2023 Ford Super Duty F-350 Limited
Ford
DETROIT – Ford Motor Co. will expand production of its large super-duty trucks to a Canadian plant it previously converted to an all-electric vehicle hub.
The new plans include investing about $3 billion to expand Super Duty production, including $2.3 billion at Ford’s Oakville assembly complex in Ontario, Canada, Ford said Thursday. The remaining investment will be used to increase production at subsidiary facilities in the US and Canada, the company said.
Ford currently manufactures Super Duty trucks — larger siblings of the F-150 full-size pickup used mostly by business and commercial customers — at plants in Ohio and Kentucky.
The Canadian plant, which is expected to come online in 2026, will add about 100,000 units of capacity annually, Ford said.
“SuperDuty is an important tool for businesses and people around the world, and even with our Kentucky truck plant and Ohio assembly plant running flat, we can’t keep up with demand,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a release. “This move benefits our customers and supercharges our Ford Pro commercial business.”
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Ford had previously announced plans to invest $1.3 billion in a Canadian plant for EV production. Those plans include a new three-row SUV, which the company recently delayed until 2027.
The announcement comes just weeks after Farley said the full electrification of “big, big, massive” vehicles like Ford’s Super Duty trucks is “never going to make money.”
Ford said it plans to “electrify” its next-generation Super Duty trucks, though it declined to provide further details Thursday.
The move supports Farley’s Ford+ blueprint for profitable growth, including increasing Ford’s manufacturing footprint, the company said. It’s the latest setback for a restructuring plan involving EVs, although the automaker said it plans to produce a three-row EV from 2027 at an unspecified plant.
Announced in May 2021 during the company’s first investor day under Farley, who took over the automaker’s helm in October 2020, the Ford+ plan initially focused heavily on EVs.
At the time, there was significant optimism about all-electric vehicle adoption and potential profitability, which did not materialize as quickly as many had hoped.
Ford CEO Jim Farley speaks to reporters outside the company’s world headquarters following the introduction of the electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck on May 19 in Dearborn, Michigan.
Michael Wayland/CNBC
Ford’s initial plan is for nearly half of its global sales to be electric by 2030, fueled by investments of more than $30 billion in EVs through 2025. It’s unclear how much capital the company has spent on EVs to date. Its plans have changed several times, and its “Model e” EV unit lost $4.7 billion in 2023.
While Ford’s EV unit lost billions of dollars, its Ford Pro commercial business, including its Super Duty trucks, earned $7.2 billion before interest and taxes in 2023.
The Ford+ plan includes an 8% return before interest and tax or EBIT profit margin on the EV unit through the end of 2026. Ford withdrew that target earlier this year. That would have been a big turnaround from the roughly negative 40% profit margin in 2022.
Ford said the new SuperDuty production will initially bring about 1,800 Canadian jobs to the Oakville assembly complex, 400 more than initially needed to make the three-row EV.
