Ford Motor said on Monday it would invest 11.4 billion yuan ($1.8bn) over the next five years to expand research and development in China, the latest effort by the USA auto maker to secure a larger slice of the world’s biggest vehicle market.
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Demand has been hurt by congestion in Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities that has made auto ownership less attractive and by official efforts to curb traffic and smog by limiting the number of new vehicle registrations.
Ford said it will add a vehicle test center in Nanjing, expanding its ability to develop products in China. Ford competitor General Motors Co. announced in July it would be spending $5 billion to develop cars for China, Brazil, Mexico and India with its Chinese partner company. A few have broken with a strategy of selling the same models worldwide and are creating China-only vehicles. China’s new-car sales fell 3.4% to 1.42 million vehicles in August from a year earlier.
Mr. Fields said he expects growth of China’s new-car sales will slow from the double digit rates of past years. “But we are starting to see customers come back to the marketplace”, he said. Other features the company will roll out include enhanced voice recognition software, a smartphone-like interface and improved graphics. The automaker reports it will work on developing autonomous driving at the facility.
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Chief executive Mark Fields also announced during a corporate event in Shanghai that the company will introduce the plug-in hybrid C-MAX Energi, along with the Mondeo conventional hybrid to the Chinese market in 2016.
