Ford low-cost EV platform, hybrids; Toyota US EV plant; 2025 Porsche Taycan: Today’s Car News

The Porsche Taycan boasts better numbers all around. Toyota adds to its Kentucky EV plans. And before its Gen 2 EVs have launched, Ford starts touting its Gen 3 EV project that could face Tesla and China on cost. This and more, here at EV kind of cars. 

Ford CEO Jim Farley, during the company’s Q4 2023 earnings call Tuesday afternoon, noted that the company was shifting its electric vehicle efforts away from large EVs and toward smaller, lower-cost EVs to rival a $25,000 Tesla and products from China. With the Gen 3 platform he referred to—what’s being developed under Model 3 development guru Alan Clarke within Ford’s Model E—will Ford translate the ethos of the Model T into the EV era?

Farley also emphasized Ford hybrids amid regional variations in EV demand. In California, for instance, the Lightning EV is 30% of F-150 sales, while in Dallas hybrid and EV versions together only added up to 15%. Farley claimed that easier showroom math on hybrids’ cost advantages are part of it.

In a revamped 2025 Porsche Taycan lineup revealed Tuesday, Porsche has teased out better numbers in many respects, including range, efficiency, charging and acceleration—and it appears that the Taycan’s range gains will go well beyond its 13% gain in battery capacity. The Taycan stands strong versus gasoline models, too; Porsche says it’s the quickest and most powerful production Porsche ever. 

And Toyota’s recent comments downplaying EVs don’t appear to have changed its plans to build a three-row electric Toyota SUV in Kentucky. It announced an additional $1.3 billion toward the plant to add a battery-pack assembly line to the plant, where EV production is set to start in 2025.

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