Ford has said this week that it is still planning on retiring the Focus hatchback, despite its recent plans to push back becoming an all EV company. Ford shared plans to move its goal of 2030 to go all EV in the UK and Europe back to 2035, citing that doing this transformation will take longer than originally anticipated. This is amongst ever increasing EV sales in the UK.
End of the Focus
The Focus was originally debuted back in 1999 and production will end in November 2025. Ford has said that this plan is set in stone and won't change, even if the EU pushes the zero-emission target back. The Focus is currently the only car built att the Ford factory in Saarlouis, Germany and when Focus production ends, 1,000 employees out of the current 4,500 will remain working there. After that, those workers will remain there until 2032 and will “provide services for other Ford locations."
Ford's EV Future
Ford's passenger EV portfolio isn't as far ahead of the curve as its commercial vehicle, Ford Pro division is. With Ford Pro it has the full size E-Transit, the smaller E-Transit Custom due to go on sale pretty soon and then the E-Transit Courier compact van too, also coming soon. In the passenger space, it only has the Mustang Mach-E and the Ford Explorer, nothing has come along yet to fill the gap of the Fiesta. However, Ford has said that the transformation to become fully EV has taken longer that it originally thought.
“It’s not 2030 for passenger vehicles anymore because we have seen that the transformation for EVs takes longer than we anticipated"
Anna Strigel - Director of sales, Ford Model E
The afformentioned Explorer is built in partnership with the Volkswagen MEB platform, something that underpins the ID.4 and other EVs from VW. While Ford hasn't replaced the Fiesta yet, it is expected to launch a new electric crossover either called the Puma EV or Capri.
