Ford to install 750 charging points at Cologne factory premises

Ford has announced the installation of 750 charging points at its Cologne factory premises in Niehl and Merkenich, Germany. Construction has already begun and should be completed by the beginning of 2022 at the latest.

By the end of 2020, 328 charging points will have been installed exclusively within the plant. This is to enable the company’s own fleet to charge, and Ford sees it above all as a test for “administrative charging management”. Ford is concerned here with regulating access and the duration and control of the charging process. Ford says that at an unspecified date later on visitors and employees will also be able to charge electric cars or plug-in hybrids in the parking lots outside the plant site.

The charging points themselves are 11-kW wallboxes from Keba, which are mounted either on the walls of factory buildings or on columns in the parking lots. The wallbox already has smart charging functions that should enable the control of the charging processes. The charging process is to be started and billed via the FordPass app.

According to Ford, the construction of the charging points in Cologne is part of a Europe-wide project in the framework of which charging infrastructure is to be created at all of the company’s European plants. This includes the development of separate charging infrastructure at the German sites in Aachen and Saarlouis as well as at the Ford sites in England, Belgium, Romania and Spain. A total of around 1,000 charging points are to be installed at Ford’s European plants by 2023.

ford.com (in German)