HOUSTON—William Clay Ford and his company are banking on Americans remaining enamored with their trucks when they roll out an electrified version of their beloved F-150 truck at some point in the future. The Ford executive chairman said that an electrified F-150 truck is in the works during his talk at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit on March 12.

Ford is exploring electrification and autonomous vehicles as the company looks to do its part in helping the world with pollution control and climate change. Ford is full steam ahead even as the White House announced a proposal on March 11 to eliminate the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit as part of budget cutting measures.

“Now we are looking at new world where we are looking at electrifying the F-150, which will be a whole different animal when we are finished with it,” Ford said. “We haven’t announced a date yet but we are working on it right now.

“But we have to make sure it has all of the characteristics that people expect in an F-150 or else it won’t be successful.”

It’s one of the many changes Ford is exploring as the more than a century old Ford company looks to evolve with the ever-changing industry. Just as Ford can now see the world’s most popular truck operating without the use of gasoline, he can now see a vehicle operating without a person behind the wheel. Ford has bought into a scooter company as it looks for ways to help cities deal with congestion and growing pollution.

“It is changing and everything about it is changing, the ownership model is changing and obviously we are headed to an era where there is going to be no driver at all,” Ford said of the industry. “So people have used the word disruption—perhaps overuse of it—but in this case it’s true and really every bit of our business is being disrupted. There is tremendous opportunity in that but there are obviously a lot of pitfalls, as well.”

A major reason for the disruption has been the changing definition of mobility. When the idea of a vehicle being used and powered by oil was first hatched by Ford’s grandfather 111 years ago, mobility was about people being able to choose where they live, worked and played.

“That business model held for a remarkably long time,” Ford said. “Mobility to me has always meant the freedom to move about and kind of do whatever you wanted to do, when you wanted to do it and how you wanted to do it. But that very mobility, that freedom, was being challenged by the very things that were enabling it which were this great prosperity around the world and greater access to ownership all around the world.

 

“So to me mobility in its simplest sense means again allowing freedom, not just  no just freedom of movement but of healthcare and all of the things that need to happen in cities. There is this race now for that feeling of mobility to happen again and to remove, gridlock, to remove the pollution issue and make mobility a really fun and convenient thing.”

But knowing what’s coming and knowing how we are going to get there as a world seems to be where adisconnect exists. Ford says it’s clear that electrification and autonomous driving are coming.

The type of support and infrastructure businesses that will be required to support electrified and autonomous vehicles is a major unknown at this point.

“When I say it’s not clear, certain things are very clear in terms of the direction we are basically headed,” Ford said. “But all of these businesses that can and will be created around this business model, those are very much still in the what ifs and experimental stage.”

Another concern is what will the customer demand for electric vehicles look like as our world evolves?  While China and Europe lead the way, country’s like the U.S. are slowly warming up the idea of electric vehicles. Perhaps a major reason for that is the high expense on the front end, concerns about battery life and more available charging stations.

Ford expects the popularity of electric vehicles to grow as the vehicles themselves get better and the supporting infrastructure improves. The resistance will become less.

“I think there was a lot of fear among people initially that would say, `This is fine if it were my second or third vehicle, but if it’s my primary vehicle do I really want to electrify it because I don’t know how you can charge it, how long I’m going to have to charge it. I don’t want to have that anxiety,’” he said.

“But I think a couple of things. One, the battery range will continue to get better and better and the charging will hopefully become more ubiquitous. It’s happening globally, it’s not just the U.S. China is going really full bore into electrification in a way that’s actually quite breath taking.”

Ford cautions that people must be ready for transitional existence as more electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles hit the market. The old way of doing this will eventually fade but not right away.

“Over time, obviously the shift will take place to more autonomy and more electric,” Ford said. “But we will live in this transition world for some period.”