Ford accelerates drive to all-electric cars in Europe

The US carmaker is also doubling to €1.8bn its planned investment at its key European production site in Cologne.

Ford is boosting its electric-vehicle line-up with seven new models.

Car giant Ford is boosting its electric-vehicle line-up with seven new models over the next two years across its passenger car and commercial van range to target sales of more than 600,000 battery-powered vehicles.

The US carmaker is also doubling to $2bn (€1.8bn) its planned investment at its key European production site in Cologne, to make electric vehicles as well as a battery assembly facility starting in 2024. The push is part of the company’s global plan to reach more than 2 million in EV sales.

Electric strategy

“This is not a change in strategy, it is an acceleration of our plan to go electric”, Ford Europe chief executive Stuart Rowley said. 

“We go from two electric vehicle models today to nine in Europe by 2024." 

Ford earlier this month took further steps to accelerate its shift to an electric future with the creation of an all-electric unit dubbed Ford Model e and a combustion-engine division Ford Blue. 

The company has also stepped up its pledge to go all-electric in Europe and now plans to sell only battery-powered cars in Europe by 2030. Its successful range of light-duty commercial vehicles should become purely electric by 2035.

Separately, Ford also announced an agreement to build a commercial vehicles battery plant with its Turkish partners. Koc Holding, Turkey’s biggest conglomerate.

• Bloomberg