Three years ago, Ford and Volkswagen said they were joining efforts on designing electric cars using the MEB platform. Rewind to present day, and Ford EV Manager in Europe Martin Sander confided in an interview to Financial Times that the companies plan to go their separate ways in a couple of years.
He said that Ford was already developing a proprietary electric car architecture that would underpin its future EVs for Europe, eliminating the need for VW technology licensing. The new platform is being described as ‘versatile and functional’, although Ford has yet to specify what kind of cars will be built on it in the coming years.
As for the cooperation strategy between the two companies, it included jointly designing at least one electric car, which still hasn’t been revealed. Rumor has it that it will be a Ford-badged SUV running on MEB underpinnings and looking much like the Volkswagen ID.4 in terms of size and shape (you will find it in the gallery and the video below). The production may take place in Cologne, Germany. Later on, the companies are planning on unveiling another co-designed SUV, after which the collaboration may end.
Sander specified that once Ford has its own EV architecture up and running, it plans to mass-produce cars based on it in Valencia, Spain. The company already has a factory there assembling the Galaxy and S-Max minivans, but both are set to retire soon. He also admitted that teaming up with Volkswagen saved Ford around two years of research and development, possibly hinting that this might have been the initial goal all along.