The new Puma will take Ford's Romania plant, in the southwestern city of Craiova, to full capacity as it supplements the EcoSport already built there, a media report said.
Ford Europe President Steve Armstrong told Ziarul Financiar that was 300,000 units a year and a turnover of about EUR5bn.
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"The biggest challenge related to Craiova plant is the logistics: delivering parts to the plant and cars from the plant. Road infrastructure is not the best, we have rail infrastructure instead, but even this needs to be improved. We are in talks with the authorities about infrastructure development in that area. Its development will help us and the suppliers that are currently not convinced to set up production facilities in the area," Armstrong said, according to romania-insider.com.
The plant built almost 142,000 units last year. This was triple 2017 output when the plant was producing the now-dropped B-Max MPV.
Turnover consequently rose to EUR2.5bn in 2018 from EUR1bn the previous year.
The plant recently built its millionth three cylinder, one-litre Ecoboost engine.
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By GlobalDataProduction of this powerplant started in 2012 and the factory built 300,000 engines in 2018.
Ford last week 'teased' the new Puma crossover model that it will produce at Craiova starting this year.
It revives a name used previously in Europe for a Fiesta-based coupe and will have 48-volt mild-hybrid powertrain technology.
The EcoBoost Hybrid will deliver up to 155PS. A belt-driven integrated starter/generator (BISG) enables recovery and storage of energy usually lost during braking and coasting to charge a 48-volt lithium-ion air-cooled battery pack.
