Overview
- Ford held preliminary talks with Geely about exchanging manufacturing capacity in Europe, including potential use of Ford’s Almussafes facility.
- A delegation of Ford executives visited China this week to explore opportunities that include assembling vehicles in Valencia, according to Bloomberg.
- Discussions have focused on production arrangements and exclude sharing technologies such as autonomous driving software.
- Producing in Spain could help Geely avoid EU tariffs on China-built electric vehicles while lifting utilization at the underused Almussafes plant.
- The Valencia site is rated for about 400,000 vehicles a year but has built only the Ford Kuga since 2024 as Ford reassesses its electric-vehicle plans and engages firms like BYD and Xiaomi.