√Ford Fiesta dead in Europe next year

The Ford Fiesta city car may be axed in Europe for good from next year – 12 months after the hot hatch ST version was pulled from Australian showrooms – according to reports out of Europe overnight.

The Ford Fiesta city car is set to be axed from European showrooms next year, according to reports out of the UK.

The predicted demise of one of Europe’s top-selling cars marks a shift in buyer tastes towards SUVs and electric vehicles – and underlines the financial challenges of developing affordable hatchbacks.

It costs as much to design, develop, engineer and manufacture a city hatch as it does bigger cars – but the profits are slimmer because the price range is lower.

The Fiesta range has already been culled in Australia – where it has been sold by Ford solely in hot hatch ST form since 2020 (leaving the regular models behind) – and the range has been trimmed in Europe in recent months as sales of city cars continue to decline.

Reports out of the UK overight – from Auto Express magazine and The Sun newspaper – claim production of the Fiesta will end for all markets in mid 2023, with no electric successor reportedly planned.

The publications – as well as respected British magazine Autocar – “understand” an official announcement confirming the death of the Fiesta is “imminent”.

Fans of Ford’s smallest European model could see the writing on the wall in recent years, with the steady decline in city car sales as buyers switch to SUVs, and European emissions rules encourage a shift to electric vehicles.

Third-party figures report approximately 82,000 Ford Fiestas as sold in Europe last year – down from about 156,000 in 2020, 229,000 in 2019, and 459,000 in 2009.

Auto Express reports there are no plans for an electric successor to the Fiesta – despite its SUV twin under the skin, the Puma, confirmed for a battery-powered variant in 2024.

It also spells the end for the ‘analogue’ petrol-powered Fiesta ST hot hatch, the latest in a line of high-performance Ford city cars which can trace its roots to the European-market Fiesta XR2 of 1981.

Plans have been announced for the Cologne, Germany factory where the Fiesta is built to produce two new electric SUVs starting sometime next year, and become one of Ford’s electric-car production hubs in Europe.

Ford Australia announced in August the Fiesta ST would depart local showrooms this year, just months after the facelifted model launched locally – though the final batch of approximately 50 cars is not due until early next year.

The final Australian Fiesta STs are expected to be built towards the end of 2022 – which would suggest a slow wind-down of Fiesta production, first withdrawing from low-volume markets such as Australia (where only 92 Fiestas have been delivered so far this year) before pulling out of Europe.

When asked if the current Fiesta ST – and the larger Focus ST hot hatch, which was axed in Australia alongside the Fiesta, and is set to disappear from Europe in 2025 – will be the last with petrol power, Ford Performance global boss Trevor Worthington told Australian media in Detroit last month:

“I don’t talk about our future plans, so sorry to disappoint you. I’m not willing to say that they’re the last or they’re the end because that’s effectively revealing our plans. But they are incredibly important vehicles. They have an incredibly important role.”

Production of the Fiesta and Focus has been hit hard by semiconductor shortages over the past 18 months – in addition to supply constraints caused by the war in Ukraine – which has resulted in various delays and some features being removed from cars to keep production moving.

“It’s inevitable where there’s only a certain amount of (semiconductors), the company has to make a decision about where do those (computer chips) go,” Mr Worthington told media last month.

“It’s been incredibly difficult for those European small cars to fight for the (computer chips) that they need. It’s been really challenging for those vehicles.”

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