EMPLOYEES at the Ford factory in the province of Valencia are celebrating as though all their birthdays and Christmases have come at once – the global motor company has chosen the plant to produce all its electrically-powered vehicles in Europe.
The factory, Ford's only production plant in Spain and which first opened 46 years ago, is a key source of employment in the town of Almussafes, about 40 minutes south of Valencia city, but uncertainty has been high in recent years – a decade ago, the company announced it would be shutting three of its factories in Europe, and in 2019, six plants were due to go and 12,000 made redundant, or 20% of its production line workforce on the continent.
Assembly workers at the Ford factory in Almussafes, Valencia province. The plant is set to undergo a gigantic transformation in the next two to three years following the massive news that it will be the sole production centre for all Ford's electric cars in Europe - an announcement staff are celebrating this weekend
Then, the global 'microchip crisis' which dramatically slowed down manufacturing output in the motor industry worldwide once again threatened jobs in Almussafes.
But being the sole producer of all Europe's electrical Ford vehicles has, based upon existing company figures, guaranteed around 5,000 jobs at the plant itself and up to 25,000 in total which otherwise depend upon its operations.
It means the factory's continued existence is assured for the next decade at least.
Ford's European chairman Stuart Rowley said it was a straight competition between Almussafes and the one in Saarlouis, Germany, and an exhaustive analysis of both was conducted over six months.
Staff in Saarlouis are not happy about the move, but Ford intends for the German plant to carry on producing its Focus and is now weighing up various options and opportunities to guarantee the factory's future.
But for Ford Almussafes, the exclusive electric car production project was almost a question of outright survival – from the year 2025 onwards, it was only due to be left with the job of manufacturing the Kuga, a hybrid model, which would barely take up 50% of its operating capacity and meant over half the workforce would have been, at best, laid off, if not actually made redundant altogether.
Now, along with the Ford Puma and other electric models being developed at present – exact numbers and lines have not been confirmed, but which will include the future GE-2 – the Almussafes plant will undergo a 'profound transformation towards new technologies and production methods' over the next two years, leading up to the launch of the first fully-electric Ford model in 2025.
A major overhaul of the factory involving a multi-million investment, as well as extensive staff training, to enable Almussafes to be churning out up to two million electrically-powered cars per year by 2026, will take place over the next three years.
Ford will then need to work out how many employees will be needed in Almussafes and begin a recruitment process, given that a much larger staff team is almost certain to be necessary.
