With US electric vehicle sales starting to slow, Ford Motor Co. said it will delay rolling out new electric pickup trucks and a new large electric SUV as it adds gas-electric hybrids to its model lineup. The Dearborn, Michigan, company said Thursday that a much ballyhooed new electric pickup to be built at a new factory in Tennessee will be delayed by a year until 2026. The big electric SUV, with three rows of seats, will be slowed by two years, until 2027, at the company's factory in Oakville, Ontario, near Toronto, the AP reports.
US electric vehicle sales growth slowed to 2.7% in the first quarter of the year, far below the 47% increase that fueled record sales and a 7.6% market share last year. Sales of new vehicles overall grew nearly 5%, and the EV market share declined to 7.1%. Hybrid sales, however, grew 45% from January through March, while plug-in hybrids, which can go a short distance on battery power before a gas-electric system kicks in, grew 34%, according to Motorintelligence.com. Ford also said it expects to offer hybrid versions of all its gasoline passenger vehicles in North America by the end of the decade.
Industry analysts say most early technology adopters and people who want to cut emissions have already purchased EVs. Automakers now have to persuade skeptical mainstream buyers to go electric, but those customers fear limited range and a lack of charging stations. Ford expects pretax losses for its electric vehicle unit to widen from $4.7 billion last year to a range of $5 billion to $5.5 billion this year, per the AP. But it foresees commercial vehicles making $8 billion to $9 billion, up from $7.2 billion last year. Gasoline-powered vehicles and hybrids are expected to make $7 billion to $7.5 billion, about even with last year.
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