Ford loses $10 billion on EVs, and pivots to announce a new $30,000 electric pickup. Is this real, or some PR stunt for investor relations?

Photo above - sorry, this is NOT the new $30,000 electric pickup announced by Ford yesterday. It's the 2025 Ford F150 Lightning Platinum, at $101,590. If you want the blackout trim, it costs more.

Remember when the bulletproof $30,000 Tesla Cybertruck was revealed? Except it wasn’t bulletproof, and the base model actually costs $72,480 now.

In May the $30,000 “Slate” EV pickup was revealed. But nobody was allowed to test drive it. This sort of stunt has a bad history. Nikola Motor Corporation pulled this some trick, and later filed for bankruptcy. Anyway, the “Slate” pickup truck is a Jeff Bezos company, and will reportedly be built in a former printing plant in Warsaw Indiana. The Slate will have 2 doors and . . . well, do you really expect anything more at that price? Someone may still be figuring out how to turn a newspaper plant into a truck assembly line, because these things aren’t being seen in the wild yet.

Trumpets and flourishes: Ford announced it’s $30,000 pickup truck yesterday (see link below). Actually, Ford announced their intention to preserve their Kentucky assembly line, and invest $2 billion to make it capable of building EVs. To put this in context, Ford LOST $10 billion on EVs over the past 2 years, and few people are buying $100,000 full size electric pickups.

Okay, could the Ford battery powered toy truck really cost as little as $30,000? It’s hard to tell. There are no pictures, and they haven’t even named it yet. We do know one thing – it will have a mini-sized 50 KwH battery. Range might approach 200 miles, by some estimates. Ford spokespersons feel this is acceptable, as “most people” only drive 100 miles or less each day. And Ford recommends that they put a level 2 charger in their garage, just to have less anxiety.

Doesn’t Ford already build a $30,000 a pickup, some smart aleck will ask. Yes, they do. It’s called the Maverick. It “starts at” $29,840, with zero options. If you want it “popularly equipped” plan to spend more. The top of the line Maverick Tremor Supercrew is more like $45,000. Before taxes, tags, registration, and other dealer fees. If you can legitimately find a new Maverick for sale at $29,840 let me know.

Okay, so Ford's unnamed, unseen EV pickup, which might be available in 3-5 years, will NOT be sold at $30,000, even with it’s glovebox sized AAA battery tray. This probably isn’t going to be as tragic as the Cybertruck, which now costs more than twice as much as claimed. And the new Ford mini-EV pickup – if and when it arrives – will certainly look better than the dumpster impersonating Cybertruck.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Ford's new line of affordable EVs to start at about $30,000 | Reuters

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

Ford is facing strong and growing competition for small commericial EVs, both panel vans and builders' pick-ups like that F150, and may need move fast if it wants to keep abreast.

I did a little comparing, out of interest....

The electric version of VW's very popular 'Transporter' van with its payload of slightly below 1 tonne, is not greatly better than Ford's promised vehicle for battery capacity and range, but these are still early days yet for such vehicles and 3 to 5 years may be too far ahead for such performance to enjoy wide sales.

A name new to me is Maxus - yet another Chinese - whose E-Terron 9 electric pick-up copies Ford's Ranger and F150 in basic shape and bloated style. Its maximum payload is about 600kg - probably similar to those Ford as it looks that general shape and size - and its maximum towing mass is a hefty 3500kg. Since that is quoted in sales figures for the UK it must be a very heavy car indeed, due to the Construction & Use Regulations as they affect towing.

Yet its WLTP combined range is a promised 267 miles. It says. I doubt any vehicle ever reaches the specified efficiency in real use, certainly not carrying over half a tonne, or towing over 3 tonnes.

That class of vehicle is undeniably heavy for what it is; and a range well under 300 miles seems typical.

So perhaps whatever Ford is vaguely promising might not be very useful for long journeys on a continent with huge distances between towns; but neither are existing models like the Ford F150 and Ranger, the Maxus e-Terron and the VW Transporter. Those are commercial wagons for use in farming, the building trades and urban goods deliveries.

Among those, the VW Transporter in its many guises over many years has always been a popular base vehicle for conversions by various specialist companies to motor-caravans. I think this will continue with the EV editions; at least in countries like Britain where distances between towns are modest and public charging points are slowly becoming more numerous. Here, a 200-mile range would not be the problem it may be in the middle of America or rural France.

That some people buy a hulking great industrial pick-up or an extravagant Range-Rover as a family car despite having no genuine purpose for it, is their choice. There are even one or two in my street despite it being narrow and with no off-road parking. However, they can't complain about its fuel thirst or modest battery range.

Diotrephes · 70-79, M

Ford has been building cars for 122 years and still can't build any without a list of common problems.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@Diotrephes They seem to get some right.

Perhaps it depends on where they are built, hence the level of quality-control as well as quality of design.

Their 'Transit' van is one of their most successful lines, so much so that in Britain at least the name has become rather generic for such vans.

Still, announcing introducing a new EV fairly comparable with some of its rivals, but saying it will not be available for a couple of years or so yet by which time those rivals may well be of higher specification, seems a desperate gamble.

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