European Ford Ecosport will not be Made in India

Ford’s European arm has announced that it will transfer the production of the European Spec Ford Ecosport from its existing manufacturing facility in Chennai to another facility that Ford runs in Craiova, Romania. The Romanian facility though will start production of the EcoSport only from 2017 and not immediately.

Ford’s factory in Craiova, Romania currently makes the B-Max MPV along with the 1.0-litre Ecoboost engine. The MPV though has seen a huge decline in sales figures in recent times due to which the production capabilities of the plant are unused resulting in losses. Moving the popular Ecosport there will help boost profits for the factory and for Ford’s European arm along with opening up more production capacity for the EcoSport’s Indian demands. The EcoSport in India recently received a minor facelift along with an even more recent price cut of between Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.2 lakh.

The Romania facility will receive an additional investment of 200 million Euros to put together the line that will assemble the EcoSport. Other Ford models like the new Ka are also likely to be eventually built in the same factory. The Ford EcoSport in India might be seeing stiff competition from the likes of the newly launched Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza, but in Europe, sales for the compact SUV are up nearly 30% from last year.