According to Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, the production of electric vehicles requires about 40 per cent less manpower than the production of the same number of fossil vehicles. He explained that Ford is trying to build as many of its own parts as possible for its electric vehicles in order to offset a 40 per cent reduction in the manpower needed to build such cars and trucks.
“It takes 40 per cent less labor to make an electric car, so . . . We have to insource, so that everyone has a role in this growth,” Farley said.
Farley also warned of storm clouds in the next phase of electric vehicle adoption, but Ford has set a goal of electric vehicles accounting for half of global sales by 2030, as part of a broader shift among manufacturers. He then compared Ford’s recent efforts to procure its own parts to the dawn of the automotive industry, when companies like Ford controlled the most, if not all, of the components that went into a vehicle.
Ford not only wants to make business sense, but also to build more parts in-house, rather than buying them from suppliers in order to preserve jobs and workforce.
He explained that Ford intends to create such companies instead of acquiring them. The company purchased motors and batteries for its increasingly popular Mustang Mach-E crossover. Farley explained that this will no longer be the case in the future.
The sources for this piece include an article in CleanTechnica.