Ford Sells Almost No EVs

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jul 7, 9:03AM EDT · Published Jul 7, 7:30AM EDT

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Ford Sells Almost No EVs — © jetcityimage / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

It was a brutal day for Ford’s electric vehicle (EV) sales. Two headlines stood out. Former Ford CEO Mark Fields, clearly bitter, made a strong point nevertheless. He told CNBC that people would not buy EVs because they are harder to charge than a gasoline-powered car when the driver fills his tank with gas. Other media pointed out that Ford’s EV sales fell 2.8% in the second quarter, compared to the same quarter a year ago.
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Ford sold only 14,843 EVs in the second quarter. Part of the reason was a retooling of the plant that makes the Mach-E. Nevertheless, the fact that Ford did so poorly is remarkable. Its EV flagship F-150 Lighting sold 4,466. That was up 119%, but off such a minuscule base that the percentage means nothing. (These are every major automaker’s plans to go electric.)
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The other end of the EV story is how well Ford’s gas-powered vehicles did. F-Series sales were an extraordinary 212,516, up 34%. It is the best-selling vehicle in America. Sales of the high-volume Escape rose 29% to 43,690. Sales of the Bronco Sport rose 13% to 33,272.

Ford is still the most powerful and successful gas-fueled brand in America.
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Investors need to wonder if Ford has a universal problem in the industry. If Fields is right, the sales of EVs will lag for years. Certainly, some research shows that Fields is correct.

Another factor in Ford’s poor EV sales is the dominance of Tesla. Once again, if Fields is right, Tesla’s large EV market share is the share of a modest market.
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Ford’s management is the best data spinner among all large U.S. public companies. Andrew Frick, vice president of sales distribution and trucks, said, “Our EV sales continue to grow. Improved Mustang Mach-E inventory flow began to hit at the end of Q2 following the retooling of our plant earlier this year, which helped Mustang Mach-E sales climb 110 percent in June.” Frick should become a politician.

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.