VW and Ford to form strategic alliance, mainly LCV focused

VW Group announced this morning it is exploring a strategic alliance with Ford. The cooperation would mainly pertain to the joint development of a range of commercial vehicles.

Ford and VW have signed a Memorandum of Understanding that aims at leveraging each other’s competitiveness and serving customers better on a global level. The potential alliance would not involve equity arrangements, including cross ownership stakes.

“Ford is committed to improving our fitness as a business and leveraging adaptive business models – which include working with partners to improve our effectiveness and efficiency,” said Jim Farley, Ford’s president of Global Markets. “This potential alliance with the Volkswagen Group is another example of how we can become more fit as a business, while creating a winning global product portfolio and extending our capabilities.

Dr. Thomas Sedran, Head of Volkswagen Group Strategy said, “Markets and customer demand are changing at an incredible speed. Both companies have strong and complementary positions in different commercial vehicle segments already. To adapt to the challenging environment, it is of utmost importance to gain flexibility through alliances. This is a core element of our Volkswagen Group Strategy 2025. The potential industrial cooperation with Ford is seen as an opportunity to improve competitiveness of both companies globally.”

Picture copyright: Ford, 2018