Ford has invested a further £125m in its Halewood Plant, on Merseyside, taking the total investment in Halewood’s transformation to an EV plant to almost £380m.

Halewood’s new power unit capacity will mean that 70 per cent of the 600,000 EVs, which Ford will sell in Europe a year by 2026, will be powered by the Halewood-produced technology. Ford’s EV push in Europe supports the acceleration of the company’s global plan for two million annual production of EVs in the same 2026 time frame.

The latest investment – which includes Government support from UK Export Finance, through their Export Development Guarantee – will see the plant, which currently produces transmissions for internal combustion engine vehicles, begin assembly of Ford electric vehicles’ power units.

Halewood will deliver to the vehicles’ assembly lines at Ford Otosan plants in Romania and Turkey, making up a significant share of Ford UK’s annual export value from the Merseyside plant, as well as Dagenham – currently worth £2.1bn annually.

The plant’s selection marks Ford’s first in-house investment in all-electric vehicle component manufacturing in Europe. At the same time, Ford is targeting carbon neutrality across its European footprint of facilities, logistics and suppliers by 2035. Halewood Plant’s new electric power unit operation is targeting carbon neutral energy supply for production start in 2024. Other Halewood projects contributing to total carbon neutrality for Ford in Europe by 2035 include electric locomotives (used to shunt heavy loads) replacing diesel and EV charge points for employees.

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