Ford Motor earned $1.9 billion from April to June, up from $667 million a year earlier, the company said on Thursday. Robust sales of gasoline-powered trucks and sport-utility vehicles more than offset a substantial loss on electric models.
The automaker reported revenue of $45 billion, up 12 percent from a year earlier, and said it had sold 1.1 million vehicles around the world, an 8 percent increase.
Ford said it had lost $1.1 billion before interest and taxes on its electric vehicle business in the quarter, more than twice as much as it lost a year earlier. Competition in that segment has intensified recently, and the company has had to cut prices on its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck and Mustang Mach-E crossover.
Ford now expects to lose $4.5 billion before interest and taxes on battery-powered cars and trucks in 2023, it said on Thursday, up from an earlier forecast of a $3 billion loss.
“While the shift to E.V.s is unquestionably underway, the last few weeks have shown us the adoption by early, majority customers will be a little slower than expected,” Ford’s chief financial officer, John Lawler, said in a conference call.
The company’s electric vehicle business was hurt by the general decline in prices and Ford’s inability to increase production as quickly as it had hoped, Mr. Lawler said.
He said Ford was slowing its rollout of electric vehicles somewhat. The company now expects to be able to make 600,000 such cars and trucks a year by the end of 2024. It had previously aimed to reach that rate by the end of this year.
Losses in electric cars were more than offset by the money Ford made selling combustion engine vehicles. The division that specializes in gasoline and hybrid vehicles for the consumer market earned $2.3 billion before interest and taxes in the second quarter on gasoline vehicles, and the Ford unit that focuses on commercial customers reported a profit of $2.4 billion.
Overall, Ford expects to report a profit of $11 billion to $12 billion in 2023 before taking into account interest, taxes and certain other expenses, it said. That is up from an earlier forecast of $9 billion to $11 billion.
Ford’s stock was up about 1 percent in extended trading on Thursday after the company reported its second-quarter results.
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