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Ford Motor Co. is cutting about 350 connected-vehicle software jobs in the U.S. and Canada as part of an ongoing effort to improve efficiency, according to a person with knowledge of the moves.
Affected workers were notified May 13. The employees work on projects that include the newly launched Ford and Lincoln Digital Experience.
The cuts amount to roughly 5 percent of the automaker’s connected-vehicle software team, which is under the purview of Doug Field, Ford’s chief EV, digital and design officer.
The action is unrelated to U.S. import tariffs or Ford’s decision to cancel development of a next-generation electrical software architecture, internally called FNV4, a spokesperson said.
“We consistently review our organization to make sure we are operating efficiently and effectively in a fast-paced and dynamic environment,” the spokesperson said in a statement provided to Automotive News. “We are making changes within our Connected Vehicle Software team to ensure we have the right talent and organization to deliver the world’s best next-generation connected vehicles. This will include some separations.”
CEO Jim Farley has long talked about finding the right talent to help Ford better compete in the era of software-defined vehicles. On a 2022 earnings call, Farley called the automaker’s software talent recruitment “perhaps the biggest untold story at Ford.”
The company late last month scrapped its FNV4 software architecture because of ballooning costs and delays, Reuters reported.
“It’s a very significant save for capital efficiency,” Farley said May 5 on Ford’s first-quarter earnings call. “We simply merged our two Ford zonal electric architectures into one. This is very important for the company because our software is going faster than we expected, and the advanced electric architectures allow us to deliver software to the vehicles and customers in a more efficient way.”
Unrelated to the U.S. moves, Ford is in the midst of cutting around 14 percent of its European workforce, mostly in Germany and Great Britain. Workers at Ford’s factory in Cologne, Germany, expect to strike May 14 as tensions rise over planned cuts.
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