The era of the internal combustion engine has come to an end at the Ford plant in Cologne. After 47 years, the last model of the best-selling small car, the Ford Fiesta, rolled off the production line on 7 July.
From today, Ford will only build electric cars in Cologne, and inaugurated its ‘Electric Vehicle Center’ there in June. The Ford plant in Cologne-Niehl was converted for the production of electric cars with an investment of two billion US dollars. The annual production capacity will be 250,000 electric cars in the future.
“We decided to build our first high-volume electric vehicle here in Cologne,” said Martin Sander, general manager of Ford Model E Europe. “There comes the point where we need the space for construction, because we are turning the Fiesta plant into a fully battery-electric plant. This is why we had to make a decision that we have to stop Fiesta production.”
Keyword: End of an era in Cologne