Executives from Stellantis and Ford last week said they would be more disciplined on pricing as the year continues.
“For North America, I think [it’s] very important that we maintain our price positions,” Palmer said. “Our products and our brands in our view are extremely competitive and warrant the price positions that we have earned over the last two years or so, and actually longer.”
Palmer added that sales in the region are trending up month over month.
“The big challenge clearly is to continue to reduce our cost positions from the high levels they finished up at the end of last year,” he said. “We’re making progress on our product cost and our transformation cost. The production environment is more stable, and that’s helping us to be more efficient.”
Ford’s facing a slightly different pricing issue.
The automaker last week cut the price of its Mustang Mach-E crossover for the second time in four months even as Farley warns of an EV price war and the dangers one would present.
“You do not want to commoditize your product,” Farley said last week during a presentation at a Wall Street Journal conference. “The more you cut the prices, the resale value for the people who bought at the higher prices are awful. And those people never forget it.”
Ford’s reductions come as rival Tesla Inc. frequently adjusts prices on its products. After multiple cuts this year, it raised prices slightly last week. Ford, so far, is the only company to follow Tesla in slashing prices as it attempts to cut into the company’s large EV sales lead.
“We’ll follow because they’re such a dominant player, and we get cross-shopped with Model Y a lot,” Farley said. “But there’s a limit in how far we’ll go.”
