Ford details more platform consolidation

Ford said it plans to merge today's nine global platforms to five flexible vehicle architectures with a strong emphasis on sharing modules. The automaker's revised product development process is predicted to push down the average age of its vehicles from the current 5.7 years to 3.3 years in 2020.

One twist is that as new Ford products reach global markets faster, engineers won't be devoting much time to reinventing vehicle sub-system modules.