Traditional car companies don't want to fall behind, Ford plans to invest 29 billion in the development of electric vehicles and autonomous driving in five years

The traditional auto industry is continuously increasing its investment in electric vehicles and autonomous driving technologies to cope with the industry challenges brought by Tesla. On Thursday local time, Ford Motor Company of the United States announced that it would invest $29 billion in electric vehicles and autonomous driving by 2025 while announcing its fourth-quarter financial report last year.

Ford's financial report was better than expected, with adjusted U.S. earnings of 34 cents, better than the 7-cent loss previously expected by analysts. The company's total revenue in Q4 2020 was $33.2 billion.

Ford CFO John Lawler said the company expects to achieve $8 billion to $9 billion in profits and $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion in adjusted cash flow in 2021. However, the forecast does not take this year's chip shortage into account. Lawler said the impact of the chip shortage on Ford is between $1 billion and $2.5 billion.

In an official press release, Basil said that the semiconductor market conditions are changing frequently, so it is impossible to predict its impact on Ford's full-year performance. Forecasts from suppliers show that chip shortages may cause Ford to reduce production by 10% to 20% in the first quarter.

Last October, Basil predicted that adjusted pre-tax profit in the fourth quarter of 2020 would be between $500 million and break-even. In comparison, Ford achieved a profit of $485 million in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Basil said the main reason for the expected profit decline is the increased costs of the company's new models, including the 2021 F-150 pickup truck, as well as the Bronco sports SUV and the Mustang Mach-E all-electric crossover.

At present, although the automotive industry has recovered from the epidemic faster than expected, the industry is facing the problem of chip shortage caused by the epidemic, and automakers are forced to cut production. Ford will also officially reduce production capacity at its factories in Michigan and Missouri, which mainly produce high-profit F-150 pickup trucks.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.