Media365
Ford Motor is out to prove that it has not retreated entirely from the electric vehicle (EV) race, despite the US$19.5 billion retrenchment it revealed in December. In doing so, it’s gearing up for next year’s debut of a budget-priced EV line to contend with China.
The carmaker engineered its next-generation EV to be lighter, sleeker and more electrically efficient so that it can go farther on a charge and still start at US$30,000, some US$20,000 cheaper than the average new car in America. In a social media blitz on Tuesday, Ford touted how it shrank the size of the costly battery while also extending its driving range by nearly 50 miles (80km) in a bid to field a mid-sized electric pickup in 2027 for the price of a traditional petrol-fuelled vehicle.
“You can make an EV very close to the same cost” as a traditional internal combustion engine vehicle, said Doug Field, Ford’s chief EV, digital and design officer, in an interview. “But you have to be absolutely maniacal about the efficiency and the mission of the vehicle if you want to get into that space.”
Chinese competition – which Ford CEO Jim Farley has called an “existential threat” – is edging ever closer to the US market, which has so far kept it at bay with stiff trade barriers. China’s BYD, the world’s largest EV maker, now accounts for seven out of 10 electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles sold in Mexico. And Canada has walked back certain tariffs to allow up to 49,000 Chinese-made EVs to be imported annually.
“The only way to compete with them is innovation,” Farley said of China’s carmakers last summer while unveiling Ford’s new affordable EV line. “You’re not going to beat them – you’ve got to get close on cost – but then you have to apply the innovation. That’s what we’ve done. That’s our bet.”
Farley last month spoke with senior Trump administration officials about a potential framework for how Chinese carmakers could build cars in America, but only through forming joint ventures with US carmakers to offer some protection for the domestic companies, Bloomberg reported last week.
