Ford no longer looks like an also-ran in the global EV race—it’s just that it has taken an alternate route
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Ford has finally hit upon an electric strategy that shouldn’t lose money. The key element is that it doesn’t involve vehicles—not for now, anyway.Ford’s stock, a habitual water-treader, jumped almost 14% on Wednesday, its biggest gain in over six years, on news that the Detroit stalwart had found a way to tap into the AI boom—sort of.
Last week’s formal launch of Ford Energy, a grid-battery business, has stoked hopes that the company can benefit from the insatiable demand for energy from data centres powering artificial intelligence (AI) tools. As with other old industrial firms including Caterpillar, which has discovered a seemingly boundless new client base for generators in Silicon Valley, Ford is pivoting to the hot new thing.It’s a sound move on several fronts, not least of which is that it helps to keep Ford’s electric vehicle (EV) dreams alive.
Ford Energy arises phoenix-like from the ashes of the company’s existing EV battery manufacturing site in Kentucky. This was part of the now defunct joint venture with South Korea’s SK On, impaired and taken over by Ford as part of a mammoth $19.5 billion write-down of its EV business.
Spending $2 billion to retool, Ford plans to produce up to 20GWh of battery capacity a year, with deliveries beginning in 2027. To put that in context, the leading US manufacturer of batteries for energy storage, Tesla, can produce about 46GWh a year at its facilities in California and Nevada.Ford’s Model e division bled money even before congressional Republicans dealt the US EV market a heavy blow by removing federal tax credits for new vehicle buyers.
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