The big news from Lincoln this week was the announcement that it would produce the first EV to come out of the Ford-Rivian partnership. The company also confirmed at that moment that the MKZ sedan will cease to be after the 2020 model-year.
The Autoblog website is now reporting that production of the MKZ at the automaker’s plant in Hermosillo, Mexico will stop this summer, with sales continuing through the end of the year. That facility will then be updated to handle production of the Ford Transit Connect commercial van.
The demise of the MKZ is no surprise, especially given that its cousin over at Ford, the Fusion, was discontinued at the end of 2018. There was no chance the automaker was going to make the needed heavy investment to renew a car that no longer sells in large numbers.
In North America, Ford and Lincoln are focusing on SUVs, trucks and commercial vehicles, as well as investing huge sums of money on electrification and autonomous drive technologies.
Once the MKZ disappears into the sunset, Lincoln’s lineup of cars will consist of the Continental, and that’s all. Unfortunately for those who remain allergic to SUVs, that sedan may also be living on borrowed time. Speculation is rampant that it will be pulled from the lineup after the 2021 model-year.
The current Lincoln MKZ was introduced in 2013 and last updated in 2017. Sales of the model in the U.S. peaked at around 34,000 units in 2014, and they’Ve been dropping ever since. 2019 saw Lincoln sell 17,725 units to American consumers.
In Canada? All of 367 MKZ cars found buyers last year, versus 833 in 2018. That represents a drop of 55.94%.