Ford thinks it is in a position to become leader of the EV market on its own
Ford had invested $500 million in Rivian in 2019 with hopes to use its technology
Ford is still a share holder of Rivian and the two companies are still on good terms
Ford has just announced it will not work on a future electric vehicle with Rivian after having talked about it for over a year.
Ford invested $500 million into Rivian, a young electric car maker, back in 2019, when the latter had not built a single vehicle yet.
This investment was a way for Ford to be able to benefit from the technology developed by Rivian by using it in Ford and Lincoln branded vehicles.
Ford was also talking about a Lincoln SUV that would use Rivian’s skateboard platform, which packages the battery and the motors in a slab that can fit underneath a vehicle and act as the frame.
Only a few months later, the automaker cancelled this plan, citing the pandemic as the reason why this collaboration would not work. At the time, the company’s CEO was quick to reinforce the continuing partnership with Rivian, however.
Today, Ford cancelled plans for all future collaboration between the two automakers.
The reason behind it is that Ford now feels confident it can become a leader in the electric vehicle segment du to the popularity of the Mustang Mach-E and the close to 200,000 orders for the F-150 Lightning pickup.
This announcement follows the one in which Ford revealed it is going to double its annual EV production to reach 600,000 units in by 2024. Provided the market doesn’t change too much between now and then, this would make Ford the second largest producer of EVs in the world, behind Tesla.
Ford’s CEO said the company will keep the shares it owns in Rivian (about 5% of the Startup) and explained that the relationship between the two companies is still good, with Ford considering Rivian as its little brother.
