The Cuautitlan plant is being converted from its current production duties of building the F-Series pickup for Mexico and is instead being geared up to create small cars for the North American market. Ford also plans to release new commercial-vehicle engines from its Chihuahua engine plant, as well as investing in new transmissions via a joint partnership with Getrag to establish a transmissions plant in Guanajuato. The trio of Mexican investments by Ford are taking place in a bid to reduce production and export costs associated with creating a global car that can be sold in various regions.
The move to convert the Cuautitlan plant from pickups to small cars reflects a greater trend towards smaller vehicles. In fact, momentum in small-car sales is outpacing overall industry growth worldwide. Globally, small car sales have grown from 23 million units in 2002 to an estimated 38 million in 2012.
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Reader Comments
Sat May 31 2008 1:27 PM
chris says
oh... so i guess i got it wrong on the last post. I was unaware that there was even multiple F150 plants. I thought they all came out of rouge river. oh well.. thats actually a really smart move because they move the more profitable truck production into a single plant... a single american plant.. while moving the cheaper production to mexico. more business for rouge river!
ok a quick check on wikipedia says that the F150 is also made in kansas city. regardless.. fewer foreign plants making the F150 means more production for the american plants. which is cool.
was some one actually thinking? its amazing.
Oh yeah,.. and.. GOOOOOOO HATCHBACKS!
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