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Ford Begins Production of New Fiesta; First of New Global Small Cars
15 August 2008
Ford Motor Company has begun production of the all-new Ford Fiesta, the first in a portfolio of global small cars, at the Cologne Stamping and Assembly plant in Germany. The new Fiesta will go on sale progressively between now and 2010, starting in Europe.
The Cologne plant is the first Ford assembly facility in the world to build the new global car. Fiesta production for the Asian market begins later this year in Nanjing, China and Rayong, Thailand. Production will start at Valencia Assembly Plant in Spain in January 2009.
In North America, the new subcompact will be offered in two models: the sporty European hatchback and the popular two-door sedan. The models will be produced at the company’s Cuautitlan Assembly Plant in Mexico in 2010. Retooling the plant from its current production of F-Series trucks to small car production will begin in December.
The New Fiesta range—with four 16-valve Duratec gasoline and two Duratorq TDCi diesel engine choices—offers a projected range-wide CO2 average of 132 g/km, a 1.3% improvement over the previous Fiesta.
Within five years, Ford expects to build about 1 million vehicles worldwide off the new global B-car platform along with nearly 2 million vehicles off the global C-car unit.
Ford invested €455 million (US$718.4 million) to retool Cologne Assembly for Fiesta production. In 2008, Ford will manufacture 148,000 new Fiestas in Cologne. When operating at full capacity, a total of more than 1,900 Ford Fiestas and Fusions will be produced daily on three shifts at the Cologne plant.
August 15, 2008 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Posted by: randomdude | August 15, 2008 at 10:25 AM
It is a pity the fleet CO2 average is only going down by 1.3% - they can't have tried very hard.
I wonder when they froze the design.
This is a shame as this is a car that an awful lot of people will buy, so it could make a difference to global CO2 levels (after some years), if they got very low CO2 emissions.
Posted by: mahonj | August 15, 2008 at 12:04 PM
Too bad Ford still believes customer perception of Ford vehicles is more important than improving the engineering of Ford vehicles.
Posted by: garth | August 15, 2008 at 01:52 PM
And Ford has to keep that factory in Mexico working building light trucks until December because there is so much demand for them.
Well, as long as the situation isn't urgent!
Posted by: Kevin | August 15, 2008 at 04:16 PM
We could do quite a bit on CO2 by dealing with the coal fired power plants in the U.S. Phasing out and replacing or converting them to natural gas combined cycle plants would be one way.
Posted by: sjc | August 17, 2008 at 11:20 AM
Manufacturers are aware that the CO2 game is up. Ford is making a smart, if un-progressive move here by leveraging a couple designs-fit-all approach. In Europe and new markets they will do well and the TDCi choices will make lots of efficiency buyers happy.
Ford's idea here is little different from founder Henry's a hundred years ago - make one car that everyone can afford.
Posted by: gr | August 17, 2008 at 12:34 PM
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I'll be there in 2 weeks. :)