Ford’s New EV Plan Falls Apart

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Aug 12, 9:15AM EDT

Quick Read

Ford Motor Co.’s (NYSE: F) “next Model T moment” electric vehicle (EV) plan has failed to impress investors.
Its production plan and upcoming modestly priced EV are not ground-breaking.

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Ford’s New EV Plan Falls Apart — © TennesseePhotographer / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F | F Price Prediction) announced its “next Model T moment.” It ended up as the fourth story down from the top at the auto section of Bloomberg, behind a Vietnam plan for electric vehicles (EVs) and GM’s new self-driving car plans. Simultaneously, Ford’s stock fell on volume that was below the 90-day average. The plan was not impressive, nor was it believable.

Ford’s stumble in EVs will be a significant part of the history books that cover the emergence of EVs during the last decade. The number-two U.S. car company said it would invest $30 billion in its EV ventures. It said production levels would reach hundreds of thousands of EVs per year. Its EV flagship, the F-150 Lightning, experienced production delays and several changes to its pricing for the pickup.

Ford began to slow its EV investment and cut EV production. It sold only 2,831 F-150 Lightnings last month. Sales for the Mustang Mach-E totaled 5,308.

The new plan is for a tiny step forward as a replacement for its colossal effort. The first new EV will be a four-door pickup. It will not be available until 2027. That is extremely slow during a period when major car makers are introducing new EVs every year.

The plan will “preserve” 2,200 jobs at Ford’s Louisville Assembly Plant. That implies they might have been lost sometime in the future. The announcement was mostly about the Ford Universal EV Production System. It is untested, and it does not seem any more advanced than the Hyundai Metaplant in Georgia. That plant can already produce 500,000 vehicles a year. It will make the electric Ioniq 5 crossover SUV, the Ioniq 9, and future vehicles.

Ford has expressed concern about Chinese EVs, which its CEO Jim Farley is anxious about. In addition, every major legacy car company that operates in the United States already has EVs on the road. GM has 13 EV models and is adding more. It is in second place in U.S. EV sales behind Tesla.

One announcement Ford hoped would impress consumers and investors was that its new EV would have a price of $30,000. Most large car companies have the same plan. Given Ford’s track record, the $30,00 price could change before the first one rolls off the assembly line.

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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.