New Delhi: An old India hand, John Parker brought Ford Motor Co. to India in 1995. As the first managing director of the company’s joint venture here with Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, he’s seen the Indian market evolve for over a decade now.
A week after he visited the Shanghai Motor Show, Parker, who as executive vice-president for Asia and Africa at Ford reports directly to president and CEO Alan Mulally, shared his thoughts on new technologies, the auto maker’s plans for Asia and how the Indian market fits into them. Michael Boneham, managing director of Ford India Pvt. Ltd, joined in in the conversation.
At the Shanghai Auto Show you were quoted as saying that China is very keen on promoting small cars and that (Ford) plans to introduce the EcoBoost technology. Any plans to introduce that here in India?
Parker: It’s a regionwide plan to bring EcoBoost coupled with better transmissions. EcoBoost direct injection turbo-charged engines give us 15-20% fuel economy improvement. But you can also do what we call GDI, which is just the direct injection and the upgrade to the petrol engine, which we’ll also bring here and into the rest of Asia.
When you say (bring) here (India), do you have specific plans?
Export plans: John Parker (left) and Michael Boneham. Parker says Ford has not approached the small car as a product for the Indian market alone and aims to export it to other places within the Asia Pacific region. Harikrishna Katragadda / Mint
Parker: Oh yes! But I’m not going to tell you what they are.
We’re working on upgrading our technology from a fuel economy point of view and we think there’s a lot of room besides hybrids and electric vehicles, which are important but conventional diesel and petrol technology can still be lifted quite substantially.
Do you think that fuel efficiency will be a key differentiator in markets like India and China and other price conscious markets?
Parker: I think it will be and it won’t just be (in) price-conscious markets. It’s more relevant in price-conscious markets but I think the reality is oil is a diminishing resource, and so with a diminishing resource it’s going to get increasingly difficult. It went up to $120-150 a barrel and now it’s back down to $50 because the economy is in trouble, but I think Ford is fully expecting oil to return to higher levels and we’re preparing our products to cope with that eventuality.
Are there any lessons you’ve learnt due to the downturn in sales that’s taking place?