Consensus Is Building to Fight Climate Change, Ford Survey Finds

• Ford’s chief futurist says the worldwide survey of 16,000 people reveals 69% say all-electric vehicles are the future (compared to 59% in the US, alone).
• Globally, 47% of the respondents agree that people should drive EVs, but just 4% drive EVs themselves, and 35% say people should drive hybrids and 8% actually do so. (Ford F-150 Lightning is pictured above at a consumer test driving clinic in Dearborn, Michigan.)
• Some 73% of those surveyed worldwide “worry about not having enough infrastructure to support EVs.”

It is important to “actively fight climate change today,” said 84% of people polled globally for the Further With Ford 2024 trends report, which this year carries the theme, ‘Charting My Path.’

The number is 77% in the United States and Australia on the low end, with 93% in China on the high end, Ford’s chief futurist, Jennifer Brace, said in a Society of Automotive Analysts webinar Thursday.

More from the annual survey of 16,000 respondents—“not focused on Ford customers,” according to Brace—from the general population of 16 countries: 69% say all-electric vehicles are the future.

US is third-lowest on this question, at 59%, above only France (47%) and Germany (50%). For the oil-rich Middle East, 78% expect EVs to take over some day.

What does this mean for the recent downshift in Ford’s transition to EVs, placing more emphasis on plug-in hybrids for the interim?

These results are designed to give the automaker a bird’s eye view of what is happening around the world, a scan of consumer sentiment and identity shifts, Brace explained.

Like most corporate futurist studies at a variety of corporations since early in the industrial revolution, the annual Further with Ford survey is designed to map out where the world is heading, not to give the company specific direction on how to plan for the changes. But ‘Charting My Path’ does back up Ford’s recent EV-to-PHEV downshift.

Globally, 47% of the respondents agree that people should drive EVs, but just 4% drive EVs themselves, and 35% say people should drive hybrids and 8% actually do so.

“The hope is that these are people who are willing to do that,” Brace said of that 47% and 35%, and she expects many