Charging, service remain challenges for commercial vehicles, Ford says

Charging and physical services remain key challenges for commercial vehicle and commercial EV customers. 

Ford Pro continues to work with dealers and upfitters to meet commercial vehicle charging and service needs, Navin Kumar, chief financial officer of Ford Pro, said during the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference on Sept. 10. 

“When it comes to small business, through our journey and learnings, we’re doing a lot more with our dealers in terms of education, training, simplifying the message and use case identification, but the big challenge is charging,” he said. “We are now having more charging partnerships to go address that than we initially did on this journey.” 

Ford Pro views partnerships with utilities like Xcel Energy and local cities like Dallas as keys to bringing charging solutions to the market, Kumar said. 

“The bottom line is it is a more methodical and deliberate ramp-up of EVs and commercial fleets than we had initially expected.” 

To sustain Ford Pro’s market share, Kumar said, Ford Pro must:  

• Continue investing in customer-centric vehicles; 

• Help customers integrate EVs into their fleets; 

• Reduce total cost of ownership for EVs; and 

• Improve the bottom line by scaling software and services. 

“In charging, we acquired a start-up and leverage this technology to build out our managed charging capabilities at depots and job sites,” he said. “In physical service, we’re working with our dealers to expand their capacity, hire more technicians, train these technicians, put in standard of service. And we’re providing investment in capital to fund that expansion.” 

Aftermarket, physical service needs

Ford Pro also continues to work with parts and service departments to meet customer needs, Kumar said. 

Pro customers favor manufacturer parts. “There’s a preference for an OEM part because they know that’s going to fit with the vehicle from a maintenance and repair standpoint,” avoiding vehicle downtime, he said. 

Ford also continues to work with local dealers and upfitters to maintain service needs across Ford Pro’s North American and European footprint, Kumar said. 

“We have an industry-leading commercial vehicle service footprint, dealer distribution and upfitter partnerships,” he said. “We have over 1,400 dedicated commercial vehicle dealerships and 500 upfitter partners, and our dealer and upfitter partners are investing alongside us to serve solutions to our collective customers.” 

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