American automotive giant Ford is reportedly investigating the possibility of reopening its Chennai factory in India, with speculation the carmaker could be looking to build an EV platform for local and overseas markets.
Autocar India reported last week that Ford Motor Company’s president of its international markets group, Kay Hart, visited India to conduct meetings around the possibility of reopening its Maraimalai Nagar factory on the outskirts of Chennai.
Ford had halted its plans earlier this year to sell the factory, hinting that the company was contemplating a return to one of the world’s largest car markets.
According to Autocar India, quoting “one of the several people in the know”, Ford is looking to relaunch in India with the Everest or Endeavour.
However, more importantly, the source also suggested that there was a bigger plan in the works focusing on electric vehicles.
“In order for the company to justify reopening the factory, it needs to get into local production,” said the unnamed source.
“While the likes of the Everest may be assembled and the Mustang Mach-E could be imported through the completely built route, the company is exploring the possibility of localising electric vehicle platforms in India to not only cater to the domestic market but also ship vehicles overseas.”
These rumours follow over a month after Ford CEO Jim Farley revealed in an investor call that the company had “developed a super-talented ‘Skunk Works’ team to create a low-cost EV platform.”
“It was a small group, small team, some of the best EV engineers in the world, and it was separate from the Ford mothership.”
The small “skunk works” team – a reference to Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division, which has long been developing top secret and advanced aircraft – had been created two years ago and was reportedly led by ex-Tesla engineer Alan Clarke.
According to Farley, the team has “developed a flexible platform that will not only deploy to several types of vehicles, there will be a large install base for software and services that we’re now seeing at” Ford Pro – ‘software and services’ that Ford hopes will help it secure a continuous source of revenue alongside the sale of new EVs.
No further information has been provided regarding the skunk works team, nor the platform they have developed.
But any automaker looking to stay in business beyond the end of this decade are certainly seeking to develop more cost-effective electric vehicles so as to remain relevant in a dramatically shifting market and to compete with more affordable Chinese-made electric vehicles.
Joshua S. Hill is a Melbourne-based journalist who has been writing about climate change, clean technology, and electric vehicles for over 15 years. He has been reporting on electric vehicles and clean technologies for Renew Economy and The Driven since 2012. His preferred mode of transport is his feet.
