Cancels 3-row SUV, adds EV trucks

• Ford drops plans for a battery-powered, three-row SUV

• A new midsize EV truck will be introduced in 2027, with other body styles to come

• A new battery-powered full-size truck also will be introduced in 2027

• The Mustang Mach-E will get U.S.-sourced batteries

• More hybrid SUVs are on the way

Ford says it will cancel a planned electric three-row SUV while it slows down its EV transition and adds more hybrids to its product plan.

The automaker confirmed in a press release that it will “adjust” the rollout of electric vehicles to deliver “profitable electric vehicle business.” Just last month, it announced that it would introduce more hybrids across its lineup while it delayed the electric SUV. 

The plan will unfold across some of the existing lineup of Ford vehicles:

• Ford’s Super Duty heavy-duty pickup trucks will “have a range of propulsion options,” which likely means hybrid editions.

• The company also will develop “a new family of electrified three-row SUVs which will include hybrid technologies,” which likely will affect its Explorer/Aviator SUVs as well as its Expedition and Lincoln Navigator.

• It reports that it will move production of batteries for the Ford Mustang Mach-E from Poland to Holland, Michigan. That could mean that vehicle stays in its current form in the Ford lineup through the latter part of the decade, and that it will remain eligible for Inflation Reduction Act tax credits.

While Ford adjusts its product plans, its electric vehicle footprint will grow less quickly. But it will grow in at least one unexpected way: The company says that it has been developing a midsize EV pickup truck in a California studio. That vehicle will emerge in 2027, and will “cater to customers who want more for their money—more range, more utility, more useability.” Ford says this new truck will underpin a range of new vehicles for both commercial and retail buyers and will feature Ford’s BlueCruise driver assistance system.

In the same year, the long-planned full-size EV pickup—a replacement for the Ford F-150 Lightning—will emerge from a new Tennessee assembly plant that had been conceived for the truck as well as the related and now canceled three-row EV SUV. That “T3” pickup, which Ford CEO Jim Farley has referred to as the “Millennium Falcon of pickup trucks,” had been conceived with production of up to 500,000 vehicles each year. The vehicle will offer bidirectional charging capability and sleek aerodynamics.

To this, Ford says it will also introduce a battery-powered commercial van in 2026, and will build it in Ohio.

The company says it will update these plans in early 2025.

Ford says the plans have shifted because the cost of EVs has proved to be a hurdle to adoption—and that “today’s electric vehicle consumers are more cost-conscious than early adopters, looking to electric vehicles as a practical way to save money on fuel and maintenance, as well as time by charging at home.” Electric vehicles have proven to be more expensive and the resulting pricing pressure and sales-growth slowdown has made Ford shift its focus to lower-cost and higher-margin markets—in this case, trucks.

Ford says it has invested $400 million thus far in the canceled three-row EV SUV, but that the final cost of its shifted product plan could reach up to $1.5 billion.