With the opening of an electric car plant in Cologne worth almost two billion euros, the US company Ford wants to make up for lost ground in the European car market. “Ford’s electric future is happening here,” said Ford Germany boss Martin Sander in Cologne at the new “Electric Vehicle Center”, in which up to 250,000 electric vehicles are to roll off the assembly line each year.
The great-grandson of the company’s founder, William Clay Ford Junior, traveled from the USA for the opening show and enthused about the “beginning of a new generation of clean production processes and electric vehicles in Europe”. Ford is staying in Europe and investing here, he stressed.
Chancellor Scholz: Commitment to Germany”
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) also took the stage and said of the Ford investment in the cathedral city: “This is an unmistakable commitment to the location, to car production in Germany, to e-mobility, to a new beginning.” The company’s decision is “a great sign of confidence in the entire Ford workforce in Cologne.” NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) said the new electric vehicle center was “a decisive step” towards climate neutrality in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Ford works council member Benjamin Gruschka was also relieved: “We can herald the future, that gives the workforce security.”
The plant is already open, but there is still a long way to go before series production of the “Ford Explorer”, the model name of the first Ford Stromer from Europe, begins: This is not due to take place until the end of the year. Before that, preliminary work with prototypes is still underway to ensure smooth operation of mass production.
Job cuts and at the same time an investment of billions
Ford is under pressure, the car company has lost ground in the European car business. The company did not switch to the electronics course until late. The management recently announced that parts of the Cologne development department would be relocated to the USA and that staff would be cut. At the Cologne location, where Ford has been present since 1930, 2,300 of the current 14,000 employees are to be cut. However, the electrical investments are intended to make it clear that the location will continue to play an important role in the US group in the future.
The job cuts affect the development department and administration. It’s not about production – this area has been strengthened with the opening of the electric car factory. The Cologne plant is intended to make a significant contribution to helping Ford achieve its goal of ending sales of combustion engine cars in Europe by 2030 and switching to electric ones.
Despite the billion-euro investment, industry experts rate the future of the company as a car manufacturer in Europe as difficult. “As a car manufacturer, the company is too small in Europe to work profitably in the long term and to be able to keep up with the competition,” says Ferdinand Dudenhöffer from the Center Automotive Research. Ford’s market share in the European passenger car business fell from 7.4 to 3.7 percent between 2013 and 2023.
Expert: No liberation for Ford
Dudenhöffer sees the new Cologne electronics factory as a pragmatic solution for Ford, but not as a major liberation. “Two billion sounds a lot, but it’s a normal investment for such a far-reaching change in production.” The investments relate to the period from 2021 to mid-2024 – i.e. up to the point in time when, after the Explorer, a second electric model rolls off the assembly line in Cologne as planned.
At the Cologne Ford location, past and future are close together. Because while part of the huge plant is ready for the Stromer age, another part is still producing the classic small car Ford Fiesta. Still. Because this combustion engine model will be over in just a few weeks – after 47 years and around ten million units sold, Ford is pulling the plug: the last Ford Fiesta should roll off the assembly line in early July.
