Ford Motor Co. plans to boost exports to China from North America to at least 40,000 units annually, The Detroit News reported.
Citing information from Auto Warehousing Co., a vehicle processing firm, the News said the automaker will use a port in Portland, Oregon, to begin shipping the Ford Explorer SUV this fall and hike exports of the Ford Edge crossover this fall.
Auto Warehousing expects to eventually handle the shipping of as many as 40,000 Ford vehicles to China each year, the newspaper said.
Ford has previously stated its intention to sell the Explorer in China, and it already imports a small volume of Edge crossovers into the market.
But Ford has never publicly acknowledged how many vehicles it intended to import into China.
Ford will begin importing vehicles under its Lincoln brand in late 2104. All Lincoln models are assembled in North America.
Sales of Ford vehicles exported to China from all countries during the first nine months of 2013 totaled 16,405, the News said.
The Explorer is assembled in a plant in Chicago, Ill., and the Edge is manufactured in Oakville, Ontario.
The Explorer will be Ford''s upscale SUV entry. The company already sells locally produced Kuga and EcoSport SUVs in China, which helped fuel a dramatic increase in Ford''s sales volume.
For the first nine months of the year, Ford''s China sales totaled 647,849 vehicles, up 51 percent. Of that total, 16,405 units were imported in China, while the rest were produced locally.
