Ford Cancels Electric SUV, Delays EV Pickup

Volkswagen said this week it would wait to see where EV demand goes before building out the last three of its six planned battery factories. And now Ford has also cancelled its planned electric SUV and delayed production of an all-new electric pickup, according to CNBC, moves Ford now believes could cost up to $1.9 billion.

But Ford isn't giving up. Ford's COO told CNBC Thursday that 'We're quite convinced that the highest adoption rates for electric vehicles will be in the affordable segment on the lower size-end of the range.'

Instead of the three-row SUV or large pickup, the company's first new EV is expected to be a commercial van in 2026, followed the next year by a midsized pickup and then the T3 full-size pickup... And the midsize pickup is scheduled to be the first vehicle from a specialized 'skunkworks' team in California. The company had tasked the team two years ago with developing a new small EV platform... 'In ICE, a business we've been in for 120 years, the bigger the vehicle, the higher the margin. But it's exactly the opposite for EVs....'

Ford's current EVs — the Mustang Mach-E crossover, F-150 Lightning and a commercial van in the U.S. — are not profitable overall. The Model e operations have lost nearly $2.5 billion during the first half of this year and lost $4.7 billion in 2023. The losses, as well as changing market conditions and business plans, caused Ford earlier this year to withdraw an ambitious 8% profit margin for its EV unit by 2026.

Investors and Wall Street analysts have largely supported the EV changes, most recently sending the company's shares up about 2.3% since the announcement earlier this week, despite the expected costs. 'Overall, these changes will position Ford to benefit from growing demand for EVs, while also focusing on areas in which it has a Core competitive advantage,' BofA's John Murphy wrote Wednesday in an investor note... The updates are the latest for Ford's electrification plans, which now include a heavy focus on hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or PHEVs, to assist in meeting tightening fuel economy regulations in addition to all-electric vehicles. Ford CFO John Lawler said Wednesday that the company's future capital expenditure plans will shift from spending about 40% on all-electric vehicles to spending 30%... 'What we saw in '21 and '22 was a temporary market spike where the demand for EVs really took off,' Gjaja told CNBC during an interview earlier this year. 'It's still growing but not nearly at the rate we thought it might have in '21, '22.'

The article also points out that while Ford is discontinuing its giant electric SUV, Ford's rival GM is doing exactly the opposite:

America's largest automaker has pulled back spending and delayed many of its EVs, but it has several large all-electric vehicles on sale coming soon... As recently as last month, GM reconfirmed expectations for its EVs to be profitable on a production, or contribution-margin basis, once it reaches output of 200,000 units by the fourth quarter. A GM spokesman Thursday said the automaker continues 'to work to reach variable profit positive during the fourth quarter.'
The article also notes 'an industrywide fear that Chinese automakers could be able to flood markets with cheaper, more profitable EVs,' with Chinese automakers like BYD 'quickly growing exports of vehicles to Europe and other countries...'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.