Ford announced Thursday that it is delaying the rollout of two new all-electric vehicle models. Once the facility is operational, one of them will be manufactured at BlueOval City at the Memphis Regional Megasite in West Tennessee.
The company said it plans to begin customer deliveries of its new all-electric pickup truck model made at BlueOval City in 2026 – one year after the original anticipated delivery date.
“Ford plans to begin customer deliveries of the new truck in 2026 and gradually ramp up production to help assure quality,” the company wrote in a Thursday statement.
Despite the setback, the company touted BlueOval City’s progress, detailing the installation of the facility’s paint shop and vehicle assembly equipment.
“The creation of the BlueOval City campus – Ford’s new advanced auto production complex that includes the Tennessee Electric Vehicle Center assembly plant – is progressing on track. In addition to paint shop and vehicle assembly equipment, installation is also underway for nearly 4,000 tons of stamping equipment that will produce the sheet metal stampings for Ford’s next all-new electric truck,” the company said.
Ford is also delaying the rollout of its new all-electric three-row vehicle model at its assembly plant in Oakville, Ontario, from 2025 to 2027.
“Preparations continue for the market launch of Ford’s all-new three-row electric vehicles at the assembly complex in Oakville, Ontario, which the company said it will re-time to 2027 from 2025. The additional time will allow for the consumer market for three-row EVs to further develop and enable Ford to take advantage of emerging battery technology, with the goal to provide customers increased durability and better value,” Ford said.
The delayed rollout of the two all-electric models comes as electric vehicle sales growth in the U.S. slowed to 3.3 percent in the first quarter of the year. As noted by The Associated Press, this is “far below the 47 percent increase that fueled record sales and a 7.6 percent market share last year.”
Amid the timeline setbacks, Ford president and CEO Jim Farley said the company is “committed to scaling a profitable EV business, using capital wisely and bringing to market the right gas, hybrid and fully electric vehicles at the right time.”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Ford Electric Trucking” by Automotive Rhythms. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
The ROI for Tennessee taxpayers is a big slap in the face. Ford can do as they please (make money). The all electric and no fossil fuel model of the lunatic fringe is and will always be a bad idea. We will simply have to turn the other cheek for the next slap that our government delivers.
Is it any surprise that our tax dollars are tied up in the production of Ford products that no one wants to buy? That one day special session of the Assembly sure was expensive. This is the Assembly that will not even discuss tightening control over the governor when it comes to emergency declarations like the ones that bankrupt a lot of “non-essential” businesses and forced our kids to try to learn over the internet.
how many millions in incentive did we give ford for this?