alan mulally says the company has the flexibility to make whatever version consumers want the most. >> the neat thing about the ford plan is they are made in the same production line. 75% of the parts are exactly the same. we can match the production of the vehicle to real demand and also offer them up more affordability than anybody else. >> reporter: a reinvigorated big three present a bigger challenge to japanese and european manufacturers. nissan chairman and c.e.o. carlos ghosn says everyone will have to be on their a game to win in the u.s. >> in order to prevail in the u.s. market you're just going to have to reinvent yourself. as a company, you are going to have to invent new products and new technology all the time. japan could the big wild card this year. >> reporter: tomorrow that toyota, honda and nissan, will be rolling out new products here they hope will put them back in the driver's seat. diane eastabrook, "nightly business report," detroit. >> susie: as we reported earlier, investors were on alcoa watch today. a gain in the aluminum giant in anticipation of earnings h

no surprise that ceo alan mulally was optimistic about ford's future in india when he spoke to us. >> reporter: the top ten companies are here in india to show case their latest and best. what does that say about india. >> india may be the center of the universe. when you look at growth rates going forward, probably 70% of our incremental sales will be in the asia-pacific region because of the demographics, the number of people driving and the economic development. it's terribly exciting. even more important, i think is that the consumer tastes in india and asia-pacific, especially for really high-quality, fuel-efficient capable smaller vehicles are leading the world. >> reporter: sales have been decreasing in india because of the rising interest rates. do you think things will change in the next year? >> well, it has slowed down a little. but there's still very substantial growth in both india and in china. as a matter of fact, i think most people believe that these growth rates are a lot more sustainable. that will be good for all of us. >> ford has had to raise its prices here in i

alan mulally and asked him about the environment in 2012. >> based on the economy, and the industry growing and us increasing our share, we believe that we will have a very nice growth plan in 2012, both in sales and also in revenue and also in profits. >> reporter: ford has stayed on a money-making road for three straight years. still, investors seem worried ford's future remains bumpy. in the last year, the stock has lost a third of its value. >> ford has dramatically improved in value over the last five years and its increased in value this year. but, i think the bigger backdrop here is people are concerned about the fundamental economy that it so important to the automobile industry. >> reporter: the big wildcard for ford this year is europe, as the region continues to struggle. ford is cutting european production in the current quarter by 36,000 vehicles in anticipation of slower sales. >> europe is the biggest concern that we all have because sovereign debt issue are real. i'm so pleased that the leaders are decisively trying to figure out a comprehensive solution that deals with that

alan mulally said absolutely. the last year, all of the auto stocks have been hammered in the last year. ford started to come back a little bit the beginning of this year but clearly today's news has the stock trading down a bit. we're going to be talking with ford ceo alan mulally coming up shortly afternoon on "the fast money halftime report." a lot of the questions like they were in the conference call that just wrapped up, mem liss is a, a lot of those questions are going to focus on commodity costs and europe. because those are the two issues holding back this company right now. >>> let's get more on that ford story and bring in michael ward, auto analyst with stern agee. he has a buy on ford. joins us on the newsline. i assume you were on that call as well. >> yes, i was. >> commodity costs and europe. is that a concern? does that change your sense of ford's ability to have a good year in 2012? >> no. i think one of the things you have to look at with those commodity costs, in 2010 the fourth quarter marked

. >> alan mulally on a day they missed by a nickel, but he's still optimistic they can hit profit margins by a decade. >> thanks. optimistic is adam jones, analyst at morgan stanley. you rate the stock overweight. you don't seem to be at all concerned about what ford had to say today. >> it was a headline miss of about 25%. we would much rather see companies miss because they are prioritizing their product and customers as ruthlessly as ford than the old system when they missed because they would say buy these pieces of crap for half price or employee discount. >> what about commodity costs rising? that seems to be something you can't ignore. the obvious situation of what's going on in europe. why aren't you more concerned about those than you otherwise are? >> certainly commodity prices have been important reason why ford was unable to grow their margins this year despite revenue growth. we are confident whether ford is an $18 or $20 stock or $10 stock a year from now, it's not going to be because of commodity prices. in terms of europe, if you look at the other players there, rein all t

i asked alan mulally what was behind the miss. some say a nickel miss is substantial.sition in the last two months of the year, that was a huge factor along with rising commodity costs coming in stronger than expected for the year, commodity costs were up $2.3 billion. you can't blame all of the loss on rising commodity costs but certainly europe and commodity costs were two factors. he believes they were shifting production to eastern europe, russia, making moves to improve that situation. he says "i think we're in a good position as the world recovers financially" and the one thing people are going to be focused on wall street are the profit margin. ford coming in at 5.4% profit margins, alan mullally tells me ford will expand profit margin this is year. i said you still think you can hit 10% profit margins in north america by 2015 he said absolutely. a first on cnbc interview with mr. mulally coming up today, the "fast money" halftime report, 12:10, first on cnbc and comments also from the analysts conference call later on this morning. guys back to you. >> so they

is alan mullaly, he spent most of his career as an engineering at boeing. mulally led the design of the giant 777. he took over ford in 2006 and mortgage it had company to borrow enough money to transform it. we sat down with mulally to ask why businesses aren't being more aggressive with their big reserves of crash. at this moment banks are holding on the about a trillion dollars in cash. trillion with a "t." businesses are holding on the about a trillion dollars in cash. yet we don't make much headway in unemployment. why not? >> well, i think that there's general agreement with the economists that until we get the growth rate, the expansion of the g.d.p., of our economic engine up over 3.5% that that's what is required to bring down the unemployment. >> pelley: but people want to know with businesses holding on the a trillion dollars worth of cash, what are you waiting for? why aren't we creating jobs? >> well, what's happening right now is that customers are concerned, they're not sure where we're going as a country so they're very concerned about making the pu