By Nqobile Dludla
GQEBERHA, South Africa (Reuters) -The South African arm of Ford Motor has attributed the deliberate retrenchments to decrease European orders for its Ranger pickup truck, pushed by current tax adjustments within the UK and sluggish export volumes for its plug-in hybrid Ranger mannequin.
Final month Ford despatched an official discover to unions, notifying them of its intention to retrench 474 employees at its Silverton automobile manufacturing plant in Pretoria and Struandale engine plant in Gqeberha.
Ford solely produces the plug-in hybrid Ranger for international exports, primarily Europe. It additionally produces the inner combustion engine Ranger for the native and export markets.
Neale Hill, President of Ford Motor Firm Africa, advised Reuters on the sidelines of an auto convention on Wednesday that the corporate has been pressured to cut back its operations from three shifts to 2, following a drop in demand for its Ranger.
Within the UK, from the beginning of April 2025 double-cab pickups with a payload of 1 tonne or extra have been reclassified as passenger automobiles fairly than industrial vans for tax functions, making them dearer to personal.
“As a consequence of that, individuals have sadly decreased their quantity. In order that’s had a huge impact by way of our European orders,” he mentioned.
Including to the strain are the low volumes of Ford’s plug-in hybrid Ranger.
“We’ve not seen the plug-in hybrid Ranger hit the volumes that we have been on the lookout for,” Hill mentioned. “It is an costly automobile, plus, we’re not attending to the European originating content material, which then makes it in a position to enter Europe duty-free.”
Hill added that quantity for South Africa continues to be steady and possibly rising barely.
Ford’s plant has a capability of 200,000 automobiles yearly however in the mean time it’s not using all of it.
“At present this 12 months might be about 100,000 and the put in capability at succesful quantity is 140,000. That is what we’ll maintain going ahead,” Hill mentioned.
(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla, Enhancing by Nick Zieminski)
