Ford's electric vehicle unit is reporting huge losses amid low consumer demand and now, federal regulators have launched an investigation into the automaker's hands-free driving technology following two deadly crashes.
The company says losses soared in the first quarter to $1.3 billion, or $132,000 for each of the 10,000 vehicles it sold in the first three months of the year, helping to drag down overall company earnings.
The EV unit, which Ford calls Model e, sold 10,000 vehicles in the quarter, down 20% from the number it sold a year earlier. Its revenue also plunged 84% to about $100 million, which Ford attributed to price cuts for EVs across the industry. That resulted in the $1.3 billion loss before interest and taxes and the massive per-vehicle loss in the Model e unit.
Ford said it expects Model e will have losses of $5 billion for the full year.
Declining consumer demand for EVs isn't the automaker's only concern. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into Ford's Blue Cruise hands-free driving technology after two crashes involving Mustang Mach-E SUVs hitting stationary vehicles killed three people.
According to the NHTSA's preliminary evaluation, both crashes occurred during "nighttime lighting conditions" within the travel lanes of controlled-access highways. In both incidents, Blue Cruise was engaged immediately prior to the collision, the NHTSA said.
One crash happened Feb. 24 in San Antonio, Texas, when a Mustang Mach-E rear-ended a Honda CR-V that was stopped in a lane on the highway, killing the Honda driver, The Associated Press reported. The other happened March 3 in Philadelphia, when a Mustang Mach-E hit a Hyundai Elantra that earlier had collided with a Toyota Prius. The Prius driver and a passenger from the Hyundai, both of whom were outside the vehicles when the crash happened, were killed, per the AP.
Ford says Blue Cruise "builds on existing technologies, like Adaptive Cruise Control and Lane Centering Assist, to enable hands-free driving." The feature is available for drivers to use only on certain roadways and utilizes a camera-based monitoring system to determine driver attentiveness. Blue Cruise was introduced in model year 2021 and is currently available in a range of Ford and Lincoln vehicles.
The NHTSA said the investigation will evaluate the system's performance of the dynamic driving task and driver monitoring, and regulators will determine if the system does enough to keep drivers engaged while the Blue Cruise feature is activated.
Ford is reportedly working with the NHTSA to support the investigation, which includes approximately 130,050 Mustang Mach-E vehicles from model years 2021-2024.