Ford CEO 'Very Encouraged' About Chances For Govt Loans -CNBCLast update: 9/12/2008 9:22:08 AM
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Ford Motor Co. (F) is "very encouraged" it and the other two U.S. auto makers will get low-cost loans of up to $25 billion from the federal government, Chief Executive Alan Mulally said Friday.
"We're very encouraged with the response that we're getting on the energy bill and also this enabling technology they put in. So I think we're going to move forward with it," Mulally said in an interview on CNBC.
Ford, General Motors Corp. (GM) and Chrysler LLC have appealed to Congress for government-backed loans that would help them develop technology to build vehicles meeting stricter fuel-economy regulations. They recently reduced their request to $25 billion from $50 billion.
The lower amount is the same as the maximum approved in 2007 under a loan program outlined in a federal energy bill aimed at enabling auto makers and suppliers to retool factories to produce new, highly fuel-efficient vehicles. However, Congress never approved funding for the "enabling" program.
Mulally added that Ford was committed over the long term to making fuel-efficient vehicles using new technologies for the U.S. market. This will be easier, he said, now that the company can more readily adapt smaller models it sells overseas to U.S. production.
He defended Ford's - and the auto industry's - past emphasis on larger, less fuel-efficient trucks and sport-utility vehicles because they were what customers wanted.
""Fuel prices were low, the interest rates were low. It's what the customers chose," he said.
