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- Mark Fields, 64, was the CEO of Ford from 2014 to 2017.
- Fields said the US EV market will see “gradual growth” despite the pullback on federal incentives.
- Consumers will lean toward EVs instead of combustion vehicles because oil is non-renewable, he said.
Former Ford CEO Mark Fields said on Friday that demand for EVs in the US will slowly pick up again after the Trump administration axed federal EV incentives in September.
“You’re going to see, obviously, a pullback given that the federal incentives have come off, but I think you’re going to see gradual growth in the EV market,” Fields, 64, said in an interview with CNBC.
Fields said that in the long term, consumers will lean toward clean energy vehicles instead of combustion-engine vehicles because “oil is a non-renewable resource.”
“So you’re going to see these grow over time, but it’s not going to be at the pace that the automakers thought,” Fields said. “That’s why you’re seeing these big impairment charges that both Ford and GM and others have taken.”
On October 14, General Motors said in an exchange filing that it was taking a $1.6 billion charge “based on a planned strategic realignment of our EV capacity.” The automaker said it expected the “adoption rate of EVs to slow” after federal EV incentives expired on September 30.
“I think you’re going to see more going forward as the industry adjusts to a new demand curve, if you will, for EVs,” Fields continued.
Representatives for Fields did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Under the Biden administration, EV buyers could receive a $7,500 consumer tax credit when they bought a new EV and a $4,000 credit for a used EV. The Trump administration ended both schemes.
Fields was Ford’s CEO from 2014 to 2017. He joined the company in 1989 after graduating with an MBA from Harvard Business School. Before becoming CEO, Fields held various senior leadership positions and was Ford’s chief operating officer from 2012 to 2014.
Earlier this month, Fields said US automakers had overestimated consumer demand for EVs and “went full bore” into making them.
“What was an advantage, at least they thought at the time, has now probably turned into a bit of an albatross as the market take-up of EVs is going to be lower, at least in the near to medium term, than they plan for,” Fields told CNBC in an interview that aired on October 14.
Former Tesla president Jon McNeill took a different view from Fields. McNeill was Tesla’s president for global sales and marketing from 2015 to 2018. He said in an interview with CNBC on October 2 that the expiry of federal EV incentives won’t slow down the US EV market.
“In Europe, France and Germany in particular rolled subsidies off a couple of years ago, and what happened after that, surprisingly, was the market continued to grow,” McNeill told CNBC.
“The market’s established, and we’re probably ready to have a market that can grow without subsidies,” he added.
Ford’s current CEO, Jim Farley, said at a conference in Detroit on September 30 that the pullback on federal EV incentives could halve US EV sales.
“In the near term, I believe EV adoption will now only be about 5% of the US market, but this is going to grow, especially for affordable EV vehicles,” Farley said in an earnings call on October 23.
Ford’s shares are up nearly 40% year to date.
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