Ford will not continue the production of the family Focus with the end of the life cycle of the fourth and current generation in 2025, said Martin Sander, CEO of Ford Europe.
This is a popular European passenger car that Ford is cutting from its lineup, after the Focus was already discontinued in the United States two years ago. Last year, Ford announced parting ways with the small Fiesta after decades of production.
This is part of a broader move by Ford signaling an exit from passenger car markets in the United States and Europe, in favor of crossovers, many of which are fully electric or electrified. This is part of the transition of this manufacturer to electric propulsion, mainly under cooperation in this area with Volkswagen and an aging product line.
Usually, for popular cars and in general, the fate of a car as a flop or a hit is determined early on. Rarely do cars that start as failures grow into exceptional successes. There are many more cases where cars started out strong and slowly faded away, but the Ford Focus is a different story.
The first generation that replaced the mediocre Escort in every aspect in 1998 was a sensation of a well-designed, high-quality car that came to us in unexciting versions (except for the 2.0-liter engine version) and was mainly known for its excellent dynamics and driving pleasure. Globally, it received the title of Car of the Year in 1999 and locally it succeeded in the car market.
This success continued in its second generation, launched in 2006, maintaining those positive qualities, although it became heavier and somewhat sluggish in the 1.6-liter automatic version. On the other hand, it shows relatively high reliability, and many of them are still on the road, offering a spacious, safe, and not very fuel-efficient family car for less than NIS 10,000.
But then came the third generation in 2012 and, in one fell swoop, practically eliminated the car from the local market, right after its initial success, which made it the best-selling car in the country that year, with 15.6 thousand deliveries. It was a combination of the dual robotic transmission box of the powershift manufacturer together with low production qualities and finishing that brought it from being one of the great sellers to a model that many car fleets and private customers fled from.
Its excellent fourth generation returned to the automatic (and later robotic) transmission box and fixed the flaws experienced in the third generation, but it struggled to regain the trust of car fleets and the public. As of today, there are still 58.5 thousand Foci driving in the country.
However, there are two points that may still change Ford's mind. The first is that its main production site in Sarlouis, Germany, has still not succeeded in selling. The second is Mercedes' advances, leaving the A-Class on the production line following the manufacturer's recalculation of all aspects related to the transition to electric. Also in the case of the Seat-Cupra story. The brand that was supposed to replace Seat will remain alongside it for several more years. The reason for both changes in plans - the increasing demand for electric cars.