Future EVs will be “radically simplified,” use smaller batteries

Ford CEO Jim Farley has already upped F-150 Lightning production to 150,000 a year, and he’s pressing production of its Mustang Mach-E toward 200,000 a year, effectively seeing it reengineered along the way. 

At the same time, this ramp has been part of a heavy lift at Ford—literally airlifts of parts at times—that’s costing the company. In a quarterly report and corresponding financial call with analysts Thursday, the company and its top executives noted with unusual bluntness that Ford is underperforming in one simple measure: that by the cost of goods sold as a percentage of revenue, versus the competition, it should be doing better. 

Call that awareness an investment in the future—a future in which Ford is making sure its cars, and specifically its EVs, are far simpler and easier to scale up while at the same time ready to compete in a potential EV price war.