First up, Fox Business, July 29, with the numbers:
Ford set to lose $4.5 billion on electric vehicles this year, despite increased revenueFord recently dropped the price of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck
Ford Motor Company announced it is projected to lose a whopping $4.5 billion from electric vehicles (EVs) this year, up from the previous projected loss of $3 billion.
The company released its second-quarter financial results on Thursday. The U.S.-based automaker's EV division, called "Ford Model e," has lost $1.8 billion so far this year, according to Fortune.
The projected $4.5 billion loss is over twice as much as Model e's $2.1 billion loss in 2022. The company recently announced that the price of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup trucks will be reduced due to cheaper raw battery materials.
The company touted that its low EV prices "establish[es] leadership ahead of industry’s next-generation EVs" and that the Ford Model e's revenue is up 39%. Ford is also expected to produce 600,000 EVs per year by 2024.....
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And the analysis from Robert Bryce's substack (Energy, power, innovation, and politics; the usual), July 27:
Unplugged: Ford Lost $72,762 For Every EV It Sold In Q2
“Moment of truth” hits as EV sales fall, costs soar.
A few weeks ago, Mark Fields, the former CEO of Ford Motor Company, during an interview on CNBC, said that the "moment of truth" for electric vehicles was arriving. Fields, who headed the Dearborn-based automaker from 2014 to 2017, said that "it's harder for consumers to charge your vehicle than to fill up a tank of gas right now, and that's weighing heavily.”
On Thursday afternoon, Fields’s prediction was confirmed when Ford reported a $1.08 billion operating loss on its EV business during the second quarter. During that span, Ford sold 14,843 EVs. That means Ford lost about $72,762 for each EV it sold. That’s an even bigger loss than what the company saw during the first quarter and they portend even bigger losses ahead. Ford lost $2.1 billion in its EV business in 2022. And as I explained here in May:
Ford’s 2022 losses were only a warm-up lap. Yesterday afternoon, Ford reported a $722 million loss on its EV business over the first three months of 2023. During that span, Ford sold 10,866 EVs, meaning it lost $66,446 for every EV it sold. For perspective, Ford lost the equivalent of a brand-new Mercedes-Benz E-class sedan on every EV it sold during the first quarter. (An E 450 4Matic has an MSRP of $66,700.)
During the second quarter, the company’s per-unit EV losses jumped by another $6,316. But the bad news at Ford isn’t limited to the fact that it’s losing scandalous amounts of money on its EVs. Ford is also predicting even bigger losses ahead and its EV sales are falling at the very moment the company is spending $50 billion to dramatically expand its EV production.
Why should you care? Ford’s getting a big chunk of that $50 billion from taxpayers. More on that in a moment.
Of course, Ford is trying to slap a smiley-face bumper sticker on its EV troubles. In a press release, Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley, said the shift to “breakthrough EVs is underway and going to be volatile, [sic] so being able to guide customers through and adapt the pace of adoption are big advantages for us.” From there, the spin went into 8-speed overdrive, with Farley saying “The near-term pace of EV adoption will be a little slower than expected, which is going to benefit early movers like Ford...we’re making smart investments in capabilities and capacity around the world; and, while others are trying to catch up, we have clean-sheet, next-generation products in advanced development that will blow people away.”
Ford may be an early mover. But as the old saying goes, the early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
In March, the company warned that it will lose some $3 billion on its EV business this year. But on Thursday, Ford upped the ante, saying its EV-related losses this year will be a whopping $4.5 billion. The company blamed “the pricing environment, disciplined investments in new products and capacity, and other costs.”
If you ignore the EV business, Ford had a solid quarter. It sold 531,662 vehicles, an increase of 10% compared to the second quarter of 2022 and 12% more than the 475,906 vehicles it sold in the first quarter. Ford's internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle sales grew by 10%. Ford’s cash machine, its F-series trucks, saw a huge increase in sales, jumping 34%, year over year. Hybrid vehicle sales climbed 15.7%, year over year, to 34,589.....
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I am not familiar with the mouse/cheese old saying.
For the quarter ended June 30 Tesla reported after-tax net earnings of $2.614 billion on revenues of $24.93 billion, but the stock dropped due to a margin decline. It's not easy building electric vehicles.
