Ford shelves plans to go all-electric from 2030 as EV boss says deadline was 'too ambitious'
- Marin Gjaja, COO at Ford's EV division, says customers are not yet 'all in' on EVs
- US car giant will continue to sell hybrid models in the first half of next decade
- We look at which other car brands are adjusting EV targets due to low demand
Ford has hit reverse on its plans to sell only electric cars in Europe from the end of the decade, the chief operating officer of its EV division has said.
In an interview with Autocar, Marin Gjaja, the boss at Ford Model E, said 'uncertainty' around EV demand and legislation has forced it to shelve the target of 2030 for ditching petrol and diesel models.
He said 2030 was 'too ambitious' as he confirmed the company would continue offering new hybrid cars in Europe beyond that date.
Ford's electric car division boss has said that the brand's plans to go all-electric in Europe from 2030 was 'too ambitious' as he confirmed that the company will continue to offer hybrids
In February 2021, the US car giant said that sales in Europe would be electric or plug-in hybrid by mid-2026, then only EVs from the end of the decade.
However, a recent downturn in battery car demand has seen it and a number of other major manufacturers make adjustments to their own deadlines for pulling internal combustion engine models from showrooms across the continent.
Marin Gjaja, Chief Operating Officer at Ford's 'Model E' electric car division
Gjaja told Autocar: 'I don't think we can go all in on anything until our customers decide they're all in, and that's progressing at different rates around the world.'
He added that 'customers have voted' via recent purchases that they are not ready for battery cars and that ambitions to sell only EVs in Europe from 2030 was 'too ambitious'.
Gjaja's comments come just days after Ford unveiled its third purpose-developed EV model, controversially reintroducing the Capri name for its new sporty electric SUV.
He went on to say that others in the industry, like Ford, had 'found out the hard way' that drivers are not switching to EVs as quickly as manufacturers had expected.
'We don't see that going all-electric by 2030 is a good choice for our business or, especially, for our customers,' he told the automotive title.
In the UK, EV sales have grown by around 9 per cent year-on-year. However, the vast majority of demand is hanging on the fleet sector while private purchases are weakening.
Sales of EVs to paying members of the public - rather than via leasing and fleet and business purchases - are down 10.8 per cent in 2024, with fewer than one in five new electric cars going to private buyers.
Gjaja told Autocar in a recent interview: 'I don't think we can go all in on anything until our customers decide they're all in, and that's progressing at different rates around the world'
European EV registrations in June fell by 1% with major markets like Germany and France posting declines of 18.1% and 10.3% respectively
This shrinking appetite for EVs means the UK automotive sector has been forced to revise its sales forecasts for 2024, downgrading electric car market share to 19.8 per cent – well below the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate's 22 per cent target that manufacturers need to meet in order to avoid being stung with substantial fines.
In Europe, EV registrations in June fell by 1 per cent with major markets like Germany and France posting declines of 18.1 per cent and 10.3 per cent respectively.
In the first half of 2024, a total of 712,637 new battery-electric cars were registered on the continent, marking a modest 1.3 per cent increase from the same period the previous year.
It means around one in eight new models that have entered the European road network this year have been pure-electric cars.
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Car makers adjusting their EV targets
Ford isn't the only car maker rethinking its EV plans.
Fiat's boss confirmed this week it will reintroduce a petrol version of its 500 city car due to a lack of demand for electric vehicles, particularly among older drivers.
CEO Olivier Francois said the new 'mild-hybrid' Fiat 500 Ibrida will arrive in early 2026 due to a 'slower than anticipated uptake of EVs across Europe'.
Fiat CEO Olivier Francois said the car firm would reintroduce a petrol version of its 500 city car due to a lack of demand for electric vehicles, particularly among older drivers
German auto giant Mercedes-Benz this year announced it will extend the production cycle of one of its biggest-selling combustion cars due to concerns about EV take-up.
The A-Class hatchback, which was due to be retired by the end of this year, will continue to be built through to 2026 as part of a more 'flexible' Mercedes strategy for transitioning to EVs.
CEO Ola Källenius has said the company will continue to produce combustion-engine cars based on existing platforms well into the next decade because price parity between EVs and petrols 'is many years away'.
Audi has scaled back the rollout of EV models due to falling demand while VW has also adjusted its production outputs due to a combination of parts shortages and lower-than-expected sales.
Other manufacturers are reluctant to push ahead with ditching combustion engines.
Akio Toyoda, Chairman at Toyota, said in January that battery-powered electric vehicles will never dominate the car market and make up no more than a third of global sales.
Toyoda said the shift to EVs is not the answer when a billion people worldwide live without electricity: ‘We also supply vehicles to these regions, so a single BEV option cannot provide transportation for everyone,’ he said.
‘No matter how much progress EVs make, I think they will still only have a 30 per cent market share.’
Left to right: Subaru's CEO Atsushi Osaki, Toyota's CEO Koji Sato and Mazda's CEO Masahiro Moro confirm the three car companies have joined forces to develop new compact internal combustion engines in a bid to achieve carbon neutrality without relying solely on EVs
In May, Toyota, Mazda and Subaru committed to bring to market smaller petrol engines to use alongside hybrid technology and adopt green biofuels to lower vehicle emissions.
Toyota, the world's biggest car seller, described the development as 'an engine reborn'.
And Aston Martin Chairman Lance Stroll has also said the British sports car firm will keep making petrol models until it is forced to stop by regulators amid subdued demand for EVs.
'We will continue to make them [petrol cars] as long as we are allowed to make them. There will always be demand, albeit that will shrink,' he said in April.
But while many car brands are pushing back plans to go electric, Jaguar is not.
The British car maker - now owned by India's Tata - is ceasing production of all but one of its combustion-engine cars as it accelerates towards the company ambition to become an luxury all-electric brand from next year.
The European Union has marked 2035 for the date it will outlaw the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles across the continent.
However, it has allowed for exceptions for internal combustion engine cars to remain in showrooms beyond 2035, granted they can run on sustainable e-fuels that are carbon neutral.
In the UK, the Labour government has already promised to reinstate the 2030 ban on new combustion-engined car sales - though there was no reference to this in the King's Speech earlier this week.
