Ford in search of a second wind in Europe | EUROtoday
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Dhe three historic manufacturers from Detroit, Ford is the one which has greatest built-in the values of the Old Continent. With a German tint as a result of the native department was created in Cologne in 1967 by merging Ford United Kingdom and Ford Germany. The Ford Escort started the saga of well-liked fashions, supported by the Ford Fiesta, chaining collectively totally different variations increasingly more estimable through the years till the launch of the Focus whose chassis had nothing to envy of the most effective Europeans. Around these two positive values, sports activities fashions just like the Capri or household fashions just like the Granada, the Sierra or the Mondeo have solely met with success of esteem however by no means to the extent of the very fashionable Fiesta and Focus.
However, the sudden abandonment of those two definitely getting old pillars of the vary whereas no alternative was supplied sounded the demise knell for a producer shedding its bearings. The electrical shift was not sufficiently anticipated and an settlement with Volkswagen for the provision of electrical bases needed to be concluded swiftly to plug the holes, with out creating illusions or producing income. The state of affairs that must face upon taking workplace on 1er Next November, the brand new president of Ford Europe, Jim Baumbick, is planning a last-ditch operation based mostly on industrial restructuring and workforce reductions to make sure the transition to electrical.
After closing this yr the Saarlouis manufacturing unit in West Germany which produced the Focus, the precedence can be Ford’s No. 1 manufacturing unit in Europe, Cologne, which produces the Explorer and Capri electrical fashions in addition to battery packs. However, from January 2026, it can go from two to at least one group, with a discount of virtually 1,000 extra jobs, or round 25% of the native workforce.
The Craiova plant in Romania now concentrates a big a part of European electrical energy manufacturing. Ford has invested almost half a billion euros for the brand new E-Tourneo Courier, E-Transit Courier and Puma Gen-E fashions, usually in partnership with Otosan (Turkey).
Chained to electrical
The downside for Ford, which maintains its targets of a complete transition to electrical by 2030, is identical as for the entire of vehicle manufacturing. The buyer is sulking and the gross sales development curves seen by forecasters are trending downward attributable to sluggish demand. The market share of electrical autos stays removed from expectations with solely 20% penetration anticipated in 2025, whereas 35% was forecast. Sales of the Explorer and Capri electrical fashions haven’t taken off, however investments proceed on this course: $2 billion to modernize Cologne and £230 million to develop electrical powertrains in Halewood (United Kingdom).
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Ford is engaged on a brand new world electrical platform “Skunkworks” to supply inexpensive fashions that may higher stand up to Asian competitors. It ought to make up a part of the hole that the producer was capable of measure by dissecting a Tesla Model 3 and several other Chinese automobiles. Jim Farley, world CEO of Ford since 2020 and a eager pilot in his spare time, advised American journalists: “What we saw deeply shocked us. Comparing our Mustang Mach-E, we noticed that it has 1.6 kilometers more cables.”
Too a lot might say the one who instantly created a construction devoted to the R & D of electrical automobiles to design a flexible platform known as Model E. An industrial and monetary shock which swallowed up 5 billion {dollars} in losses in 2024 and which Jim Farley considers obligatory. Perhaps he ought to do not forget that as a fan of the Ford GT40 pushed on the Le Mans Classic circuit, a lot of his prospects stay skilled followers of thermal engines, nostalgic for the V8 of the Mustang or the 4-cylinder turbo of the Focus RS. This consciousness already made by the manufacturers of the Old Continent has not but reached Detroit, the primary mission of Jim Baumbick who should save this producer in peril.
https://www.lepoint.fr/automobile/ford-a-la-recherche-du-second-souffle-en-europe-18-11-2025-2603352_646.php