Ford to build new range of fuel-efficient PETROL engines in Bridgend

Ford has revealed they will build a new range of fuel-efficient petrol engines at their plant in Bridgend, Wales, from 2018 after a £181 million investment.

Ford’s announcement that they are planning a new range of fuel-efficient, technologically-advanced petrol engines – to be built at Ford’s Bridgend Plant from 2018 – seems particularly prescient in light of the still developing VW Defeat Device scandal.

We were already starting to see a backlash against diesel engines in cars as governments started to question just how dirty they can be (something we highlighted more than five years ago), despite the rise and rise of diesel-engined cars being almost entirely due to legislators’ fixation with CO2 emissions.

That backlash is likely to grow as the VW Dieselgate crisis balloons out of control, and buyers start to realise that current emissions testing really bears no resemblance to real-world emissions, and start to realise that it should be NOx and particulates we fixate on, not CO2, and start to fall back in love with petrol-engined cars.

Ford are already seeing 25 per cent of their UK and Europe sales getting a petrol EcoBoost engine – and 20 per cent fitted with the hugely impressive 1.0 litre, 3-pot EcoBoost – and this new generation of petrol engines should see those percentages grow.

The production of the new petrol engines will start in 2018 in Bridgend (after an investment of £181 million – £14.67 million of it from the Welsh Government) and will help build Ford’s petrol-engine future, secure jobs in Bridgend and add to the 3,400 engines a day that already come out of Bridgend.