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But lets take a closer look:
It starts with a nice touch of snark.
Gee, if you cant guess from the shade, Im not sure we can be friends.
The ad uses the hashtag#FORDfortheBuilders.
The narrator continues: … weve got 182,000 people, and theyre building.
So, what impact will the ad actually have?
To be honest, Im not entirely clear about its aims.
But whats better: singular focus or diversification?
And this is even before he committed to putting down $44M in investor money to buy Twitter.
By comparison, Ford puts out ads like this one.
Verdict:Gee, its a no-brainer; who needs a marketing department when you have Twitter?
But I think the bigger issue is attracting workers.
We saw this also with Teslas AI Day last year.
Employer branding specialist Universumreleased its 2020 listof most attractive employers for US students.
Verdict:The auto industry is notorious for complaints about working conditions.
Most of the Automaker Workers Union members work at Ford.
But unions are pretty old school, and all companies are struggling to attract high-tech talent.
So I wouldnt be surprised if Ford needs to do a big old recruitment drive.
Ok, whats the math?
In terms of sales, Tesla is still the dominant player in the EV market.
Lets look at a few sums Ive made it reasonably simple I hope.
2021:
In 2021,Teslaproduced 930,422 electric cars and delivered 936,176.
(Their deliveries are the closest approximation to sales numbers reported by Tesla.)
By comparison, Ford sold 12.284 EVs last year.
No, thats not a typo.
Q1: 2022:
Its a bit harder to quantify for Q1 2022.
Tesla delivered 310,048 electric vehicles in the first quarter of 2022.
Only a fraction of the 966,000 automobiles Ford sold across its global operations were EVs.
In February, Ford Jim Farleysaid in a releaseJanuary EV sales totaled 13,169 units.
Verdict:Unsurprisingly, Tesla wins for Q1.
However, its unclear how big F150 Lightning sales will hit for Q2.
Im not convinced the company has the capacity for that kind of rollout.
Theystopped taking ordersfor F150 orders at 200,000 at the end of last year.
But theres also talk this week of Fords plan tobuild a new EV pickup.
Im just not convinced this market segment is really relevant to Tesla.
So there you have it.
Different brands with different approaches and market segments.
One is wildly successful when it comes to world EV domination.
To be clear, I think competition is good.
Im pretty brand agnostic, unlike some other journos.
I wantallthe green cars to succeed electric, solar, and yes, even (green) hydrogen.
So, competition can only be a good thing.
Story byCate Lawrence
Cate Lawrence is an Australian tech journo living in Berlin.
