Don't demonize the SUV, says Ford

Steve Forbes, Forbes.com

Date: Friday Jul. 16, 2010 10:07 AM ET

William Clay Ford Jr. tells Steve Forbes about the future he's envisioning for the sports utility vehicle.

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Steve Forbes: So what's the future of the SUV?

William Clay Ford Jr.: Well, I think the SUV has become demonized in some circles. But if you think again about applying technology to SUV, our hybrid Escape SUV gets tremendous mileage. And so, I think, once the customers understand that SUVs not only give you space, but you can get really good fuel economy, then, I think it's fine. So go back to, if we are the fuel economy leader in every single segment that we play in and that's our goal and we're there already in several segments, then I think we'll be fine.

And I think that people won't feel like they have to make these trade-offs between, "Gee, I really want, you know, an SUV, but I think I've got to get a small car, because I've got to get gas mileage." We can provide gas mileage and range to the SUVs as well.

Forbes: Now, talking about smaller cars, lighter cars, lighter materials. What does that mean for safety? Because, as you know, almost half the crashes are single vehicle, hitting something, or --

Ford: Well, there are a lot of high-strength materials out there that we're working with. You can take weight out of a car and truck and still make it very strong. And that's what we're doing. We're playing around with a lot of different materials to both lighten the vehicle and strengthen the vehicle.

And so I think that's a trend you're going to continue to see, and you don't have to give up anything, in terms of safety. In fact, if you look at the safety technology that's in vehicles today, I mean, it's so much greater than it was five years ago, whether it's side air bags, air curtains, inflatable rear seatbelts. Even the structures themselves are made with more high-strength material. So that's something that we're very cognizant of. And that's just passive safety. I look at safety as there's active and passive.

Passive is how do you survive a crash. Active is accident avoidance. And so that's real-time information to you, as a driver, and to your car, to the wheels of a car that will get you out of a bad situation. And that's improving every year, too. So I really think that the safety aspect is something that we don't need to worry inordinately about as we start to shift the smaller cars.

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