Reuters reports that the SA arm of Ford Motor has attributed planned retrenchments to lower European orders for its Ranger pickup truck, driven by recent tax changes in the UK and sluggish export volumes for its plug-in hybrid Ranger model.

Last month Ford sent an official notice to unions, notifying them of its intention to retrench 474 workers at its Silverton car manufacturing plant in Pretoria and Struandale engine plant in Gqeberha. Neale Hill, president of Ford Motor Company Africa, indicated on Wednesday that the company has been forced to reduce its operations from three shifts to two, following a drop in demand for its Ranger.

In the UK, from the start of April 2025 double-cab pickups with a payload of one tonne or more have been reclassified as passenger cars rather than commercial vans for tax purposes, making them more expensive to own. "As a consequence of that, people have unfortunately reduced their volume. So that's had a big impact in terms of our European orders," he indicated. Hill also said that demand for the plug-in hybrid Ranger had not hit the volumes that they had been looking for. Ford's plant has a capacity of 200,000 vehicles annually but at the moment the company is not utilising all of it.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard at Engineering News

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