Ford has revealed that it will double its investment in electric vehicles through 2025 while also increasing investments into autonomous vehicles.
In early 2018, Ford committed to spending $11.5 billion on electrifying its lineup through 2022, but has now confirmed it will increase this investment to $22 billion through 2025, including the $7 billion it has already spent on EV endeavors since 2016, and will also spend $7 million in autonomous vehicles.
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According to The Verge, Ford confirmed during its Q4 earnings call that the majority of the models it will produce will be battery-electric vehicles, but the company also has hybrids and plug-in hybrids. Chief executive Jim Farley said that the additional EV investment does not include the potential from vertically integrating EV battery cell production, an area that Ford has been exploring.
As for the $7 billion being invested into autonomous technologies, Ford chief financial officer John Lawler said it includes spending on Argo AI and the planned launch of autonomous commercial services in 2022.
Ford reported a $1.3 billion net loss in 2020 but revealed that its fourth-quarter earnings before interest and taxes more than tripled to $1.9 billion from the fourth quarter of 2019. Of this figure, $1.1 billion was generated in North America, a 53 per cent increase from the same quarter of 2019. However, Auto News reports that Ford lost money in all other overseas business units in Q4 apart from Europe, where it earned $414 million.
Ford’s fourth-quarter net loss include its $610 million Takata airbag recall, $1.5 billion related to remeasurement of pension plans, and $2.5 billion as part of its withdrawal from manufacturing in Brazil.
