Ford’s New EV Plan Already Doomed

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published May 5, 9:29AM EDT

Quick Read

Ford Fails At EVs Over And Over
It’s New Plan Is Deeply Flawed
CEO Farley Should Be Fired

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Ford’s New EV Plan Already Doomed — © 2019 Ford F-150 Lariat (CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED) by Kevauto

The Wall Street Journal asked Hyundai Motor CEO José Muñoz if American car companies can make EVs to compete with Chinese ones. “It is impossible, unless they are subsidized by the government,” he said. The chances that the US government will do that are zero. It would have to hand out billions of dollars like it was candy. A new Wall Street Journal profile of Ford’s semi-secret EV project shows that Muñoz is absolutely correct.

The Ford (NYSE: F | F Price Prediction) plan is yet another blunder by CEO Jim Farley, who has led Ford through failed EV projects since his company said in 2021 that the No. 2 car company would invest $20 billion by the end of 2025. The goal was to reach 40% of Ford’s sales from EVs by 2030. Farlay said when the plan was announced, “This is our biggest opportunity for growth and value creation since Henry Ford started to scale the Model T, and we’re grabbing it with both hands.”

Farley has been involved in this process, which led to Doug Field’s departure as the chief EV, digital, and design officer last week. Someone had to take the blame for Ford’s failure. Executive Chairman, Bill Ford, and Farley were not on that list. It is astonishing that Bill Ford has been chairman since 1999. At any company that is not family-controlled, he would have been gone in the early 21st Century.

The latest plan is to replace the manufacturing process Ford has used for decades in one form or another. Aiming at Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is not enough. Ford wants to go up against Chinese EV companies, which, by many admissions, are years ahead of legacy car companies worldwide. Farley has one thing right. The Chinese EV firms have benefited from government support there. That said, their production costs are low, and their vehicles are extraordinary. What is saving Ford, for the time being, is the 100% tariffs on Chinese cars. Without it, Ford would be gone in a matter of a few years, or less. If Farley keeps his job, he can go down with the ship.

For some reason, Ford believes that because its EV revolution will be run by executives from Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Tesla, this will make a difference. Legacy car companies have looked to people with similar skills. This has not made a difference in any cases

Legacy car companies have largely returned to their excellence in building hybrids and gas-powered vehicles. Ford, on the other hand, keeps banging its head against the wall.

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.