DETROIT — Ford Motor Co’s plan to double its electrified vehicle spending is part of an investment tsunami in batteries and electric cars by global automakers that now totals $90 billion and is still growing, a Reuters analysis shows.
That money is pouring in to a tiny sector that amounts to less than 1 percent of the 90 million vehicles sold each year and where Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc, with sales of only three models totaling just over 100,000 vehicles in 2017, was a dominant player.
With the world’s top automakers poised to introduce dozens of new battery electric and hybrid gasoline-electric models over the next five years – many of them in China – executives continue to ask: Who will buy all those vehicles?
“We’re all in,” Ford Motor Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr said of the company’s $11 billion investment, announced on Sunday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. “The only question is, will the customers be there with us?”
“Tesla faces real competition,” said Mike […]
Part of the problem with demand in the USA is how cars are positioned as extensions of our ego. Equating powerful internal combustion cars with success in life and sex appeal is a slimy, manipulating, but long-standing practice. If Madison Avenue, Fox News, etc would position EV’s as the sexy choice, demand would increase dramatically. Also, ICE cars and trucks are still so much cheaper that for many, they will be the only option for some time although the number of affordable used EV’s will be increasing and that may help adoption too.