Ford Boss Jim Farley Claims That EV Manufacturing Will Require 40 Percent Less Labor

by Tim Healey

Published: November 22nd, 2022

ford boss jim farley claims that ev manufacturing will require 40 percent less labor

Ford CEO Jim Farley warned last week of "storm clouds" for auto workers as the eventual transition to electric vehicles will require fewer workers -- 40 percent fewer, according to Farley.

Farley also said Ford needs to make more parts in-house, presumably to help reduce job losses.

From the Financial Times (sub required): “It takes 40 per cent less labour to make an electric car, so . . . we have to insource, so that everyone has a role in this growth,” Farley said at a conference in Detroit focused on improving racial diversity in the auto industry. “We have a whole new supply chain to roll out, in batteries and motors and electronics, and diversity has to play an even greater role in that,” Farley told civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, whose Rainbow Push Coalition sponsored the conference.

Ford is aiming to have 50 percent of its global sales be EVs by 2030.

It's widely expected that the production of EVs will require fewer workers because EVs require fewer parts. In 2018, the United Auto Workers union estimated that it will lose 35,000 jobs -- the union represents about 400,000 workers.

A report out of Germany suggests that the country could lose 400,000 jobs over the next decade during a shift to EV production.

Farley also said earlier this year that the company's workforce is a bit too bloated. Three thousand full-time and contract employees were cut in August. Ford employed 183,000 people at the end of 2021.

Ford, like other OEMs, is partnering with suppliers for battery production. Farley pointed out that the company is undergoing a shift it hasn't seen in six decades.

“If Henry Ford came back to life he would have thought the last 60 years weren’t that exciting, but he would love it right now because we’re totally reinventing the company,” Farley said, according to the Financial Times.

[Image: Ford]

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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9 of 35 comments

CaddyDaddy on Nov 23, 2022

Less assembly workers, sure. However, how many children in open pit mines in the Congo to mine the necessary minerals?

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- See 4 previous
- SCE to AUX on Nov 23, 2022
  
  Cobalt is departing from EV batteries, so the answer for cars may soon be zero. Not so much for your Chinese-made cell phone.
  
  Like
- Jeff S on Nov 23, 2022
  
  True but that is true for the smart phone, tablet, and laptop most of us use. Out of sight out of mind. Will be interested to see Toyota's new solid state battery.
  
  Like
- VoGhost on Nov 23, 2022
  
  Should we remind CaddyDaddy that cobalt is used to refine oil into gasoline? Can big oil propagandists survive without their false virtue signaling?
  
  Like
- Matt Posky on Nov 23, 2022
  
  No cobalt is great news. Now we only have to worry about the horrors of nickel and lithium mining, generalized raw material shortages, automakers using EVs as an excuse to layoff tons of people, and the fact that battery production is localized primarily in Asia.
  
  Like
- Tassos on Dec 05, 2022
  
  In the 21st century, I'm sure they can do the digging far better with automated equipment, so you can worry about the Unemployment rate in Congo instead.
  
  Like
CaddyDaddy on Nov 23, 2022

"cobalt is used to refine oil into gasoline" source??

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- See 1 previous
- Lou_BC on Nov 23, 2022
  
  You don't know how to use a search engine?
  "The process is called desulphurisation and cobalt is used to extract sulphur from crude oil"
  
  Like
- Jeff S on Nov 24, 2022
  
  We can always eat more beans and make gas naturally. All those in favor of natural gas give a tout. More organic gas needs to be produced to save the planet. Oh I forgot methane gas is harmful to the environment.
  
  Like
- Lou_BC on Nov 24, 2022
  
  "Cobalt is used as a catalyst in refining operations. It helps remove sulfur (and maybe other impurities) from the hydrocarbon stream. In theory no cobalt is consumed in the reaction, but in practice some will be lost to erosion and flaws in the recycling process.
  It takes about 1 pound of cobalt to remove the sulfur from 80,000 gallons of petroleum products, like gasoline. 80,000 gallons would power a car for about 2.4 million miles, but 98.8% of that cobalt is recoverable, meaning we permanently lose only a pound of cobalt for every 6.6 million gallons we refine."
  
  Like

Recent Comments

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