The electrification rush continues with Ford announcing it will spend at least $22 billion on its electric vehicle efforts through 2025 – doubling the previous $11 billion planned spend.
The Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker’s CEO, Jim Farley, shared the news during Ford’s promising Q4 2020 earnings results.
“We are accelerating all our plans – breaking constraints, increasing battery capacity, improving costs, and getting more electric vehicles into our product cycle plan,” said Farley. “People are responding to what Ford is doing today, not someday.”
The $22 billion is part of a larger $29 billion the all-American automaker says it will spend on EV’s and autonomous vehicles through 2025. Ford points to the recent success of the sporty Mustang Mach-E, its first all-electric crossover, as a sign of the major role electric vehicles will play in the company’s future.
“The Mustang Mach-E, [Farley] said, is receiving great customer and critical reviews, and will be followed by the first E-Transit commercial van (late 2021) and an all-electric F-150 pickup (mid2022),” the earnings release states. “He added that EVs will be fundamental to the Lincoln luxury brand and the Transit commercial lineup, the latter across a variety of body styles and customized interiors.”
The announcement comes months after GM upped its EV and autonomous vehicle spending plans by 35 percent to $27 billion and just weeks after CEO Mary Barra revealed BrightDrop – GM’s new electric delivery vehicle and equipment business unit. Following Tesla, the Barra-led company is establishing itself as an American leader in the transition to electric vehicles, pledging 30 new EVs globally by 2025 – more than 20 exclusively in the U.S.
Unlike GM and Tesla, Ford has not yet directly invested in battery cell production and will need a battery cell supply to meet production volume. Additionally, the Mach-E is currently the automaker’s only all-electric vehicle. The only other official all-electric plans we know of are the Ford F150 Electric and the E-Transit – an electric version of its commercial-popular Transit van. However, Ford’s EV-spending boost means we should have more news on plans soon.