Automotive News Europe — 2024-08-21
Automotive Industry
The automaker said the changes could cost up to $1.9 bn, including a $400 m noncash charge related to canceling the crossovers.
Ford Motor is again shifting its electrification strategy, canceling long-planned three-row electric crossovers and delaying its next-generation full-size electric pickup by 18 months as it dials down spending on full battery-powered products.
The automaker said the changes to its plans could cost up to $1.9 bn, including a $400 m noncash charge related to canceling the crossovers that it previously had postponed from 2025.
Instead of those EVs, Ford now plans to build a family of hybrid three-row crossovers but didn't say where or when they would come to market.
CFO John Lawler said the vehicles would offer a "range of propulsion options" but did not elaborate. “This is really about us being nimble and listening to responses from our customers,” Lawler said in a media briefing on 21 August 2024.
Lawler said: “We looked where the segment was evolving, the amount of competition, the customer needs, and then, the size of the battery that needs to go in a pure EV, the cost structure, the pricing, we could not put together a vehicle that met our requirements to be profitable in the first 12 months of launch.”
The three-row crossovers most recently had been slated to go in Ford’s Oakville Assembly Plant in Canada before it announced in July 2024 it would instead build more Super Duty pickups there, leaving the EVs without a home.
Moving forward, Lawler said EVs would represent roughly 30% of its capital expenditure, down from a planned 40%.
Ford said it's pushing back the launch of its next-generation full-size electric pickup, codenamed "T3," by more than a year to late 2027. That will allow the company "to utilize lower-cost battery technology and take advantage of other cost breakthroughs while the market continues to develop," the company said in a statement.
While vehicle production has been delayed, Ford said a battery plant at its Blue Oval City complex in Tennessee remains on track to begin producing cells in 2025.
In the near term, Ford's EV plans are now focused on smaller, more affordable products. The first vehicle on a new platform it's developing for that purpose will be a midsize pickup coming in 2027, Ford said.
Ford also reiterated plans to bring a next-generation commercial van to Ohio Assembly in 2026.
Executives said they would share more details on the company’s electrification plans at an event in the first half of 2025. Despite the changes, Lawler said he felt Ford’s product portfolio was well positioned.
“We’ve got a good lineup today, better than most other competitors,” he said. “We’re going to have two pickups, the van, three-row SUVs and the next-gen Super Duty will have a range of propulsion options. I think we’re going to be very competitive in the EV space and we can be a leader as the industry transitions.”