It Will Be Years Before EVs Are As Affordable As Gas-Powered Vehicles, Auto Exec Says

Ford CEO Jim Farley told investors on Wednesday that electric vehicles would likely continue to be more expensive than their gas-powered counterparts until after 2030 at the earliest, Reuters reported.

While some industry analysts have predicted costs could come down as soon as 2025, Farley has taken a more conservative approach and estimates that at least two more generations of EV technology — likely to enter production late in the current decade — for labor and production costs to decline far enough for EVs and gas-powered cars to reach price parity, according to Reuters. Ford lost just over $60,000 on each electric vehicle it sold in the first three months of 2023, in part due to the high fixed costs of vehicle production.

Farley also noted that the company could monetize electric vehicles in other ways, including by offering insurance, and save costs by selling cars online, according to Reuters. The company’s chief financial officer, John Lawler, previously told the outlet that it expects to start turning a profit on its electric vehicle division by the end of next year.

The Ford chief also said he believed that “collaboration is essential” between EV makers, particularly for smaller firms that lacked the resources to construct their own independent EV charging networks and other large-scale tech systems, Reuters reported. He cited his company’s announcement last week that its electric vehicles would gain access to 12,000 Superchargers in Tesla’s charging network, and that all future Ford EVs would be compatible with Tesla’s North American Charging Standard power plugs, as an example of the “acceleration of cooperation” occuring in the EV market.

Republished with permission from the Daily Caller News Foundation.