Ford CEO Jim Farley took a swipe at Tesla CEO Elon Musk Wednesday whereas asserting a serious funding in photo voltaic power. The remark was meant to attract a comparability between Tesla’s long-delayed Cybertruck and Ford’s plug-in pickup, the F-150 Lightning.
Farley was talking at a Ford plant in Michigan to announce a take care of DTE Power that each corporations billed because the “largest renewable power buy from a utility in US historical past.” However after touting the corporate’s transfer to extra sustainable sources, he made a rapid jab at his major rival within the EV area, whom he has praised prior to now for serving to spur the trade towards electrical autos.
“We’re actually on a mission at Ford to guide an electrical and digital revolution for a lot of, not few,” Farley stated. “And I’ve to say the shining mild for us at Ford is that this stunning Lightning made proper down the highway in Dearborn, proper right here within the state of Michigan, already the chief of all EV pickup vans in our trade in the US.”
He added, “Take that, Elon Musk.”
First introduced in 2019, the Tesla Cybertruck was initially supposed to enter manufacturing in 2021, however Musk has stated that it’s going to now kick off in mid-2023. In the meantime, the F-150 Lightning is presently the bestselling electrical truck out there, outselling the one different two entrants, the Rivian R1T and GMC Hummer EV.
Farley’s remark was doubtless meant as a light-hearted dig at Musk, who has additionally used the Ford F-150 as a benchmark by which to measure the Cybertruck’s energy and efficiency. (Tesla posted a video in 2019 of a tug-of-war between the Cybertruck and an F-150, with the electrical truck simply overpowering Ford’s pickup.)
In fact, Tesla outsells Ford by a large margin, proudly owning some 75 % of the EV market. The Tesla Mannequin 3 and Mannequin Y are the 2 top-selling EVs within the US, adopted by the Ford Mustang Mach-E — however it’s a distant third, with 6,734 Mach-E deliveries through the first quarter of 2022 in comparison with 46,707 items for the Mannequin 3.
The photo voltaic deal is meant to place Ford as a number one power in renewable power. Beneath the settlement, DTE Power will add 650 megawatts of photo voltaic power in Michigan for Ford — the equal of powering 14,000 properties. The set up will enhance the entire quantity of photo voltaic within the state by practically 70 %. And Ford stated that by 2025, all the electrical energy utilized by the corporate to fabricate its autos in Michigan might be matched with renewable power purchases.
“It’s a strategic funding in Michigan to assist us get extra clear power on the grid sooner,” Farley stated at a press convention. “We don’t should rely on oil value spikes in financial cycles to maintain full employment.”
Thus far, Amazon has claimed to be the most important international purchaser of renewable power. Earlier this yr, the e-commerce large introduced a number of new tasks geared toward rising its portfolio by practically 30 %, from 12.2 gigawatts to fifteen.7 GW. By comparability, Ford’s announcement right now represents solely 0.65 GW. Beforehand, Google stated it was the “largest company purchaser” of renewable power.
Additionally, asserting the “buy of carbon-free electrical energy” is completely different from truly utilizing that renewable power. Critics be aware that these claims are ceaselessly exaggerated as a approach to bolster an organization’s inexperienced power bona fides, pointing to analysis that discovered that company gamers usually aren’t slicing as a lot air pollution as they declare they’re.
