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Ford Invests $2.6B in Turkey plant to build VW Transporter 


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For those who remain skeptical about the Ford/VW hookup, here is tangible evidence of what is happening:



Ford's 20.5 billion Turkish lira ($2.6 billion) investment to increase capacity at its Transit van factory in Turkey will enable the plant to build the Volkswagen Transporter midsize van at the plant, a source familiar with the matter said.

Ford's joint venture company in Turkey, Ford Otosan, said last week that it will invest in its Kocaeli plant near Izmit, to increase the plant's annual capacity to 650,000 units from 440,000 by the middle of 2026.

Ford and VW announced an industrial alliance in 2019 for the joint engineering and production of vans, as well as other projects such as autonomous cars and an electric car for Ford on VW's MEB platform.

The companies said Ford would engineer and build a new VW Transporter van alongside its next Transit Custom van, with production starting in 2022. They also said VW would build a compact van for Ford alongside its VW Caddy in Poznan, Poland.

VW began sales of its fifth-generation Caddy last month and the Ford version to replace the Tourneo/Transit Connect is due next year.

The two companies said earlier this year that they could produce 8 million commercial vehicles over the lifetime of the collaboration.

There's also this little tidbit contained in the article:

The investment in Turkey includes money to build a battery assembly facility that will produce packs for an electric version of the Transit that will go on sale in 2022.

So, another add on to a Ford manufacturing facility for battery assembly. Wonder if this will mimic what is being built at the F150 facility?

https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/ford-gets-ready-build-vw-transporter-van-turkey-helped-26b-investment?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20201208&utm_content=article3-headline

 

 

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17 minutes ago, bzcat said:

Well, now we know Transit Connect is cancelled for sure in Europe. Wonder if Ford will continue with a replacement in North America... a panel van version of Maverick perhaps. 

 

 

 

Where did you get that from?

 

It literally says this:

 

VW began sales of its fifth-generation Caddy last month and the Ford version to replace the Tourneo/Transit Connect is due next year.

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1 hour ago, bzcat said:

Well, now we know Transit Connect is cancelled for sure in Europe. Wonder if Ford will continue with a replacement in North America... a panel van version of Maverick perhaps. 

 

 

Nope and as I've been saying for a while, Ford silently cancelled building Transit Connect in Mexico.

The communication also dispels any doubt that Ford will be building the Transporter for VW,

significant expansion in Turkey is good news for Ford.

 

A panel Van based on Maverick is possible but I wonder about Ford doing that while outsourcing

a new TC from VW, that sounds like duplication.

Edited by jpd80
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1 hour ago, jpd80 said:

Nope and as I've been saying for a while, Ford silently cancelled building Transit Connect in Mexico.

The communication also dispels any doubt that Ford will be building the Transporter for VW,

significant expansion in Turkey is good news for Ford.

 

A panel Van based on Maverick is possible but I wonder about Ford doing that while outsourcing

a new TC from VW, that sounds like duplication.

 

I wonder what this means for the autonomous vehicle's base - it was supposed to be a Transit Connect upfitted in Michigan, right? Fuzzy, are they still constructing the building in which that was supposed to occur?

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2 hours ago, jpd80 said:

A panel Van based on Maverick is possible but I wonder about Ford doing that while outsourcing

a new TC from VW, that sounds like duplication.

 

Different product solutions for Europe and the Americas?  A Maverick based TC for the Americas might help fill the plant nicely?

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3 hours ago, jpd80 said:

Nope and as I've been saying for a while, Ford silently cancelled building Transit Connect in Mexico.

The communication also dispels any doubt that Ford will be building the Transporter for VW,

significant expansion in Turkey is good news for Ford.

 

A panel Van based on Maverick is possible but I wonder about Ford doing that while outsourcing

a new TC from VW, that sounds like duplication.

 

Don't think VW is going to bother to make Caddy FMVSS compliant so it will be up to Ford to do that. Maybe cheaper to actually do a Maverick panel van instead of trying to Federalize a VW van that you have no skin in the game. And you have to deal with Chicken Tax if sourced from Europe. Maverick panel van made in North America can also be sold throughout Americas if so desired.

 

The strategy actually makes a lot of sense. US market could use a slightly longer/beefier Transit Connect that would encroach on Transit Custom in Europe. So in Europe, Ford rebadges VW Caddy which solves that problem. In other markets where Ford only sell the large Transit, a van that is sized between Transit Connect and Transit Custom could be the sweet spot. 

Edited by bzcat
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4 hours ago, Harley Lover said:

 

I wonder what this means for the autonomous vehicle's base - it was supposed to be a Transit Connect upfitted in Michigan, right? Fuzzy, are they still constructing the building in which that was supposed to occur?

VW has taken over lead development of AV so heaven knows what they are doing with regards commercial vehicles.

 

 I think bzcat nailed it above but you know Ford, things are never that simple.

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15 hours ago, bzcat said:

 

Don't think VW is going to bother to make Caddy FMVSS compliant so it will be up to Ford to do that. Maybe cheaper to actually do a Maverick panel van instead of trying to Federalize a VW van that you have no skin in the game. And you have to deal with Chicken Tax if sourced from Europe. Maverick panel van made in North America can also be sold throughout Americas if so desired.

 

The strategy actually makes a lot of sense. US market could use a slightly longer/beefier Transit Connect that would encroach on Transit Custom in Europe. So in Europe, Ford rebadges VW Caddy which solves that problem. In other markets where Ford only sell the large Transit, a van that is sized between Transit Connect and Transit Custom could be the sweet spot. 

 

A Metris sized van based on the Maverick would be better here than the current TC.

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1 hour ago, jpd80 said:

Yes and VW is now taking the lead with that work with Argo AI as Ford looks to have stepped back.

 

I'm not sure that is totally correct:  https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/ford-postpones-autonomous-vehicle-service-until-2022/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEJaQzA7O2gFrLJIy0NHvBoSyr06e_nPxe5IoceXd6T3laEYHzsi_SqJLd9GbEA7YMUX9xE4VWfn8ptb6iq6tmFqg8YIe2sguuRt3OGbqjHHuwssozCA4ZEbyEgvctsvdw6JL3OTg24HMmJqgl0wPF-wGH55hct8MwSubhoyt_p3

 

I'm also not sure that it's not totally correct! LOL

Edited by Harley Lover
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2 hours ago, jpd80 said:

Yes and VW is now taking the lead with that work with Argo AI as Ford looks to have stepped back.

 

VW is not taking the lead. Argo is taking the lead on AV.

 

Argo was setup as a separate company that was majority owned by Ford (I believe 90%) and fully consolidated. VW's investment into Argo (25% now, 40% eventually) means Ford now doesn't consolidate the financial results but Argo is still a Ford owned business based in the US. In fact, as part of the deal, VW is transferring its AV division to Argo, which will become part of Argo Europe.

 

Basically, VW is turning over its AV R&D over to Argo and getting out of the way. Meanwhile, Argo was Ford's AV R&D division so nothing has changed for Ford, other than $1 billion cash it got from VW and a sky high valuation for Argo. 

 

BTW, Ford invested $1 billion in Argo, and sold a portion of what it owns to VW for $1 billion. So in just 2.5 years, Ford has turned that initial investment into valuation over $4 $7.5 billion. Not bad... ?

 

https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/30/self-driving-startup-argo-ai-hits-7-5-billion-valuation/#:~:text=Autonomous vehicle technology startup Argo,billion investment in Argo AI .

Edited by bzcat
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15 hours ago, jpd80 said:

OK but if you read the article you posted, it says that Ford and VW each have a 40% stake and the founders, the remaining 20%.

 

Which is clearly different than "VW is taking the lead". 

 

Ford and VW will be equal owners eventually. VW doesn't own 40% yet because it has to purchase some shares from Ford and that hasn't happened yet. VW is committed to paying Ford some $500m over the next three years to bring its ownership up to 40%

 

 

Edited by bzcat
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On 12/9/2020 at 10:42 AM, NLPRacing said:

 

A Metris sized van based on the Maverick would be better here than the current TC.

 

I was under the impression that part of the reason the TC was smaller was to avoid the EPA Footprint issues that the E-150 had. The Metris is about 202 inches long, the TC is 190 and the old E-150 was 216

 

Another possibility is that Ford could possibly do a 3 row CUV thingy for NA based on the TC/Maverick/Bronco Sport..or maybe an Ecosport replacement?

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1 hour ago, bzcat said:

 

Which is clearly different than "VW is taking the lead". 

 

Ford and VW will be equal owners eventually. VW doesn't own 40% yet because it has to purchase some shares from Ford and that hasn't happened yet. VW is committed to paying Ford some $500m over the next three years to bring its ownership up to 40%

 

 

And on top of that it's invested a separate $2.6 billion into Argo AI, $1 billion in cash and the other $1.6 billion 

 from its own AV development company. Rather than ceding AV development, it's actively seeking to accelerate

Argo AI's development by sharing the work VW's research has already done in Europe to incorporate tech in those

vehicles already has under development. That sound like VW giving Argo AI a big leg up and probably the reason it

will be worth way more in the next few years.

 

Ford on the other hand has delayed it's AV plans (April 2020) until 2022 to see the impact of covid on AVs.

 

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On 12/10/2020 at 1:39 PM, silvrsvt said:

 

I was under the impression that part of the reason the TC was smaller was to avoid the EPA Footprint issues that the E-150 had. The Metris is about 202 inches long, the TC is 190 and the old E-150 was 216

 

Another possibility is that Ford could possibly do a 3 row CUV thingy for NA based on the TC/Maverick/Bronco Sport..or maybe an Ecosport replacement?

The TC is smaller because it is smaller. It makes a convenient small package for light deliveries and tradespeople doing work in large cities. See NV200 and Promaster City. 

 

The T-150 replaced the E-150.

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7 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

But the Transit is considerably bigger then the E-150 was. The Transit Connect was the low end replacement for the E-150 when it was over kill in those applications 

That was done so that all Transits would have a GVM above CAFE limit of 8,500 lbs, very clever.

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On 12/11/2020 at 3:21 AM, bzcat said:

 

Which is clearly different than "VW is taking the lead". 

 

Ford and VW will be equal owners eventually. VW doesn't own 40% yet because it has to purchase some shares from Ford and that hasn't happened yet. VW is committed to paying Ford some $500m over the next three years to bring its ownership up to 40%

 

 

The $1.6 billion from VW's own AV division added to it equity in Argo AI arguably gives VW a greater technical standing 

than Ford who simply bought a share in the company. Under Hackett, Ford discovered that it's better using existing tech 

than reinventing the wheel, VW already has tech developed and wants to share to recover some money.

 

This is an interesting alliance that Ford and VW are playing....

 

Edited by jpd80
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