Ford President Kumar Galhotra told Gary Gastelu of Fox News Autos that the automaker is in a good position to take advantage of Biden’s plan to electrify the fleet of federal vehicles.
Ford is growing in battery-powered cars.
The automaker announced almost double its planned investments in electric vehicles to $ 22 billion by 2025, equaling General Motors and about half what analysts expect Tesla to spend over the period, according to Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley.
But while its American EV rivals have been selling all-electric cars for years, Ford is just getting started.
In January, it had delivered only 241 of its first specific-use EV, the Mustang Mach-E, to US customers. But it also put 5,000 in the pipeline last month, and they are flying out of lots on an average of four days, even in the face of stiff competition from the Tesla Model Y.
This is partly due to an advantage that Ford has over him and GM’s next entry into the segment, and it should at least until the end of the year.
Each electric vehicle in the U.S., including plug-in hybrids, gives the buyer a federal tax credit of up to $ 7,500, depending on the size of its battery, but when a company reaches 200,000 units sold, the credit runs out again by half. before leaving completely over the course of a year.
GM – which sold the plug-in hybrid Volt and Bolt EV in the last decade – and Tesla reached that limit in 2018, so their cars are no longer eligible for the program. From Ford they are.
CEO Jim Farley revealed during the company’s fourth quarter earnings conference call that, having previously offered plug-in hybrids that qualified for lower prices and a handful of full trams, he still has 127,000 full credits ahead. This is equivalent to a taxpayer-funded $ 952,500,000 incentive program prior to the phase-out period, which does not impose a volume limit.
This allowed Ford to price the Mustang Mach-E at what it says is a profitable level, while harming competition. Its cheapest Select model starts at $ 35,395 after credit and the premium Premium at $ 39,500, while the basic Model Y costs $ 41,990. Even the smallest Chevrolet Bolt EV has $ 36,500 listings, but Chevy recently offered traditional incentives worth $ 5,000 and more.
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Ford is not the only company in this position, of course. Nissan, which was the first to offer a mass-market electric car with the Leaf in 2010, still has about 50,000 credits left before the launch of its new Arya later this year and Volkswagen has almost full value when starts selling the $ 32,495 ID.4. Both models are expected to compete in the same segment as the Mustang Mach-E.
Ford will add the all-electric commercial van andTransit to the line before the end of 2021, however, and an electric version of the F-150 in the middle of next year, according to Farley, which is expected to decrease some of its sales. in the incentive period.
In addition, Ford did not say much about what it planned for the electrical part, but Farley said it will reveal more details this spring.