Ford’s Losses on EVs Number Thousands Per Vehicle — What’s It Doing to Help Speed up EV Adoption?

Key takeaways

• Ford is losing money hand over fist with its EV division
• The company has been forced to push back its EV production targets
• Ford has a new joint venture with BMW and Honda on EV charging

It’s safe to say Ford is struggling to transition from being a legacy car maker to a powerhouse EV company. In its latest quarterly earnings report, Ford admitted it’s taken some heavy losses in the EV sector so far and moved the goalposts back for its production targets.

However, it’s also safe to say Ford isn’t resting on its laurels and is trying to help ease the transition with EVs thanks to a new joint venture it’s cooked up to help EV owners save money on charging. Here’s everything we know so far about Ford’s uphill battle with EVs and how it plans to turn that around.

Ford’s losing money on EVs

Legacy car maker and household name Ford is looking to take on the likes of Tesla by transitioning to EVs — but the move isn’t going well so far. Ford’s second-quarter earnings report revealed that the company now expects to see a $4.5 billion loss on its EV division for the whole year, up from a $3 billion prediction a few months ago.

Ford has also pushed back the goalposts on its EV production schedule, now saying it plans to produce around 50,000 EVs monthly by the end of 2023 to some point in 2024. Ford sold 32,000 EVs in the first seven months of 2023, a 3.5% increase from the year before.

Not to mention, Ford has already committed to spending $7 billion in the next few years on building purpose-made battery plants and EV manufacturing facilities while only enjoying 5% of the market share in the U.S. Tesla is still miles ahead of any competitor, with 60% of the market share.

The UAW strike is another big issue for Ford, GM and Stellantis. The union wants a 40% pay increase along with other benefits, but the most each company has offered is 20%. You can see why when you factor in how expensive the EV transition will be for Ford and other legacy companies.

Ford’s new charging joint venture

But Ford isn’t going to go away quietly when it comes to EVs. Ford’s CEO has previously commented that one of the factors stopping mainstream adoption of ‘charging anxiety’ — so it has joined forces with BMW and Honda to create a new vehicle-to-grid company.

The ChargeScape business will help utility companies and EV owners manage the increased use of mobile batteries as EVs become more popular. The idea is to harness an EV’s bidirectional charging capability to let EV owners send energy back to the electric grid — something a gas vehicle couldn’t dream of.

The three automakers have an equal share in the new company, which is set to be operational next year pending regulatory approval. Ford and seven other EV companies have already agreed to start using Tesla’s EV charger design in future vehicles so they can access the world’s largest EV maker’s Supercharger network infrastructure.

The bottom line

Ford might be losing a small fortune in getting its EV venture off the ground, but it’s moving mountains between building new factories and creating new companies to help the transition. All that needs to happen now is a consumer mindset shift towards EVs — and that might be the biggest battle of them all.