Ford Motor Co. , one of the world’s largest car makers, will press ahead with developing more fuel-efficient vehicles even as lower oil prices make the strategic push less of an urgent matter, a senior company executive said Wednesday.
The Detroit-based car giant has spent some $3 billion in the past five years to develop a lighter-weight and therefore more fuel-efficient version of its F-150 pickup. That model contributes around half of the company’s overall North American earnings. But oil prices globally have been declining, resulting in lower gasoline prices at the pump, potentially denting demand for cars that burn less fuel.
Ford, however, has no plans to alter its strategy of developing more fuel-efficient cars in response to the global oil price drop, the company’s executive chairman said in Dubai.
“Fuel is a cost and any time we can save our customers money I think that is a good thing,” said Bill Ford, who is the great-grandson of the company’s founder Henry Ford. “It was absolutely the right thing to do, we will continue to push on that issue,” he said.