Ford killing F-150 EV pickup, warns of whopping $19.5B writedown | Latest Tech News
Ford Motor said Monday it should take a $19.5 billion writedown and is killing a number of electric-vehicle fashions, in the most dramatic instance yet of the auto industry’s retreat from battery-powered fashions in response to the Trump administration’s insurance policies and weakening EV demand.
The Dearborn, Mich.-based company said it should stop making the F-150 Lightning in its electric vehicle kind, but will pivot to producing an extended-range electric model, a model of a hybrid vehicle called an EREV, which makes use of a gas-powered generator to recharge the battery. The company is also scrapping a next-generation electric truck, codenamed the T3, as effectively as deliberate electric industrial vans.
“When the market really changed over the last couple of months, that was really the impetus for us to make the call,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told GWN in an interview.
Ford said it should stop making the F-150 Lightning in its electric vehicle kind, but will pivot to producing an extended-range electric model Getty Images
Ford said it should pivot arduous into fuel and hybrid fashions, and finally rent 1000’s of staff, even though there will probably be some layoffs at a collectively owned Kentucky battery plant in the close to time period. The company expects its global combine of hybrids, extended-range EVs and pure EVs to attain 50% by 2030, from 17% today.
Ford will unfold out the writedown, taken primarily in the fourth quarter and persevering with through next yr and into 2027, the company said. About $8.5 billion is expounded to canceling deliberate EV fashions. Around $6 billion is tied to the dissolution of a battery three way partnership with South Korea’s SK On, and $5 billion on what Ford called “program-related expenses.”
The automaker also raised its 2025 steerage for adjusted earnings before taxes and curiosity, to about $7 billion, up from a earlier vary of $6 billion to $6.5 billion.
Ford shares rose about 1% in after-hours trading.
Trump insurance policies reshape EV market
Ford’s shift displays the auto industry’s response to waning demand for battery-powered fashions, after car corporations plowed lots of of billions of {dollars} into EV investments early this decade. The outlook for electrics dimmed considerably this yr as President Trump’s insurance policies yanked federal assist for EVs and eased tailpipe-emissions guidelines, which may encourage carmakers to promote more gas-powered vehicles.
US gross sales of electric autos fell about 40% in November, following the September 30 expiration of a $7,500 shopper tax credit, which had been in place for more than 15 years to stoke demand. The Trump administration also included in the huge tax and spending invoice that handed in July a freeze on fines that automakers pay for violating fuel-economy rules.
“When the market really changed over the last couple of months, that was really the impetus for us to make the call,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told GWN. REUTERS
The F-150 Lightning rolled off meeting strains beginning in 2022 with a lot fanfare – comic Jimmy Fallon wrote a music about the truck. Ford elevated manufacturing of the model to meet an inflow of 200,000 orders, but gross sales haven’t saved tempo. The company bought 25,583 Lightnings through November of this yr, a 10% lower from the prior-year period.
The successor to the F-150 Lightning, the T3 truck, was supposed to be constructed ground-up for manufacturing at a new advanced in Tennessee, and be a core half of Ford’s second-generation EV lineup. Ford is now changing manufacturing of the EV pickup with new gas-powered vans beginning in 2029 at the Tennessee manufacturing unit.
Ford successfully killed everything of its announced second-generation of EV fashions with Monday’s announcement. For its future EV lineup, the company is shifting focus to more inexpensive EV fashions, conceived by a so-called skunkworks staff in California. The first model from that staff is slated to be priced at about $30,000 and go on sale in 2027. This midsize EV truck is being constructed at Ford’s Louisville plant.
“Rather than spending billions more on large EVs that now have no path to profitability, we are allocating that money into higher-returning areas,” said Andrew Frick, head of Ford’s fuel and electric-vehicle operations.
Ford successfully killed everything of its announced second-generation of EV fashions with Monday’s announcement REUTERS
GM and Stellantis also scale back
The latest dropoff in US EV gross sales leaves automakers that hurried electric fashions to market competing over a shrinking pool of consumers. Like Ford, many conventional automakers are rotating back to fuel and hybrid fashions, while narrowing their EV choices to shore up losses in that space.
That may go away pure-play EV makers like Tesla and Rivian with an alternative to take market share, albeit from a smaller complete, analysts have said.
General Motors took a $1.6 billion charge in October as it adjusted its EV manufacturing unit plans, and warned that it might possible take more expenses in the future. Stellantis has also backtracked on some of its EV plans, axing a scheduled electric Ram pickup truck and leaning into hybrids.
Some conventional automakers’ transfer to hybrids follows the lead of Toyota Motor, the longtime market chief on hybrid fashions, which emphasised the technology even during the industry’s EV euphoria.
Last yr, Ford canceled a three-row electric SUV, a transfer that it said at the time would value it up to $1.9 billion. The automaker said Monday it now expects to be profitable on its EV business by 2029.
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