I & I Editorial BoardAt some point, there will be no news about the Ford Motor Company’s electric vehicle fiasco. But we’re not there yet, as the most recent reports show that the automaker is paying dearly for its commitment to a Potemkin market built by a government that promised favors to companies that would follow its agenda.
Ford’s EV misfortunes have reached a nearly unimaginable low. The company announced Monday that it’s taking a $19.5 billion writedown while eliminating a number of its EV models. Reuters calls it “the most dramatic example yet of the auto industry’s retreat from battery-powered models,” while the Daily Mail says it’s “a major retreat from Ford’s most ambitious EV bet.”
Energy author Robert Bryce simply says Ford’s EV fixation was “felony stupid” and wonders how CEO Jim Farley still has a job.
“The hard truth is that Ford, which makes its money by selling F-150s and other trucks, didn’t understand who its customers are,” he says. “EVs have always been a niche-market product, not a mass-market one. And that niche market is dominated by wealthy, white, male, liberal voters who live in a handful of heavily Democratic cities and counties.”
Bryce figures the company’s total losses caused by its EV infatuation will be more than $35 billion.
“Since 2022, Ford’s losses on its EVs are more than three times the amount it made in profit!”
It was only a few years ago that Ford went, as reported by the Detroit Free Press, “all-in on electric vehicles with (a) massive multibillion-dollar investment.” The company’s “historic investment in its future” was to “pump more than $11 billion into manufacturing a strong, dependable supply of essential parts for electric vehicles, creating nearly 11,000 jobs along the way.” The “commitment” was the “single biggest investment in the history of the 118-year-old automaker.”
On Monday, the Free Press reported the company was making a “big pivot in future vehicle offerings,” and expects that by 2030, “half of all vehicles Ford sells globally will be hybrids, extended-range EVs and electric vehicles compared with 17% today.” The lineup will include a smaller EV pickup.
It seems the company has yet to learn its lesson: Focus on internal-combustion F series trucks, Broncos, and Mustangs, the models that make the money. There is no better time than now to do so, with the administration rolling back the federal corporate average fuel economy standard so automakers won’t have to litter their lineups with high-mileage tin cans and battery-operated toys for the rich, and the market telling the industry that EVs are not for everyone.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
I have to laugh when I read the statement from Ford about manufacturing essential parts for electric vehicles.
What, exactly, are the essential parts for electric (really, electronic) vehicles? Batteries. Motors, instead of engines. There aren’t too many, which is one of the attractions of electronic vehicles.
But how many workers do they need to manufacture large quantities of those few items? If they will be manufacturing large quantities, they will quickly automate that process. They won’t ever have bunches of workers spinning the copper wires around the internal parts of those motors. Or attaching magnets into those motors to cause the internal parts to spin.
On a final note, and not to put this into a political context: The explanation of what the previous administration was doing with their granting of favors to the manufacturers that would do what was demanded: That is the definition of fascism. And people attach that label to the current administration, without knowing the meaning of that word.
My fondest wish, I’ve been driving Fords for 61 years, is that they start making real cars, sedans etc. I had one of the last Ford 2 door cars the Fusion, in 2014. Unfortunately I was rear ended in Ft Worth by a Mexican truck with no insurance. My insurance paid for the repairs but I traded it in shortly afterwards for the Ford Edge that I drove for almost 10 years. I’d love to be able to buy a real car again.
Ford did forget who buys their trucks and what thy use them for. Nobody wants a full-sized pickup truck that can barely travel 100 miles towing even a light load. Especially if that truck costs $75,000 or more. There is a place in the world for EVs, such as sensible commuting cars for people who can charge at home. They’re ideal for that. But for most of these vehicles are expensive to buy, insure, and repair.
The biggest buyer of Ford Rangers may well have been the pest control industry r…. and then…. they decided the most popular mid size truck in the world wasn’t as profitable enough and stopped making Rangers thinking everyone would buy F-150’s instead, but they’re too high to work out of easily.
So, companies bought Toyota Tacoma’s and other foreign models that fit their needs. Then they realized how insane that decision was years later and then decided manufactured one with a short bed…. and electric….. that no one wanted.
They totally embraced the electric vehicle scam and it cost them billions. All of which was a predictable as night follows day….. and all the college boy “experts” didn’t grasp that. What I wonder is how they’re still in business.
There is a place for ev’s, just not mainstream, ever. Until they can replace a dead battery in less than 10 minutes for less than $50 they are a total waste of resources.
Why should Ford have to go and reinvent the Edsel again?
The inherent stupidity and intensional waste that democrat policies create, are never used to hold them to account. There should be a heavy case-load of democrat politicians being made to pay-the-price for ramming “green” (not) technology down the throats of Americans. Everything that they influence ends in failure.