Ford and Volkswagen Team Up, Trucks and Vans Could Follow
Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen AG seem to be on the verge of a relationship that could yield jointly developed products aimed at the commercial sector. It’s looking a lot like the rumored FCA/VW partnership we reported on last year, only that date ended with cold showers.
Late Tuesday, Ford and VW issued a joint statement announcing the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two automakers. This “potential alliance” might lead to the conception of any number of vehicles.
The two automakers state they’re “investigating several joint projects – including joint development of a range of commercial vehicles to better serve the evolving needs of customers globally.”
It’s early days still, and neither automaker wants to delve too deeply into the specifics of what this would-be strategic alliance means, or where it could one day lead. Both Ford and VW said the partnership “would not involve equity arrangements, including cross ownership stakes.”
“Ford is committed to improving our fitness as a business and leveraging adaptive business models – which include working with partners to improve our effectiveness and efficiency,” said Jim Farley, Ford’s president of Global Markets, adding, “We look forward to exploring with the Volkswagen team in the days ahead how we might work together to better serve the evolving needs of commercial vehicle customers – and much more.”
Naturally, the mind turns to vans and trucks. Ford’s Transit and Transit Connect vans are popular haulers, and then there’s the automaker’s ubiquitous truck line. A Ranger midsize appears this year. Volkswagen’s commercial vehicles remain absent from the U.S. market, though it sells the Transporter and Caddy vans almost everywhere else. Still, what fruit this partnership might bear remains a big question mark.
A Ford spokesperson tried to pour cold water on early reports claiming the two automakers had vans and trucks in mind, telling Germany’s Deutsche Welle that it was too early to speculate on what products might come from this team-up.
The rumors last year of early talks between FCA and VW also mentioned light commercial vans, as well as the possibility of a midsize pickup. Considering VW’s now weighing a production version of its Atlas Tanoak concept and FCA has its own midsize in the works, it looks like those talks went nowhere.
[Image: Ford Motor Company]
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Perhaps Volkswagen can help Ford make the F-150 more reliable. Ford - what a disgrace!
Now you know what Ford will do when their decision to ditch family sedans bites them in the ass in a few years. Fordwagen Fussant or Focetta, anyone?