ford CEO Jim Farley is clear about how the Blue Oval botched its electric vehicle (EV) rollout.
“I would have done it completely differently. I mean, we didn’t know what we didn’t know,” Mr. Farley said Car & Driver in response to a question about whether he would have made the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck differently.
And in response to the interviewer’s question about when Mr. Farley realized Ford had gotten it wrong on electric vehicles, he praised Tesla.
“When we took a Tesla apart… I was completely amazed,” he explained.
With Daily Sparkz you can save thousands on a new car. Click Here to get a great deal.
“The Mach-E’s wiring harness was 70 pounds heavier and a mile longer. We didn’t know what was going on in (Tesla’s engineers’) minds. But now we understand. They weren’t prejudiced.
“We were prejudiced. We went to our supply chain guy and said, ‘Buy a different harness.’ (Tesla) said, ‘Let’s design the vehicle for the lowest, smallest battery.’ A completely different approach.”
But Mr. Farley also blamed COVID for its impact on the new car market and its impact on product planning decisions.
“COVID was completely a false signal. After COVID and during the resulting chip crisis, there was such high demand for all vehicles. If you could build a vehicle, you would basically sell it at 30 or 40 percent higher prices than pre-COVID,” he said.
“And I think it didn’t take long for us to realize that our prejudice against internal combustion engines was so great that we hadn’t designed the (electric) cars properly. We had a Mustang (Mach-E), we had an E-Transit, we had a Lightning and people loved those products. The problem was that they were never going to pay the costs that we put into the vehicle.”
Ford’s Model e EV division continues to lose money, reporting an EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) loss of US$4.8 billion (AU$6.8 billion) for 2025.
The Blue Oval announced in December 2025 that it would ax the F-150 Lightning in favor of an EREV (Extended Range Electric Vehicle) version with a gasoline engine as a generator.
This followed confirmation in August 2024 that the company would be abandoning plans to introduce a large, three-row SUV, turning away from the path taken by rival General Motors with its now huge lineup of full-size electric vehicles (and, admittedly, a wide range of midsize SUVs as well).
Ford’s E-Transit and Mustang Mach-E live on, and the company has also developed two electric vehicles for Europe based on Volkswagen’s MEB architecture: the Explorer and the Capri.
In Europe, the company also offers the Puma Gen-E small SUV and a few other electric vans with people mover counterparts (the Transit/Tourneo Custom and the Transit/Tourneo Courier).
In China, Ford only offers one electric vehicle: the Bronco Basecamp, also available as an EREV.
That has left Ford behind in the world’s largest new car market, and Mr. Farley has been outspoken about how far the Chinese auto industry has come… and how big a threat it poses to players like the Blue Oval.
“Anyone in the auto industry who didn’t feel like something was going to happen in China five years ago was delusional. Certainly I felt that way. But did we know that the companies and the local brands would get so good so quickly? Absolutely not,” he said Car & Driver.
“We couldn’t travel during COVID. We didn’t travel to China during COVID. So it was invisible to us. But I remember going right afterward with our vice chairman, John Lawler. We both looked at each other after about an hour and thought, ‘Holy shit, what the hell happened?’
“Their cars moved forward well behind us. The design was beautiful. There were electric cars. Nio had a battery change. Honestly, it was just shocking. The local OEMs have become strong brands with massive support from the Chinese government.”
For several years, Ford has been touting its upcoming universal EV platform, developed through a “skunkworks” operation in California.
They will feature a 400V electrical architecture and lithium iron phosphate batteries. Ford also plans to build them using a new manufacturing approach aimed at improving efficiency and making production easier.
Instead of targeting the pointed end of the electric vehicle market, these universal electric vehicles – whose name is a nod to the Model T – are being developed as affordable models that will occupy high-volume segments.
The first universal electric vehicle will be a Ranger-sized pickup truck and will be launched in 2027. Not only is it affordable, with a target base price of under US$30,000 (A$42,000), it will also showcase Ford’s new Level 3 autonomous driving system.
Developed in-house, it promised to deliver breathtaking driving – a technology that Audi, BMW, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis have all moved away from.
MORE: Ford posts its biggest loss since the global financial crisis
MORE: Ford’s Ranger-sized electric ute has been teased
MORE: Explore the Ford showroom
