Ford will stop making cars in India after losing $2 billion there over 10 years.
Ford Motor will stop making cars at two plants in India, ending a long and costly effort to build a presence in one of the world’s largest emerging auto markets.
The company said on Thursday that it will stop production at a plant in Sanand, in western India, this month, and will stop making vehicles and engines in the southern city of Chennai next year.
Ford has lost more than $2 billion in the past 10 years in India, the company’s chief executive Jim Farley, said in a statement. “We are taking difficult but necessary actions to deliver a sustainably profitable business longer-term and allocate our capital to grow and create value in the right areas.”
Other major automakers have also struggled to gain a foothold in India, where people tend to buy smaller, more affordable cars than in the United States and Europe. General Motors stopped selling cars in the country in 2017. Roughly half of all new cars sold in India are made by Maruti Suzuki, in which Suzuki of Japan owns a majority stake.
The withdrawal from India is the latest move by Ford to pare its losses from its international operations. In January, the company said it would close its three plants in Brazil Before that, it closed several plants and eliminated several thousand jobs in Europe.
Separately, Ford said Thursday that it will idle a truck plant near Kansas City, Mo., next week because of a global shortage of computer chips. The plant makes the F-150 pickup truck and the Transit van and is scheduled to resume production on Sept. 20. And G.M. said that several of its North American plants that had been idled will resume production next week, including factories in Ft. Wayne, Ind., and Silao, Mexico.
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