Ford: Electric vehicles to be 40% of global sales by 2030

Ford says it expects 40% of its global sales to be battery-electric vehicles by 2030 as it adds billions to the amount it’s spending to develop them

DETROIT -- Ford expects 40% of its global sales to be battery-electric vehicles by 2030 as it adds billions to what it's spending to develop them. Ahead of a presentation to Wall Street on Wednesday, the automaker says it will add about $8 billion to its EV development spending from this year to 2025. That would bring the total to nearly $20 billion as Ford begins to develop and build batteries in a joint venture with SK Innovation of Korea. The company also announced it would create a separate business called Ford Pro that will focus on commercial and government fleet buyers. It also expects to have about 1 million vehicles capable of getting over-the-internet software updates by the end of this year. Ford says it will have more vehicles capable of this than Tesla by July of 2022. In the U.S., Ford's largest market, electric vehicles are only 1.2% of Ford's sales through April. Ford currently offers only one all-electric vehicle, the Mustang Mach-E SUV, but by next spring it will have an all-electric F-150 pickup and a battery powered Transit big commercial van on the roads. The company said 70,000 customers have put down $100 deposits to reserve an electric F-150 in the week since it was unveiled. Ford's F-Series pickup is the top-selling vehicle in the U.S.