The motor giant has now unveiled plans for seven new electric models in Europe, a battery-assembly site in Germany and a nickel cell manufacturing joint venture in Turkey as part of that electric vehicle (EV) push.
"Our march toward an all-electric future is an absolute necessity for Ford to meet the mobility needs of customers across a transforming Europe," said Stuart Rowley, chair of Ford of Europe.
The company is to introduce three new electric passenger vehicles and four new electric commercial vehicles in Europe by 2024 and is looking to sell 600,000 EVs in the region by 2026 – it has a global goal of selling 2 million EVs by then.
Ford has also deepened its existing partnership with Volkswagen under which it will produce a second electric vehicle for the European market based on its German rival's platform.
As a result Ford will look to double its planned volume of vehicles to be produced based on Volkswagen's modular electric-drive platform, known as MEB, to 1.2 million units over a six-year period and will make a $2 billion investment at its Cologne site in Germany as well as a new battery assembly facility scheduled to start operations in 2024.
Ford said that it had also signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with SK On Co, a unit of South Korea's SK Innovation and Turkey's Koc Holding for a joint venture to manufacture high nickel NMC cells for assembly into battery array modules.
