FCA already started this and triggered the idea that dropping cars should be done. GM and Ford quickly followed.
None of this is a shock. I had been saying this since last fall that the car was dead and there won't be a ST or RS in the future. I spoke about it in one of my videos and people said I was all wrong. The market shifted, sales were dropping fast, and Ford stopped talking cars. When the auto show cycle is done and there are no announcements for cars and cars aren't shown at press events, the writing is on the wall. Not to bring politics into this, but I woke up on the day after the presidential election and realized the Fiesta would be dead. The NAFTA threat was too great to continue making a low margin and slow selling car. With the Fusion and Fiesta coming from Mexico, any tariff would have been costly. Ford just jumped ahead and killed them prior to any risk of a tariff. They weren't selling enough to justify the risk. The C-Max is almost a unicorn, so no shock there. The only Tauruses are cop cars. Nobody will miss it. The market had begun shifting a few years ago and it accelerated over the past year and the automakers couldn't respond fast enough. If you want a great deal on a lease-return luxury sedan, now is the time! There is a massive glut of them.
I have been around Ford for almost 4 decades now and I have seen over and over again how they develop and launch a great car, keep cost reducing it and forget to do any significant refreshes to keep it interesting, sales slump, so they cost reduce it more and make it a cheap car, sales slump further, then they kill it. Ford has product ADD. Ford never marketed the features and benefits of the Focus or Fiesta hatchback and how you can get some of the crossover convenience in a car. I get why the sedan died, they just suck at everything. Ford could have easily ditched the Focus and Fiesta sedans, killed the Fusion, Taurus, and C-Max, and focused on selling small hatchbacks on the virtues of the convenience of a crossover without the MPG penalty.