After having rolled out the 400,000th engine from the Chennai plant, the US automaker is just making more and more plans. In the Auto Expo held recently, Ford announced its entry into the compact SUV segment. And thus was the name “Ford Ecosport” famous. It grabbed everyone’s attention, thanks to the immense popularity it gained on the social networking sites. The compact SUV is scheduled to hit the roads by 2013. The Ford EcoSport is set to be launched with one of the best compact petrol engines in the world, the EcoBoost.
“The EcoSport will have around similar localization levels of Figo and Classic. We are still negotiating to have 80 per cent localization for the EcoSport,” Michael Boneham, President and Managing Director, Ford India, said.
Now, the company has plans to have 80 percent of the Ford EcoSport locally made. The localization levels would match with those of the Ford Figo and the Ford Classic. The Ford Classic already has 80 percent of its components locally made or supplied by local suppliers. This is indeed one of the cost cutting strategies being used by the company which in turn could be a good news for the potential customers as they can expect the prices to be lower.
Ford has a manufacturing plant in Maraimalai Nagar near Chennai and another one at Sanand, Gujarat. The aim is to roll out atleast eight new products by 2015. Coming to the near by future plans, the company will be launching the upgraded version of its Ford Figo, which has been quite a success till now. Not much information was provided on the new Figo but we can expect minor changes and the addition of more features on the car. The new Endeavour is also expected to hit roads by the end of the year.
