Ford CEO Jim Farley believes an all-electric line-up is "hard to imagine"

Ford’s electrification strategy is unlikely to deviate from its preset path, despite a surge in demand for its electric vehicles in the United States.

The Blue Oval’s CEO Jim Farley has said the American manufacturer still has a sizeable market to cater for with its internal combustion engine-powered vehicles, something which is holding back the brand from going all-electric in its home market over the next decade.

In an interview with Automotive News, Farley told the publication Ford’s unique customer base made it tricky for it to accelerate its electrification strategy to come into play over the next decade, with a small portion of the market dictating what happens for the company as a whole.

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“We have a lot of rural customers at Ford that a lot of other brands don’t have,” said Farley.

“We have Super Duty customers who do heavy-duty towing: horse trailers, people in the energy business who are towing big-time loads over very long distances. It’s hard for me to imagine that all those customers will go electric in the next 10 years.

“They’re actually as interested in the technology as anyone, it’s just their use case is different than how we’ve designed the vehicles so far. It does feel, at least for Ford, the transition’s happening faster than we thought. But again, it’s the first inning of a maybe nine-inning game.”

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While U.S. President Joe Biden has been pushing for American manufacturers to agree on a 50 per cent production volume target for electric vehicles by 2030, Ford’s worldwide target remains at 40 per cent by the same year, in line with Farley’s prediction of rural customer adoption.

The reveal of the F-150 Lightning earlier this year has seen Ford receive just under 200,000 reservations for the electric pick-up in the United States, with production targets increased from 40,000 to 80,000 by 2025 thanks to an extra AU$1.173 billion in investment.

This added investment pales in comparison to the money Ford is spending on its ‘Blue Oval City’ manufacturing facility for electric pick-ups and batteries, with Ford and SK Innovation expecting to invest AU$15.7bn in the new facilities, opening in 2025 for the launch of the second-generation F-150 Lightning.

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In Australia, the local arm of Ford has been tight-lipped on its electrification strategy, telling WhichCar in October it plans to introduce five electrified vehicles by 2025 but wouldn’t specify whether they will be fully-electric or hybrids.

Out of the five vehicles set to come to Australia, the two confirmed so far are the fully-electric E-Transit van and the Escape plug-in hybrid, although it’s expected a hybrid variant of the new Ranger will also bolster the line-up before the 2025 cut-off date.