Key feature in Ford's new Lincoln Continental designed with China in mind
At the New York Auto Show, which kicks off Monday, Ford is touting its luxury brand Lincoln. The company is announcing the new Lincoln Continental concept car, a vehicle CEO Mark Fields said caters not only to U.S. customers, but also those in China.
Fields said that while the two countries share "a lot more similarities than differences" in their car tastes, Ford designed a key feature in the Lincoln with China specifically in mind.
"In China, this full-size luxury sedan, most people that own it, they're chauffeured in it. So therefore we spend a lot of time on the back seat of the vehicle and giving them amenities and this quiet luxury experience," Fields said Monday on "CBS This Morning."
With the touch of a button, the passenger-side rear seat reclines completely. Rear-seat passengers can also manipulate the vehicle's interior temperature with Lincoln's SPD SmartGlass® tinting sunroof. The technology is said to block 99 percent of UV rays, reducing the temperature by up to 18 degrees Fahrenheit.
"We just introduced the Lincoln brand to China last fall and since we introduced it, every month, it's exceeding our sales expectations," Fields said.
Luxury cars may be a smaller part of the market, but they're a significant portion of the automaker's profits.
"Here in the U.S. it represents, in any given month, between 10 percent and 13 percent of the market. In places like China, it's about 6 percent of the market. But it represents a third of the industry profits," Fields said.
Ford's bread and butter is building cars, but Fields said they're stretching their boundaries to create mobility solutions and "solve some of these society problems."
"Ford's Smart Mobility is around using innovation and allowing us to take to the next-level things like autonomous vehicles, mobility, car-sharing, ride-sharing, things around the whole customer experience," he said.
He said their company is currently performing 25 "smart mobility" experiments on the worldwide.
"Our overall goal is to make mobility and autonomous vehicles and connected cars available to everyone just like Henry Ford made the automobile available," Fields said.
The Ford CEO also spoke about their approach to clean-energy vehicles. Fields couldn't say exactly how long before electric cars dominate the business, but said Ford is well positioned.
"We have the widest array of whether it's gas engines, hybrids, conventional hybrids, plug-in hybrids, or full-battery electrical vehicles," Fields said.
To hear what Fields thought about the "Saturday Night Live" Lincoln commercial spoof, watch the video above.