As we've been reporting today, Ford is said to be preparing to cut as many as eight thousand jobs in the coming weeks. We told the automakers trying to boost profits to fund its investments in electric vehicles. Joining us now with more is Keith Norton. He's Bloomberg Auto reported in Detroit. So, Keith, where is the acts going to
fall for Ford? Well, it will be broadly with salaried workers, not the factory workers, but the white color folks, and much of it will come from this new division that Ford created called Ford Blue, which is their internal combustion engine vehicles, the traditional gas burners. UM CEO Jim Farley wants to lower costs by three billion, and he wants his traditional vehicles to make more money so they can
fund their very large electric vehicle ambitions. So, Keith, if you look at eight thousand jobs, do we know how that may translate into a dollar amount of me what would the cost savings be on a job reduction of that magnitude? You know, it'll be a big chunk of that three billion that they're going after for sure. That is the quickest way to you know, hit a cost target that large is to eliminate people and just you know, to put it in context, Ford has US salary workers.
It has over salary workers in North America. This is where most of these cuts will be coming. That's a big chunk of the salary workforce. So has for progressing in this pivot from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. So far, its first couple of models have been very promising. The first one that came out last year was the electric Mustang Mache, which is kind of a crossover sport
utility vehicle that has sold very well. UM. It put forward second a distant second behind Tesla in the United States last year, where they remain through the first half of this year. UM. And then the second big e V they have is uh F one fifty lightning pickup truck, which just debuted in May. They had two hundred thousand pre reservations for that. UM they have very high demand. Their their EV sales were up year over year in
June by seventy six percent. Admittedly, ak lood base, you know, it's it's a different UM magnitude altogether than where test was at right now. But Jim Farley, the CEO, says he wants to catch them and surpass them. Yeah. When I think of Ford Trucks, I think the commercial division two. I mean, that's a pretty big part of their business. Do you think can we see a path for Ford to kind of move into e V trucks in the near term, so it's not just focused on kind of
the consumer. Absolutely, that's a big part of their strategy because Ford is a leader in commercial vehicles far and away, leader in things like pickup trucks and vans, and that's its third electric vehicle. It's transit van also now comes in an electrified version. The ideas they're electrifying the vehicles are already strong sellers for them and um and they feel that gives them a built in market as they
roll them out. We have from a tast a little earlier today, and one of the points that was made on that coal was that it's done okay navigating round supply chain difficulties. Has Ford been coping with the supply chain issues? You know, it has waxed and wayne for them. They were hit very hard last year and then the first quarter of this year, particularly in their cash cow, the F series pickup truck, which makes them most of their money. But then they did better in the second quarter.
In the United States. They actually had a small one point eight percent sales improvement in the second quarter and a very strong June. So um, they seem to be improving the situation, but like the rest of the industry, they won't be out of this supply shortage for a long time to come. Yeah, and that's really been showing up mostly on the semiconductor side, but I'm curious on the battery side. Is Forward partnering with anyone to make lithium batteries that would be used in these evs? Yeah,
so they are. They have a partnership with sk Innovation of South Korea. They're building three battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky and the new Electric Vehicle fuck factory in Tennessee, and that's an eleven point four billion dollar project, those four factories. So that that's the way they've been doing it.
Bloom Bigger is also reported that they might begin receiving batteries from atl the Chinese battery suppliers, So that's a that's a big part of the e V emerging e V races who can lay their hands on the most battery supply, So how's the outlook looking for forward for the second half? You know, pretty good. As I said,
the chip supply situation is improving. They still have very strong selling traditional U internal combustion engine vehicles like the Bronco SUV UH and they have waiting lists for those models so um and they have focused to their efforts on the higher profit vehicles SUVs and trucks, and that is turning out to be a good strategy for them. What do we know about the way that Ford thinks about incentive programs that may be sponsored by the government,
is that does that get baked into their projections? I mean, are they looking at what Washington is doing to try to encourage the adoption of more electric vehicles? For sure? And they definitely support things like the tax credit that you get pro buying an e V so so absolutely they support that. They feel the government has to play a role in trying to nurture the market and also in trying to establish a charging infrastructure in this country.
You know, if you look at a five year chat of folds US, it's going sideways or really it's up eight percent in the past five years. I mean, what needs to happen to break it out of this trading range is e vs. The onst to this. Yeah, if you look at a more narrow range. Since Jim Farley became CEO in October of the stock has has been up that more than doubled last year. It was the
biggest gainer among all automakers last year. This year it has been down you know, almost um as, which is more than the s course, but it's also part of the whole sector being down, including players like Tesla, because of concerns over inflation and the supply snarls that have really, um you know, bedeviled the industry. So it kind of waxes in Waynes. It certainly is down at the moment. Keith cud stuff, thank you so much for being with us.
Keith not in Bloomberg Auto reporter in Detroit talking about the news has broke today. Ford Motor preparing to cut as many as eight thousand jobs in the coming week. They're trying to raise some money, uh well, to basically fund their investment in the electric vehicles