THE MORNING RANT: As Tesla Sales Decline, Ford’s EV Sales…Fall Off a Cliff

With the EV-loving media having recently refocused its venom on Elon Musk because of his alliance with President Trump, Tesla has become a target for the left. The media has gleefully been reporting any bad news about Musk’s electric car company, celebrating not only falling sales and financial repercussions, but also legitimizing vandalism against Tesla vehicles because of Musk’s politics.

The media has also been desperate to report that competitors are benefiting from Tesla’s woes. If you have the stomach for it, this nasty piece of journalistic bias from the AP dated 4/02/2025 hit all those marks, including the blaming of Musk himself for vandalism against Teslas: ”Tesla sales tumble 13% as Musk backlash, competition and aging lineup turn off buyers”

But something funny is happening. As Tesla sales decline, competing electric vehicle brands are not capturing the lost sales. It’s just the opposite, in fact. Legacy automakers who tried to make a big splash in the EV market are seeing their already nominal EV sales decline precipitously as the electric vehicle fad wanes. Ford had anticipated that by 2025 its electric lineup would be a major component of its product lineup, but now its EV sales are barely an asterisk, with sales plummeting from any already low peak.

“Ford’s EV sales fell by 40% in April and now it’s adjusting plans for another major project” [Elektrek – 5/01/2025]

Despite higher sales of internal combustion (ICE) and hybrid vehicles, Ford sold significantly fewer electric vehicles last month. Ford sold 4,859 fully electric vehicles in April, which is nearly 40% less than the 8,019 sold in April 2024.

“Despite?” Is that the correct word to use here? It reminds me of the infamous Fox Butterfield stories from the NY Times, which had comically obtuse headlines along the lines of, “Despite record incarceration, crime rates are down.”

Anyhow, “despite” people buying more gasoline powered (“ICE”) vehicles in April, Ford’s electric vehicle sales fell off a metaphorical cliff.

All three of Ford’s electric vehicles —the F-150 Lightning, Mustang Mach-E, and E-Transit —had double-digit sales declines last month. Ford sold 2,927 Mach-Es (-40%), 1,740 F-150 Lightnings (-17%), and just 192 E-Transit vans in April (-81%).

Ford’s 4,859 EV sales amounted to just 2.3% of the company’s total sales in April. Yet CEO Jim Farley and nepot destructor Bill Ford remain committed to perpetuating the failed Model E-dsel efforts, despite multi-billion dollar EV losses continuing, with no end in sight.

Aside from its existing – and underutilized - EV manufacturing plants, Ford built a massive new plant (“Blue Oval City”) near Memphis to assemble 500,000 electric pickup trucks per year. The plant was supposed to be open by now, but it has been mothballed until at least 2027. There is little prospect for it ever opening, as Ford’s April electric pickup sales annualize to less than 21,000 units per year, and the sales trajectory is downward from here.

Meanwhile, Ford’s Q1 2025 profit also plunged, as the ongoing EV losses continue to soak up a majority of the company’s ICE profits.

“Ford’s First-Quarter Profit Drops 64%; Suspends Outlook” [WSJ – 5.05.2025]

Production halts and an unprofitable EV business nearly wiped out Ford Motor’s net profit in the first quarter, the company said Monday. Ford reported net income of $471 million, down from $1.3 billion a year earlier. Revenue fell to $40.7 billion, down from $42.8 billion in the first quarter of 2024.

Ford would have made $1.3 billion in Q1 2025 had its disastrous EV division not racked up another $849 million loss, pulling quarterly profit down to $471 million. Ford has been losing about $5 billion per year on its EV operations, and there is no realistic possibility for this division to become profitable, especially with the Trump administration working to eliminate the EV tax rebates that have been part of Ford’s EV business plan.

In February of this year, Ford was projecting that its EV business would lose another $5.5 billion in 2025. As noted in the headline of that Wall Street Journal story above, Ford is now having to suspend its previous 2025 outlook because things are getting worse.

CEO Jim Farley actually had the audacity to start blaming Donald Trump for Ford’s woes: “Ford pulls guidance, warns it will take $1.5 billion hit from Trump's tariffs” [Reuters – 5/05/2025]

This is the same Jim Farley who flushed away $9.8 billion from EV losses in 2023 and 2024 alone, and who is about to take another $5.5 billion hit (likely more) on EVs in 2025. I have never heard Farley criticize any of the globalist, eco-communists he and Bill Ford decided to obey when they set Ford off down the road of electric destruction, yet he’s whimpering about Trump. If/when Ford decides to staunch the EV bleeding and throw in the towel on its Model E-dsel, then I’ll be willing to listen to concerns about the (much smaller) impact of tariffs.

Even Tesla’s sales woes aren’t steering any EV customers to Ford. Something that cannot go on forever will eventually stop. The longer it takes Ford to finally terminate its EV misadventure, the more likely it is that electric vehicles will bankrupt the company. Its Board of Directors has got to take action to stop the bleeding since Jim Farley and Bill Ford clearly won’t. If Ford’s Directors will not stop the EV bleeding, shareholders will have a legitimate reason to consider bringing a shareholder derivative lawsuit against Ford’s directors and executives for their fiduciary negligence. On whosever behalf Jim Farley and Bill Ford are working for, it is not Ford’s shareholders, employees, customers, or dealers.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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