Ford picks Halewood above Germany for new car parts

FORD is to make electric car components at its factory in Halewood in a boost for Britain’s automotive industry as it navigates away from fossil fuels.

Bosses have picked the Merseyside factory over another of the company’s sites in Germany for more than £200m of investment into “e-drive” transmission systems, which control power from batteries used to run a vehicle’s wheels.

The deal will secure the future of the 500 staff at Halewood, who currently make transmissions for petrol Ford vehicles including the Fiesta and Focus, which are exported to vehicle manufacturing plants in Europe.

Britain is banning the sale of new cars powered solely by internal combustion engines from 2030 and the EU is planning a similar move from 2035, raising questions about Halewood’s future.

Ford is being supported with taxpayer money from the Government’s £500m Automotive Transmission Fund (ATF), announced last year as part of Boris Johnson’s 10-point plan for a “green industrial revolution”.

Ford is understood to be getting about £25m from the fund, which is intended to encourage global car companies to invest in the UK to deliver “development and mass-scale production of electric vehicle batteries”.

Other international carmakers to have used the fund include Nissan, which is thought to have received £100m to bring a battery gigafactory to its Sunderland facility as part of a £1bn investment. The Vauxhall owner Stellantis, which is swapping over its Astra car factory in Ellesmere Port to produce electric vans, is another beneficiary.

Prof David Bailey, an automotive industry expert at Birmingham University, said: “This is great news for staff at the plant. Production of electric drive units at Halewood is an important piece of the jigsaw falling in to place as the UK supply chain switches over to production of electric vehicles.”