Key Takeaways
- Ford reduces the hours that employees work at its German plant in Cologne.
- The production of Explorer and Capri models will be made easier by this modification.
- Until Christmas, workers will work one week and take one week off.
A Ford representative told German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur that the company is reducing hours at its Cologne facility because it is concerned that the “much lower than expected demand for electric vehicles” will affect earnings.
The article states that the corporation will apply for government furlough benefits and short-term employment. Business Insider claims that under Germany’s Kurzarbeit labor scheme, employees receive 60% of their base pay for the hours they do not work.
The Ford Capri, which was initially driven by European media a few weeks ago, and the recently announced Ford Explorer electric SUV are both produced at the Cologne, Germany, facility.
To prepare the manufacturing plant for the production of electric vehicles, Ford spent $2 billion modernizing it.
The American carmaker claimed at the time that by 2030, all Ford passenger cars sold in Europe will be electric, but it seems the business is having trouble making the switch.
The Rouge Electric Vehicle Center outside Detroit will stop down from November 18 to January 2025 as part of Ford’s announcement to halt manufacture of its all-electric F-150 pickup truck.
In addition to the $4.7 billion losses it incurred in 2023, Ford’s current EV portfolio—which includes the Mustang Mach-E, Explorer, the recently released Capri, and the F-150—is predicted to cost the corporation $5 billion in 2024.
In order to compete with rivals like Kia’s EV9 and Volvo’s recently unveiled EX90, the Blue Oval also declared that it would abandon plans for an all-electric three-row SUV. Additionally, it revealed that a replacement for the F-150 pickup would be postponed as Ford turned its attention to creating more hybrid automobiles.
Although the business claims to have over 4,000 workers at the plant, there is currently no information on how many Ford employees in Germany will be impacted by the production slowdown.
According to Automotive News, workers will work one week and then take a week off before the impending Christmas break, with production perhaps slowing down into the new year.
Recent years have seen significant employment reductions at the Cologne location; according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur, the automaker employed close to 20,000 people in the city in 2018, but as of this summer’s last count, that number had dropped to about 13,000.
