Ford Motor Chief Executive Jim Farley said the company misjudged market conditions when launching its first generation of electric vehicles, including the Ford F‑150 Lightning, after pandemic-era demand created what he described as misleading signals for automakers.
Speaking in an interview with Car and Driver, Farley said the surge in vehicle demand during the COVID-19 period led the company to overestimate long-term market dynamics.
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“I totally would’ve done it differently. I mean, look, we didn’t know what we didn’t know… COVID totally was a false signal,” Farley said. “Post-COVID, and during the chip crisis that was a result of it, there was such high demand for all vehicles. If you could build a vehicle, you were going to sell it basically at 30 or 40 percent higher prices than before COVID.”
Ford has since adjusted its electrification strategy after reporting heavy losses from its first wave of EVs. The company has canceled plans for a next-generation electric pickup, scrapped several three-row electric crossovers and halted development of a next-generation electric van.
Farley said the company later realized the cost structure of its early EV models made them difficult to sell profitably despite strong customer interest.
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“I guess it didn’t take us long to learn that our internal-combustion-engine prejudice was so high that we hadn’t designed the [electric] cars right,” he said. “We had a Mustang [Mach-E], we had an E-Transit, we had a Lightning, and people loved these products. The problem was they were never going to pay the cost we put into the vehicle.”
The company’s review of competitor technology also influenced its thinking. Farley said examining vehicles from Tesla revealed major design differences.
“When we ripped apart a Tesla with Doug Field, I was just absolutely flabbergasted,” Farley said.
He said the wiring system in Ford’s Ford Mustang Mach‑E was significantly heavier and longer than Tesla’s equivalent design.
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“The Mach-E’s wiring harness was 70 pounds heavier and 1.6 kilometers longer. We didn’t know what was going on in [Tesla engineers’] minds. But now we understand. They had no prejudice. We had prejudice.”
Ford is now shifting its EV engineering strategy, including adopting a 48-volt electrical architecture for future models, a move intended to reduce wiring complexity, lower costs and improve vehicle efficiency.
Farley said these lessons will shape the company’s next generation of electric vehicles as Ford seeks to refine its approach to electrification.