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Ford Model e unit announces massive expansion of EV initiative in Europe: 7 new EVs by 2024

Ford plans to have 7 new connected EVs by 2024, with production reaching 600,000 units annually by 2026. (Credit: Ford)

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Ford’s electric vehicle unit — known as Model e — announced today that it would take massive steps to expand its electric vehicle project in Europe. Ford, which recently split its electric vehicle and combustion engine businesses into two divisions, is aiming to roll out seven new electric vehicles in Europe by 2024 with an annual production capacity of 600,000 vehicles by 2026.

Ford announced the expansion plan today, recognizing the accelerating pace of electrification in the European market. “I am delighted to see the pace of change in Europe – challenging our entire industry to build better, cleaner, and more digital vehicles. Ford is all-in and moving fast to meet the demand in Europe and around the globe,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a statement. “This is why we have created Ford Model e – allowing us to move at the speed of a start-up to build electric vehicles that delight and offer connected services unique to Ford and that are built with Ford-grade engineering and safety.”

Ford’s Model e division aims to take advantage of a Tesla-like business model that completely separates the electric vehicle projects from the traditional combustion engine powertrains that Ford built its legacy on. As one of the most-committed legacy automakers in the transition to electrification, Ford recently announced it would commit to a production goal of 600,000 EVs by the end of 2023.

In Europe, electric vehicles have become extremely popular, becoming a more common choice of consumers than combustion engine vehicles in some regions. Ford is turning some focus toward this market as it is likely to be one of the biggest catalysts to EV sales company-wide. Ford said it expects annual sales in Europe to exceed 600,000 units in 2026, reaffirming its intention to deliver a 6 percent EBIT margin in Europe in 2023.

“Our march toward an all-electric future is an absolute necessity for Ford to meet the mobility needs of customers across a transforming Europe,” Ford of Europe Chairman Stuart Rowley said. “It’s also about the pressing need for greater care of our planet, making a positive contribution to society and reducing emissions in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.”

Seven New EVs by 2024

With the Mustang Mach-E already having a successful introduction into the European market, Ford will also welcome the E-Transit to the region in Q2 2022. By 2024, Ford plans to introduce seven additional models to its electric lineup in Europe. It will include three new passenger vehicles and four new commercial cars.

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In 2023, Ford will begin production of an all-new passenger EV. The company says it will be a “medium-sized crossover, built in Cologne with a second electric vehicle added to the Cologne production line-up in 2024.” Ford will also introduce an electric version of the Ford Puma. It will be produced in Craiova, Romania, starting in 2024.

Ford, which recently split its electric vehicle and combustion engine businesses into two divisions, is aiming to roll out seven new electric vehicles in Europe by 2026 with an annual production capacity of 600,000 vehicles. (Credit: Ford)

Ford is Europe’s top-selling commercial vehicle brand, and the company plans to introduce several new electric models of its Transit van — “the all-new Transit Custom one-tonne van and Tourneo Custom multi-purpose vehicle in 2023, and the smaller, next-generation Transit Courier van and Tourneo Courier multi-purpose vehicle in 2024.”

“These new Ford electric vehicles signal what is nothing less than the total transformation of our brand in Europe – a new generation of zero-emission vehicles, optimized for a connected world, offering our customers truly outstanding user experiences,” Rowley added.

Ford’s Cologne, Germany EV Hotspot

Ford also said that the first all-electric passenger vehicle to come out of the new Electrification Centre in Cologne will be a five-seat, medium-sized crossover. Crossovers are a widely popular body style and accounted for 58 percent of all Ford passenger vehicles sold in Europe in 2021. Ford plans to unveil the name and design of the new crossover in 2022. Production will begin in 2023.

Ford’s Cologne Electrification Center (Credit: Ford)

Additionally, Ford said its total investment in Cologne is expected to be $2 billion with the investment including plans for a new battery assembly facility that will begin production in 2024. The automaker projects at least 1.2 million vehicles produced at the Cologne Electrification Centre by 2030.

New battery partnership with SK On Co., Ltd., and Koç Holding

Ford announced that it also signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding for a new, industry-leading joint venture in Turkey with battery manufacturers SK On Co., Ltd. and Koç Holding. The plant will be located near Ankara, the country’s capital, and will manufacture high-Nickel Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt (NMC) cells for assembly into battery array modules. Nickel cells have been a focus of many large automakers transitioning to electric cars, as it is widely available. However, surging prices of the metal have contributed to a potential delay in these plans, at least in the short term.

Production is expected to start as early as mid-decade, Ford said, with annual capacity likely to be between 30 and 45 Gigawatt hours.

Ford said the investment will also be supported by the Turkish Government and will benefit large and small commercial vehicle operators across Europe, all while decreasing CO2 emissions.

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EV Production Boost in Romania

Ford will also introduce an electric version of its best-selling European vehicle, the Puma. European customers will be able to purchase an all-electric version of the vehicle in 2024. Additionally, the Transit Courier and Tourneo Courio will be produced a the plant in 2023, with all-electric versions being offered the following year.

Ford’s joint venture with Koç Holding, known as Ford Otosan, will assume ownership of the Craiova, Romania plant. “We welcome this opportunity to grow our joint venture with Koc Holding and leverage this strategic partnership to better utilize our resources and know-how in Romania,” Rowley said. “Ford Craiova is today a strong success story, and we believe that through Ford Otosan’s experience and expertise in electrification and commercial vehicles it can reach even higher levels of achievement.”

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Cybertruck

Tesla is ending Cybertruck production

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Credit: diagnosticdennis/Instagram and @smile__no via Tesla Owners of Santa Clarita Valley/X

Tesla is ending Cybertruck production sometime in mid-2027, according to CEO Elon Musk.

Musk made the announcement on X last night, which came as a shock to many. He said that the Cybertruck will end production “to make room for increased Cybercab production” at Gigafactory Texas.

It is a huge blow to the fans of Tesla who have come to love the Cybertruck and identify with it as a symbol of their fandom. It has been the best-selling electric pickup, but it has had an underwhelming sales performance in terms of what was expected. This is mostly due to Tesla not meeting the prices it planned to offer the Cybertruck, as its unveiling and actual release were four years apart.

Overall, the responses were mixed. Some fans understood the move toward Cybercab production, especially as Tesla is truly pushing the autonomous future through its Robotaxi platform. However, others did not understand it.

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“Damn, how many Cybercabs do you guys need?” one response read. Another said it was “Sad but understandable.”Even analyst Gary Black had responded to the news, stating he hoped Tesla planned to replace it with a traditional pickup design.

It doesn’t seem like that will be the case.

Tesla is so hell-bent on delivering autonomy and eventually providing a driverless service that owning a car seems like an arbitrary idea, according to their thesis. Instead, Cybercabs will be available to pick you up and drop you off on demand, safely, without any human help.

As a result, Tesla has thinned its lineup considerably, and one can only ask where the vehicle lineup goes from here. Eventually, it seems like Cybercab could be the only vehicle that Tesla will sell.

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SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th

SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15 and its first ship catch.

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SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15, the mission the company plans to use for its first attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower.

SpaceX Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev shared the date on stage at the UP.Summit on Thursday, according to Ars Technica’s Eric Berger, who was in attendance. It is the first launch target to come directly from a SpaceX executive. Until now, the public schedule had relied on FAA air traffic planning slides, which listed Flight 15 for no earlier than November 8 and later November 12. SpaceX has not posted an official mission page yet, and no launch time has been shared.

The date lands inside the window Elon Musk sketched out last month. Speaking at Giga Texas on October 10, Musk said the flight would “probably launch a little bit before Thanksgiving,” as Teslarati reported. On SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call ten days later, he confirmed that Flight 15 would try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the ship, and put the odds of a successful ship catch at “more likely than not.” SpaceX also aired an animation of the maneuver during that webcast, showing the ship swinging vertical over Starbase before dropping into the tower’s chopsticks.

The hardware is ready. Booster 22 fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for a full duration static fire at Pad 2 on October 25. Ship 42 followed with a single engine burn simulating a deorbit maneuver on October 26 and a 60 second firing of all six engines the next day, according to NASASpaceflight. Ship 42 had already rehearsed the catch in September, when the Pad 2 arms lifted it into position and crews connected the quick disconnect arm while the vehicle hung from the tower.

The remaining hurdle is regulatory. The FAA’s Starship page does not yet list a Flight 15 license. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in October that, after “significant constructive engagement with the FAA,” she expects the license to cover a return to the launch site and a tower catch for both stages. Bringing the ship home means a reentry path that heads toward land, rather than ending over open ocean as every Starship flight so far has.

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SpaceX has caught Super Heavy three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8, but the ship comes back from orbital velocity and has never been caught. Flight 14 on September 28 was the first Starship to reach orbit, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down despite an early engine shutdown that Musk blamed on engine computer software.

Musk has called a successful ship catch “the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket,” and he has already named the step after it: a Flight 16 where both the booster and the ship fly again. NASASpaceflight reports that Ship 43, the next vehicle in line, is set for static fire testing in December.

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EVgo taps Tesla Superchargers for mass charging expansion

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Credit: EVgo

EVgo has tapped Tesla Superchargers for its most recent efforts to expand its charging presence in the United States, a move that seems logical based on the effectiveness of the automaker’s own infrastructure.

EVgo opened its first Supercharger site in Illinois, a 12-stall station near downtown Chicago at 3145 South Ashland Avenue in the Riverside Square & River’s Edge center, right beside a grocery store. This marks the start of the company’s plan to deploy hundreds of Supercharger stalls across the United States, primarily at grocery-anchored Regency Centers properties where drivers can shop, eat, or run errands while they charge.

The new location uses Tesla’s Magic Dock technology so both NACS and CCS vehicles can plug in natively without drivers needing to carry their own adapters. Peak power reaches 325 kW at this site, with pricing set between $0.25 and $0.35 per kWh depending on the hour—the same rate for Tesla and non-Tesla drivers.

The stalls also appear in Tesla’s in-car navigation and Trip Planner, making them easy for Tesla owners to find and route to. Illinois has seen EV registrations rise nearly 60 percent over the past two years, and EVgo’s broader network has experienced more than 700 percent growth in charging demand over three years, so the timing fits the market’s trajectory.

Choosing Tesla hardware through the Supercharger for Business program turns out to have been a smart, practical move.

Tesla’s V4 stalls and cabinets deliver high, reliable power with a proven track record of strong uptime, while Magic Dock delivers true dual-standard compatibility in one package. Because the sites show up in Tesla’s navigation tools, EVgo instantly gains visibility among millions of existing Tesla drivers, which should raise utilization and help the company double its addressable market as more vehicles adopt NACS. EVgo still owns the stations and sets pricing, yet benefits from Tesla’s established hardware, longer cables, and operational support.

The result is faster, lower-risk infrastructure expansion that serves every EV driver—Tesla or otherwise—with convenient, high-power charging at everyday retail locations. For drivers, that means fewer adapters, more predictable stops, and a denser network just as electric vehicles become everyday transportation.

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