FRANKFURT, Apr 3 (Reuters): Ford could make electric cars in Germany after 2023, when the life cycle of Ford's Fiesta model is due to end, the head of the carmaker's German business told a paper, adding he would welcome state subsidies to support the shift.
"Purely hypothetically that (2023) could be a good time for it," Gunnar Herrmann told German business daily Handelsblatt in an interview published on Tuesday. He said it would take around 15 months to retool the company's plant in Cologne but said it would not be worth the investment if sales of electric cars reached only 30,000 or 40,000 vehicles a year.
"It will be possible if the sales' numbers are moving up more powerfully. Unfortunately, today electric cars are not especially profitable yet," said Herrmann.
German premium carmaker BMW last week echoed Hermann's comments, saying it would not mass produce electric cars until 2020 because its current technology is not profitable enough to scale up for volume production.
US carmaker Ford plans to invest $5 billion in electric vehicles by 2022 and introduce at least 13 electric or hybrid models worldwide in the next five years and aims to make its first fully electric vehicle in Europe in 2020.
Ford to make electric cars in Germany
FE Team | Published: April 03, 2018 23:37:15
Ford to make electric cars in Germany
Share if you like