LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — The Ford Escape isn’t nearly as big a seller as it once was, prompting speculation in recent years about the future of the automaker’s Louisville Assembly Plant and the 3,200 hourly workers who make the compact SUV there.
Ford CEO Jim Farley only fueled the uncertainty in 2022, when he said during an investor event that the Detroit automaker will focus on “passion brands” like its Mustang sportscar and Bronco SUV.
“We’re not going to have commodity products like Edges and Escapes,” Farley said in June 2022.
What does that mean for Louisville Assembly Plant, or LAP, and its thousands of workers?
A reporter got the chance to put that question directly to Farley on Wednesday following an event celebrating the Super Duty pickup trucks made at Ford’s larger Louisville factory, Kentucky Truck Plant.
Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley speaks at an event at Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, May 24, 2023.
Farley declined to shed any light on Ford’s plan for LAP (“I’m not going to make news here,” he said). But the plant’s workers should be “excited about their future,” he said.
“Escape and (Lincoln) Corsair are very important for the company. But we want to lean into the heritage of Mustang and Bronco and the other iconic vehicles — and build new ones like Maverick (pickups) — and so it comes down to the product execution.
“We want their work to be building a vehicle that we’re deeply passionate about, where the customers can’t imagine their life without it. And we have opportunity in the two-row crossover market to do that. So, I think they should be really excited about their future. And they’re going to continue to build really passionate products.”
Securing a long-term product for LAP is a top priority of the United Auto Workers union in contract negotiations with Ford later this year, union officials have said.
“There is no other option than keeping that plant open,” said Todd Dunn, president of UAW Local 862, which represents hourly workers at both Louisville Ford plants, in a February interview.
AutoForecast Solutions, an industry consultant, has projected that LAP will transition to building an all-electric version of the Escape by 2026.
Ford and its Korean partner SK On are building a pair of EV battery plants in Glendale, Kentucky, which are slated to start production in 2025. LAP is the closest of Ford’s plants to the battery campus in Glendale.
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