The American automaker Ford announced on Wednesday the creation of a new entity dedicated to its electric cars, Ford Model e, while its traditional activities will be brought together under the Ford Blue brand.
“Ford Model e will be the center of growth and innovation for the group”, while Ford Blue will have to build a “more profitable and dynamic thermal business”, said in a press release the CEO of the company, Jim Farley. He will also take the helm of Model e.
A third entity, Ford Pro, is to bring together the productivity services offered to businesses.
At the beginning of February, Jim Farley had explained how different the electrical and thermal activities were to manage, particularly in terms of pace, and the rumor of a separation of the companies had been running for weeks on the Stock Exchange.
“We’ve made tremendous progress in a short time,” Farley said Wednesday, citing the successful launches of the F-150 and Mustang Mach-E electric pickup and SUV. “But our ambition is to become a big company that changes the world once more, and that takes focus.”
Separate but complementary
“We are going all out, creating separate but complementary businesses that give us the speed of a start-up and the sense of unbridled innovation with Model e, while Ford Blue will have the industrial know-how, volumes of sales and iconic brands like Bronco, which start-ups can only dream of”.
The group has also announced an increase in some of its long-term objectives: it aims to produce two million electric vehicles per year by 2026, i.e. a third of its global production, to reach half in 2030. It will double its investments in electricity from 2022, to reach 5 billion dollars (4.6 billion francs).
Ford expects to record an operating margin of 10% by 2026, with better sales, an “improvement” in the cost of electric vehicles, and a “significant” drop in the costs of the thermal sector, to 3 billion dollars.
The Renault group also announced in February that it was evaluating a similar separation of its operations, with an electrical organization in France and another abroad devoted to thermals, whose volumes are likely to drop sharply in the coming years.
This article has been published automatically. Sources: ats / awp / afp
