Ford’s Saarlouis (Germany) plant is going through an unsure future after dropping future Ford EV … [+]
The second stronghold of Ford’s European operations may fall in 2025, with Ford confirming it is not going to change the German-made Focus hatchback after its lifecycle ends in 2025.
Ford of Europe Chairman Stuart Rowley instructed a convention name of journalists right now he was attempting to find “different alternatives” for the Saarlouis physique meeting and manufacturing operation.
There isn’t a confirmed change for the enormous Cologne operation that has been Ford’s continental mainstay since 1929, which can take the lion’s share of manufacturing of Volkswagen MEB-based EVs from 2023.
The choices for Ford embrace promoting the plant to a different automaker or repurposing it for different, unconfirmed operations.
“We’re looking for different different alternatives for automobile manufacturing at Saarlouis, together with different producers,” Rowley mentioned right now.
“We would not have in our planning cycle an extra mannequin that goes into Saarlouis.”
Ford of Europe most well-liked to ship a few of its Volkswagen-based MEB EV manufacturing to it is Spanish … [+]
It may have been used to construct the brand new Ford vary of EVs, primarily based on the Volkswagen Group’s MEB structure, batteries and electrical motors, but it surely misplaced its bid to the Ford Spain plant in Valencia.
Ford of Europe is transferring to a pure electrical future and huge job losses have been anticipated from the 4600 staff at Saarlouis and the 6000 individuals at Valencia within the transition to EVs anyway.
“The truth of the trade is that the manufacturing of EVs would require fewer individuals,” Rowley mentioned.
Ford presently employs 6,000 individuals in Valencia and 4,600 in Saarlouis, which opened in 1970 and sits on 296 acres of land.
Aside from the Ford plant, Saarlouis is most famous because the birthplace of outrageously brave … [+]
Aside from the Ford plant, Saarlouis is most well-known for sitting on the Saar river and having been periodically French and German, and in addition being the birthplace of Napoleonic-era French hero, Marshall Michel Ney.
Ford’s web site in Cologne, Germany, will not be affected by the headcount discount.
The Valencia plant, to which Saarlouis misplaced out, builds each the S-Max and Galaxy minivans and the Kuga compact SUV. It additionally constructed the Mondeo sedan and wagon, however they’ve been discontinued by Ford and won’t be straight changed.
Ford has had a protracted historical past in Germany, beginning work on its Cologne plant in 1929 in response to GM’s buy of a controlling curiosity in Opel (now owned by Stellantis). Henry Ford himself laid the inspiration stone in 1930, and the primary Ford – a Mannequin A truck – rolled off the Cologne manufacturing line in 1931.
