Ford’s CEO Says We Need Smaller, Cheaper EVs And He’s Right

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Apparently, there’s something called the Aspen Ideas Festival, and for the 19th year in a row, my invite seems to have gotten lost in the mail. Typical. But Ford CEO Jim Farley’s invite made it to him just fine, and he took advantage of that by letting the world know some important things: It’s time for people to “get back in love” with small cars, and that Ford will have a smaller, $30,000 EV in the next two years or so. Good! About damn time.

Oh, and he wants it to be profitable, too, because – and get this – Ford seems to be a profit-oriented company. Huh! Who knew? I always assumed they were something like whatever the Red Cross is.

Much of this was said in an interview with CNBC’s Julia Boorstin, and you can hear some of it from Jim himself here:

I cued it up to the bit where he’s talking about the large, heavy EVs that currently dominate the market, and why those aren’t really sustainable:

“You have to make a radical change as an … to get to a profitable EV. The first thing we have to do is really put all of our capital toward smaller, more affordable EVs. That’s the duty cycle that we’ve now found that really matches. These big, huge, enormous EVs, they’re never going to make money. The battery is $50,000… The batteries will never be affordable.”

He’s absolutely right: the colossal batteries used to buy long ranges for huge trucks and SUVs are heavy, massive, expensive things, and getting those cheaper, at least with the current and near-future state of technology, is beating your head against a lithium wall.

But there’s another solution! We can embrace smaller, lighter cars. Not everything has to be a huge vehicle capable of doing absolutely everything and has a 300 mile range. There’s a term that David taught me from his engineering days at Chrysler, a term that refers to the amount of energy a given vehicle needs to just move itself around: Vehicle Demand Energy.

This term feels useful because it gets to the heart of the problem: big-ass vehicles with massive, expensive batteries have prodigious Vehicle Demand Energy, which requires more batteries which increases VDE which require more batteries which increases VDE which requires more batteries and on and on. And unlike gas cars, to get more range, you can’t just blow-mold a bigger tank for an extra $5; you have to pay thousands for a larger battery pack.

These big machines are hungry for electrons; you just end up in a miserable ouroboros of battery-weight-cost.

And, when you think about it, for most of what we do with our cars, it’s absurd. Taking an F-150 Lightning or a Cybertruck on a simple, daily errand is like getting ready to go to the grocery store by putting on a helmet, gloves, body armor, hiking boots, and a backpack filled with four gallons of water, 12 MREs, and a tent. Maybe there’s a couple laptops in there, too.

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If you did that, everyone would think you’re an idiot. And yet we’re effectively doing that for most of what we use cars for. Remember, 99.2% of daily driving trips are under 100 miles. And yes, I firmly believe that going on longer trips should be easy and accessible, but that doesn’t mean it makes any sense to drag around a thousand pounds of under-utilized battery everywhere.

As Farley himself said:

“We have to start to get back in love with smaller vehicles. It’s super important for our society and for EV adoption. We are just in love with these monster vehicles, and I love them too, but it’s a major issue with weight.”

I think this is very achievable; some of us never fell out of love with smaller vehicles, and I can tell you that they are plenty lovable. A small car is nimble and fun to drive, it’s less hassle to maneuver and park, it feels like 30% less stressful just to drive around, especially in a city.

Small doesn’t mean useless; a cleverly designed smaller EV can still hold you, your friends, your stuff, and if it can have a range of, say, 150 miles or so, that would cover so much of what you need a car for. If there’s add-on range extender batteries or combustion motor solutions, even better!

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Hell, I went through my ideal $16,000 EV dream car already, and you can read all about it. I think Farley’s plan for a profitable $30,000 car is great, though a $20,000 one would be even better. Still, I get that Ford’s in this for the money, so maybe $30,000 is the best we can hope for, at least right now.

I’m just happy to see the CEO of a major automaker talking some actual sense, and not just hoping for some battery breakthrough that will make colossal batteries cheaper and lighter. If it happens, fantastic, but until then, the best plan is to go smaller and smarter.

I say do it, Ford. There’s plenty of Ford small-car heritage to mine, too: Fiestas and Escorts and Kas and Aspires – well, maybe not Aspires. Fine.

But still, this is the right path if we want EVs to actually, you know, work. And it’s not like big, 7,500 pound EV trucks or SUVs won’t exist, because of course they will – but it will be nice to have cheaper, lighter options, and, ideally, ones that can be just as fun and engaging as their elephantine siblings.

 

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Mercedes Streeter

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151 thoughts on “Ford’s CEO Says We Need Smaller, Cheaper EVs And He’s Right”

  2. Seriously!? Is this the same Ford that no longer makes small cars and their EV offerings are *checks notes* a fullsize pickup truck and a ‘performance’ SUV?

  3. If the auto industry put as much marketing effort into small EVs as they did with SUVs in the 90’s to skirt regulations, this problem would be solved.

    And they just need to shut up and build a $25k small EV.

  5. sub $20k electric car – ideally with tunable acceleration to *not* be soon hoonable – would be the perfect age 16 to 22 first car.

  6. Americans expect expensive vehicles to be big. EVs are expensive, so big is what will sell. I agree 100% we need a $20k EV. It doesn’t need 300 mile range, or zero to sixty at the speed of light. Just an regular traffic viable vehicle.

    we also don’t need all the stupid tech that cars have either. But that’s what we are “programed” to require.

    1. That is a fairly recent development. Merely 20 years ago Americans paid a premium for an e39 that was far smaller than other “luxury vehicles.” At one point people considered trucks as a cheaper alternative to a family car. Those days are not so long ago that we cannot go back.

    2. That ‘programming’ was done by the automotive industry. They convinced a generation that SUV’s were more fun and exciting than small sedans.

        1. Yes. The government regulations to improve economy encouraged the automakers to push larger vehicles and ‘utility’ vehicles because it was easier to meet the targets with them. Truly a huge government goof up and proof that the highway to hell is paved with good intentions.

  9. “We are just in love with these monster vehicles, and I love them too”

    Speak for yourself, Jim. All these ginormous machines and their exorbitant use of Vehicle Demand Energy for simple daily commutes and errands is just a complete waste of resources.

    This is mostly an America thing, as far as I’m aware. Our insatiable lust for giant, effectively useless trucks is strange.

    EV or gas, small just makes more sense. How about making some (actually) small trucks again? A tiny EV truck would be pretty great.

    1. It WAS an America thing, but our giant pickup trucks have been gradually spreading to other countries as well. A lot of people really seem to like giant vehicles for reasons I don’t fully understand.

  10. I wholeheartedly endorse this point of view. Another thing worth mentioning is these gigantor evs are hogging all the battery supplies. How many nifty Torchy 16K evs could we outfit with batteries that are used in one stoopid Rivian? Plenty, I bet.

  14. He right, but also because our electrical infrastructure just can’t handle the demand. . .and we are not getting massive, large scale investment into our infrastructure to keep up with EV charging requirements.

    Going smaller may gives us a chance.

    1. “…our electrical infrastructure just can’t handle the demand”

      25 years ago we didn’t have the cell towers & electrical plugs in airports, airplanes, hotels, and cars to handle the demand needed for today’s cell phones.

      Things change.

      1. yes they do, but unlike when you cannot get cell service, every summer people die because utilities cannot provide sufficient electricity to cool homes.

        1. Texas Power has had its share of issues too.
          Which is why putting solar panels on your roof rather than relying 100% on some corporate entity where shareholders are the customers and you are the product is the smarter way to go.

      2. Perhaps I am one of few who recalls, but my folks were the first in the neighborhood to get A/C. When they turned it on the entire neighborhood lost power for 3 days. It took years for the utilities to catch up to what was a very slow adoption of home A/C.

        1. During the fires of a few years ago PG&E cut power to my folks for nearly two weeks during a heat wave. Their house is 100% dependent on electricity too.

          Why? Because PG&E sucks donkey balls.

          1. So are the regulatory commissions, which do not encourage upgrading power lines and burying lines underground – making them safer for everyone, including during storms and fires.

  17. Electric vs. gas is not the problem here. If people cared about efficient vehicles, they wouldn’t be driving anything as heavy as most vehicles on the road. Instead they’d be driving small, lightweight cars: gas, diesel, electric, whatever. But that’s not reality for most people. Most people seem to put efficiency pretty low on the list, and instead are concerned with looks and performance and a low monthly price for an 84 month loan.

    1. Yeah, Hyundai sold a 60mpg 5-passenger hatchback priced in the mid 20k range, and absolutely nobody bought it, they sold like 1,600 the last model year it was available. It was a total disaster, all the dealers were saying it

  19. Seems weird coming from a company that stopped making cars. I never fell out of love with small cars, Ford. You guys stopped selling them.

      2. No. It is their fault. No one really thought much about SUVs until they were marketed on a massive scale so that they could sell vehicles that didn’t have to conform to fuel economy and safety standards.

    2. As a family of 4 drivers we actually own several small cars…none are Ford. We looked at a Focus for my daughter, and even with all the warnings about transmission failures, we did not buy one as the Elantra was just a better car in every metric that mattered. The Cruise has been total crap, so YMMV.

  20. “We need smaller, cheaper cars” says CEO of one of the world’s largest carmakers and one of the few people in the world able to DO something about it.

  21. > Taking an F-150 Lightning or a Cybertruck on a simple, daily errand is like getting ready to go to the grocery store by putting on a helmet, gloves, body armor, hiking boots, and a backpack filled with four gallons of water, 12 MREs, and a tent. Maybe there’s a couple laptops in there, too.

    *Looks at motorcycle gear*

    I’M NOT ON TRIAL HERE

  25. Make an EV cheap enough and people will think they could live with the more limited range and buy a second car or rent for longer trips.

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