Ford is announcing a £24 million investment programme at its Bridgend engine plant in Wales to produce a new fuel-efficient 1.5-litre EcoBoost petrol engine. Ford’s EcoBoost technology delivers the power of a larger engine with smaller unit fuel consumption. Ford Bridgend is one of the Ford UK locations benefitting from Ford’s planned £1.5 billion investment announced in 2010 into the research, development and manufacture of low-CO2 technology for vehicles over a five year period.
Ford Bridgend produces 2,668 four-cylinder engines each day, with exports to Spain, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Belgium and the USA. This delivers an annual export value of £1.5 billion when combined with other Ford UK operations. Employment at Bridgend will rise to 2,300 this year, the most in its 33-year history.
The Bridgend plant is the long term European production base for the new 1.5-litre EcoBoost engine. Production will start in 2014 and then ramp up over the following two years to ensure that Bridgend output is maintained at optimum capacity during this period. It will be built alongside the 1.6-litre EcoBoost engine, which was introduced in 2011.
