Ford Expanding Technician Training Programs, Adding EV Courses

Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn is growing the curriculum and including spots to its Automotive Student Assistance Educational Schooling (ASSET) coaching application created to insert more properly trained automotive technicians to a speedy-escalating area that now contains electric powered cars.

The initiative is a collaboration amongst Ford, Ford and Lincoln sellers, and choose community faculties and complex educational institutions. The plan presents Ford and Lincoln dealerships and their shoppers with experts very educated in Ford company technologies and diagnostic and repair service solutions.

A few new ASSET packages are starting off this yr at Pima Group School in Tucson, Ariz. Wake Complex College or university in Raleigh, N.C. and Gwinnett Complex University in Lawrenceville, Ga.

ASSET also will be incorporating Ford EV curriculum which include programs on Large Voltage Units Security, Hybrid Automobile Elements and Operation, Battery Electric Motor vehicle (BEV) Factors and Operation, an introduction to Superior Voltage Battery Service, as perfectly as a Ford teacher-led course on Hybrid and Electrical Motor vehicle Operation and Diagnosis. Ford has presented 25 PHEV or BEV vehicles to ASSET locations, so pupils receive hands-on schooling.

“The ASSET program puts these young children in in the classroom and then in the stall implementing it,” suggests Josh Fichter, basic manager at Five Star Ford in North Richland Hills, Texas. “To me getting these two at the same time is likely to give a supplier greater technician retention and the scholar a far better being familiar with of the information and facts. It also breeds loyalty since if you’re not proactively expanding your personal specialists proper now, you’re going to be in a environment of damage.”

Ford also is incorporating a Cellular Assistance Technician Certification to the ASSET curriculum. This system is a pathway for learners that could be sponsored at one of the more than 300 dealers in the U.S. at this time running Cellular Support Fleets.

The Mobile Support Technician Certification pathway boosts students’ maintenance and light-weight restore aptitudes early in the plan timeline, on their way to becoming far more comfortable with greater repairs, operating to come to be an A-degree technician and ASSET graduate.

“My experience with ASSET been wonderful,” states Josh Lilley, an ASSET scholar at Five Star Ford in Dallas, Texas. “As significantly back as I can don’t forget, I have been tinkering on my dad’s initially-generation Bronco. I would wholeheartedly propose this to any individual pursuing an automotive occupation at the dealership. It is these a good program, especially if you do not know something, they’ll sit you down and assistance you grow these expertise. I realized a lot far more than I at any time believed I would need or know.”

Over a two-year period of time, an ASSET scholar can make up to 100 percent of Ford’s Company Technician Specialty Instruction (STST) qualifications, gain an affiliate degree in automotive know-how, and have 1-year of do the job working experience at a Ford or Lincoln dealership. ASSET graduates also can obtain Ford’s High Voltage Devices Certification, in addition to the 12 certifications the program already presents.

Since 1985, additional than 12,000 pupils have graduated from the ASSET application with 1,800 Ford and Lincoln sellers participating as sponsors. The ASSET plan is 1 of a few post-secondary Ford-sponsored automotive training applications as a result of New Ford Tech, an initiative in the organization aimed at supporting and increasing a stable pool of competent automotive mend experts to support satisfy raising demand from customers.

Study a lot more at www.newfordtech.com.