Ford’s decision in 2007 to regionalise its small Ka model led to a new version for Europe being built by Fiat in Poland, and an updated version of the then current-generation model continuing to be sold in Latin America.
Now Ford has announced that the Ka will once again be a global car from 2014. This time, however, it will be larger than the current mini-car sold in Europe, and in a further major development, design responsibility has been allocated to the OEM’s Brazilian engineering centre located within its manufacturing complex at Camaçari in Bahia state. That is where the next-generation model will first be manufactured from May of next year.
Ka is the second global design developed by Ford in Brazil. The first was the new EcoSport, which was launched in 2012 and is now made in Brazil, India, China and Thailand. From 2014, it will also be made in Russia and Europe.
The new Ka’s exterior design was unveiled as a concept car in November at the Brazilian plant where it was designed in a project involving 1,100 people in 11 studios led by Ford South America. The official presentation event brought together authorities and key global and regional Ford executives, including William Clay Ford Jr. (Bill Ford), Chairman and great-grandson of company founder, Henry Ford.
Ka’s renewal is part of a Real 4.5bn (US$2bn) investment programme running from 2011 to 2015, with Real 2.8bn alone for Ford’s plant in north-east Brazil, where capacity has been increased to over 300,000 upa. Just like the EcoSport, the new Ka will also be produced and sold in other countries. Ford has not yet revealed where, but it is certain that sales will include all European and Latin American markets, as well as China and India. At the European launch of the Mustang in early December, Ford also showed the Ka Concept. According to the accompanying press release, “A production version of the Ka Concept will reach European showrooms in a couple of years.”
“Brazil is an important part of our growth, and we are committed to making global products here,” said Bill Ford to a group of reporters just after the new Ka reveal. Interestingly, the last time he was in the country, in 1997, it was also in Bahia state, and it was also to launch the Ka – the first-generation Ka, which was produced by Ford in its old factory in São Bernardo do Campo (SP). At that time, nobody even considered building a car plant in Brazil’s north-east. This time, Bill Ford is hoping to bring better luck to the Ka, which has never been a best-seller in South America.
“It’s a pretty interesting moment in terms of development for the automotive industry, and our products are already at a very high level,” said Bill Ford. He believes new technologies should not increase the price of vehicles. “My great-grandfather believed that cars should be accessible to the middle class. Ford continues to believe that.”
Globalisation in Bahia
“Camaçari complex has become strategic for our One Ford plan, and New Ka is an example of what can best be done in Brazil,” said Joe Hinrichs, President of Ford Americas’ division. According to Hinrichs, the development and production of the new Ka in Brazil is part of Ford’s strategy to globalise all its models sold around the world. “All our products are global and it cannot be otherwise here, because the public interest is converging to the same standards, with the internet showing everything to everyone in the world,” he said.
Hinrichs explained that certain specific factors combined to support Ford’s decision to develop the new Ka in Brazil: “First, the car is produced on the same platform as the EcoSport, which was developed at the Camaçari complex. Second, the capacity was available for the project. And third, Brazilian engineering has great expertise in designing such a compact vehicle.” And Ford’s plans for new designs from Brazil do not stop there. “I will not reveal our secrets, but I can say that our intention is to use the full capacity for development we have here, because we have more projects than places to take them forward,” he said.
In 2012, Ford announced that all its cars produced in Brazil and sold in Brazil would be globalised by 2015. It has since redesigned and globalised the EcoSport, Ranger, New Focus and New Fiesta. Only Ka was needed to complete the cycle. It is expected to go on sale by June 2014 in Brazil, this time with five doors, room for up to five passengers and a more robust appearance, with its international visual brand identity expressed in the trapezoidal front grille and kinetic lines. A sedan version is expected to go into production by early 2015.
Ford has not yet published any technical details, and the car remains officially a concept, but sources have confirmed that in Brazil the new Ka made in Camaçari will use a new 1.0-litre three-cylinder engine, which will be produced within the same industrial complex, at a new engine plant to be inaugurated in the first half of 2014. The base engine is the same as Ford’s 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine, but in emerging markets it is likely to be sold without the turbo to make the car cheaper. There will also be a 1.5-litre engine, as used in the Fiesta and EcoSport. That engine is built elsewhere in Brazil, at Ford’s Taubaté (SP) engine plant.
Growing market for compact cars
Ford executives estimate that the new Ka will increase Ford’s market share in Brazil and other countries, and to achieve this, it will come equipped with more technology than normally found on cars in this, Brazil’s busiest car segment. “It’s the fastest growing segment in the world – about 35% between 2012 and 2017, when it is expected to sell 6.2 million units globally. And in the Brazilian market, compact B hatchbacks represent 40% of sales, with over 30 models. So one must be very creative to compete here,” said Oswaldo Ramos, Ford Brazil’s marketing manager.
Ramos assured that the new Ka will come to market with full connectivity technology, efficient engines and high levels of active and passive safety. Nonetheless, the car will continue to be priced below the New Fiesta, to compete with other best-selling 1.0-litre cars sold in Brazil like the Volkswagen Gol, Fiat Palio, Hyundai HB20 and Chevrolet Onix.
Hinrichs was keen to point out that Ford is ahead of the competition in terms of the energy efficiency and technology investments required by Brazil’s Inovar-Auto automotive initiative. “Brazil is going through major changes, but as we decided to globalise the entire portfolio here by 2015, we have the advantage of being almost there in terms of all requirements. We will have more technology, more safety and more fuel savings. We’ll be ahead of some of our competitors who still have obsolete cars here,” he warned.
Transformation in Brazil
Ford still manufactures some of the “obsolete” cars to which Hinrichs referred, and the Ka sold in Latin America until now is one example: Ford has already produced 900,000 units of the Ka in Brazil since 1997, but in 2007 it was completely redesigned and became quite different from the vehicle launched in 2008 in Europe, where the car is made by Fiat in Poland on the same line as the 500. While the Ka for Europeans continued to be a mini-car good enough for a couple, for Latin Americans it was stretched to provide more space in the rear seats.
Ford defended this decision by saying that the production cost for a mini-car is roughly equivalent to a compact B hatchback for five people, resulting in similar sale prices; yet families in emerging countries with one car in their garage prefer larger cars.
Just as in Europe, the Ka for Latin America has not featured among Brazil’s most successful mini-cars, something that the new global design seeks to address: a five-door hatchback – a specialty of Brazilian engineering – that can be sold in any market.
The move will bring to an end an era of ups and downs for Ford in Brazil. In the late 1990s, Ford terminated a joint venture with Volkswagen, maintained only in Brazil and Argentina. The result was a lack of products and falling sales. The short-term solution was to build in Brazil European compact cars like the Fiesta and Ka, in 1996 and 1997. The inauguration in 2001 of the Camaçari plant ushered in the first Brazilian project, the EcoSport. That vehicle also ushered in a new way of making cars, with 26 suppliers working directly in the vehicle’s final assembly.
Now, with the evolution of the Brazilian market, Ford has decided to globalise all models produced in that country. The first was the new EcoSport, introduced at Camaçari in 2012. The New Fiesta went into production in 2013 at the modernised São Bernardo plant, where the last old Latin American Ka will roll off the line during December. By the end of the first quarter of 2014, production of the old version of the Fiesta at Camaçari will be phased out, making room for the new Ka to finally close the cycle of transformation of Ford in Brazil.
Pedro Kutney
About the author: Pedro Kutney is an automotive industry journalist based in Brazil. He can be contacted at pkutney@uol.com.br or editorial@automotiveworld.com
