Dusseldorf Ford Europe is serious about the announced electrification and is thus a long way ahead of the parent company in the USA. The company announced on Monday that there should be seven new purely electrically powered cars and vans from Europe by 2026.
For a long time, the Ford group was a latecomer when it came to electrification, not only in the American home market, but also in Europe. But now it should go even faster. In contrast to Volkswagen, Ford Europe has given a clear phase-out date for vehicles with internal combustion engines. This should end for passenger cars in 2030, and five years later for light commercial vehicles such as small vans.
In 2026, Ford wants to sell around 600,000 all-electric vehicles a year in Europe, around two-thirds of total sales. Last year it was just under 25,000. For North America, Ford has not set a phase-out date.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
The steps announced on Monday are an essential step on the way for Ford Europe to finally and comparatively quickly withdraw from the combustion engine business. “We are accelerating electrification,” said Ford Europe boss Stuart Rowley to the Handelsblatt. The car company is reacting to regulatory requirements, and customer demand for e-cars is growing continuously.
The German headquarters in Cologne plays a key role in this. A year ago, Ford Europe announced that production of the Fiesta small car, which is still ongoing there, would be discontinued after 2023. Instead, Cologne should get at least one new electric model.
>> Read about this: Ford builds its first European electric car in Cologne and invests one billion dollars
The future electrical production at the German headquarters is now being further expanded. Ford Europe wants to produce a second electric model on the Rhine from 2024. The future annual production of electric vehicles in Cologne will be around 200,000 units, similar to the small car Fiesta today. With the new E-models, Ford wants to say goodbye to the small vehicle segment. Medium-sized SUVs are to be manufactured in Cologne in the future, with a typical competitor model being the ID.4 from Volkswagen.
A year ago, Ford had already announced that Cologne would receive one billion US dollars for the development of electrical production. Now there is another billion, with which Ford can expand the production of the second electric model now presented. The money will also be used to set up an assembly plant for batteries, which can then be used directly in the two new Cologne electric models.
Ford also wants to build batteries in Turkey
Ford Europe not only sees itself as a supplier of passenger cars, but is also one of the most important manufacturers of light commercial vehicles. Of the 900,000 cars sold on the European continent last year, vans and minibuses accounted for about a third. So far, Ford has mainly operated from Turkey. Together with the Turkish industrial holding Koc, the US group operates the joint venture Otosan, which produces the light commercial vehicles near Istanbul.
The joint venture is now expanding further west and is to take over the Ford car factory in Craiova in Romania, as the US company announced on Monday. So far, Ford has been producing the Puma in Craiova, a car that will also have a fully electric version in two years. Car production in Romania could be phased out in the medium term.
All Rowley said was that the Puma will continue to play an “important role” at Craiova. With Otosan, the Romanian factory is to become a central production site for fully electric vans. Ford had previously announced investments of 300 million dollars.
>>Read here: Ford splits up – this is how the car company wants to arm itself for the new electric world
The new electric vehicles need batteries. That’s why Ford has also signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” with the Turkish Koc Holding and the Korean cell company SK Innovation to build a gigafactory. A cell factory with an annual capacity of up to 45 gigawatt hours is to be built near the Turkish capital Ankara. This is the current standard size, which other car manufacturers such as Volkswagen and Tesla are also planning to use.
Ford only intends to use the new cell factory to supply its commercial vehicles, as Stuart Rowley confirmed. An estimated 700,000 vehicles a year can be supplied with the battery cells from near Ankara. How and where Ford Europe intends to permanently supply its car plants with battery cells in the future is still left open by the European offshoot of the US group. According to Rowley, Ford Europe is supplied by various sources.
At least for a transitional period over the next six years, Volkswagen will play a key role in supplying cells for European Ford cars. The Wolfsburg-based car company is providing significant support to Ford so that the European offshoot of the US group can start with its own electric models in good time despite its delay.
Prospective farewell to Volkswagen
For the two future electric vehicles from the main Ford plant in Cologne, Volkswagen is supplying the complete electric drive including battery cells, the so-called “modular electrification kit” (MEB). The agreement between the two companies provides for Volkswagen to provide the MEB platforms for around 1.2 million vehicles over the next six years for around 20 billion euros.
At the end of the decade, Ford Europe could then do without Volkswagen’s development support and rely on its own electric platforms, which the parent company is working on in the USA. In the American home market, too, Ford has now caught up a lot with electrification and is becoming competitive with e-cars.
At the end of the decade, Ford would not only be using future group-owned electrical construction kits at its German headquarters in Cologne, but also at a second European location. Valencia in Spain and Saarlouis in Germany are up for grabs. Both locations had to submit their application documents to the Ford European headquarters in Cologne by the end of January.
The US car company had previously made it unmistakably clear that only one factory would survive and the other would be closed. The decision should be made in early summer. A second European car location should then make a decisive contribution to Ford producing in Europe in a completely climate-neutral and CO2-free manner in 2035.
The open and unresolved question of whether Valencia or Saarlouis will be closed keeps the joy of the German Ford works councils about the additional investments for Cologne within clear limits. “We welcome the decisions for our main plant,” said works council chief Benjamin Gruschka, “but we will continue to fight with all our energy for Saarlouis.”
More: IG Metall fights for Saarlouis in the competition between the Ford works