Ford CEO Alan Mulally: U.S. Sales to Finish 2009 at 11 Million

In case you hadn’t noticed, Ford is in a [familiar] race against the clock. Pre-economic meltdown, it mortgaged everything up to and including their logo. Under ex-Boeing exec Alan Mulally, the Blue Oval Boys have cut costs, improved efficiency, launched new products and gained relative market share. But Ford’s still a gi-normous company that takes in less money than it spends. The Department of Energy’s $10 billion twenty-five year, no-to-low interest loan didn’t hurt The Glass House Gang’s bottom line, but there’s only one way for Ford’s going to become profitable, to begin to pay off their debt and stave off bankruptcy: volume. Specifically, they need the U.S. auto market to recover, in a big way, for them, and quickly. So it’s no surprise that that’s exactly what CEO Alan Mulally says is gonna happen . . .

Mulally said there were signs of recovery and a sales pick-up was expected in coming years. Ford expects total U.S. industry sales of about 11 million in 2009, rising to 12.5 million in 2010 and to about 14.5 million in 2011.

Automotive News [sub] forgets to mention that the post-Cash-for-Clunkers sales result are on the catastrophic side of dire; they’re due to clock-in at an 8.5 million-ish Seasonally Adjusted Sales Rate. Absent another round of taxpayer-funded federal stimulus/subsidy action, Mulally’s [ongoing] prediction of a late 2009 uplift may be off by a good million sales.

As for the future . . .

“The fundamentals of economy coming back is the absolute key,” Mulally said. “It’s a slower recovery and we think it’s going to go with the economy.”

If Ford’s future rests on US economic fundamentals “coming back,” with unemployment set to top double digits and the deficit growing like kudzu in a high-speed film sequence, well, who’s zoomin’ who?