Electric Vehicles & Job Creation

Earlier this year Ford announced a number of commitments to their electric vehicle platform. In addition to over $30 billion in capex guidance, the firm revealed their Ford F-150 electric and then announced a partnership with Sunrun.

Those announcements are exciting, but watching how the firm actually intended to deploy the commitments was the important part. Well just yesterday they released the first wave of commitments with the announcement of a $7 billion investment (alongside $4.4 billion from SK) to build two large manufacturing facilities. The sites will be located in Tennessee and Kentucky and “will cover the entire ecosystem of building an electric vehicle from battery cell production and recycling to a supplier park and an assembly plant. “

The sites are expected to employ 11,000 people in those states. No small figure.

If a few years ago you had told me that Ford – the definition of combustion engine truck – would be building a >$10 billion factory for EVs in Kentucky I would have told you that you were nuts.

But here we. The change towards EVs is happening faster than most think. If you are buying a new car in the next 3-4 years and it isn’t already hybrid or electric, it likely will be the last internal combustion engine vehicle you purchase.

The reason I am so bullish on the accelerated adoption is because there is near perfect alignment between the automotive commitments, environmental benefits, local economies and job creation, federal incentives, and consumer behavior/education. As we head into the next election cycles I expect electric vehicles to get a lot of attention… the jobs creation will begin to evoke traditional Detroit Americana and both sides of the aisle will look to associate with the trend.