Ford’s EV Programs Collapses

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Oct 14, 8:22AM EDT

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Ford’s EV Programs Collapses — © Ford (CC BY 2.0) by Mike Mozart

Ford’s plan to rule the EV market in the U.S., particularly in the pickup sector, has started to unravel. The Wall Street Journal obtained a UAW memo that shows Ford would slow production of its F-150 Lightning, the company’s EV flagship. The memo also said Ford has begun to build more gas-driven F-150s.

[nativounit]

Earlier in the year, Ford said it would produce EVs at a rate of 600,000 in 2023. It then pushed that forecast to 2024. “We expect the EV market to remain volatile until the winners and losers shake out,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said in July. It now appears Ford is moving in the direction of a loser.

Ford has gambled its future on EVs as much as any car company in America. Even Bill Ford, Ford’s executive chairman, said the Lightning launch was the most important in his tenure. For reasons perhaps only he knows, Farley has been allowed to keep his job despite his bungles.

Ford has to deal with two monsters today. The first is EV demand, and the other is demand from the UAW. Ford has spent billions as it ramps up its production of EVs. It has not disclosed what a rich UAW contract would do but Fairly said it would cause deep injury to Ford’s finances.

Ironically, the gas-powered F-150 is Ford’s best-selling vehicle by far and has been the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. for over four decades. Its currently is over a third of Ford’s total U.S. unit sales.

Ford may be stuck with the gas-powered F-150 as its best-selling car for years. That would be the greatest proof that Ford is not, and will not be, an EV-centric company. (These are the 13 biggest electric vehicle business failures in American history.)

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.