- Ford’s CEO acknowledged small EVs are key to mass adoption and profitability
- Ford currently doesn’t make a small EV in the U.S.
- Ford was a proponent of pickup trucks and SUVs, killed its cars and small SUVs
Ford is shifting away from large EVs like the F-150 Lightning pickup truck to emphasize smaller models in response to high battery costs, reports Business Insider.
After declaring that Americans needed to move away from “monster vehicles” like the pickup trucks and SUVs that are currently Ford’s bread and butter, CEO Jim Farley told investors in an earnings call Wednesday that the smaller EVs would be key to mass adoption and profitability.
Jim Farley
“We believe smaller, more affordable vehicles are the way to go for EV volume,” Farley said. That’s largely down to battery costs. While the mantra for internal-combustion vehicles is “the bigger the vehicle, the higher the margin,” it’s a different matter with EVs, the CEO said.
“The larger the vehicle, the bigger the battery, the more pressure on margin because customers will not pay a premium for those larger batteries,” Farley said. That appeared to play out in Ford’s Q1 earnings, where the automaker promised more affordable EVs while reporting significant losses on the EVs it was already making.
2025 Ford 3-row SUV –
Ford initially tried to replicate its success with large internal-combustion vehicles, launching the Lightning and intending to follow up that full-size pickup with a next-generation electric truck and three-row SUV that have now been delayed. But a shift in thinking by Farley and other executive has been apparent for months. Farley said during the automaker’s Q4 2023 earnings presentation that Ford seeks smaller, lower-cost EVs to address a “new market reality.”
Affordable EVs may be winning out against bigger, more expensive models in Ford’s product plan, but all EVs still need to compete for resources with the automaker’s very profitable internal-combustion trucks and SUVs. Ford last week announced that a Canadian plant previously slated to build EVs would make Super Duty heavy-duty pickups instead.