Ford CEO Jim Farley is warning that Europe could undermine its own carmakers if it keeps setting ambitious EV rules and then backing away from them when buyers do not follow
That stop-start approach, he says, leaves automakers designing products and plants for targets that may not stick, all while dealing with tariffs, content rules and rising costs.
He says they need to invest heavily in EVs if they don’t want to get dominated by China. And apparently he thinks that setting ambitious regulatory goals for EVs only to back off before they take effect is harming their ability to compete.
And yet, he also lobbied hard for Trump to cut fuel efficiency standards. Funny how that works.
He probably wants to leave the European market and knows that EVs will be a hard sell in the US for some time. Especially with none US car makers not focusing on massive trucks.
My, the title really kind of buries the lede. He’s making a fairly salient point.
It’s weird because I feel like I see a lot of solid points from him on EVs and yet I don’t feel like I see a lot of leadership from Ford in the EV space, and missteps in their rollouts. I’ve driven the Lightning and Mach E, great cars in many ways, but still expensive (although I remember the work truck variant of the Lightning was actually slightly less expensive than a comparable ICE vehicle). They spent a lot of money on electric and then haven’t pushed farther.
It’s one area where I wonder if they would do better as a private company, not beholden to investors who want results this quarter.
Roughly translated to: Make our mega company more money, get saddled with less competition and choice, do not follow free market principles unless we say so."
In a normal market innovation wins.
