Ford Upset About Playing Second Fiddle to Japan's Auto Maker Keiretzu For Hybrid Auto Parts - Who To Blame?

Snide's Remarks: After reading this story I choked as I wondered where the management of Delphi and Visteon and other tier one suppliers have been for the last 10 years?
With all of their resources and paid crystal ball gazers it's unbelievable to me that these guys and gals were taking big paychecks while their companies were crashing and burning and apparantly NEVER grasped the rewards and profit in becoming suppliers of component and parts in the fast approaching APV(alternative powered vehicle) future. Let me know what you think; msnide@theautochannel.com

Washington DC August 8, 2005; The AIADA newsletter reported that according to a report in The Detroit News, Ford is facing supplier shortages of crucial components it needs for its gas-electric hybrids and “suspects it may be getting squeezed out by its Japanese rivals,” Honda and Toyota.

"Aisin, which is minority-controlled by Toyota, has interesting shareholders they have to answer to," said Mary Ann Wright, director of Ford’s hybrid programs research and advanced engineering. "They have recently been awarded a significant piece of business, and what that has done is limit the number of engineers who can work on my program," Wright said.

Faced with the need to ramp up production of its hybrid lineup amid soaring gas prices, Ford says it may now began looking into domestic firms with the capabilities of supplying the crucial hybrid components. “With the fall launch of the gas-electric Mercury Mariner, Ford is tripling its hybrid SUV lineup over three years. But its transmission supplier, Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd., can boost deliveries by only 20 percent, to 24,000 transmissions annually,” reports the News.

"We must be able to ramp up production and migrate the technology to more models, but we can’t do that if the know-how resides abroad," said Phil Martens, Ford’s group vice president for product creation. Lindsay Brooke, an auto analyst at CSM Worldwide, says "The pitfall of non-Japanese automakers making these kinds of deals for component technology that isn’t widely used is the lack of capacity.

There’s a small universe of suppliers of key hybrid components, and many have keiretsu relationships with Honda and Toyota," he said, referring to the Japanese networks of affiliated companies. Because Toyota and Honda were the first to develop hybrids, "they were able to assign capacity to component suppliers like Aisin, Panasonic and Sanyo," he said. "They’re going to get served first."”

Dennis Cuneo, senior vice president of Toyota Motor North America denies any speculation that the automaker through its ties to Aisin is placing limits on Ford’s hybrid component supplies. "It’s good for us, and good for the industry, not just Toyota, if hybrid technology expands and is more widely accepted,” Cuneo said. "We wouldn’t stop any automaker, or hurt any competitor’s program," he said. "We don’t involve ourselves in Aisin’s relationship with other automakers."