Ford Visit Offers Symbolic Backdrop for Biden’s EV Agenda
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President Joe Biden’s planned visit May 18 to the Dearborn, Mich., Ford Motor Co. Rouge Electric Vehicle Center that will build an electric version of the F-150 pickup will showcase what experts say is a powerfully symbolic example of a zero-emission vehicle with mass market appeal, built in the U.S. by union workers.
WATCH THE VISIT: Live via c-span.org, 1:40 p.m. EDT
F-150 Lightning, as the electric version has been dubbed, checks all of the Biden administration’s boxes: It will be built in the heart of the industrial Midwest by United Auto Workers members. And the vehicle itself represents a major step forward in the push toward electrification, adding a battery-electric option to America’s best-selling truck lineup.
HAPPENING NOW: Pres. Biden to deliver remarks at Ford electric vehicle facility in Dearborn, Michigan. https://t.co/IBsfKJZMa3 — ABC News (@ABC) May 18, 2021
“The future of the industry is electric. The president is ratifying that by coming to Detroit,” said Harley Shaiken, a UC Berkeley professor specializing in labor issues and the global economy. “It’s a powerful statement and from Joe Biden’s point of view, it underscores the importance and urgency of the federal government supporting this effort.”
F-Series, Ford’s flagship truck franchise that includes the F-150, has been America’s best-selling vehicle for decades running. It’s also Ford’s profit engine.
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Last year the automaker sold nearly 800,000 F-Series trucks. That’s more than double the total number of electric vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2020 — a reflection of drivers’ continued preference for brawny, powerful, gas-guzzling vehicles, as well as the huge opening in the EV market an electric F-150 could represent.
Ford recently completed construction on a new EV manufacturing center in Ford’s historic Rouge complex and connected to the plant that builds the conventional F-150. About 500 workers are slated to work on electric and hybrid F-150s in the 500,000-square-foot facility, with the electric truck slated to launch in mid-2022.
Ford is planning to unveil the truck May 19 via an event livestreamed at 9:30 p.m. EDT from Ford World Headquarters.
Biden is expected to tour the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center, view the new truck, receive a technical rundown from Ford engineers, and offer remarks.
The visit’s setting evokes the heyday of Detroit’s manufacturing might. The Rouge complex, which Ford began building in 1917, once built warships for the U.S. Navy, contributed to Detroit’s “Arsenal of Democracy” effort during World War II, and for decades was home to production of the iconic Mustang.
“It’s a link between the glorious industrial past and the EV future,” said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.
The symbolism of an electric F-150 being built at the Rouge, said Shaiken, “is very powerful, and I think Joe Biden and his advisers really know that. They’re sending a message: ‘This is what we want to see. This is what we plan to support. This is what we think will benefit many Americans.’”
For Ford, experts say, a presidential visit amounts to a stamp of approval for its approach to electrification. The automaker has been more cautious on EV adoption than some of its competitors, but this year has been accelerating its plans. It launched its first fully battery-electric vehicle, the Mustang Mach-E, late last year and has said it will electrify the most popular and iconic nameplates in its portfolio, with F-150 being a prime example.
“After being viewed by some as being behind on EVs, it is a big deal to have the president come to a ceremony marking your most important project,” said Gordon.
And experts expect that Biden will use the visit as an opportunity to tout his legislative priorities around infrastructure, manufacturing and EVs.
Bill Ford, Ford’s executive chairman, told shareholders during the company’s annual meeting last week that the president’s visit “shows the commitment and the interest that our government has in the electrification of the auto industry, and the fact that we’re taking America’s favorite vehicle … and we’re electrifying it really is a huge exclamation point.
“That certainly hasn’t been lost on anyone,” he said, “including the president of the United States.”
The visit will be the president’s second trip to Michigan since taking office earlier this year. He previously visited the Pfizer plant in Portage that manufactures COVID-19 vaccine.
Biden has proposed $174 billion in his jobs and infrastructure proposal to “win” the electric vehicle race, and Democrat-led bills working their way through Congress would similarly pump money into electric vehicle infrastructure and development.
Stabenow
Sen. Debbie Stabenow said she would support using the reconciliation process to pass the president’s infrastructure proposals.
“I am absolutely OK with a majority vote on getting things done for the people of Michigan,” she told The Detroit News. “We are going to do everything possible to get the strongest, more forward-thinking jobs bill that we can. And whether that’s with just all Democratic votes or in a bipartisan bill, it’s important to do.”
Republicans in Congress have raised concerns that the push to electrification forces electric vehicles on consumers who aren’t asking for them and argue the transition should be left up to the free market. Electric vehicle sales still make up only a tiny sliver of all new vehicle sales.
But Stabenow argued that oil and gas have been subsidized by the federal government for a century: “What we want to do is level the playing field.”
Of Biden’s Michigan trip, Stabenow said she is “pleased” and that she sees “Michigan written on every page” of the president’s jobs plan.
“It’s only natural he would want to come to a plant that is building the vehicles of the future,” she said. “This represents great jobs of the future at a union plant, and really beginning to focus on bringing the supply chain home, building our own manufacturing structure in the United States. I think it’s a perfect fit.”
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