Ford Phases Out Sedan in Favor of Battery Packs at Spanish Plant
Ford Phases Out Sedan in Favor of Battery Packs at Spanish Plant
(Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co. will stop making the Mondeo sedan and shake up its Spanish manufacturing strategy to make more battery packs and a hybrid engine.
The carmaker will phase out the Mondeo at the end of March 2022 and later that year start producing a hybrid engine at its Valencia factory, the company said in a statement Thursday.
Ford has pledged to drastically overhaul its business in Europe, vowing to go almost completely electric by the end of the decade. It’s also seeing rising demand for sport-utility vehicles over sedans.
The automaker almost doubled its budget for electrification last month to $22 billion, in line with an industrywide accelerated shift to battery-powered models.
Ford will invest 5.2 million euros ($6.2 million) in its Valencia operations to increase capacity for battery packs, it said. That’s on top of 24 million euros in previously announced funding for the facility.
The carmaker said it will continue to produce the seven-seater Galaxy model and the Ford S-MAX crossover, including recently added hybrid-electric versions.
Ford’s European passenger-car business has struggled with falling market share and low returns. But the company is plowing $1 billion into its assembly plant in Cologne, Germany, to start making an all-electric model in two years.
The automaker launched the Mondeo in 1993 and has sold around 5 million units to date.
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