Ford Motor Company has announced it will cut up to 1,000 jobs at its electric vehicle plant in Cologne, Germany, citing weak demand for electric cars. The company, in a terse corporate statement, reduced the human anguish of mass unemployment to the cold language of market efficiency:

“In Europe, demand for electric cars remains well below industry forecasts. Ford will therefore switch production at the Cologne plant to single-shift operation from January 2026.”

Behind these bloodless words lies familiar cruelty. Workers who gave their lives to the factory floor will now be discarded, sacrificed to appease shareholders and the illusion of growth. Ford says it will offer “voluntary lay-off packages” to those cast aside.

The Cologne plant, which assembles the Explorer electric SUV and Capri electric crossover on Volkswagen’s MEB platform, was once heralded as the future.

Ford poured $2 billion into the site after killing off production of the Fiesta hatchback, promising innovation, prosperity, and green progress. Now that future has collapsed into the same old story of betrayal and abandonment.

Germany’s industrial heartlands, from Cologne to Saarlouis, are being hollowed out in the name of “restructuring.” Thousands of jobs are vanishing, families uprooted, lives dismantled.

The very people who built Ford’s wealth are being discarded with the efficiency of scrap metal, another casualty of a system that has no allegiance to nation, worker, or community—only to profit.