US automaker Ford Motor has now completely canceled costly investment plans for a production of the new Focus in Mexico. Instead of being built in Hermosillo, the new model will be built mainly in China, and later in Europe, as of the second half of 2019, the car maker said on Tuesday. This will save an additional 500 million dollars.
Already in January, Ford had capped the construction of a factory in the Mexican San Luis Potosi in favor of Hermosillo to save half a billion dollars. The US President, Donald Trump, who has been in office since January, has been sharply criticized and threatened with punitive tariffs for the US market car makers. Among other things, BMW and Daimler were the targets of his attacks.
Nothing has changed that the production of the Focus model in the USA 2018 should end. However, Ford wants to put around 900 million dollars in a factory in Louisville in the US state of Kentucky, in which large SUV city ground vehicles are manufactured. The secure 1000 jobs in the US, it said.
About a month ago Ford had replaced the boss after just three years. Its development head Jim Hackett took over Mark Fields as the CEO. Last year, he pushed the production shift from small cars to Mexico. Compared to his plan of production in Mexico, the investment savings now amounted to one billion dollars, it was.
After the success of its Streetscooters, Deutsche Post has joined forces with Ford to build a larger electric van. To this end, a Ford Transit chassis was equipped with a battery drive according to the requirements of the Post Office, the DAX Group announced on Wednesday in Bonn. The Post-subsidiary Streetscooter, which already builds the small E-Transporter of the same name, is partnering with the Cologne-based Ford works.
The production of the van will start in July. By the end of 2018, Swiss Post plans to use at least 2,500 vehicles of the type in inner-city delivery traffic. “With this volume, the joint project is becoming the largest producer of battery-powered medium-duty delivery vehicles in Europe, writes Swiss Post, and the Streetscooter, which is already in operation, is planning to build up to 20,000 copies per year.
Lastly, driving bans for diesel cars in several cities caused uneasiness among diesel drivers. Such prohibitions could also be taken by classic delivery vans of parcel services.