Ford Motor is rising capability at its South African plant so as to add manufacturing of Volkswagen’s successor to the Amarok pickup.

Ford is creating the Amarok’s successor alongside its subsequent Ranger as a part of a partnership between the 2 automakers that covers mild industrial automobiles, midsize pickups and electrical and self-driving automobiles.

Ford exports the present Ranger to Europe from the plant from its Silverton plant close to Pretoria  The corporate is investing $686 million into the manufacturing facility to extend annual capability to 200,000 items from 168,000, Ford stated in a statement.

The brand new funding will assist manufacturing of the brand new Ranger for the home market and export to greater than 100 international markets, beginning in 2022, Ford stated. The plant additionally will manufacture VW pickups as a part of the Ford-VW strategic alliance, the corporate stated.

The Amarok successor might be exported to Europe together with the Ranger, though neither automaker wouldn’t touch upon manufacturing plans for the VW pickup.

The Ranger was the biggest-selling pickup in Europe final 12 months with a 35 p.c market share, Ford stated. The corporate offered 43,128 Rangers within the area in 2020.

VW ended manufacturing of the Amarok at its Hanover plant in Germany final 12 months. The manufacturing facility is being retooled to construct the ID Buzz, a contemporary, full-electric model of VW’s Microbus that turned a Nineteen Sixties icon, and flagship electric cars for Audi, Porsche and Bentley.

European automakers have struggled to compete within the medium pickup market.

Mercedes-Benz final 12 months ended manufacturing of the X-Class pickup, which was inbuilt Nissan’s plant in Barcelona, Spain, together with the Renault Alaskan. Each fashions had been based mostly on the Nissan Navara.Renault hasn’t stated whether or not it’ll proceed gross sales of the Alaskan in Europe after Nissan shutters the Barcelona plant this 12 months.

Fiat has axed its Fullback model of the Mitsubishi L200 pickup, whereas Mitsubishi will exit the European market altogether on the finish of this 12 months.

Ford’s announcement on its South African funding comes a month after the corporate disclosed plans for a $2.6 billion funding in its Transit van manufacturing facility in Turkey to extend the capability to 650,000 automobiles from 440,000.

The funding within the Turkish plant was to include production of the VW Transporter midsize van, which Ford can be engineering for VW, a supply informed Automotive Information Europe.

As a part of the partnership, VW will engineer a compact van for Ford based mostly on its new Caddy. Each automobiles can be constructed at VW’s plant in Poznan, Poland.

The alliance will even see Ford using VW’s MEB electric platform to construct a mass-market battery-powered automotive positioned under Ford’s forthcoming Mach E SUV. The Ford MEB automotive can be inbuilt its plant in Cologne and can go on sale in 2023, in line with German media stories.

Christiaan Hetzner contributed to this report