Ford Motor Co. plans to build a $760 million auto assembly plant in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, doubling its capacity in the world's biggest vehicle market as it strives to catch up with rivals, AP reports.
The investment in the factory with joint-venture partner Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Limited will add annual capacity of 250,000 vehicles when it begins operations in early 2015, the company said Thursday.
Along with a recently announced new plant in Ford's main production base in Chongqing, in central China, Ford will double its current annual capacity to 1.2 million vehicles.
The new factory brings Ford's total investment in China to $4.9 billion. Growth in China's car sales has dived from torrid levels over the past year but automakers such as Ford expect to continuing benefiting from preferences for foreign brands.
They also expect the market to get much bigger in the years ahead. Even with 30 million cars on the road, China still has just 28 vehicles for every 1,000 people, far below the U.S. level of 800. Some 80 percent of purchases are by first-time buyers.
Unlike most foreign automakers that initially concentrated their investments in China's relatively affluent eastern coastal areas, Ford has built up its manufacturing in the less developed central-western region.
Ford, based in Dearborn, Michigan, expects its expansion to help it realize a 50 percent increase in global sales from 2010, to about 8 million vehicles by 2015. It aims to have global sales of 30 million vehicles by 2020.
Two weeks ago, Ford announced it would spend $600 million to expand its biggest factory complex, in Chongqing, to meet growing demand.
The company plans to launch four new global vehicles at the Beijing Auto Show next week. It has also said it plans to offer a version of the 2013 Escape, called the Kuga, in China at some point in the future.
The company chose Hangzhou – a base for Chinese independent automaker and Volvo Cars owner Geely Holding Group – partly because the city offered a good location and also because it could offer Ford a manufacturing license.
