Ford to re-enter India as EV maker.

Ford India decided to quit India back in September '21, due to low sales, loses financially, Ford couldn't survive and at the end they closed the manufacturing units and dealers, but Ford is planning to make a comeback in India as a EV maker with the help of PLI Government scheme. Ford have plans to locally assemble EV cars in India for export. Ford will locally assemble EV cars and export them, still there is no confirmation whether those will be sold in India or not?  

What is Government's PLI scheme?

Union Cabinet approved Production Linked Incentive/PLI scheme for improving technology in electric battery for electric vehicles. This scheme offers incentive of Rs 26,058 Cr. for 5yrs period. This scheme will help in improvising the EV industry and attract lot of vehicle manufactures and consumers. 

Local production of vehicles will help the consumers help buy the vehicles at very attractive cost, will bring employment and country doesn't need to rely on imports as most of the production will happen locally. Big companies like Tesla, Ford and more will be benefited by this scheme. 

The scheme is focused on Hydrogen cell and EVs. The idea is improve development of EV technologies that are lacking in India and this scheme will bring positive impact. Government will offer 18% incentives to the company based upon its turnovers.

Ford India plans:

There are reports that Government has approved the proposal for PLI scheme for EV local production for exports. Ford India had two of there plants for manufacturing, the plants were capable of producing ICE models only, Ford is planning to sell one of their plant as they they will not be able to operate both. Ford will work on it to bring up EV manufacturing. 

Ford's EV lineup includes F-150 Lightning, Explorer, Mustang Mach-e, Electric Vans. Ford may manufacture all this models in future locally. Cars will be manufactured for exports only for now. PLI scheme allows car manufacturer to locally produce cars even though they are not sold in India.

As promised by Ford, they will serve spare parts and service to the Ford customers for next 5 years. With that Ford will start EV manufacturing by recovering their 90% service networks, if only those EVs are sold in India. After quitting India Ford promised that they will export cars to India through CKD route. Ford may export parts to India via CBU and start local assembly of the non-EV cars later. This will help them to regain pace in EV game.