No longer #MadeInIndia Ford EcoSport for Europe
American automaker Ford has decided to stop producing Ford EcoSport for European market at their Chennai plant. Instead the European spec EcoSport will be manufactured in Ford’s existing plant in Craiova in Romania. The production for European spec EcoSport will begin at the plant in 2017. This way Ford will be able cut the exportation cost.
The Ford factory at Craiova in Romania presently builds B-Max MPV and the 1.0 litre Ecoboost engine. But recently the huge decline of the sales of B-Max MPV has prompted Ford to rethink about their strategy as large part of the production facility is staying unused.
Therefore moving the Ford EcoSport production to the Romanian plant will help the company boost its profit for the plant and for the automaker’s European arm as well. It will also enable the Ford to increase the production capacity for India spec EcoSport at the Chennai plant. For the EcoSport production the Romanian facility will get an additional investment of 200 million Euros. Apart from the EcoSport Ford will also manufacture the Ka compact hatchback in the same plant. Ka is the European spec model of the Ford Figo.
Meanwhile, Ford recently reduced the price for EcoSport in India by Rs. 50000 to Rs. 1.2 lakh, which was a decision taken to stay competent against the Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza, which has created quite a ripple in the compact SUV segment in the country. In India EcoSport faces tough competition from several other compact SUVs, but in Europe the sales figure for the car has risen up to 30% from last year.
Dimensionally, Ford EcoSport comes with 3999 mm of length, 1765 mm of width, 1708 mm of height, 2520 mm of wheelbase, 200 mm of ground clearance and 346 litres of boot space. The car comes with three different engine options. A 1.0 litre Ecoboost petrol engine delivering 125 PS peak power and 170 Nm of peak torque, there is a 1.5 litre petrol engine which kicks out 112 PS peak power 140 Nm peak torque. The diesel variant is available with a 1.5 litre unit which pumps out 100 PS peak power and 230 Nm peak torque. The car gets a five speed manual transmission while the petrol top trim gets a six speed dual clutch automatic transmission.
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