Journal via Australian Financial Review. Good piece—and disturbing as well—on the difficulties Ford had in sourcing hybrid components for the Escape in the US.

A senior product development executive at Ford has warned that a dearth of US suppliers capable of producing key petrol-electric hybrid components places a big question mark over the future competitiveness of the country’s automotive industry.

Phil Martens, Ford’s executive vice-president of product development, said the car giant, which is preparing to ship a small hybrid sports-utility vehicle (SUV) later this year, had to turn to foreign suppliers for access to a majority of key components to build the company’s first hybrid, the Escape Hybrid.

“What is it going to take for [American] suppliers to invest in this type of R&D in the United States?” Mr Martens asked in a recent interview.

“It’s a burning issue. We need to think about how complicated a task [it is] to launch the technology in the United States,” he said.

“We don’t have battery suppliers that can deliver [a beefy battery pack necessary to create a hybrid car], we don’t have regenerative brake suppliers that can deliver what we need, and we do not have the level of software engineering that we need.”

Asked about what steps Ford was making to entice American parts suppliers to invest in hybrid technology, Mr Martens said he didn’t have an immediate answer.

[Toyota] faced a similar challenge when it began pursuing hybrid technology in the early 1990s.

Given that few automotive suppliers in Japan had practical expertise to help Toyota create a hybrid car, Toyota developed its own expertise internally in key areas, such as battery and regenerative brake technology, and a computer control system that helps the vehicle to switch seamlessly between the petrol engine and the electric propulsion system when driving the vehicle.

Toyota then worked with suppliers to hone knowledge and skills to design and manufacture key hybrid components, the company said.

And that’s one of the key attributes of leadership. Leaders make what’s needed happen.