Ford signals electric drive with Chinese joint venture
FORD has stepped up its push into electric vehicles by agreeing a joint venture in China – the world’s largest car market.
The company announced the 50:50 partnership with domestic car company Anhui Zotye Automobile which will create a new marque that designs, builds and sells all-electric cars in the country.
China is the world’s fastest growing market for alternatively fuelled vehicles (AFVS) with Ford predicting demand in the country for cars using drive trains other than conventional internal combustion engines will hit 6m a year by 2025.
The company expects two thirds of these vehicles to be all electric vehicles, which will be a crucial factor in the country’s attempts to improve its air quality in cities.
“The potential to launch a new line of all-electric vehicles in the world’s largest auto market is an exciting next step for Ford,” said Peter Fleet, Ford chief in the Asia Pacific region.
“Electric vehicles will be a big part of the future in China and Ford wants to lead in delivering great solutions.”
Zotye is a leader in the Chinese elec- tric vehicles market and dominates the small segment of the market. It sold 16,000 electric cars in the year to the end of July, up 56pc on the same period a year ago.
Ford is racing to keep up with developments in the alternatively fuelled ve- hicles sector, with vehicles using electric power increasingly seen as likely to dominate roads in decades to come. The sale of new cars powered solely by petrol or diesel engines will stop in Britain and France from 2040, and Ford has a $4.5bn (£3.5bn) investment plan to try to grab a share of the growing global market for AFVS.
The China tie-up has been announced with investors and the car industry awaiting the findings of recently installed chief executive Jim Hackett’s 100-day review of Ford’s operations.
Mr Hackett – a turnaround expert – took the job when Mark Fields was ousted in mid-may and soon after said he was examining the company’s strategy, with its plans for electric and selfdriving cars expected to be given special attention.
The development comes as Ford made headlines in the UK by announcing it is launching a £2,000 scrappage scheme to get customers to junk their old, polluting vehicles, emulating programmes already in place at Vauxhall, BMW and Mercedes.