Following Volkswagen and Ford’s “comprehensive cooperation”, which ranges from collaborations on electric and light commercial vehicles to autonomous vehicles, three vehicles have been announced including a Ford-based Amarok.
The now-signed contracts between Ford and Volkswagen form the basis for three vehicle projects to be run by Ford and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles (VWCV).
These encompass the entire life cycle with a volume of up to 8 million vehicles. In addition to the already agreed collaboration on the mid-size pick-up, the projects for a city delivery van and a larger van in the one-ton load segment are now starting up.
Confirmed vehicle projects include the new pick-up based on the Ford Ranger to launch as the Volkswagen Amarok in 2022, to be built at Ford’s Silverton plant in South Africa.
This is in addition to a Caddy 5-based Ford Transit Connect “city delivery van”, built in Poland in 2021 and developed by Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles.
Lastly, a new Ford-developed 1Ton load segment van for both companies. For these vans Ford will take the lead on development and production.
Thomas Sedran, chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, said: “The ‘1Ton’ project will provide an extra boost for Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles in the business customer sector, as it enables us to offer a strong product with a very good cost-benefit ratio.
“At the same time we are keeping the development, production and marketing of the successors to our current 6.1 model range for private use, i.e. the Multivan, Caravelle and California, at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. You could say that we’re bringing together the best of both worlds for our customers.”
Both partners will in future be able to use the software and the self-driving system (SDS) in their own bespoke ways. VWCV is responsible within the Volkswagen Group for the development of autonomous driving in the Mobility as a Service/Transportation as a Service (MaaS/TaaS) field for automation level 4.
Thomas Sedran, chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, said: “In 2022, we will be deploying a self-driving vehicle fleet in real conditions for the first time. This test will be the first level-4 deployment using our fully electric ID.BUZZ vehicles.”
Notably, the companies cooperation is not a merger and all vehicles will be marketed independently of each other.
