Lincoln News: Ford Wants To Speed Up Plans To Build Lincolns In China

[William Maley]

Ford has been banking on China to help revive sales of Lincoln and made plans to start building models in late 2019. But the on-going trade war between the U.S. and China has caused the company to reconsider their plans.

“What we want to do is accelerate that. We will look for opportunities, but it’s a big undertaking and I think it won’t be a significant change in our plans,” said Joy Falotico, head of Lincoln and Ford’s chief marketing officer to Bloomberg.

Currently, Lincoln doesn't have any local production in China. Instead, the brand has been importing vehicles from the U.S. which has meant getting hit with a 40 percent tariff by the Chinese government. This has caused sales of Lincoln vehicles to slow to a crawl. Last year, Lincoln sales rose 66 percent in China. But in October, sales are up just 3 percent.

Ford is trying to move the timing of Lincoln production to sometime before late 2019. According to Falotico, moving the timing slightly would be a big help. The first model that would be part of this plan is the recently introduced Aviator.

Also under consideration is Lincoln plans to export some Chinese-built models to the U.S. Falotico said the brand would likely build the same models in both countries.

Source: Bloomberg (Subscription Required)

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[David]

If what Ford says is true that China puts a 40% tariff on auto's exporting into the country then Chinese products should get the same. Tit for tat response but do it in a surgical way so that you have like item for item, not just a stupid blanket all product approach. This is where a REAL business man would sit down to negotiate tariff's on products with a country for equality. I have yet to see anything like that our of DC not just in the last 2 years but like the last 50. We need some real negotiations to adjust and correct the imbalance.

I do not blame Ford for speeding up local manufacturing to take advantage of growing China.

[riviera74]

If this is the fate of our world, where trade diversion that forces most companies to build everything locally in order to compete, so be it.  Too bad China is notorious for stealing trade secrets and seeks to dominate the 21st Century just like the USA did the 20th.

[frogger]

In a market with that much potential they should probably build local anyways, the trade war is just accelerating that.