Interesting detail:
Ford executives emphasized that the company isn’t cutting back its spending on future electric vehicle models. But it now plans to ramp up its EV manufacturing capacity, and its spending on that capacity, more gradually than previously planned.
“We’re not moving away from our second generation [EV] products,” CFO John Lawler said in a media briefing Thursday. “We are, though, looking at the pace of capacity that we’re putting in place. We are going to push out some of that investment.”
This sounds, frankly, awful: They’re going to front all the development and then mostly sit on these designs, scaling slower than anticipated. I don’t see they have any other choice, but hoooboy is this going to be capital-inefficient.
Right? Without some internal data, this strategy seems suspicious. I’d like to see the internal math they ran comparing this approach versus cancelling some products while ramping up production as planned on the remaining products.
I suppose their internal numbers show demand is weak for all of their EV products, with none being able to sustain sales at elevated production levels. In other words, the only way they can plausibly increase EV sales is to diversify their EV product offerings with several low-volume models. That doesn’t seem sustainable.
You can’t force EV adoption on older car buyers who are already so set in their ways.
how can they postpone something they can’t execute on in the first place? i’m confused
They were really counting on higher priced EVs to drive revenue growth across the board but the consumer had other plans. GM’s average selling price is now over $50k (didn’t read Ford’s) so EVs fit into the revenue growth trajectory that Wall Street enjoys. The slowdown in growth of ev truck demand has probably spooked them.
Does the $12 billion postponement factor in the $9.2 billion government loan?
That’s a very gold question.
It’s neither dealer markups or cost. I sell a ton of brand new cars for different brands. All EVs have a ton in money off. $7500 rebate on top of rebates. A EQS you can get nearly 20% off
The issue is the initial rush of sales was due to a portion of the population ready and excited for a EV. The majority of people are not and enough are not changing their minds fast enough.
Companies overproduced simply because they had such a rush of sales. That base has been sufficed and too few people are changing their minds
WHT FORD IS NOT SAYING - Is the DEALERS ADD A $10K to $20K BUYERS PREMIUM on ALL EVs. Customers ARE buying EV/s…. Just NOT Ford EV’s because of the dealer markups AND they treat customers like SHIT. Fuck Ford.