Ford is switching gears from EVs: 'It was really the customer changing their decision'

• Ford is pulling back on its electric vehicle production, a move that will cost it close to $20 billion.
• It's switching gears to hybrid vehicles, saying it was seeing a spike in demand for hybrid vehicles.
• Ford's CEO said the change came from "the customer changing their decision."

Ford is switching gears, away from some electric vehicles.

In a news release on Monday, the company announced several changes to its EV production, saying it is deprioritizing fully electric large vehicles, which were not making it money.

"Ford no longer plans to produce select larger electric vehicles where the business case has eroded due to lower-than-expected demand, high costs and regulatory changes," Ford said in the release.

The company also plans to stop the production of electric commercial vans it had planned to release in the US and Europe.

Instead, it's boosting its hybrid car pipeline.

"By 2030, about 50% of Ford's global volume will be hybrids, extended-range EVs and electric vehicles, versus 17% today," the company added.

Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a Monday Bloomberg interview: "It was really the customer changing their decision."

Farley said that in November, Ford saw a 30% increase in its hybrid sales. On the flipside, it saw a slump in its more expensive EVs, while its more affordable EVs performed better.

"The EV market in the US went from 12% of the industry to only five, and that really, in the end, was the big decider for us," he said to Bloomberg.

Instead of large EVs, the company said it will produce a "high-volume family of smaller, highly efficient and affordable electric vehicles," starting with a midsize pickup truck in 2027.

Ford estimates that changing EV production plans is going to cost the company about $19.5 billion. The company said it will take a majority of the hit this quarter.

Ford's stock price remained largely flat after the announcement. It's up about 38% since the start of the year.

The Trump administration has rolled back incentives that boosted the EV sector, such as ending the $7,500 tax credit for EVs in September.

The change in Ford's EV plans comes less than two months after the company announced in October that it would double down on its F-150 pickup truck production. The company said that it wanted to increase production of the F-150s by 50,000 units in 2026, and would move some of its EV workers over to meet this goal.

Ford also said that it would pause the production of the F-150 Lightning — the electric counterpart of its bestseller truck — to prioritize gas and hybrid vehicle production.