Ford Motor Company will reportedly cut as many as 8,000 jobs in the coming weeks, as the company looks to trim costs and expand its electric vehicles market. | Pixabay
Ford Motor Company will reportedly cut as many as 8,000 jobs in the coming weeks, as the company looks to trim costs and expand its electric vehicles market. | Pixabay
Ford Motor Company will reportedly cut as many as 8,000 jobs in the coming weeks, as the company looks to trim costs and expand its electric vehicles market.
In a recent editorial, the Wall Street Journal editorial board blasted the proposed move, adding that climate regulations put in place by the White House are now forcing automakers to steer away from gas-powered vehicles and fossil fuels, with all of it coming at a heavy cost.
"We wish Ford luck,” the WSJ editorial board said. “But when government steers investment, consumers and workers invariably bear the cost. Let’s hope taxpayers won’t have to bail out automakers if their government-driven EV investments crash and burn."
According to the reports, over the next four years, Ford is aiming to spend as much as $50 billion to produce 2 million EVs a year, with the WSJ editorial board stressing that the move is a "steep ramp-up" from the 27,140 EVs the automaker sold last year.
The WSJ editorial also questions the logic behind Ford’s job cuts provided President Joe Biden's recent statement, "folks, when I think about climate change—and I’ve been saying this for three years—I think jobs.”
Governor Tony Evers is among those supporting the change despite the United Auto Workers Union warning that the 8,000 job cuts could end up being four times more because EV manufacturing requires fewer parts.
"EV charging is key to building Wisconsin’s 21st-century infrastructure. I’m proud to lead the way on this issue with a $79 million investment in our future," Evers tweeted in November 2021.
Five months later, the governor introduced The Clean Energy Plan, designed to speed the deployment of EVs and charging stations across the state.
More recently, a Ford EV executive defended the changes and told the WSJ “to move fast in this space, smaller is better. We need to scale EVs quickly in the U.S. and that is one of the aspirations in the Administration.” Government climate mandates are reportedly the driving force behind distorted investment decisions.
With the Biden Administration recently raising climate standards, California is among the states that have moved to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. The White House also finalized new greenhouse-gas emission standards, prompting the WSJ to assert that "traditional automakers will have no choice but to churn out more EVs or buy credits from EV makers such as Tesla and Rivian."
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