Following the recent announcement of Ford splitting its traditional gas-powered vehicle business and EV business into separate entities comes another announcement from the blue oval. This time it is for the European market where the brand has announced to introduce seven connected all-electric vehicles. Out of which three will be passenger vehicles while the rest four will be commercial vehicles. Before this announcement, Ford already has the Mustang Mach-e and Mach-e GT EVs on sale in the European market and is gearing up to launch the E-Transit in the second quarter of 2022.
“I am delighted to see the pace of change in Europe – challenging our entire industry to build better, cleaner and more digital vehicles. Ford is all-in and moving fast to meet the demand in Europe and around the globe,” said Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO “This is why we have created Ford Model e – allowing us to move at the speed of a start-up to build electric vehicles that delight and offer connected services unique to Ford and that are built with Ford-grade engineering and safety.”
The seven EVs announced by Ford will start coming by 2023 and for their production, Ford will be using its Cologne manufacturing facility. The first EV coming out of this facility will be a mid-size five-seater crossover EV with a range of 500 km (~310 miles). The name of this EV will be revealed later in 2022 following which it will go into production by 2023. The second in line will be an all-electric sports crossover. While Ford’s top-selling model Puma will also be made available as an EV by 2024.
Apart from this Ford will also offer various versions of the E-Transit. A couple of them revealed by the brand so far includes the all-new Transit Courier and Tourneo Courier. Where the former will be a light commercial vehicle while the latter will be a compact multi-purpose vehicle. Thus these vehicles together will make Ford a major EV player in the European market and the company plans to push around 1.2 million electric vehicles in the coming six years.
To realize this ambitious plan Ford has earmarked a total investment of $2 billion. This not only will give a boost to local job creation and value addition but also help Europe’s initiative towards achieving its commitment made in the Paris Climate Agreement. Apart from strengthening its manufacturing facility across Europe Ford has also joined hands with other key players in the EV market which include the likes of SK On Co., Ltd. and Koç Holding. Under this joint venture, an EV battery manufacturing facility will be set up which will be one of the largest in the European region.
The facility will make high Nickel NMC cells which are used to make EV battery module. The facility is expected to be set up by the latter part of 2025 and will have an annual capacity of 30 to 45 Gigawatt hours. For this joint venture, Ford has been extended support from the Turkish government as the business will be based in Turkey. That said, during the press release Ford focused on the European market only but hardly touched on the topic of whether any of these vehicles could make their way to the U.S. market.
