Ford might develop future engines with outside firms, says executive

A senior Ford executive thinks customers no longer separate brands based on their petrol and diesel engines, and this might lead to the automaker developing new engines with suppliers or, maybe, rivals.

According to Automotive News John Lawler, Ford’s vice chair overseeing strategy, partnerships and alliances, told the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference, “I don’t think that consumers really think about powertrains the way they did 30 years ago”.

He told the conference, “Where [internal combustion engines] defined what a vehicle was — the horsepower, the displacement, the torque and everything about the vehicle — I think a lot of that is gone”.

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Part of this, Mr Lawler believes, is down to electrification, which allows automakers to increase power and torque, while reducing CO2 emissions, with hybrid or plug-in hybrid drivetrains.

Mr Lawler posits this might lead automakers, including Ford, to develop next-generation engines with other companies. Doing so would save money that could help them compete with Chinese automakers.

According to the vice chair, Ford needs “to be competitive against them not only on speed of development, software capability, electrical architecture capability, but also overall electrification capability”.

In 2022 Renault merged its Horse drivetrain division with that of Geely’s Aurobay in the hopes of attracting customers for its engines and transmissions outside of the two automakers’ stable of brands, which include Dacia, Volvo, Zeekr, and Lotus.

It should be noted engine and drivetrain sharing between rival automakers, while not the norm, isn’t completely unheard of.

In the early 2000s Ford developed a V6 turbo-diesel in conjunction with the PSA Group, which was used in a wide variety of vehicles, including Australian Ford Territory, as well as the Citroen C5, Peugeot 407 and 607, and a whole host of Jaguar and Land Rover models.

Other times, manufacturers just sign a supply agreement to fill a hole in their drivetrain lineup, such as when Toyota Europe used BMW diesel engines in the 2010s for a number of models, including the RAV4.

Small manufacturers often rely exclusively on engines from other car makers, with Lotus, for example, using mills from Rover, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz.

Ford is no stranger to collaborating with other car makers in other areas too. It currently shares a number of platforms with the Volkswagen Group, with the Volkswagen Amarok based on the Ford Ranger, and Volkswagen Transporter based on the Ford Transit Custom.

Going the other way, the Ford Transit Connect is based on the Volkswagen Caddy, and the European Ford Explorer and Capri EVs are based Volkswagen MEB architecture.

Prior to all this, Ford jointly developed a 10-speed automatic transmission for use in full-size pickup trucks with cross-town rival GM.

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