After the Mustang Mach-E success, Ford sets aside $US20 billion more to be the 'true EV leader' in America
Ford just became the next major carmaker to pile on a multibillion electric vehicle investment plan after we saw General Motors, Toyota and Lexus, or Nissan and others hop on the EV bandwagon in the span of just few short weeks. Ford's ambitions are to have production capacity for 600,000 electric vehicles by 2023 which, given the commercial success of its Mustang Mach-E electric crossover, shouldn't be that hard to achieve. Spearheaded by Doug Field, an ex-Tesla exec who oversaw the Model 3's development before a brief sting with Apple's electric car Project Titan, Ford's electrification plans amount to an extra US$10 billion investment in the next five years. Longer term plans are for this additional EV investment to reach US$20 billion by 2030 and that is on top of the US$30 billion Ford already committed to developing its electric vehicle portfolio. According to Ford's President and CEO Jim Farley:
Financial performance is obviously critical. We’re also proud that customers see how Ford is taking EVs mainstream, and have already ordered or reserved more than 275,000 all-electric Mustang Mach-E SUVs, F-150 Lightning pickups and E-Transit commercial vehicles – and we’re breaking constraints to deliver every one of them as fast as we can.
The EV efforts includes the usual amalgam of legacy factory conversion, new models development, and battery production investments. Ford's battery development plans are no less ambitious. After investing in the solid-state battery startup Solid Power US$130 million last year, Ford will now expand its partnership with LG to double the originally contracted quantities for the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning battery packs by 2023. Ford is currently the number 2 electric vehicle carmaker in America after Tesla, buoyed by the Mustang Mach-E sales numbers, but it wants to be "the true EV leader," with 40% of its portfolio consisting of fully electric vehicles by 2030. With the US$8 billion in profit just from its early investment in electric truck maker Rivian alone, Ford might just pull it off.
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