Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday it would build its first autonomous vehicles at a $50 million production centre in Michigan as part of an earlier pledge to invest $900 million in manufacturing operations in the state.
Production of the self-driving vehicles is expected to start in 2021, with hybrid vehicles being shipped in to be fitted with driverless technology, the car maker said. Ford said the work would be done in the Detroit area. Kelli Felker, a spokeswoman for the company, would not say whether the hybrids would be an existing model.
In addition to the autonomous vehicle production centre, Ford said it planned to expand its production capacity at an existing plant in Flat Rock, Michigan. The company said it intended to invest more than $850 million in the Flat Rock factory and start production on new electric vehicle models there by 2023.
The effort will create 900 new jobs in the next few years, the majority of them at the Flat Rock plant, the company said.
Ford’s intentions for its Detroit-area factories have fluctuated in recent years. In early 2017, the company said it was abandoning plans for a $1.6 billion plant in Mexico and would instead invest $700 million and add 700 jobs at the Flat Rock plant for the production of electric and hybrid vehicles.
Later that year, the company appeared to backtrack, saying it would take advantage of lower labour costs in Mexico and make a new battery-powered SUV in Cuautitlán in 2020, a goal it reiterated Wednesday. The Mexican facility is Ford’s first electric vehicle factory; the Flat Rock location will be its second.
Ford has said it plans to invest $11.1 billion overall in electrification, with 16 battery electric vehicle models by 2022 and 24 hybrid options by 2022. Earlier this year, Ford and Volkswagen laid out an agreement under which they said they would cut costs by co-operating on the development of electric and autonomous cars.