Ford Has A New SUV Planned For Europe
Ford is said to be revealing a new compact SUV for the European market within the next year. The announcement is part of Ford’s plan to make Europe one of its more profitable areas.
The vehicle in question is going to be a new compact SUV which will also serve as a replacement for the Kuga SUV.
Steve Armstrong, CEO of Ford Europe stated that, “Crossovers and SUVs are an area that consumers are moving towards and we will continue to grow and develop that business.”
Ford’s new compact SUV will likely be built at the company’s manufacturing plant in Craiova, Romania. According to Automotive News Europe, the vehicle might be called “Puma”, and while it could potentially take on a similar style to past compact SUV’s (with upgraded aspects, of course), it’s currently not clear what the final design could be.
All in all, the new SUV is said to be part of Ford’s restructuring plan for Europe as over the past two decades it has not yielded a consistent profit margin for the storied company.
Despite that, Ford has stated that it had sold around 250,000 SUVs in the European market, which contributed to a fifth of its overall vehicle sales. This could signify a bit of a shift for Ford in Europe as the newfound interest in larger vehicles such as SUV’s and pick-up trucks may translate to more successful profit margins for the company.
In addition to the changes that Ford plans on implementing within the European market, they also have plans to launch smaller variants of their SUV’s in the USA as well. One of which is a smaller version of the Bronco off-roader, dubbed the baby Bronco, which is seeing a revival of sorts with an expected release date coming sometime in 2020.
All new vehicle announcements aside, Ford will still have some issues to contend with in the European market – electric vehicles. Car enthusiasts are gravitating more and more to electric vehicles in an effort to being more environmentally conscious. Namely, the low-emission zones and their reported fees, at least in the United Kingdom, makes the decision of buying a gas-powered vehicle a bit more difficult. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel, as the best way to combat these issues is for Ford to make their vehicles environmentally friendly and gas efficient, which they easily have the means to do so. Otherwise, the repercussions of building traditional gas-powered vehicles could be way less sales than Ford might have anticipated.
At the end of the day, this can turn into a very good move for Ford, if they play their cards right – making cost-efficient, environmentally friendly compact SUV’s – now who doesn’t want to get behind that.
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