Last week, Ford launched its monetary stories from the primary quarter of 2023. The prime traces are all what you’d count on from a serious automotive model — a whole bunch of 1000’s of models moved, billions of {dollars} raked in, the Edge known as “iconic.” But inside the slides, numbers, and meaningless advertising drivel, one other story emerged: Ford’s Model E division prices the corporate a lot.
In case you missed it:
Specifically, Ford lists Model E as being 722 million {dollars} within the purple for the primary quarter of 2023. The firm tried to paper over these losses by saying Model E “operates like a startup,” which appears to only imply “spends money to develop new supply chain links.” It’s investing in factories for each automobiles and batteries, neither of that are low-cost to provide.
But not all of these losses are attributable to smart investments. Ford idled its Mach E plant in Cuautitlan, Mexico early within the yr to improve the power, which in fact diminished precise Mach E manufacturing. That’s a double hit — spending cash to improve the manufacturing facility, whereas dropping cash on vehicles you may’t promote as a result of they had been by no means constructed.
Revenue is down at Model E, and prices are manner up. Ford’s monetary releases, sadly, aren’t fairly detailed sufficient to confirm the corporate’s claims that “investment” is driving its losses—although the corporate additionally blames “spending-related expense, commodities, and other inflationary pressures.” That sounds much less like a startup, and extra like a broadly unhealthy monetary state of affairs.
Source: jalopnik.com