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Ford books $2.6B pretax quarterly profit

While its crosstown competitors at General Motors are smarting over a drastic drop in net income to $200 million in the second quarter, Ford has reason to celebrate. The Blue Oval has announced its own Q2 financial results, including a growing net income of $1.3 billion, a $78 million increase over last year. Pretax profits for the company reached $2.6 billion, up $44 million from 2013, but total revenue dropped slightly to $37.4 billion, down from $37.9 billion. Profits per share before one-time charges totaled 40 cents per share, beating Wall Street analysts' expectations of 36 cents a share.
Regionally, the Blue Oval performed strongly, as well. North America posted a record quarterly pre-tax profit of $2.4 billion, a $119 million increase. Europe also showed signs of turn around with its first profit in three years of $14 million after a loss of $306 million in Q2 2013. Ford is actually predicting profitability in the troubled region in 2015. Asia Pacific operations also performed well with $159 million in profits, up $29 million from last year. The only region where the business posted a loss was South America.
According to Automotive News, Ford also announced more precise plans about the changeover to build the aluminum-intensive 2015 F-150. In August, the Dearborn plant will shutdown for eight weeks to retool and its Kansas City plant will do the same next year.

Detroit's new fleet of donated police cars have safety issues [w/video]

In a show of generosity in mid-August, Detroit's business leaders donated $8 million to the Police Department and Fire Department in order to buy 100 new police vehicles and 23 EMS ambulances. But now officers have discovered - and complained - that the police vehicles have glaring safety issues, Deadline Detroit reports. It is not made clear what models of the fleet vehicles - which include police versions of the Ford Taurus, the Chevrolet Caprice and the Dodge Charger - are affected by the safety issues.
Officers reportedly have complained that the Plexiglass partition separating front-seat officers and back-seat prisoners is easily breached, and that the front passenger seat is installed too close to the dashboard. Prisoners who manage to writhe out of their handcuffs can bend the Plexiglass and reach into the cockpit, and sitting too close to the dashboard can render airbags more dangerous and make officers more vulnerable to injury in a crash.
Mark Diaz, president of the Detroit Police Officers Association, received the complaints and reportedly said the vehicles would get safety updates addressing the issues. But Deadline Detroit reports that it checked some of the offending police cars and, as of the last few days, they hadn't been updated.

Xcar gets the scoop on Ford's strategy for the GT at Le Mans in 2016

Ford's plan to return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2016 with the latest GT might have been one of the worst kept secrets in motorsports in recently memory. Even before the road car debuted at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show, rumors were flying about the Blue Oval's strategy. The wait for the official announcement just before this year's race was certainly a long one, but it was probably worthwhile just to see the competition version's spectacular looks. Xcar recently got the chance to interview Ford about the company's objectives for the new racer's development. Both the GT racing and street programs are meant as ways to advance cutting-edge technology and potentially let it trickle down to less-expensive models in the future. This is especially the case when it comes to finding ways to make carbon fiber cheaper and better. Of course, the supercar is also a showcase of what Ford can do competitively, and apparently there are patent-pending suspension parts the company isn't even talking about yet. Ford would love to score a class victory at Le Mans next year, and is pretty clear here and in its earlier promo video that it sees Ferrari as a major rival in the race. While that makes sense historically, the cross-town competitors at Corvette could be an even bigger challenger. That squad has a more recent legacy of success in the 24-hour challenge, including a victory in the GTE-Pro class this year. Related Video: