Ford lost nearly $50,000 on every electric car it sold

Electric vehicle makers are trying their best to fill the market with battery powered cars that you might actually want to buy. This means plowing millions of dollars into building new factories, developing new designs and researching the kind of tech that will keep your car driving for hundreds of miles. All that investment could one day pay off, but right now its causing eye-watering losses for Ford’s EV department.

According to the company’s latest financial results, Ford’s EV division has lost a staggering $2.5 billion so far this year and it’s on track to lose double that by the end of 2024, reports the Telegraph:

The company posted a loss of $1.1bn for its electric vehicle division, Ford E – equivalent to about $47,600 per car. It sold 23,957 electric vehicles (EVs), an increase of 61pc from a year earlier.

Ford blamed a price war across the industry for the loss, which came despite efforts to slash costs by $400m.

The stark figures underline the huge sums of cash even mass market car manufacturers are burning through as they electrify their product line-ups. The $50,000 loss per car was first reported by industry expert Robert Bryce in his Substack newsletter.

The staggering losses for the Blue Oval follow similar sky-high deficits for other automakers across the EV space. Last year, it was revealed that Rivian loses more than $30,000 on every electric truck it sells and the average loss per EV sold across the American auto industry sits at more than $6,000 right now.

The losses are mounting particularly quickly as automakers race to cut prices in an attempt to draw new buyers into the space. These ever-growing cost cuts were kicked off by Tesla, which began slashing its prices last year forcing other players in the EV space to follow suit.

A version of this article originally appeared on Jalopnik.