As Ford Motor Co. sets course this year to revise its U.S. business strategy, shifting its focus to gasoline and hybrid vehicles, its leaders say don't count it out for electric vehicles yet.
Ford's Executive Chair Bill Ford said the automaker still has every intention to offer a variety of "electrification" vehicles both here and abroad.
“If you look globally, EVs are doing incredibly well and we’re participating in that and we have more EVs coming and we have a very affordable EV coming here, which I think was a big problem with EVs. They simply were not affordable," Bill Ford told a group of reporters on the sidelines of the Detroit Auto Show on Jan. 13. "We’re attacking that problem.”
Ford is spending $2 billion to retool its Louisville Assembly Plant in Kentucky to build a new midsize electric pickup expected to start at $30,000 when it launches next year. Ford made that announcement in August when it said it had developed a new EV platform that would allow it to efficiently bring several lower-cost EVs to market.
But what complicates the plan is the plummet in consumer demand for EVs after the Sept. 30 expiration of the federal tax credit allowing for up to $7,500 off the purchase of an EV. Ford and other automakers have had to reset their future product plans as a result.
