The Wall Street Journal reported that Ford officials were travelling to China next week to visit BYD and discuss selling the site to the Chinese EV maker. — Reuters
BERLIN: Ford will decide by mid-February how many jobs to cut in Europe, a German union says.
This comes as reports surfaced about China’s BYD being one of 15 investors interested in buying the US carmaker’s site in Saarlouis, Germany.
The future of the Saarlouis site has been unclear since last June, when Ford picked a site in Spain to assemble its next-generation electric vehicles (EVs) over the German plant, which will stop producing its Ford Focus from 2025.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Ford officials were travelling to China next week to visit BYD and discuss selling the site to the Chinese EV maker, citing sources familiar with the matter.
BYD and Ford declined to comment. A spokesperson for the regional economy ministry, which is cooperating with Ford on finding a new investor, also declined to comment on a possible BYD bid, as did the chief of the workers’ council at the Saarlouis plant.
“It is of secondary importance which continent a possible investor comes from – if a carmaker comes, that’s what we would like to see, because that’s what we do,” works council chief Markus Thal told Reuters.
Negotiations with possible investors accelerated in recent months, and the carmaker aimed to present a solution for the future of the plant by the end of the first quarter, Thal said. — Reuters
