Ford could make electric cars in Germany after 2023, when the life cycle of the recently redesigned Fiesta model is due to end, and would welcome state subsidies to support the shift, a top executive told a paper.
"Purely hypothetically that (2023) could be a good time for it," Ford Germany chief Gunnar Herrmann told German business daily Handelsblatt in an interview, according to Reuters.
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He said it would take around 15 months to retool the Cologne plant but it would not be worth the investment if sales of electric cars reached only 30,000 or 40,000 vehicles a year.
"It will be possible if the sales numbers are moving up more powerfully. Unfortunately, today electric cars are not especially profitable yet," Hermann said.
Reuters noted that BMW last week had echoed Hermann's comments, saying it would not mass produce electric cars until 2020 because its current technology is not profitable enough to scale up for volume production.
The news agency said Ford plans to spend US$5bn on electric vehicles by 2022 and introduce at least 13 electric or hybrid models worldwide in the next five years and aims to make its first fully electric vehicle in Europe in 2020.
Herrmann reportedly suggested the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Ford's Cologne plant is located, could offer subsidies to support the shift to electric vehicles.
"The state could do its part to initiate the structural shift, as could the federal government," he said.
