“All improvements to warranty will take time to reduce our warranty expense, maybe up to 18 months, but we're moving the needle on all the inputs.”

In context

“in the last three years. This year, the high-volume vehicle lines like F-150 and Escape had huge launches and really had no -- virtually no warranty spike. J.D. Powers typically sees a 92% increase in defects during a launch. Our launch production losses have also been cut in half from the last year, and these are very large-scale launches like F-150 and Explorer. Another key improvement that we're seeing is our ability to OTA and improve our vehicles in the field. We've updated 4 million vehicles at Ford this year and 20 million total since we started doing OTAs. We can now update 30 different vehicle modules, well beyond the SYNC in infotainment modules. The OTAs, on average, save our customers five to six waiting days waiting for repairs and, of course, it lowers our cost of warranty. All improvements to warranty will take time to reduce our warranty expense, maybe up to 18 months, but we're moving the needle on all the inputs. Taking a step back, I believe we're in a very strong competitive position. We have a lean and profitable international business with no distractions. We have a fresh and appealing lineup, which will get even fresher. We have a strong and diversified powertrain strategy that gives customers choice and gives us the flexibility and reach. We're already on our second generation of electric vehicles. They'll be launching in the next couple of years. We'll reduce the losses short-term on our Gen-1 products and set us up to be a global competitor in the long term. We have a vibrant growing software and repair business for Pro, and Pro is clearly a strategic advantage for the company. We're going to keep doing the hard yards to capture the tremendous upside in cost and warranty defects present to”