Following Fiesta, Ford Edge Stopped Production In April

JAKARTA - Another model that will meet dusk in the auto industry. Ford announced that the Edge model, one of the SUV lines, will be stopped production by the end of April this year.

Reporting from Carscoops, Wednesday, January 31, the chairman of the Oakville factory that built the model, Marc totaled, saying that the last unit of the car will be assembled on April 26.

This car has gained success since its launch on the North American International Auto Show 2006, and managed to sell as many as 130,125 units in the US during its first year of production and was followed by the achievements of the following year which amounted to not much different.

However, sales have decreased due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and Ford is starting to shift its focus to electrification. It is not yet certain whether Oakville plant will completely switch to an assembly center for electric vehicles, although this is still under discussion.

This has been done for some time when Ford and Unifor reached an agreement to save the plant in 2020. Unifor is a union in Canada that was founded in 2013 as a merger of a collection of automotive and communication, energy, and document workers.

Previously, Unifor National President Jerry Dias said the agreement to divert the factory to fully assemble electric vehicles would see Ford invest $1.95 billion or around IDR 22.9 trillion to build five EVs in this factory.

The first unit is scheduled to launch in 2025 and will last be produced around 2028.

Then, this was followed by Ford announcing plans to convert the facility to Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex last year. The automaker revealed that it will begin rebuilding and improving the facility in the second quarter of 2024 as part of their efforts to prepare for production of next-generation electric vehicles starting in 2025.

The facility is a large project by consuming 487 hectares of land which is reorganized and simplified. In addition to body, paint, and assembly buildings, there will be a new 407,000 square foot battery factory, which will use components sourced from BlueOval SK Battery Park in Kentucky, USA.

Back to Ford Edge, this model will follow other vehicles whose production has been stopped, namely Fiesta. The company's main reason for stopping this iconic hatchback is to provide space for electrification models, such as Explorer EVs, to be sold in Europe.