Ford opened its Almussafes plant, on the southern edge of Valencia, in October 1976, when the first Fiesta rolled off the line. Nearly 50 years and more than 9 million vehicles later, it remains Ford’s largest manufacturing complex outside the United States, with a potential annual capacity of about 500,000 vehicles.
Today the plant builds a single model, the Ford Kuga, across its petrol mild-hybrid, full-hybrid and plug-in hybrid variants. That is a fraction of its installed capacity, a gap that has shaped the plant’s recent history: Mondeo and Transit Connect production both ended there, and Ford scaled back its neighbouring engine lines as European demand for combustion engines fell.
On 23 July 2026, Ford and Geely Auto signed a joint venture to share the site, with Ford holding 66% and Geely 34%. Pending regulatory approval, the venture is due to begin operations in the first half of 2027. From 2028 it adds three vehicles: a compact SUV from Ford’s Bronco family built for European roads, a new Ford multi-energy crossover, and two electric SUVs from Geely, the Chinese brand’s first models manufactured in Europe. Ford has not confirmed the powertrain split for its own two new vehicles beyond describing them as “multi-energy.”
The deal followed months of uncertainty over Almussafes’s future after Ford closed its Saarlouis, Germany plant and reduced output at Cologne. For Geely, it secures a manufacturing foothold inside the EU, avoiding the bloc’s tariffs on vehicles imported from China.
