Exec: Ford has no plans to make all-electric heavy duty trucks
DETROIT— FordMotor Co. does not intend to build all-electric Super Duty pickup trucks, a top Ford executive told industry analysts.
“At the moment, we do not have any plans to go into heavy duty with battery-electric vehicles,” said Kumar Galhotra, president, America sand International Markets Group, during a forum hosted by
Dan Levy of Credit Suisse.
The Ford F-Series, which refers to the F-150 and its Super Duty siblings, is lucrative for the company, reaching $42 billion in 2019. For perspective, in that one year the F-Series generated more revenue than the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association and National Hockey League combined— which was $40 billion.
Alight duty pickup has a gross vehicle weight of 8,500 pounds or fewer while a heavy duty truck— referred to as Super Duty in the Ford lineup— exceeds 8,500 pounds.
Ford has discussed publicly its plan to build an all-electric F-150 and all-electric Transit van, in addition to the all-electric 2021 Mustang Mach-E SUV. But this latest morsel of information followed a question from the Credit Suisse analyst.
“Our goal is to build a profitable electric vehicle portfolio,” John Lawler, Ford chief financial officer, explained during the forum. “To do that, we need to leverage our strengths and the scale thatwe have. We’re being very strategic about the platforms thatwe choose.”
The all-electric 2022 F-150 will be built in Dearborn, Mich.; the 2021 Mustang Mach-E is being built in Mexico. The site for the 2022 all-electric Transit Van has not been announced.