Ford Freestyle launched, co planning to use more Indian content in its cars

NEW DELHI: Ford Motor, which is setting up a new technology and development centre in Chennai, will leverage the base further to increase Indian R&D content in its vehicles as the US carmaker scales up the technical capabilities of engineers employed here.

In Chennai, Ford has already appointed 800-1,000 employees including engineers who have worked on Figo Sports and EcoSport Platinum editions. Anurag Mehrotra, managing director, Ford India, said, “They (India product development team) have been doing limited edition products for us and now have come up with the Freestyle, in which around 60% of the work has been done out of India. As the capabilities build up, we will start to use more and more Indian engineering.”

Mehrotra was speaking on the side-lines of the launch of the Ford Freestyle — a compact utility vehicle priced between Rs 5.09 and Rs 7.89 lakh (ex-showroom, India). He declined to comment on the role the product development team would play once the alliance with Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) gets rolling, but said overall the contribution of the India centre will continue to increase.

“It (the role of the team) depends on which area of the collaboration fructifies… Now the team is going to start looking at how we collaborate in specificity around these areas (mentioned in the MoUs) that we have announced.”

Last month, Ford forged an alliance with Mahindra to jointly develop a mid-size sports utility vehicle for India and emerging markets. The two companies had also agreed to evaluate the development of a compact sports utility vehicle and a small electric vehicle.

They signed five new Mo-Us as part of the strategic alliance forged in September 2017 to accelerate the development of products for consumers in India and emerging markets. Overall, Ford is positive about the growth prospects in the Indian market. Ford India, Mehrotra said, has grown by around 11% in the first quarter of the current calendar year, compared to less than 1% growth registered in the domestic passenger vehicle market.

Ford India Limited