Elon Musk's electric vehicle manufacturing company Tesla remains the U.S. leader in EV production and sales and has grand plans to ramp up production of its vehicles by the end of the decade.
Tesla (TSLA) set a record in producing 1.37 million of EVs in 2022 and delivering 1.31 million, but Musk and the company are not satisfied with that volume. Tesla's four EV manufacturing plants located in the U.S, China and Germany currently have a combined 1.9 million units vehicle capacity, but will have to crank up development of several new manufacturing plants if it plans to reach Musk and Tesla's goal of producing 20 million EVs by 2030.
Ford (F) finished 2022 with 61,575 total EVs sold in the No. 2 position behind Tesla in sales. The competition has continued to heat up between the two companies with the latest battle being a price war.
Ford on Jan. 30 cut prices by 8.4% on its all-electric Mustang Mach-E extended-range GT, slashing the cost by $5,900 to $63,995. Tesla on Jan. 12 cut prices on all of its EVs from 7% to 20%, but on Feb. 4, the company reversed course and raised the prices of its Model Y SUV/Crossover by 2% to 3%. It also raised its price of the Model Y Long Range by 2.8% and the Model Y performance increased 1.75%.
Ford
Ford Ramping Up EV Production Capacity
Ford has a reputation of having the most popular internal combustion engine pickup truck in the F-150 for many years. Telsa is making noise about launching production of its Cybertruck EV later this year, but it will run up against heated competition with Ford.
Ford's F-150 Lightning EV has been America's best selling electric pickup since it launched in April 2022, and along with the Mustang Mach-E and the E-Transit electric van, the Dearborn, Mich., EV maker says it is on track to increase production capacity to 50,000 EVs per month or 600,000 vehicles globally by the end of 2023, the company's CEO Jim Farley said on Ford's fourth quarter earnings call according to Motley Fool.
"At this point in our journey, I did not expect to be No. 2 in EV sales in the U.S. I didn't know that Lightning would be completely sold out," Farley said in the earnings call.
The Ford CEO said the automaker plans to continue expanding capacity of its EVs with a goal of reaching 2 million capacity for all-electric vehicles annually by the end of 2026. To reach that goal, he said the company is adding shifts and expanding facilities to build out new battery capacity and assembly capacity.
The company is currently building its BlueOval City battery and vehicle manufacturing plant in Stanton, Tenn., which it plans to open in 2025, as well as its new BlueOval SK Battery Park in Kentucky. The company also expects by the end of this year to secure 100% of the raw materials it needs to produce 2 million vehicles per year, Farley said.
Ford Developing Its Second-Generation EVs
"Now, we are deep in the development of our second-generation EVs, including our next-generation electric full-size pickup, which, by the way, is awesome," Farley said.
Ford is developing brand-new electric architecture for its EVs that is going to be radically simplified and fully software-updatable. The EVs will have three body styles, each with volume potential of up to 1 million units and just a handful of orderable combinations, Farley said.
