Ford to idle F-150 Lightning EV plant in Dearborn for weeks

[Maineiac12]

https://www.freep.com/story/money/c...f150-lightning-ev-plant-dearborn/75961390007/

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[TaxmanHog]

https://media.ford.com/content/ford.../28/third-quarter-2024-financial-results.html

 

[Maineiac12]

https://media.ford.com/content/ford.../28/third-quarter-2024-financial-results.html

$5 billion model e loss? Ouch. I wonder if this plant production pause is for retooling or to slow production to line up with demand.

 

[Maxx]

$5 billion model e loss? Ouch. I wonder if this plant production pause is for retooling or to slow production to line up with demand.

Or may be they increased the production earlier because sales are up 86% this year but overshot and are sitting on a large inventory.

I am curious if they can address the loss by higher volume or they are actually losing money per unit aside from overhead.

 

[The Weatherman]

Ford’s losses are due to the amount of upfront infrastructure they have built out. Overtime it will allow them to reach profitability sooner. What they need is numbers. When the demand picks up, their cost to ramp up will be negligible.

It’s the demand we need to see change.

The other legacy ICE manufacturers have yet to spend what will be necessary to meet future demand.

Said another way, Ford has front loaded their major costs for EV production.

 

[Oafy44]

Fords loses are due to the amount of upfront infrastructure they have built out. Overtime it will allow them to reach profitability sooner. What they need is numbers. When the demand picks up, their cost to ramp up will be negligible.

It’s the demand we need to see change.

The other legacy ICE manufacturers have yet to spend what will be necessary to meet future demand.

Said another way, Ford has front loaded their major costs for EV production.

while agree with you on the upfront costs in what world does it cost $5 billion in losses per year? They wrote that off last year too no? Not too mention 21-22. A state of the art building for them and assembly line would cost no more then 1 billion and let’s just say it cost them 1 billion for a battery plant and $1 billion for R&R

those are ballpark but can’t be more. You’re still looking at $7b to account for?
The Tesla gigafactory in Texas cost $1b to build so that shows you the amount of volume / footprint that gets built for that price.
I’m not saying anything you said was wrong , I’m just dumbfounded In The losses for something that isn’t their main business - say the Kentucky super duty plant.

 

[Pioneer74]

while agree with you on the upfront costs in what world does it cost $5 billion in losses per year?

R&D on new models, a battery plant in Michigan, 2 battery plants in Kentucky, a battery plant in Tennessee, and an assembly plant in Tennessee complete with its own stamping plant.

 

[Chado]

Hopefully it's because ford is bringing in more in house development for modules and software.
Tesla claims the cybertruck is already not being sold at a loss, first EV truck maker to do so.
Maybe Ford will get there one day and this pain up front will get them there

 

[invertedspear]

in what world does it cost $5 billion in losses per year?

In the "accountants of businesses that don't like to pay taxes and don't mind the bad press of revealing massive losses" world. If you factor investments in to fixed capital resources, you get to claim that loss. If they didn't apply those one-time costs to EV's they would show profit per vehicle, but that wouldn't give them any tax advantage.

 

[davehu]

remember that just over a year ago in Aug 2023 Ford announced they had just completed a build out of the plant to get Lightning's to a 150,000/year run rate. It was 5-6 months later demand dropped. This years total looks to be about 30k or about The infrastructure is built out for a demand 5x bigger. Truth is even at that time 150k/year would have been an a 600% increase in sales, a totally absurd expectation but 3-5 years from now, it's possible.

 

[Newton]

This is how it is done. Only the little people pay taxes, big people get refunds (on taxes that they didn’t pay).

General Motors has not paid federal taxes in more than a decade. In fact, it will likely not pay U.S. federal income tax for the next several years, its former chief financial officer has said.
Likewise, Ford Motor Co. has paid U.S. income tax only three of the last 10 years, based on filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Each company has gotten about $450 million in tax refunds since 2009, an economist estimated, based on the filings.
According to GM's latest 10-K filing, the company is owed $104 million as a tax refund for 2018.
The two companies have turned profits between them totaling more than $100 billion in the past 10 years.

 

[Grease Lightning]

R&D on new models, a battery plant in Michigan, 2 battery plants in Kentucky, a battery plant in Tennessee, and an assembly plant in Tennessee complete with its own stamping plant.

plus their investments into the new lithium mine…

 

[TaxmanHog]

I’m not saying anything you said was wrong , I’m just dumbfounded In The losses for something that isn’t their main business - say the Kentucky super duty plant.

Could be poorly written article too.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Though I don't have access to recent stickers to measure weekly production, when I last had samples I was projecting they would be around 50,000 trucks by early November. That could be a lot less in reality.

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