By Ben Klayman
DETROIT (Reuters) -Ford Motor Co on Wednesday outlined plans to boost spending on its electrification efforts by more than a third and said it aims to have 40% of its global volume be all electric by 2030 in a move to have investors value it more like a technology company.
Under a plan dubbed “Ford+,” the No. 2 U.S. automaker said it now expects to spend more than $30 billion on electrification, including battery development, by 2030, up from its prior target of $22 billion. It has launched the all-electric Mustang Mach-E crossover, and plans to introduce electric versions of the Transit van and F-150 pickup.
“This is our biggest opportunity for growth and value creation since Henry Ford started to scale the Model T,” Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley said in a statement.
Ford and other global automakers are racing to shift their gasoline-powered lineups to all electric power under pressure from regions like Europe and China to cut vehicle emissions. Ford rival General Motors Co has said it aspires to halt U.S. sales of gasoline-powered passenger vehicles by 2035.
Ahead of an investor meeting, Ford also said it is forming a new unit, called Ford Pro, to focus exclusively on commercial and government customers, a segment Farley sees as a huge growth opportunity for the company.
The company is targeting increasing revenue for the commercial market for hardware and related services addressable by Ford to $45 billion by 2025, up from $27 billion in 2019.
Ford said it will also aim to develop EV batteries, from lithium-ion versions to lithium-ion phosphate for commercial vehicles and eventually low-cost solid-state batteries in partnership with startup Solid Power, in which the automaker has invested.
The automaker previously announced a memorandum of understanding to form a battery joint venture with South Korea’s SK Innovation, to make battery cells at two U.S. plants.
Ford also said it expects to have 1 million vehicles capable of receiving over-the-air software updates on the road by the end of the year, and scaling that to 33 million by 2028.
(Reporting by Ben Klayman; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
