Last month, the Ford Puma Gen-E, E-Tourneo Courier, and E‑Transit Courier entered full-scale production at the joint-venture Ford Otosan Craiova Assembly plant in Romania, which was a notable occasion for several reasons – including the fact that it means the entire Transit family now has an electrified option to choose from in Europe. However, it seems as if Ford won’t be building as many battery packs for those models as it previously expected.
According to Automotive News, Ford opted to reduce production of the battery packs used in the Puma Gen-E, E-Transit Courier, and E-Tourneo Courier from 150,000 units annually down to 50,000 in the wake of lower-than-expected demand for EVs, in general. All three of those models use the same battery pack, so this means that presumably, the automaker won’t be producing as many of those actual vehicles as previously expected, either, though it does have the ability to ramp up production if demand increases.
“That was planned three to four years ago when everybody was excited about electric,” said Dan Ghirisan, head of vehicle assembly at Craoiva. “It’s much lower than expected. But let’s see this year.” Ghirisan added that Craiova’s battery pack assembly line is flexible enough that the automaker can ramp up to the 150,000 unit level merely by adding more staff on the line while also boosting the speed of assembly. Currently, it has 51 people working on the battery production line.
This news does come as a slight surprise given recent comments from Ford CEO Jim Farley, who noted that the automaker plans to double its EV output this year – though those comments could merely pertain to the Cologne Electric Vehicle Center in Germany. “Well, first of all we’re doubling our EV volume this year, so that’s maybe not so clear to everyone,” Farley said. “We still have a vibrant business in Europe, the Puma electric’s coming out. We have the MEB products scaling for a full year so well, we’re going to go from 100,000 to 250,000 to 260,000 EVs. So we have a lot of growth but it’s not in America so it’s not as obvious to investors.”
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