Ford Sells the Most Popular Pickups but Doesn’t Plan to Dominate Electrics
The company seems ambivalent about its coming electric F-150
For 44 consecutive years, the Ford F-150 has been the bestselling pickup in the U.S. For 39 years, it’s been the most popular vehicle of any type. In the middle of next year, Ford says it will release a pure electric version of the truck, and the question then is whether the F-150, and not Tesla, Rivian, Hummer, or anyone else, is in the leading position to dominate the electric pickup.
This is not a trivial matter. Large vehicles — SUVs and pickups — are by far the biggest sellers and profit generators for the industry around the world. The F-150 alone, with $42 billion in sales in 2019, accounted for 27% of all of Ford’s revenue for the year. The two vehicle categories — SUVs and pickups — are likely to be the biggest EV sellers, too. Thus, they are key to who emerges atop the EV race. More pertinent, if EVs end up dominating vehicle sales of all types over the next two decades and beyond, as numerous analysts expect, whoever captures the public’s imagination in electric SUVs, pickups, or both are likely to be among the world’s largest automakers.
As of now, however, the picture is of an ambivalent Ford. I asked Mike Levine, a senior Ford executive in charge of EV…
