Ford is losing $US36,000 on every electric car it builds

US auto giant Ford has cut planned investments towards electric-vehicle production after the company’s electric-car division posted a significant financial loss last quarter – and was approximately $US36,000 ($AU57,000) in the red for every battery-powered vehicle it produced.

In a quarterly earnings report, Ford announced its ‘Model e’ electric-car division lost $US1.3 billion ($AU2 billion) in the three-month period (quarter) from July to September 2023.

It is a $US200 million ($AU316 million) greater loss than the quarter prior, and double the loss from the same period in 2022.

According to Ford, it lost about $US36,000 ($AU57,000) on each of the 20,962 electric cars it sold across the three-month period – totalling a loss of $US754.6 million ($AU1.19 billion) – despite sales of the Mustang Mach-E increasing by 42.5 per cent to 14,842 examples sold.

Ford claims new-car buyers do not want to pay more for battery-powered models compared to traditional petrol and diesel-powered vehicles.

However the company has also been unable to match the price cuts offered by electric-car giant Tesla, which has done so to generate demand and keep its factories running at close to maximum output.

While remaining losses were attributed to electric-vehicle-related development costs, Ford announced it has postponed a planned $US12 billion ($AU18.9 billion) spend on preparing its factories to produce more electric cars.

Despite its production ramp-up taking a hit, Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said the company would continue to invest in developing its next-generation models.

“We’re not moving away from our second-generation [electric vehicle] products,” said Ford’s Chief Financial Officer, John Lawler. 

“We are, though, looking at the pace of capacity that we’re putting in place. We are going to push out some of that investment.”  

Earlier this month, Ford announced it was cutting one of the three shifts at its Dearborn, Michigan factory which produces the F-150 Lightning electric pick-up, affecting approximately 700 jobs.

While Ford cited “multiple constraints, including the supply chain and working through processing and delivering vehicles held for quality checks after