It’s official, Tata Motors just released a press release confirming the purchase of Ford India’s vehicle manufacturing plant located at Sanand, Gujrat.
What went wrong with Ford in India?
Back in 2014, Ford spent USD 1 Billion to build this ultra modern plant in Sanand, Gujrat with their planned product onslaught and massive push to capture Indian car market and eye for the 3rd spot in Passenger Vehicle segment.
Infact they were doing good and was right on track with instant success of their EcoSports and subsequent low maintenance, reliable yet fun to drive Figo platform. But in between, due to their lack of corporate vision from Parent US offices, Ford India missed the que and became stagnant with 3 basic platforms. EcoSports, Figo and massive Endeavor. Sales started to fall as market caught up with similar but better feature products and Ford started to lose ground rapidly.
Ford HQ had different plans, one Ford policy where they planned to develop and build single platform for entire world. Due to their DNA of Pickups like F150, small cars, even EcoSports didn’t get a place to stay. Unfortunately, in markets like India, there is a very little demand for such expensive and massive vehicles. Specially when stupid and unscientific rules of NGT for mass scrapping of vehicles based on age, at as early as 10 years along with massive TAX structure of Indian government where, almost 45% of a new car On road price is spent on paper works like GST, Import duties, Road TAX & Registration Cost along with huge insurance premiums. Increasing fuel cost’s didn’t help either. Ford HQ couldn’t justify on going losses and pulled the plug. Ford officially left India (stopped New Car Sale but continues to run service center network for existing owners) on Sep 2021.
Sell of Assets
It is obvious, Ford needed to sell their manufacturing plants in India and after long negotiations, TATA have finally closed the deal for Rs. 725.7cr. For todays exchange value, its like USD 100 million.
Next in Line is their oldest and first Ford plant of India at Chennai, TN. Ford is still using that platform manufacturer engines for export and just last month stopped their export production of EcoSports.
What Happens Next?
We don’t have any news from Ford HQ about their future plan for India. Ford India continue to operate their vehicle RnD centers but they didn’t meet their initial promise of imported vehicle sales since it’s close to an year from their operation closure, but till now they have not announced any plan for any imported vehicle sale
It is pretty evident, that Ford HQ in USA is playing the waiting game to see how EV development plays out and what is the future of vehicle since it is clear, there will never be another Ford fossil fueled vehicle model for India.
