Fossil Fuel Pain Increases For Auto Makers As Ford Shutters Bridgend Engine Factory in South Wales - The End is Beginning?
Nothing defines a conventional car more than the engine under its hood. And nothing spells out the approaching disaster facing traditional automakers than having to close an engine manufacturing facility due to lack of demand for internal combustion engines.
That’s exactly what Ford is doing at its Bridgend engine factory in South Wales. One worker identified only as Stephen tells The Guardian, “The writing has been on the wall for a long time. We knew when the Sigma engine finished there was no replacement. We knew when the AJ engine finished there was no replacement. The predicted volumes for new Dragon engine were 250,000, then 125,000, then the last thing we had was for 70,000.”
Assembly plants have to plan for the coming few years or be faced with massive stockpiles that cannot be used. There will still be plenty of ICE assembly plants not affected in any way yet but as a tipping point starts to approach we can expect a rapid decline or at least a transition to other types of engines. It's not that there are necessarily fewer jobs as other factories are opening to manufacture batteries, electric motors, etc. And at least for the near future car bodies and components are still needed. We can, however, expect a big decline in demand for brake pads in future as EVs use electric braking mostly and a set of legacy brake pads will last two or four times longer.
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#^Fossil Fuel Pain Increases For Auto Makers As Ford Shutters Bridgend Engine Factory
Ford is closing its Bridgend engine factory in Wales due to declining demand for the gasoline engines it produces. That's a win for EV advocates but a bitter blow for the workers.
source https://gadgeteer.co.za/node/3248
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