Quote:
Originally Posted by Bhobbs
I get that they are trying to use it for other vehicles but the fact that it went into production without another car riding on the same platform means Ford must believe it can stand on its own with just the Mustang.
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Cost and price are 2 different things. An apple from the tree in my back yard is, essentially free, and I can sell it for $0.50, maybe. I could also fly to British Columbia, get an apple from the Okanagan Valley, bring it back here, and it would cost me hundreds of dollars. But I wouldn't be able to sell it for any more than the apple from the tree in my back yard. People are only willing to pay so much for certain things. Exceed that price, and sales drop off dramatically, no matter how much it cost you.
The cost of engineering a platform is more or less fixed. It will cost $XYZ to develop an all new platform, lets say its a billion dollars, regardless of how many cars you end up building with it. If there are only 10,000 cars ever build on it you're looking at $100,000 of platform R&D that each car needs to cover. Crank that number up to 500k and each car only has $2000 worth of platform R&D to pay for. And a couple million units makes the R&D very cheap. Automakers don't quite break it down like that but thats the end result: the more cars you build off a single platform, the less expensive it becomes.
The more complex a platform is (like when it has to accommodate a sports car, a compact sedan, and a full size sedan), the more expensive it will end up being compared to a single deticated platform. However, 1 platform for 4 cars is much cheaper than 4 platforms for 4 cars. Thin of the cost of sharing platforms as being like the cost of running errands. You have to get groceries, fill up on gas, pick up some stuff at Home Depot, and [list 4th miscellaneous thing]. You could make a special trip for each one (unique platforms for everything) or go and do a loop combining them all (sharing platforms). Sure, the cost is higher compared to a trip (as you have to drive further), but its substantially lower than making 4 special trips because you don't have to waste time/fuel doing the same thing over & over.