Ford’s search for finding profitability for its electric vehicles continues.
The Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker will make a series of changes to its line of vehicles and production facilities to focus on producing affordable vehicles that better align with customer desires, it announced Monday.
The company will also scrap production of certain larger EVs—including the F-150 Lightning, which it will retool as an electric vehicle with a gas-powered generator—as well as redouble development of smaller, lower-cost cars, including a midsize pickup truck in 2027.
“This is a customer-driven shift to create a stronger, more resilient and more profitable Ford,” Ford president and CEO Jim Farley said in a press release. “The operating reality has changed, and we are redeploying capital into higher-return growth opportunities: Ford Pro, our market-leading trucks and vans, hybrids and high-margin opportunities like our new battery energy storage business.”
As a result of the changes to its production focus, Ford will also repurpose some of its facilities, including revamping its Tennessee Electric Vehicle Center into the Tennessee Truck Plant, which will no longer produce EVs, but rather manufacture the new Built Ford Tough truck models beginning in 2029. Its Ohio plant will similarly assemble new gas and hybrid cars in 2029.
Ford said it will employ thousands of workers in the next few years to staff its American plants. After concluding production for the 2025 F-150 Lightning model, Ford will redeploy one-third of that workforce to production on a gas and hybrid model of the F-150.
Ford will book $19.5 billion in charges, most of which will occur in 2026, as a result of the pivot, including an $8.5 billion asset write-down for its Model E division. The automaker raised its EBIT guidance for 2025 to about $7 billion, up from $6 billion, and it reaffirmed its adjusted free cash flow range of between $2 billion and $3 billion.
At the time of the Kentucky factory announcement, analysts were hesitant to laud the company, warning that if Ford did not make a compelling product, its billions of dollars poured into factory changes and fresh vehicle production would be for nought, particularly as EV demand stays hot and cold.
He added, “The challenge is, do you have a great product or not? [It’s] hard to get excited about a vehicle you can’t see yet.”
[The headline of this report has been updated to clarify that Ford is pivoting its Lightning line of vehicles.]
