Ford Spending Big for More Electric and Commercial Vehicles

Flush with momentum after the unveiling of the all-electric 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning full-size pickup truck which has booked 70,000 reservations, Ford today said it expects that four of 10 vehicles sold globally by 2030 will be electric.

To hit this target, Ford announced today that it is increasing spending on electric vehicles to more than $30 billion by 2025, up from past pledges to spend $22 billion. The money will go to new electric models and development of its own IonBoost batteries—akin to General Motors, which developed its Ultium battery system. In both cases the automakers are partnered with established battery cell makers. Ford Ion Park is a facility being created to develop and test better battery cells and BlueOvalSK is a joint venture with SK Innovation to manufacture battery cells at two U.S. plants in the future.

Ford is detailing its future growth plans with an all-morning event with analysts. Many of those plans are centered on commercial vehicles. Ford is creating Ford Pro, a vehicle services and distribution business dedicated to these customers, to be led by new CEO Ted Cannis. The 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning Pro is an electric full-size truck designed for fleet and commercial customers (though regular people can buy one, too).

Ford Prioritizing Commercial Vehicle Customers

Ford CEO Jim Farley has made commercial customers a priority in future plans, recognizing it is a profitable area that Ford is well-positioned to grow. Ford Pro will offer commercial vehicles including the Ford E-Transit van and F-150 Lighting Pro pickup, as well as charging solutions and business services to run and optimize fleets. Ford anticipates revenue of $45 billion by 2025 from this corner of business—a huge leap from $27 billion in 2019.

“This is our biggest opportunity for growth and value creation since Henry Ford started to scale the Model T, and we’re grabbing it with both hands,” Farley said.

App Application

Another key prong of Farley’s strategy is dropping the past transactional approach that centered on building and selling vehicles. Ford is developing a host of services and apps that will keep customers connected to Ford though the life of their vehicles.

The ability to provide over-the-air updates makes it possible to fix vehicles wirelessly but also to update them and add new features and services, some free and some for a fee. These advances are possible using Blue Oval Intelligence, Ford’s next-generation, cloud-based platform for integrating electrical, power distribution, computing and software systems in connected Ford and Lincoln vehicles.

By year end, Ford expects to have 1 million vehicles on the road capable of receiving over-the-air updates, growing to 33 million by 2028. The Dearborn automaker says it should surpass Tesla’s volume by July 2022.

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