Under the wave of smart electrification, no car company dares to neglect, and Ford, as a century-old car company giant, naturally wants to stand at the forefront of the trend of electrification. However, the path Ford chose is different from other car companies. Instead of fighting alone, it forms a team. It cooperates with CATL and Volkswagen to join forces to compete in the new energy vehicle market. Recently, the first pure electric model jointly built by Ford and Volkswagen has also been officially exposed. The arrival of the new car means that Ford's counterattack in the new energy vehicle market has officially begun.
Doing our best for electricity
As a representative of a century-old car company, Ford has long wanted to set a benchmark in the field of electrification. As early as 2019, when the new energy vehicle market began to explode, Ford brought the first mass-produced pure electric vehicle, the Mustang Mach-E, and subsequently released new energy vehicles such as the F-150 Lightning and E-Transit, with a product lineup covering It has divided into two segments: passenger cars and commercial vehicles. Among them, Mustang Mach-E will also be introduced into the country in 2021.
With hundreds of years of technological accumulation, the pure electric vehicles built by Ford have also been well received by the market, both in terms of driving pleasure and driving quality. Unfortunately, there are many experts in the new energy vehicle market. Under the strong impact of car companies such as Tesla and BYD, Ford's new energy sector failed to continue the good performance of the fuel sector.
Nowadays, there are many entrants to the new energy vehicle track and the competition is fierce. At this time, Ford dare not neglect, and it has recently made frequent moves to transform to electrification. In February this year, Ford signed an agreement with CATL. It is reported that Ford will invest US$3.5 billion to build a new lithium iron phosphate battery factory in Michigan, USA. It will hold equity through a subsidiary 100, and CATL will provide technology. Help and patent licensing support.
However, on the one hand, huge investments are invested in building factories, and on the other hand, large-scale layoffs are carried out in order to save labor costs. It is reported that Ford will lay off 3,800 employees in Europe over the next three years in order to cut costs and remain competitive in the electric vehicle market.
Labor costs are saved, but the cost of developing and manufacturing electric vehicles is continuously invested. In order to better develop the electrification sector, Ford stated that it will invest more than 50 billion US dollars in electric vehicles by 2026, and will also expand its electric vehicle lineup. It is expected to launch 7 new electric vehicles in 2024, with the goal of reaching 2 million in 2026. annual output of electric vehicles. Among these 7 new cars, 2 are brand-new electric CUV products, built on the Volkswagen MEB platform architecture. One of them is the first pure electric vehicle from Ford and Volkswagen that has been circulating on the Internet recently.
The future brings both opportunities and challenges
About Ford’s first pure electric CUV, the official has not announced much information at present, but there is news that because the new car is born on Volkswagen’s MEB platform Relationship, the new car should share many design features with the ID.4, and it is likely to be a dual-motor four-wheel drive setting.
What is certain at present is that with the empowerment of Volkswagen’s MEB platform, Ford’s trial and error costs in the field of new energy vehicles will be lower than those of car companies working alone. After all, it eliminates the need for research and development of platform architecture. Fee and time costs. You must know that Volkswagen only builds an MEB platform, which will take at least five years and more than 7 billion US dollars in capital investment. Not all car companies can afford this time-consuming and expensive thing. .
As for the strength of the Volkswagen MEB platform, I believe everyone has witnessed that the Volkswagen ID. family has good popularity in the market. I believe that the pure electric CUV built by Ford based on the MEB platform will also have good product capabilities.
In Brother Xunlun’s view, if Ford’s electric models have strong product capabilities and can ensure the speed of new model launches, then Ford is still very hopeful to change the current sluggish performance of the new energy sector, and is even expected to win in the joint venture stand out among brands.
At present, the performance of most joint venture brands in the field of new energy vehicles is not ideal. Taking the results in February this year as an example, the domestic retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles in February was 31.6, but the penetration rate of new energy vehicles among mainstream joint venture brands was only 4.2. The penetration rate of new energy vehicles of independent brands is as high as 52.9, which means that joint venture new energy vehicles are basically in their infancy, the competition is relatively low, and Ford's pure electric models have a high chance of breaking through.
For Ford, the biggest challenge mainly comes from the aggressive independent new energy vehicle companies. Independent brands benefit from strong support from domestic policies and a relatively complete new energy industry chain, and their development speed It is much faster than overseas car companies. At the same time, the cost of building a car is relatively low, and even the service channels are more complete. If Ford's pure electric models have difficulty controlling costs, then no matter how strong the vehicle's product capabilities are, it may not be able to achieve good market results.
In the era of smart electrification, the pattern of the auto market is also slowly changing. The market no longer builds its future around traditional auto companies, and consumers no longer buy cars based on theory alone. In this environment, if Ford wants to continue its good results in the era of fuel vehicles and achieve long-term sustainable development, it also needs to break the shackles, reform its products, and come up with new energy products that are both popular and popular. Only then can it win in the new era. key.
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