Ford is so desperate to push EVs that it's making managers lease them
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- Ford is trying to get its own employees to buy more EVs.
- The automaker is changing its leasing scheme to encourage managers to go electric, per Reuters.
- It comes as Ford's electric vehicle business battles struggling sales and substantial losses.
Ford is urging its managers to lease its EVs and share their experiences with their friends and family as it looks to drum up interest in these vehicles.
According to an internal company email viewed by Reuters, the automaker has changed its leasing policy for some employees to encourage them to buy the company's EVs.
Ford runs a leasing program that allows eligible current and former managers to order a supplementary vehicle after leasing a set number of cars, usually one or two.
According to the internal email, that supplementary vehicle must now be either an electric Mustang Mach-E SUV or an F-150 Lightning pickup.
A Ford spokesperson told Reuters that the move would help employees see how easy it is to drive an electric vehicle and encourage them to "share their experiences with friends and family."
Vehicles leased to Ford employees count as sales for the company, per Reuters.
Ford's EV sales have struggled amid a slowdown in demand for battery-powered vehicles, and the company recently cut production of its flagship F-150 Lightning pickup truck.
Ford's EV business reported losses of $1.3 billion in the first quarter of 2024. To stem the bleeding, it has resorted to asking suppliers to come up with ways to cut manufacturing costs.
In an interview with CNBC's Julia Boorstin at the Aspen Ideas Festival in June, Ford CEO Jim Farley said it was critical that the Detroit automaker worked out how to make EVs profitable within the next five years.
He pointed out that Ford was in a race against Chinese manufacturers like BYD, who have been able to sell their electric cars at lower prices and are rapidly expanding across the globe.
"If we cannot make money on EVs, we have competitors who have the largest market in the world, who already dominate globally, already setting up their supply chain around the world," Farley said.
"And if we don't make profitable EVs in the next five years, what's the future? We will just shrink into North America," he added.
Ford did not immediately respond to a request for comment made outside normal working hours.
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