Production of European spec EcoSport to move out of India

Production of the European-spec Ford EcoSport will move out of India to the American automaker’s plant in Romania. The company has been working on upgrading its plant in Craiova, Romania and has hired 976 additional personnel as well as installed 220 robots across the paint, trims, chassis and body shops in anticipation of the production of the EcoSport. 

The EcoSport compact SUVs produced at Craiova will be sold across all left-hand drive European markets while the Chennai plant will continue to produce the vehicle for the India market as well as other right-hand drive markets in the world. Ford has not yet specified when the production of the SUV will begin, but we believe that it will be towards the later half of this year. The plant is already producing the B-Max MPV and 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine at the Romanian plant.  

The company has said that sales of its SUVs in Europe grew by more than 30 per cent in 2016 while the EcoSport saw a 40 per cent increase in demand across the old continent. It is clear that the automaker wants to bring down cost of the EcoSport. By moving its production to mainland Europe, Ford is expected to save a lot of money in terms of shipping and maybe even taxes, thus giving it the option to price the vehicle even more competitively.