Electric cars stall and Ford “escapes” from Türkiye
The slowdown in demand is pushing many manufacturers to review their plans for electric cars. Ford scraps deal for gigafactory in Türkiye. And now in Germany, where the Fiesta was produced, they fear similar measures
The large battery factory on the outskirts of Ankara which had electrified the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ( who is pushing for the country to be among the protagonists of the ongoing ecological transition ) will not be built. At least not now.
And we will have to see how the partnership between the local giant Koç Holding – linked to the family of the same name, one of the wealthiest in the country which in the automotive world had done business especially with our local Fiat – the American Ford and South Korea's LG Energy Solution. The three had decided to join forces for the creation of a battery factory that was to be built near Ankara.
FORD'S ELECTRICAL PLANS IN Türkiye…
This despite the fact that at the beginning of 2023 the Blue Oval had announced its intention to expand its European "all-electric" range to nine vehicles, signing a memorandum of understanding to set up a joint venture in Turkey for the annual production of 30 and 45 Gigawatt hours, starting from 2025.
In the same period, electrified by the rush towards new engines, Ford had decided to transfer ownership of the Craiova plant, in Romania, to Ford Otosan, a Turkish company jointly controlled by the Americans and Koç Holding, with the aim of increasing its capacity in view of the arrival on the assembly lines not only of the electric Puma, but also of the new Transit Courier and the Tourneo Courier multispace.
…SWITCH OFF
However, recent sales are also pushing Americans to slow down. The companies involved explained that they had conducted "assessments relating to the planned investment" concluding "that, given the current pace of adoption of electric vehicles, the timing is not appropriate for an investment in battery cells".
The memorandum of understanding signed on 21 February was mutually revoked, although both Ford and Koç Holding confirmed their commitment to "support the production of electric vehicles at the plant" of the Ford Otosan joint venture in Kocaeli and guaranteed the purpose of "evaluating potential investments in batteries in the future in line with the dynamics of the BEV market".
WILL THE SLOWDOWN ALSO AFFECT GERMANY?
At the beginning of the year, Ford had also announced important news for Germany, in particular for the Cologne plant, orphan of the best-selling Fiesta, which went out of production this summer. In the plans, the plant is destined to become the cradle of the Explorer electric SUV and, from 2024, of a second vehicle on tap, a sports crossover, the result of the industrial alliance started in 2020 with the Volkswagen group with the aim of assembling 1 .2 million electric cars over six years. But given that Volkswagen has also slowed down its electric plans , many are wondering whether the 2 billion dollars (1.8 billion euros) that Ford had allocated to Cologne for electric make-up will remain on the table.
If Ford were to announce postponements and postponements of various kinds it would be yet another blow suffered by the German car industry , which in recent weeks has seen the American multinational Goodyear announce the divestment of the Fulda and Fürstenwalde plants, leaving 1,500 at home workers, the VW Group slows down due to shortages in the supply of APP550 engines and the shortage of car orders on tap, Audi scraps part of its electrification strategy and Continental prepares "further efficiency measures" to save 400 million euros in the administrative offices.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/le-auto-elettriche-inchiodano-e-ford-scappa-dalla-turchia/ on Mon, 20 Nov 2023 14:15:39 +0000.