Ford to Invest $3.7 billion to Expand Production of Both ICE and EVs

By Christian Roselund

On 2 June the second-largest U.S. automaker announced that it will invest $3.7 billion in new facilities and upgrades to manufacturing plants in Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri. This includes investments in both electric models including the F-150 Lighting and e-transit bus, as well as internal combustion engine vehicles.

Ford plans to increase production of the new F-150 Lightning to 150,000 per year at its Rouge Electric Vehicle plant near Detroit, Michigan. Ford’s F-Series pickup trucks represent the best-selling vehicle line in U.S. history and customers had purchased in advance Ford’s entire 2022 output of the F-150 Lightning more than a month before the first truck was delivered in late May 2022.

Ford also plans a $1.5 billion investment in assembly for a new commercial electric vehicle in Ohio, which the automaker says it will roll out in “mid-decade.” Finally, Ford will invest $95 million in Kansas City, Missouri, and hire a third shift to produce its Transit vans. This includes both conventional and electric models.

CEA was unable to find an exact breakdown of the portion of the $3.7 billion investment going to electric versus conventional vehicles. In aggregate the investments are expected to create 6,200 new jobs and convert 3,000 employees to full-time.

Ford has a goal to manufacture more than 2 million electric vehicles per year globally by the end of 2026. This will represent nearly a third of the company’s output. However, it is still investing in gasoline-powered vehicles, with several new conventional car and truck models being rolled out alongside the electric models.

Ford’s announcement came a day after Bloomberg published an assessment stating that the global peak of ICE vehicle sales has definitively passed. In the article, Bloomberg predicted that with new electric vehicle sales taking up an increasing share of the new vehicle market, the world will never again exceed the 85.9 million ICE vehicles sold in 2017.