Ford Plans More Gas Trucks, Fewer Electric Vehicles

For much of the last five years, automakers have been spending billions of dollars in a frantic race to develop electric vehicles and build factories to produce them, with expectations that consumers would flock to these new models.

But in the past 12 months, the growth rate of electric vehicle sales has slowed sharply as some car buyers have balked at the high prices of electric cars and trucks and the hassles of charging them, especially on long trips.

The shift in consumer sentiment is now forcing many automakers to pull back on aggressive investment plans, and pivot, at least partly, back to the internal-combustion engine vehicles that still account for most new car sales and a large share of corporate profits.

The latest example came on Thursday when Ford Motor said it would retool a plant in Canada to produce large pickup trucks rather than the electric sport-utility vehicles it had previously planned to make there.

Ford’s move comes a day after General Motors said it expected to make 200,000 to 250,000 battery-powered cars and trucks this year, about 50,000 fewer than it had previously forecast.

“After the pandemic, there was a huge exuberance around E.V.s, and I think a lot of the manufacturers thought that growth was going to continue,” said Arun Kumar, a partner and managing director in the automotive and industrial practice at AlixPartners, a consulting firm. “But the reality is that’s not the case, and it’s a smart move to make sure you’re not losing market share in internal combustion.”