C-Ya, C-MAX: Floundering Ford C-MAX to Be Discontinued in 2018
Prepare to pour one out for the dear and soon-to-be-departed Ford C-MAX. The compact MPV will cease to be in the United States by mid-2018, when production will come to a close on the C-MAX Hybrid; production on the Ford C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid has already wrapped up, ending in September of this year.
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The demise of the Ford C-MAX in the United States has been seemingly inevitable for some time. Ford delivered 35,210 C-MAX vehicles in its first full sales year (2013), and sales have only steadily declined since. In 2016, C-MAX sales bottomed out at 19,834 deliveries, putting it below the Flex in the unenviable position of Ford’s least-popular mass-market vehicle. Through October, sales of the C-MAX total 15,512 vehicles, down 3.8% from 2016 and dead last among Ford’s mass-market nameplates.
Adding fuel to the speculation that the C-MAX would drive off into the sunset was the announcement that the C-MAX and Focus would be replaced at Michigan Assembly Plant in 2018 in order to make room for production of the returning Ranger and Bronco. Ford had announced its intentions to build the next-generation in China, but had not intimated plans for relocating production of the C-MAX.
A Ford spokesperson told Automotive News that the automaker will continue to produce gasoline and diesel variants of the C-MAX in Europe “for a number of years,” and that service and replacement parts for C-MAXes in the United States will be available for the foreseeable future.
The death of the Ford C-MAX in the United States is no indication of Ford shying away from electrified vehicles, however; the automaker is investing $4.5 billion toward introducing no fewer than 13 electrified vehicles to its lineup over the next five years, including hybrid versions of the Ford Mustang and F-150 and a battery-electric crossover that is expected to deliver a driving range of more than 300 miles.
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News Source: Automotive News (subscription required)
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