Ford Cutting B-Max Production In Half

by Derek Kreindler

November 23rd, 2012 11:14 AM

Bloomberg is reporting that weak demand in Europe will lead to B-Max production being cut at Ford’s Romanian plant.

Despite the cuts, a new shift will apparently be added to build more 1.0L Ecoboost engines, preventing any job losses. While demand for the B-Max is strong in the UK, the rest of Europe is in sufficiently poor shape that Ford is cutting production from 500 units a day to 250.

#EcoBoost #Ford #FordB-max #Romana

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BigMeats on Nov 23, 2012

Are these Eastern European facilities some kind of corporate mirroring of W's "New Europe" initiative from the early 2000's? Invest in the former Soviet-block countries and reap Asian-like worker productivity and discipline?

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- Adrian Roman on Nov 24, 2012
  
  The big gain in Eastern Europe, apart from low wages and proximity to West European markets, is the technical culture of the workers - which usually lacks in Asia or Africa. The Craiova plant where B-max is built used to be a Daewoo plant, and before that, in communist times, it built licensed Citroen Axels (aka Oltcit)
  
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- BigMeats on Nov 24, 2012
  
  @Adrian Roman "the technical culture of the workers" I think that's priceless and we're letting ours slip away in the US. It's a blend of work ethic, analytic instinct and passion for understanding that only comes from multi-generational involvement in manufacturing at all skill levels. We can't replay history and we won't get that culture back.
  
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Lorenzo on Nov 23, 2012

If they're not putting them in B-Maxes, where are all those 3-bangers going?

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- Mike978 on Nov 23, 2012
  
  They are going in Ford Fiesta's (one of the UK's top sellers with 100,000 sales), Ford Focus's and from what I have read elsewhere the new Mondeo (Fusion) will also get the engine to replace the current 120bhp 1.6 Duratec engine. So plenty of models will get this engine.
  
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Cromera on Nov 24, 2012

Minivans might not be fashionable, but I just can't fathom why Ford doesn't even try selling them overseas. Living in Brazil, I could make a huge list of past and present Fords they didn't bother trying to sell in South America: the Mustang, Lincolns, the list goes on. Now with their better platform engineering, even the support & spare parts issue loses much of its meaning.

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MRF 95 T-Bird on Nov 24, 2012

I'm reminded of the Mitubushi Expo LRV. Back when they sold some innovative products here in the states.

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