“The biggest issue we have in our Gen 1 vehicles, of course, is that the revenue collapsed, and they’re not optimized from a cost standpoint,” commented John Lawler, CFO of Ford. Lawler added that Ford would continue improving the cost structure of Gen 1 EVs and wouldn’t launch Gen 2 cars “unless we can get to a profit and return on that capital.”
Farley noted that Ford will invest less capital in large electric vehicles. Still, he said that Gen 2 replacements for products like the F-150 Lightning and E-Transit will be more efficient and bristling with innovative design and features.
“All of our EV teams are ruthlessly focused on cost and efficiency in our EV products because the ultimate competition is going to be the affordable Tesla and the Chinese OEMs,” said the CEO. If we had to guess, we expect the low-cost platform to initially underpin a small crossover that would slot beneath the Mach-E and target an MSRP of between $30,000-$40,000.
