Ford's "MQB"
Front-wheel-drive unibody architecture will underpin future:- Subcompacts (Fiesta)
- Compacts (Focus)
- Midsize (Fusion)
- Minivans (if continued)
- Crossovers (EcoSport, Escape, Edge)
- Will feature:
- Increased use of lightweight ultra high-strength and boron steel (for example, 33% in new Focus vs. 11% in outgoing car)
- Engineered for:
- Fuel-saving 48v micro-hybrid technology
- New, three-cylinder 1.5-liter engines up to 180hp
- 8-speed automatic "slushbox" torque converter gearbox
- Parts sharing includes:
- Seat structures, air conditioning units, electric handbrakes, gearboxes, electrical modules, infotainment screens, modems, suspension modules
VW Group's fwd modular transverse toolkit (aka MQB) was launched in 2011 and now underpins around 40 percent of the cars the VW brand sells globally. It predicts that by 2020, that figure will rise to 80 percent. The architecture is also used by Audi, Skoda and Seat, creating savings across the group.
Ford's embrace of a similar modular system makes sense for the company, said Tim Urquhart, principal analyst for IHS Markit.
"It's the only way forward to drive proper value and economies of scale, especially for a mass-market player like Ford," he said.
Like the MQB, the Ford unibody platform will fix certain hard points, such as the distance between the ball of the driver's foot and the front axle, Bakaj said. That would allow the fitting of common modules across a range of vehicles, such as seat structures, electric handbrakes and air-conditioning units. "You won't use every module from the bottom to the top, but you'd try and reuse as many modules as possible," Bakaj said.
This strategy looks much further ahead than Ford managed with vehicles on the C1 platform underpinning vehicles such as the current Focus, Escape and Transit Connect van, which used different air-conditioning systems, for example. "When we ran those car lines, we didn't have a clearer long-term plan over time, and we had to make changes," Bakaj said. "If you can plan out a suite of vehicles over a period of time, you get a scale globally."
Architectural digest
The other four new architectures Ford is working on:- Body-on-frame truck/SUV
- Unibody van
- Unibody rear-wheel-drive passenger car
- Electric car
Vehicles built using Ford's new architecture even have their own design chief. Joel Piaskowski was appointed Ford's head of cars and crossovers globally in August last year.
Increasing the number of model ranges on a single architecture can bring problems. VW initially struggled to adapt the MQB across different vehicles and brands, pushing up costs. The greater number of common parts can reduce supplier costs because of scale savings, but the strategy can also disrupt production and drive up recall costs in the event of a part failure.
The scale will be key to ensuring the Focus is cheap enough to compete in China, yet sophisticated enough to attract buyers in the U.S. "We'd use the same technology but aim to source locally in China. That's how we'd get cost and scale," Bakaj said.
Ford said it has reduced the number of orderable configurations on the U.S. Focus from 360 to 26, as well as cut engineering costs for the global car.
