Ford and Volkswagen sign agreements for joint projects
Ford and Volkswagen have signed an agreement to expand their global alliance to meet the needs of their customers in Europe and other regions. Their joint projects will range from midsize pickup trucks to commercial and electric vehicles.
Plans for these agreements were first announced by Ford and Volkswagen last year in July. Ford will build and engineer a medium pick up truck which will be sold by Volkswagen as the Amarok beginning of 2022. Both automakers plan to further strengthen the commercial-vehicles businesses by early 2021, with a city delivery van from Volkswagen, and then a 1-ton cargo van from Ford. Ford also plans to establish a unique electric vehicle (EV) for the European market by 2023 and will base it on Volkswagen's modular electric-drive toolkit.
This partnership plans to produce as many as 8 million vehicles between the medium pickup truck and two commercial vans. Presently, both Ford and Volkswagen have strong commercial vans and pickup trucks, offering us popular models such as the Ford Transit and Ranger, and the Volkswagen Transporter, Crafter, Caddy, and Amarok.
"This alliance comes at a time of tremendous enthusiasm about the intersection of increasingly intelligent, connected vehicles in an ever-smarter world," said Ford CEO Jim Hackett. "This creates a huge opportunity to innovate and solve many of the world's transportation challenges and deliver extraordinary benefits to customers - even as companies need to be selective about how they use their cash."
Ford's use of Volkswagen's MEB architecture in Europe will represent another cornerstone in Volkswagen's electric vehicle strategy, as well as further fulfill both companies’ commitments to the Paris 2015 Agreement. Both automakers plan to explore additional ways to cooperate on electric vehicles. Starting in 2023 and over a span of seven years, Ford could deliver 600 000 electric vehicles. The vehicle will be designed and engineered by Ford in Cologne-Merkenich and will add another compelling nameplate to its own all-electric Mustang Mach-E, which will be introduced in 2021.
Ford and Volkswagen have also partnered up with self-driving technology company Argo AI to create autonomous vehicle businesses that make use of Argo’s self-driving technology. The global reach of both automakers will give Argo AI's platform the largest geographic deployment potential of any autonomous driving technology.
