(Motorsport-Total.com/Motor1) – It may seem average to many, but the Ford Mondeo has made it to a certain degree of fame: James Bond drove one in “Casino Royale” from 2006 and Tony Blair vied for the favor of “Mondeo Man” from the middle class in the 1997 election campaign. (Actually “Sierra Man”, but his advisors advised him that the Sierra had already been replaced by the Mondeo in 1993.)
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Ford Mondeo (2019)
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But soon the last little bell rings for the Mondeo after the identical Ford Fusion had already been discontinued on the US market. In general, the classic middle class is having an increasingly difficult time, as Ford Europe freely admits.
It says there: On the way to a fully electric car future, the preferences of European consumers will continue to change. In 2020, 39 percent of Ford car sales were SUVs and crossovers – an eight percentage point increase over 2019. In addition, customers are showing more confidence in electrification technologies, with more than 50 percent of Kuga owners showing one Kuga PHEV to buy.
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Ford Kuda ST-Line X Plug-In Hybrid (2020) Zoom
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As a result of this increasing shift in customer preference, Ford will phase out the Mondeo in late March 2022. The Mondeo has not existed as a pure gasoline engine since 2020. The other large crossover and utility vehicles from Ford – the seven-seat Ford Galaxy and the Ford S-MAX – are still in production, both of which were recently Full hybrid versions came on the market.
So there is no longer a new Mondeo in the conservative sense. Nevertheless, the segment will probably be occupied again, but differently: A kind of SUV station wagon crossover with the project name Evos will be included in the model range above the Kuga from 2022 and may replace the Edge that has been offered since 2016, which is over 4.80 meters long.
Of course, the general future at Ford is electric. It was announced today that the company is continuing to invest in an electrified future for its plant in Valencia, Spain. These include the new 2.5-liter Duratec hybrid engine, which will be built in the engine plant from the end of 2022, as well as increased assembly capacity for battery packs.
From the end of 2022, the engine plant in Valencia will build the 2.5-liter Duratec hybrid engine for Europe, which will power the Kuga PHEV as well as the Kuga, Galaxy and S-MAX Full Hybrid models.
The 2.5-liter Duratec hybrid engine – which is currently being built at the Ford engine plant in Chihuahua, Mexico – is manufactured in Valencia alongside the 2.0-liter and 2.3-liter EcoBoost petrol engines, for which there is still a strong one There is demand.
Ford also confirmed an additional € 5.2 million to increase capacity to assemble battery packs in Valencia after an initial € 24 million investment was announced in January 2020 and the plant opened in September last year. The additional capacities are needed to meet the increasing demand for current and future production of electrified vehicles.
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Ford Mondeo Facelift 2019 Zoom
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Earlier this year, Ford announced that it was investing at least $ 22 billion in electrification worldwide – almost double the company’s previous investment plans for electric vehicles – and that it was investing $ 1 billion in building the Ford Cologne Electrification Center in Germany for manufacturing of electric vehicles, the company’s first such facility in Europe.
Ford’s first all-electric production vehicle in Europe will be built at the facility in 2023, with the potential for a second all-electric vehicle being considered.
By mid-2026, 100 percent of the Ford passenger car range in Europe will be emission-free, purely electric or with plug-in hybrid drive, and by 2030 the range will be expanded to include fully electric vehicles.
The rivals of the Ford Mondeo:
VW Passat Variant Facelift (2019) with 240 PS strong 2.0 TDI in the test
Opel Insignia GSI (2020) in a short test: Power on the move
Introduced in 1993, the Mondeo was the first Ford vehicle to be touted as a “global” car, bringing together a range of Ford models around the world. Since its introduction in Europe, where it replaced the Ford Sierra, the Mondeo has been sold around five million times to date.
Ford is determined to continue developing its car portfolio in Europe and strengthen its position with vehicles like the Kuga, Puma and Explorer PHEV to strengthen. The company is introducing new brands in Europe, including the all-electric Mustang Mach-E just launched – including the Mustang Mach-E GTwhich will be launched later this year.
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