Ford Motor stated on Monday it can take a $19.5 billion writedown and is killing a number of electric-vehicle fashions, in essentially the most dramatic instance but of the auto business’s retreat from battery-powered fashions in response to the Trump administration’s policies and weakening EV demand.
The Dearborn, Michigan-based firm stated it can cease making the F-150 Lightning in its electrical car kind, however will pivot to producing an extended-range electrical mannequin, a model of a hybrid car known as an EREV, which makes use of a gas-powered generator to recharge the battery. The corporate can be scrapping a next-generation electrical truck, codenamed the T3, in addition to deliberate electrical industrial vans.
As an alternative, Ford stated it can pivot exhausting into fuel and hybrid fashions, and ultimately hire 1000’s of staff, although there shall be some layoffs at a collectively owned Kentucky battery plant within the close to time period. The corporate expects its international mixture of hybrids, extended-range EVs and pure EVs to succeed in 50% by 2030, from 17% right this moment.
Ford will unfold out the writedown, taken primarily within the fourth quarter and persevering with via subsequent yr and into 2027, the corporate stated. About $8.5 billion is expounded to cancelling deliberate EV fashions. Round $6 billion is tied to the dissolution of a battery three way partnership with South Korea’s SK On, and $5 billion on what Ford known as “program-related bills.”
The automaker additionally raised its 2025 steerage for adjusted earnings earlier than taxes and curiosity, to about $7 billion, up from a earlier vary of $6 billion to $6.5 billion.
Ford’s shift displays the auto business’s response to waning demand for battery-powered fashions, after automotive corporations plowed a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} into EV investments early this decade. The outlook for electrics dimmed considerably this yr as U.S. President Donald Trump’s insurance policies yanked federal assist for EVs and eased tailpipe-emissions guidelines, which might encourage carmakers to promote extra gas-powered automobiles.
U.S. gross sales of electrical automobiles fell about 40% in November, following the September 30 expiration of a $7,500 client tax credit score, which had been in place for greater than 15 years to stoke demand. The Trump administration additionally included within the huge tax and spending invoice that handed in July a freeze on fines that automakers pay for violating fuel-economy rules.
“Slightly than spending billions extra on giant EVs that now don’t have any path to profitability, we’re allocating that cash into higher-returning areas,” stated Andrew Frick, head of Ford’s fuel and electric-vehicle operations.
The F-150 Lightning rolled off meeting traces beginning in 2022 with a lot fanfare – comic Jimmy Fallon wrote a music in regards to the truck. Ford elevated manufacturing of the mannequin to satisfy an inflow of 200,000 orders, however gross sales haven’t saved tempo. The corporate offered 25,583 Lightnings via November of this yr, a ten% lower from the prior-year interval.
The successor to the F-150 Lightning, the T3 truck, was imagined to be constructed ground-up for manufacturing at a brand new complicated in Tennessee, and be a core a part of Ford’s second-generation EV lineup. Ford is now changing manufacturing of the EV pickup with new gas-powered vehicles beginning in 2029 on the Tennessee manufacturing unit.
Ford successfully killed the whole thing of its introduced second-generation of EV fashions with Monday’s announcement. For its future EV lineup, the corporate is shifting focus to extra reasonably priced EV fashions, conceived by a so-called skunkworks staff in California. The primary mannequin from that staff is slated to be priced at about $30,000 and go on sale in 2027. This midsize EV truck is being constructed at Ford’s Louisville plant.
(Corrects the situation of the battery plant to Kentucky, not Tennessee, in paragraph 3)
—Nora Eckert
