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Card Consolidation Credit Debt Executives of the Ford Motor Company yesterday backed away from a pledge to increase the fuel economy of its sport utility vehicles by 25 percent by 2005.

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Credit Union Ford made that pledge three years ago, and General Motors and the Chrysler Group of DaimlerChrysler subsequently said they would at least match Ford's improvements. At the time, environmentalists hailed the plan as offering hope that the nation's swelling appetite for gasoline could be curbed.

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Merchant Credit Guide Co Ford is not abandoning the pledge entirely, said one Ford executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, but rather is indicating that it does not know whether it can meet the original timetable.

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Apply Online For Credit Card "Are we still trying to get there? Absolutely," this executive said. "Will we get there by that deadline? It's unclear."

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By Card Credit Debt Debt Guide The executive attributed Ford's shift in part to technological delays to the company's plan to produce a version of its Escape S.U.V. with a fuel-efficient hybrid system. The company says it is also less bullish on the program because tax credits for such vehicles have not materialized in Congress.

Current products of the Ford Motor Company under the Ford brand name include different models of cars, trucks and SUVs. Some of the more popular models are the Mustang, GT, Escape, Explorer and Expedition.

Credit Repair Ford had planned to sell the Escape hybrid, which supplements its gasoline engine with electric power, in earnest this year but now expects to sell only a token number; next year, it expects to sell many fewer than the 30,000 originally planned.

Active Credit Credit Guide Speculation about Ford's going back on its pledge began to swirl yesterday after Philip R. Martens, the vice president for product creation, told some reporters that the company was scrapping the objective and would instead aim for fuel economy improvements of 20 percent to 30 percent across its entire vehicle fleet by the end of the decade, according to reports by Reuters and Bloomberg News.

Credit Score Ford later said that Mr. Martens's comments had been misinterpreted. Francine Romine, a company spokeswoman, said the company had not decided to give up on its S.U.V. commitment, but she also declined to reaffirm specifically the pledge and its timetable.

Bad Car Credit Guide Loan "Some of the technologies we thought would get us there did not materialize," she said, adding that the company was not giving up its efforts to improve the vehicles' fuel economy.

Bad Credit Loan But the top executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the company had hoped the Escape hybrid would play some role in decreasing the company's S.U.V. fuel economy; the vehicle is expected to get 35 to 40 miles a gallon.

Credit Definition Derivative Ford engineers have run into developmental problems with the vehicle's regenerative braking system, which traps heat produced by the brakes and converts it into energy.

Bad Credit Mortgage "We're running behind on the Escape hybrid," the executive conceded. "We'll have some out at the end of the year, but not the kind of numbers we had originally hoped for because of some component problems in the vehicle. We're working them out and they'll be fine."

The Insider Guide To Credit Other decisions from the company, which is struggling to return to profitability, also hindered progress a fuel-saving electric starter motor for the Explorer was among the options abandoned as a way to cut costs.

Business Credit Card The executive also said that the company was looking at ways to make up for not meeting the 25 percent goal by showing improvements in other areas. But he said there were no big targets to improve the fuel economy of the entire vehicle fleet by the end of the decade.

Banker Complete Credit Guide "We will not improve by 30 percent across the fleet," the executive said.

Credit Card Application Environmental groups reacted with a mix of confusion and anger the pledge had been a hopeful sign for them amid a climate of increasing sales of S.U.V.'s and a complementary surge in gas consumption.

Credit Guide Managing Reports of Ford's reversal have also further complicated the love-hate relationship between environmental groups and William Clay Ford Jr., the Ford family scion who is the company's chairman and chief executive. Before becoming chief executive in 2001, Mr. Ford had been outspoken on environmental issues certainly from Detroit's view. He even spoke frequently of global warming as an actual problem that needed solving, a view at odds with what other top industry executives have said.

Credit Card Offer But Mr. Ford has been saddled with trying to revive a company that lost a total of $5.5 billion in its last nine quarters and employs more than 100,000 people in the United States.

Merchant Credit Guide Company Ford's vehicle fleet has been becoming more heavily tilted toward S.U.V.'s like the Explorer and Lincoln Navigator, increasing the country's gasoline consumption. The most recent Environmental Protection Agency data puts the fuel economy of the average new vehicle at its lowest point in two decades as the nation's buying preferences have shifted to light trucks.

Bad Credit Daniel Becker, the top global warming expert at the Sierra Club, said the company's move away from its 25 percent pledge was appalling, adding that "what Ford is doing is telling the American people that we can't trust Ford's commitments; they keep moving the goal posts back when the deadline nears."

Collection Collection Complete "Bill Ford's claims to being an environmentalist ring hollow if Ford repudiates the most important environmental commitment it's made in recent years," he said, adding that he hoped that Mr. Ford would personally reaffirm the company's plan.

Credit Counseling Mindy Lubber, the executive director of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies, another environmental group, said "organizations that have worked with Bill Ford trust him, but we'll be watching carefully to make sure that their overall fleet is more fuel efficient and their carbon emissions are considerably less."

Complete Credit Guide Higher By Danny Hakim
New York Times - 4/18/2003

Topic: Transportation

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