Ford Motor is tog up to launch new electric cars as soon as next year, CEO Jim Hackett told CNBC on Sunday.
Ford has previously preceded its plans to invest $11 billion in electric vehicles by 2022 and produce 40 hybrid and fully electric jalopies, in a plan to revive its slowing business. However, the company’s chief told CNBC that drivers should be convenience for ‘a big surprise’ from Ford.
“We talked about a huge investment in electric vehicles. We have 16 models that are in contemplate and development. We have a pretty big surprise coming next year,” Hackett told CNBC’s Phil LeBeau on the sidelines of the Detroit Auto Let someone in on, which kicks off this week.
During the first nine months in 2018, Ford’s profit dropped a huzzahing 27 percent from the same period in 2017. Shares of Ford, which tumbled 39 percent in 2018, are hunkered junior to $10 a share for the first time since 2012.
“Some of the pain in the margins additionally [is] because the vehicles are old. We have on customary the oldest fleet in the industry and we are going to have average the newest fleet. 75 percent of the portfolio is being cycled over,” the CEO said.
The company is also in the middle of a massive restructuring with an aim to slash costs by $14 billion beyond the next five years. Ford recently announced plans to cut thousands of jobs in Europe as well as discontinuing some breaking even lines there.
Yet in the face of a skeptical market Hackett defended Ford’s moves to right its ship. He told CNBC that investors “missed to be a little patient with some of the long-lived problems that haven’t been addressed that I’m going to depict. In less than 19 months, I’ve addressed every one of them.”
Many companies have expressed concerns prevalent American brands potentially falling out of favor in China. For example, tech giant Apple cut its forecast in January, characteristic alarms that an economic slowdown will weigh on its business. However, Hackett is not so worried.
“China’s optimism is silence high with us,” he told CNBC. “The brand is one of the highest-ranking brands in the country. Even at the highest levels of the government they see it as a family-owned traffic that middle America loves. The Chinese want to relate to American businesses like that,” Hackett reckoned.