Ford CEO Outlines How Many EVs Company Will Sell With New Platform

[Sherminator98]

https://fordauthority.com/2026/04/ford-ceo-outlines-how-many-evs-company-will-sell-with-new-platform/

 

Quote

“Like most global car companies, it’s different by region. In the U.S., we just did our EV reset, and we’re taking a different approach, which is a very high volume, low cost EV and we’re going to go from 100,000 EVs to 300,000," Ford CEO Jim Farley told Top Gear in a recent interview. "We’re really going big on EVs but not across the board in one particular area."

 

[morgan20]

That's fine and dandy, but Jimbo's statement will only be meaningful if and only if Ford launches those CE1 products with the sales volume mentioned, on time, with high quality.

 

Anything less ain't acceptable. No excuses Jimbo when Job 1 takes place!

[mustang84isu]

Farley needs to stop talking and just deliver.  Hard to believe anything he says anymore because of all the past goals and statements that went by the wayside.

[akirby]

As Toby Keith said, a little less talk and a lot more action!

[morgan20]

3 hours ago, akirby said:

As Toby Keith said, a little less talk and a lot more action!

 

Charlie Daniels too! 🤠

 

 

[BoomerSooner]

I'm not optimistic about this line, even if Ford doesn't screw it up from the jump. Hasn't all the market research pointed to success when there's a GAS ENGINE in there along with the batteries?  Whether as a range extender (Scout) or tag-along propulsion device (Escape), the pure electric phenomenon looks like it was fueld in large part of massive tax credits that no longer exist. 

[DeluxeStang]

1 hour ago, BoomerSooner said:

I'm not optimistic about this line, even if Ford doesn't screw it up from the jump. Hasn't all the market research pointed to success when there's a GAS ENGINE in there along with the batteries?  Whether as a range extender (Scout) or tag-along propulsion device (Escape), the pure electric phenomenon looks like it was fueld in large part of massive tax credits that no longer exist. 

It depends on the price point. There seems to be genuinely strong, natural demand for more affordable EVs. 

 

If Ford delivers an affordable EV that's compelling, it has decent range 250-300 miles, looks good, has decent quality and tech, I think it'll be successful. 

[Zestyg]

2 hours ago, BoomerSooner said:

I'm not optimistic about this line, even if Ford doesn't screw it up from the jump. Hasn't all the market research pointed to success when there's a GAS ENGINE in there along with the batteries?  Whether as a range extender (Scout) or tag-along propulsion device (Escape), the pure electric phenomenon looks like it was fueld in large part of massive tax credits that no longer exist. 

Scout hasn’t sold a single vehicle yet, and Ford has multiple hybrids + is working on making everything hybrid. It isn’t mutually exclusive with this platform. Electric vehicles conclusively will make up at least a significant portion of the market, especially in the segments the platform is targeting. The issue is price, and this platform is meant to address that. If it can deliver on that part then it should perform basically like how the Maverick has.

[Zestyg]

27 minutes ago, DeluxeStang said:

It depends on the price point. There seems to be genuinely strong, natural demand for more affordable EVs. 

 

If Ford delivers an affordable EV that's compelling, it has decent range 250-300 miles, looks good, has decent quality and tech, I think it'll be successful. 

Honestly unless the vehicles suck, if they keep it under $35,000 then at least 100,000 should be attainable across the truck and crossover. They sold 97,000 EVs in 2024 at like a $10,000 higher price point

[BoomerSooner]

47 minutes ago, Zestyg said:

Scout hasn’t sold a single vehicle yet, and Ford has multiple hybrids + is working on making everything hybrid. It isn’t mutually exclusive with this platform. Electric vehicles conclusively will make up at least a significant portion of the market, especially in the segments the platform is targeting. The issue is price, and this platform is meant to address that. If it can deliver on that part then it should perform basically like how the Maverick has.

What difference does it make whether the Scout has sold any vehicles yet? The point was whether an ICE is the better investment either as a range extender or a complementary propulsive unit. Without huge government giveaways, please help me understand why you think consumer purchases of all-electric vehicles will "conclusively make up at least a significant portion of the market"? What I'm seeing suggests the opposite, even with currently high gas prices.  To me, it looks like Ford is gambling that consumers will accept (i.e., "buy") an all-electric vehicle's compromises if the price is low enough.  My question, though, was this:  whether a lost-cost, quality hybrid vehicle would be a better sales bet. 

[akirby]

39 minutes ago, BoomerSooner said:

  To me, it looks like Ford is gambling that consumers will accept (i.e., "buy") an all-electric vehicle's compromises if the price is low enough.  My question, though, was this:  whether a lost-cost, quality hybrid vehicle would be a better sales bet. 

It's not either/or there is clearly a market for both.  Saying nobody wants EVs is ridiculous.

[jpd80]

2 hours ago, akirby said:

It's not either/or there is clearly a market for both.  Saying nobody wants EVs is ridiculous.

Indeed, everything is conditional with buyers and all Ford can hope for is that it ticks enough boxes.

 

(Not aimed at you)

Remembering that over  the past few years, Ford has racked up over $30 billion in losses from products,

all of which it thought would be hits. So it’s natural for people to be skeptical of Ford’s claims re future profits.

 

Edited Friday at 01:52 AM by jpd80

[Sherminator98]

15 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

Remembering that over  the past few years, Ford has racked up over $30 billion in losses from products,

all of which it thought would be hits. So it’s natural for people to be skeptical of Ford’s claims re future profits.

 

I don't think they lost that much in actual losses, if they did, they'd be out of business. 

[Zestyg]

39 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

Indeed, everything is conditional with buyers and all Ford can hope for is that it ticks enough boxes.

 

(Not aimed at you)

Remembering that over  the past few years, Ford has racked up over $30 billion in losses from products,

all of which it thought would be hits. So it’s natural for people to be skeptical of Ford’s claims re future profits.

 

honestly, the part on the most skeptical about is if 100,000/year would actually be enough volume. It is the low end of the stated range and seems incredibly achievable, but it would probably take a long ass time to recoup the capital expenditures.

[jpd80]

4 hours ago, Sherminator98 said:

 

I don't think they lost that much in actual losses, if they did, they'd be out of business. 

You’d be surprised how much profit and cash was funnelled into BEV development,

the reason whay Ford Blue struggles with new product is $11 billion in funding was

diverted between 2018 and 2022….and then you have the side bet on mid sized BEVs,,,

On declared write downs,

It wouldn’t be the first time that a corporate has maximised its write offs,

don’t forget the whole point was not to be’fess up to being so stupid,

it’s the ability to offset as much tax as possible over the next five years.

 

From my research, about $20 billion is paper write downs on lost future earnings

while the other $10 million are write downs on actual losses and assets.

 

This last five years has been a bloody nose to Ford yet if they hadn’t tried,

I know that many well positioned critics would have pilloried them mercilessly 

for clinging to the past. My criticism has always been that Ford never found

a way to bridge existing buyers onto the benefits of hybrid and electrification,

they chose to jump straight to BEVs without ever trying to make hybrids affordable.

(Powerboost was always a way to charge more for things like on site power).

 

Affordable Electric vehicles are tricky to develop but at least now Ford has more 

supporting Assets like dedicated electric motor and drive plants and battery plants.

Even after all the losses, coming away with all of that and knowledge is a huge bonus

 

Edited Friday at 06:09 AM by jpd80

[jpd80]

3 hours ago, Zestyg said:

honestly, the part on the most skeptical about is if 100,000/year would actually be enough volume. It is the low end of the stated range and seems incredibly achievable, but it would probably take a long ass time to recoup the capital expenditures.

The total outlay on Louisville infrastructure and CE1 development costs stands at $5 billion.

The math on this will be rather fuzzy reading but no way will Ford concentrate on the $30k 

lower price point, it needs loads of those $50k to $60k builds to start recovering costs before

the obsolescence of this project sets in five years and everyone else is doing the same thing..

[morgan20]

6 hours ago, jpd80 said:

The total outlay on Louisville infrastructure and CE1 development costs stands at $5 billion.

The math on this will be rather fuzzy reading but no way will Ford concentrate on the $30k 

lower price point, it needs loads of those $50k to $60k builds to start recovering costs before

the obsolescence of this project sets in five years and everyone else is doing the same thing..

 

Yea, good points jpd80 my friend. Ford's competitors including them Chinese automakers ain't sittin' still. What I mentioned earlier about Ford launching CE1 products (and other EV, for that matter) with the sales volume mentioned, on time, with high quality can't be emphasized enough.

 

I don't want this Model T moment (or Model A moment, as twintornados said) to turn into an Edsel moment.

[twintornados]

43 minutes ago, morgan20 said:

 

Yea, good points jpd80 my friend. Ford's competitors including them Chinese automakers ain't sittin' still. What I mentioned earlier about Ford launching CE1 products (and other EV, for that matter) with the sales volume mentioned, on time, with high quality can't be emphasized enough.

 

I don't want this Model T moment (or Model A moment, as twintornados said) to turn into an Edsel moment.

 

I believe that "the Edsel moment" was the aborted 3 row EV SUV planned for Oakville....thankfully, that thing got dragged out back behind the barn and was mercifully put out of its misery early enough on to be but a distant (albeit bad) memory. 

[rmc523]

16 hours ago, BoomerSooner said:

What difference does it make whether the Scout has sold any vehicles yet? The point was whether an ICE is the better investment either as a range extender or a complementary propulsive unit. Without huge government giveaways, please help me understand why you think consumer purchases of all-electric vehicles will "conclusively make up at least a significant portion of the market"? What I'm seeing suggests the opposite, even with currently high gas prices.  To me, it looks like Ford is gambling that consumers will accept (i.e., "buy") an all-electric vehicle's compromises if the price is low enough.  My question, though, was this:  whether a lost-cost, quality hybrid vehicle would be a better sales bet. 

 

Well, Ford is reportedly working on both CE1 crossover AND a Maverick-based hybrid crossover to cover both types of buyers (though with Ford, who knows if the latter is still on, as it was on then off and back on again).

 

 

9 hours ago, jpd80 said:

You’d be surprised how much profit and cash was funnelled into BEV development,

the reason whay Ford Blue struggles with new product is $11 billion in funding was

diverted between 2018 and 2022….and then you have the side bet on mid sized BEVs,,,

On declared write downs,

It wouldn’t be the first time that a corporate has maximised its write offs,

don’t forget the whole point was not to be’fess up to being so stupid,

it’s the ability to offset as much tax as possible over the next five years.

 

From my research, about $20 billion is paper write downs on lost future earnings

while the other $10 million are write downs on actual losses and assets.

 

This last five years has been a bloody nose to Ford yet if they hadn’t tried,

I know that many well positioned critics would have pilloried them mercilessly 

for clinging to the past. My criticism has always been that Ford never found

a way to bridge existing buyers onto the benefits of hybrid and electrification,

they chose to jump straight to BEVs without ever trying to make hybrids affordable.

(Powerboost was always a way to charge more for things like on site power).

 

Affordable Electric vehicles are tricky to develop but at least now Ford has more 

supporting Assets like dedicated electric motor and drive plants and battery plants.

Even after all the losses, coming away with all of that and knowledge is a huge bonus

 

 

What's crazy too is that Ford has long been one of the market hybrid leaders behind the Toyota hybrid juggernaut, yet they've seemingly for decades now resisted pushing further into hybrid territory (until recently) - hybrid products have long been reportedly production capacity limited etc etc., meanwhile Toyota has shifted several key products to hybrid-only without losing anything sales wise.

[morgan20]

20 hours ago, BoomerSooner said:

Hasn't all the market research pointed to success when there's a GAS ENGINE in there along with the batteries? 

 

Nah, the recent JD Power EVX and customer satisfaction study said this:

 

BEVs continue to have higher satisfaction than plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs): Overall satisfaction continues to be higher among BEV owners in both the premium (786) and mass market (727) segments versus comparable PHEV owners, particularly when it comes to satisfaction with the cost of ownership. Premium BEVs score 114 points higher than premium PHEVs in this area, while mass market BEVs outperform their PHEV counterparts by 117 points. Although PHEVs benefit from improved performance compared with traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, they still carry the maintenance requirements of an internal combustion engine—cost and service needs that BEVs are able to avoid entirely.

[Zestyg]

12 hours ago, jpd80 said:

The total outlay on Louisville infrastructure and CE1 development costs stands at $5 billion.

The math on this will be rather fuzzy reading but no way will Ford concentrate on the $30k 

lower price point, it needs loads of those $50k to $60k builds to start recovering costs before

the obsolescence of this project sets in five years and everyone else is doing the same thing..

Of course, although I imagine if they start the MSRP around $30,000 for the lower trims they probably can’t get north of $50k for the highest trims. If the idea here is to provide affordable EVs, which probably means cost-competitive with similar ICE, Cox says the ATP of compact SUVs (which even tho the skunk truck is not, if its anything like the maverick it should be basically comparable to a compact SUV) is ~$37k right now. If the capex is $5 bn and the COG for these EVs out of Louisville can be like $28k (which I think is what Tesla does on the Model 3? *A lot* of guesswork here.) then making gross $9k on each EV sold at 100,000/yr puts you at nearly 6 years before you recoup investment before considering sg&a, depreciation, etc. 

 

the breakeven target is 2029, which would mean they want to do it in 2-3 years. My math is of course extreme guesswork and I ignored a lot of shit that could come into play but I imagine they’d need to be somewhere close to 200k/yr to actually meet that, at least above 150k/yr. They could be happy with those numbers since they’d at least justify the investment and replace the sales volume lost from the Escape with products presumably carrying a better cost structure.

Edited Friday at 06:09 PM by Zestyg

[jpd80]

2 hours ago, Zestyg said:

Of course, although I imagine if they start the MSRP around $30,000 for the lower trims they probably can’t get north of $50k for the highest trims. If the idea here is to provide affordable EVs, which probably means cost-competitive with similar ICE, Cox says the ATP of compact SUVs (which even tho the skunk truck is not, if its anything like the maverick it should be basically comparable to a compact SUV) is ~$37k right now. If the capex is $5 bn and the COG for these EVs out of Louisville can be like $28k (which I think is what Tesla does on the Model 3? *A lot* of guesswork here.) then making gross $9k on each EV sold at 100,000/yr puts you at nearly 6 years before you recoup investment before considering sg&a, depreciation, etc. 

 

the breakeven target is 2029, which would mean they want to do it in 2-3 years. My math is of course extreme guesswork and I ignored a lot of shit that could come into play but I imagine they’d need to be somewhere close to 200k/yr to actually meet that, at least above 150k/yr. They could be happy with those numbers since they’d at least justify the investment and replace the sales volume lost from the Escape with products presumably carrying a better cost structure.

Ford loves to use the term “affordable BEV” because there’s a lot more wiggle room with that term than say, low price.

And I’ll make the prediction that affordability will be entirely linked to a monthly payment for something a little better

being a small increase over what the base model costs. Now how that actually works, I’m not sure but it could be

linked to leasing programs to encourage take up as many buyers as possible while giving Ford dealers a ton of

off lease two and three year old program vehicles to on sell at dealerships.

Edited Friday at 08:31 PM by jpd80

[jpd80]

5 hours ago, rmc523 said:

 

Well, Ford is reportedly working on both CE1 crossover AND a Maverick-based hybrid crossover to cover both types of buyers (though with Ford, who knows if the latter is still on, as it was on then off and back on again).

 

 

 

What's crazy too is that Ford has long been one of the market hybrid leaders behind the Toyota hybrid juggernaut, yet they've seemingly for decades now resisted pushing further into hybrid territory (until recently) - hybrid products have long been reportedly production capacity limited etc etc., meanwhile Toyota has shifted several key products to hybrid-only without losing anything sales wise.

Yep, this is confounding because they know the profit is in a small battery assisting a gasoline based vehicle.

PHEVs are not really appealing to US buyers but the hybrid with a 1.1 Kwhr battery is an easy sell to someone

in a heavier vehicle than can see the improvement of fuel economy in surface roads, stop/start driving or even

at 40 to 50 mph with a bit of variable speed where regen adds efficiency.

[Zestyg]

20 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

Ford loves to use the term “affordable BEV” because there’s a lot more wiggle room with that term than say, low price.

And I’ll make the prediction that affordability will be entirely linked to a monthly payment for something a little better

being a small increase over what the base model costs. Now how that actually works, I’m not sure but it could be

linked to leasing programs to encourage take up as many buyers as possible while giving Ford dealers a ton of

off lease two and three year old program vehicles to on sell at dealerships.

You could be right, although the wiggle room in affordable + I can’t predict trim mix is why I went to ATP.

 

What they have inched around on for price makes me think MSRP of base trim will be like $32,500. I don’t see it being higher than $35,000 (the EV Equinox is already like $34,950 or something before incentives). I do think the MSRP of the Maverick probably limits how high they could put the skunk truck; if you could consistently get the Maverick for cheaper with competitive features why would anybody except Tesla conquests buy the skunk truck?

[jpd80]

5 hours ago, Zestyg said:

You could be right, although the wiggle room in affordable + I can’t predict trim mix is why I went to ATP.

 

What they have inched around on for price makes me think MSRP of base trim will be like $32,500. I don’t see it being higher than $35,000 (the EV Equinox is already like $34,950 or something before incentives). I do think the MSRP of the Maverick probably limits how high they could put the skunk truck; if you could consistently get the Maverick for cheaper with competitive features why would anybody except Tesla conquests buy the skunk truck?

The issue is that external  headwinds are going to drive up prices, it’s maddening to Ford and other manufacturers

but seems highly likely that input costs will rise significantly. That’s why I take the $30,000 starting price as a wish

rather than believing it is a solid anchor. I’m thinking that the vehicles might be on a  lease with conditional hand back

to Ford so it can control the narrative on lease payments and hand back prices….just a guess and could be way wrong as thinking affordability is highly linked to monthly payments.

Edited Saturday at 02:48 AM by jpd80