New York (AFP)

The American automaker Ford, following the trend initiated by other giants in the sector, plans to accelerate its investments in electric vehicles and expects 40% of its vehicles sold worldwide by 2030 to run without gasoline or diesel.

The group announced in February its intention to devote more than $ 22 billion to the production of electric vehicles by 2025. It has just increased this amount to 30 billion.

Symbol of this development: Ford recently presented with great fanfare an electric version of its popular F-150 pickup, the best-selling vehicle in the United States.

Some 70,000 customers have already made an option since the opening of reservations, just a week ago, for a vehicle that will not be available until spring 2022.

The manufacturer has already launched the Mustang Mach-E, an electric SUV, and plans to market an electric version of its Transit van in the coming months.

To depend less on subcontractors and better control its costs, Ford has also decided to work on its own electric batteries: in addition to creating a research and development center dedicated to this essential component, it plans to form a joint venture with the South Korean group SK Innovation to manufacture electric battery cells and modules in the United States.

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The International Energy Agency recently estimated that in order to try to keep global warming under control, it is necessary to forget from "now" any oil or gas exploration project and not to sell a new thermal car after 2035. .

Under pressure from public opinion, customers and investors more and more sensitive to this issue, many manufacturers have recently taken a turn towards the electrification of vehicles in order to reduce polluting emissions.

The niche is still dominated by Tesla, the darling of the markets: Elon Musk's company is currently worth around $ 580 billion on Wall Street, against 51 billion for Ford.

But in addition to the emergence of many start-ups like Lucid and Rivian, several traditional manufacturers have recently gone on the offensive.

The German group Volkswagen intends to offer 70 electric models by 2030 and sell 26 million units in ten years.

Ford's major competitor in the US market, General Motors (GM), for its part pledged in January to no longer build cars with diesel or gasoline engines by 2035.

However, sales of electric cars still only accounted for 2.5% in the United States in the first quarter, according to the specialist firm Cox.

US President Joe Biden has made the development of electric cars a priority.

It provides, in its plan for massive investments in infrastructure currently under discussion, multiple incentives, with the construction of a national network of 500,000 charging stations by 2030 or the switch to electricity for 20% of famous yellow school bus.

"We are at the very beginning of a market, that of electric vehicles, which could be worth 5,000 billion dollars over the next decade", argued Dan Ives, of the Wedbush firm, estimating that the automobile industry "is going through one of the greatest transformations ever seen since the 1950s ".

This acceleration on electric is part of a broader strategy presented by Ford on Wednesday to fuel its growth, a plan dubbed "Ford +".

The manufacturer also plans to create a product and service sales subsidiary dedicated to professional customers, businesses and communities, to develop online services and the ability to repair or update vehicles remotely.

"This is our biggest opportunity for growth and value creation since Henry Ford began mass-producing the Model T," said company chief executive Jim Farley, who took over the helm. group in October 2020.

© 2021 AFP