Ford to Axe 14% of Workforce in Europe

US car manufacturer Ford have said they plan to lay off 4,000 of their workforce in Europe, becoming the latest automaker to try to slash costs. 

 

The job cuts represent about 14% of Ford’s 28,000 workforce in Europe and around 2.3% of their total workforce of 174,000, and will be completed by the end of 2027, the company said on Wednesday. The bulk of the layoffs will take place in Germany, where 2,900 positions are under threat, and in UK, with an expected 800 jobs to be deleted. 

 

The US carmaker will be the latest after Nissan, Stellantis, and GM to resort to the drastic cost-cutting step as the automotive sector faces challenges, including weak EV sales.

 

For sure, the measure will exact a heavy blow to the EU’s top economy, Germany, where the bloc’s biggest carmaker – Volkswagen – earlier announced that they would consider plant closures or layoffs for the first time in their 87-year history.

 

In September, thousands of demonstrators stormed Brussels to protest Volkswagen’s plans to shut down the Audi facility in the Belgian capital. 

 

The development comes as EU automakers are facing their worst months since the Covid-19 pandemic. Car sales within the bloc have fallen by 200,000 vehicles in the first eight months of 2024 compared to the same period last year, according to the Center for Automotive Research.

 

Malaysia's Sivasangari Subramaniam was stopped in the semi-finals of the Singapore Squash Open today when she lost to world No. 10 Amina Orfi 3-1: 5-11, 6-11, 12-10, 8-11 in 64 minutes. 

 

It was the Egyptian's third win over Sivasangari in four encounters.

 

I'm disappointed but it is what it is.

Toyota’s Eco-friendly Short Distance Mobility Option

As the automotive market adopts the commitment to develop environmentally friendly modes of transportation, vehicles are increasingly being designed for specific niches and their particular needs. 

Throughout 2019, a handful of extremely compact electric vehicles and concepts – Citroen’s Ami One, Seat’s Minimo, Nissan’s IMk, and Honda’s Urban EV – have been announced with the nearly-exclusive purpose of being used in strictly urban environments. 

On Thursday, Toyota, too, revealed their own rendition of the teeny-weeny city vehicle: The Ultra-compact BEV (right). 

And it is already one up on the other cars in this particular segment – this EV is not a concept; it’s production ready and truth be told, it is expected to launch in Japan in 2020. 

I read that the two-seater has a single-charge range of about 100 km and a top speed of 60km/h (or 37mph). 

This car is not designed for performance – instead, Toyota intend for it to be used by customers who make short-distance trips like “the elderly, newly licensed drivers, or business-people visiting local customers”. 

Though the technical specs of the model have not been released, Toyota’s Head of Development Akihiro Yanaka states that this model will provide customers with “greater autonomy”. 

The Ultra-compact BEV will be on display at the Tokyo Motor Show (October 24 to November 04) at the Future Expo. 

Yesterday, I was at the MIDA premise in KL Sentral in Kuala Lumpur to attend the KL Advanced Toastmasters meeting. I was both an assignment speaker as well as a speech evaluator. 

My speech was from the Humorously Speaking manual, project #2 Leave Them With a Smile and it was titled The Day My Best Friend Died 

‘Twas a speech that contained dark humor – and it was about Bernard. 

BTW, I was voted Best Evaluator for my feedback for an Ice-breaker speech:

Photos from the said meeting:

Volvo to Have Self-driving Cars by 2017

Swedish carmaker Volvo Cars claim that self-driving cars will react ‘faster than most humans’.

 

The Chinese-owned company announced Thursday that they have completed designs for self-driving cars. Already, they intend to put 100 self-driving cars on roads around the Swedish city of Gothenburg in 2017 in a pilot initiative with Sweden’s transport authority and local government.

 

“Volvo Cars (have) designed a complete production-viable autonomous driving system”, Peter Mertens, head of Volvo’s research and development said in a statement. “The key to making this unprecedented leap is a complex network of sensors, cloud-based positioning systems and intelligent braking and steering technologies”.

 

Volvo are locked in a race with their Japanese competitors Nissan and US Internet giant Google to be the first to put fully automated cars into circulation.  

Nurul Nuha (left), the second of six Anwar siblings is the face of the "March to Freedom” campaign, an initiative launched last week to put pressure the Malaysian government to free her father Anwar Ibrahim from prison.

 

"This struggle has been very much a family thing and as a Malaysian, it is about fighting for what is right, for the freedom of human rights", she said.

 

Like many Malaysians, we consider Anwar a political prisoner.

 

"The aim of 'March to Freedom' is to free papa. But it is also to free the judiciary system and other institutions under the current regime, that has been unfair", she added.