Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley on Thursday said the shifting market for electric vehicles has made it tougher to predict the profitability of those models but that the automaker needs to develop smaller EVs that can make money quickly.
"I've been in the prediction business in the EV business; it hasn't been a great journey," Farley said during the Wolfe Research Global Auto Conference in New York. "It feels great in the moment to say, 'it's 2027,' or whenever it is, but it's not reality anymore."
Ford Motor earned $1.9 billion from April to June, up from $667 million a year earlier, the company said on Thursday. Robust sales of gasoline-powered trucks and sport-utility vehicles more than offset a substantial loss on electric models.
The automaker reported revenue of $45 billion, up 12 percent from a year earlier, and said it had sold 1.1 million vehicles around the world, an 8 percent increase.
Ford opened the Cologne Electric Vehicle Center, a hi-tech production facility in Germany that will build Ford’s new generation of electric passenger vehicles for millions of European customers. Ford has transformed its historic plant in Niehl, Cologne – first founded in 1930 – as part of a $2 billion investment which represents a major vote of confidence in skilled German manufacturing jobs and the future of automotive production in Europe.
Ford CEO Jim Farley's total compensation fell slightly in 2022 to $20,996,146, according to the company's annual proxy statement
Compensation for four of Ford's top five named executives dipped from the prior year, largely because they received fewer incentives. Doug Field, Ford's chief advanced product development and technology officer, was the lone named executive whose compensation rose.
Ford is looking at ways to separate its electric-vehicle operation from its century-old legacy business, hoping to earn the sort of investor respect enjoyed by Tesla and other electric-only brands.
