WASHINGTON -- Volkswagen's CEO said on Tuesday after a meeting at the White House that the German automaker was building an alliance with Ford Motor Co. and that they might use the U.S. automaker's plants to build cars.
VW CEO Herbert Diess said the company was also "considering building a second car plant," adding, "We are in quite advanced negotiations and dialog with Ford to really build up a global automotive alliance, which also would strengthen the American automotive industry."
Ford and VW said on June 19 they would explore a strategic alliance and they agreed to a memorandum of understanding at the time. Talks further intensified this fall, the automakers said in October.
Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford, on Tuesday said: “We haven’t gotten that granular in our talks yet, but clearly we are talking with them.”
He said the talks were going “really well” and that “the culture fit is good.”
The automakers have said previously they are talking about potential collaborations across a number of areas.
VW has an assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. Of the need for a new plant, Diess said the company is in "quite advanced negotiations in Tennessee but there might be other options as well."
Diess said VW would not take an equity stake in Ford as part of its alliance. "We are building an alliance with Ford which will strengthen Ford's position in Europe because we will share platforms," he said. "We might use Ford capacity here in the U.S. to build cars for us."
Diess said VW planned to talk more about the Ford alliance in January.
“We need additional capacity here in the United States, we need an additional car plant for VW and Audi combined,” Diess told reporters in Washington after meeting with President Donald Trump and trade officials.
Ford and VW have been in talks for more than a year about the German automaker investing in Argo AI, the American automaker’s self-driving technology partner, to jointly develop autonomous cars, according to people familiar with the discussions. The two automakers also are considering tie-ups to produce electric vehicles and share manufacturing in regions around the world, the people have said.
“We’re having a very broad set of discussions about how we can help each other around the world,” Bob Shanks, Ford’s CFO, said in an October interview. “Collaboration isn’t being limited in any way whatsoever.”
Discussions with Trump
