WAYNE, MICH. — Next month in Britain, Ford Motor Co. will begin selling a diesel hatchback that gets 64 miles per gallon. Across the channel, Parisians can buy a new gas-powered compact made by General Motors Corp. that gets a nifty 47 mpg.
On these shores, neither carmaker sells anything that thrifty. Yet with Americans clamoring for fuel-efficient cars and Detroit automakers on the ropes thanks to crashing sales of gas-guzzling trucks, the question is, why aren't these vehicles here now?
Ford and GM say that importing them from Europe isn't an option because of unfavorable currency exchange rates. Instead, they're racing to convert U.S. plants to produce them here. One of the first is the Michigan Truck Factory, home to the Lincoln Navigator and Ford Expedition, which both get about 14 mpg.
Ford will shut down this half-century-old plant next month and begin the arduous process of converting it to a factory in which the current European version of the Focus will be built in 2010. Ford is also preparing to retool truck factories in Louisville, Ky., and Cuautitlan, Mexico, to make five more European-style compact cars for the U.S. market.
"This is critical for us," said Bill Russo, Ford's head of manufacturing, walking past rows of roof assemblies in the Michigan Truck Plant's body shop. "We absolutely need to make more smaller vehicles as soon as possible."
It's a hugely ambitious logistical and engineering challenge. To switch from trucks to cars, Ford will have to replace thousands of tools on the line, recalibrate a massive production process, establish new supply chains with hundreds of part makers and negotiate with the United Auto Workers union. Even with help coming in the form of federally backed loans, the financial burden will be tremendous.
The payoff is a chance to regain the market share lost to imports like Toyota and Honda -- this year, for the first time, fewer than half of the cars sold in the U.S. have been American brands. But if the Big Three are unable to deliver, experts say, the consequences could be disastrous.
"There is no going back to 2004," said David Healey, auto industry analyst at Burnham Securities. "The American automakers need to make small cars and they need to make profits on small cars or they simply can't continue."
For Ford, that starts in Wayne, half an hour's drive west of Detroit. The Michigan Truck Plant once ran three full shifts, 24 hours a day, 3,000 union men building trucks. Today, only one shift toils.
