Ford secures second in US EV sales after a record Q4 and year in 2023
Ford remained the second top-selling EV brand in the US, behind only Tesla, after selling nearly 26,000 EVs in Q4. The F-150 Lightning was America’s best-selling electric truck in 2023, while the Mustang Mach-E had its best sales year yet.
Ford sold a record 25,937 electric vehicles in the last three months of 2023, up 24% over the third quarter.
The American automaker sold a total of 72,608 EVs in 2023 (+18% YOY), a new record. The growth was enough to remain the second top-selling EV brand behind Tesla.
After electric truck sales soared nearly 75% in Q4, Ford’s F-150 Lighting was the best-selling electric truck. Ford sold 11,905 Lightning models in Q4 for a total of 24,165 in 2023.
The Mustang Mach-E was the second best-selling electric SUV in the US, with 40,771 units sold last year, another record. Ford’s E-Transit was the best-selling electric van, with sales of 7,672 in 2023 (+18% YOY).
“I am especially proud Ford remained the No. 2 EV brand in America,” Ford’s CEO Jim Farley said.
Ford remains second in US EV sales amid record Q4
Ford edged out GM, which sold 19,469 EVs in Q4, down slightly from the previous quarter. GM ended production of its top-selling Bolt EV as it ramps production of its Ultium vehicles.
Hyundai, which doesn’t provide an exact breakdown, sold nearly 47,000 IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 6 EVs last year, a record of its own. However, these numbers don’t include the Kona electric. With Kia and the Kona EV included, Hyundai Motor Group likely topped Ford in EV sales last year.
As demand continues building for the Lightning electric truck, Ford spokesperson Martin Gunsberg told Electrek the company is “making adjustments to pricing, production, and trim packages.”
2024 Ford F-150 Lightning prices start at $54,995, $5K higher than last year’s base model. The entry-level 2024 F-150 Lightning Pro features up to 240 miles EPA-est range. Other trims, except the Platinum, saw increases between $2K (Lariat 320 mile range) and $7,500 (XLT 240 mile range).
The Platinum trim is the only model receiving a price cut. It will be $7,000 lower than last year’s model. The Platinum Black is $5,000 less than the 2023MY.
Ford added a new Flash trim with 320 miles range, a tech-oriented cabin, and a heat pump. It also comes with Ford’s Tow Tech package and Power Tailgate. Although it was initially expected to start under $70K, the new starting price is $73,495.
Gunsberg explained that the adjustments are to “achieve the optimal mix of sales growth, profitability, and customer access to the IRA tax benefit.”
Ford is also updating the 2023 Mustang Mach-E with $7,500 available in Red Carpet Lease Cash.
Electrek’s Take
Despite a record year, Ford is scaling back EV plans. Ford’s CFO, John Lawler, said Ford is “slowing down several investments,” including around $12 billion in EV spending.
Lawler added Ford is “changing the pace and flow” of capital and EV capacity put into place at the 2023 Barclays Global Automotive & Mobility Conference in November.
This includes reducing planned production at its Marshall plant by roughly half, cutting inverter and motor capacity, and scaling back on plans to integrate vertically.
Ford, like Toyota, is leaning into its hybrids amid rising EV competition. Ford’s hybrid sales outshined EVs, with over 37,000 sold in Q4. The automaker sold more than double the amount of hybrids (133,743) than EVs (61,575) last year.
EVs only accounted for 3.64% of Ford’s total vehicle sales. Meanwhile, hybrids accounted for 6.7%, leaving nearly 90% as gas-powered ICE vehicles.
Although Ford placed second in US EV sales, Tesla was first by a wide margin. Tesla delivered a record 484,507 EVs in the fourth quarter to beat its 1.8 million guidance for 2023.
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Volkswagen EVs can finally use Tesla Superchargers starting November 18th, after the better part of a year worth of delays getting the system up and running.
Ever since Tesla announced it would open its charging network in 2022 (calling the connector the North American Charging Standard, or NACS), we’ve been covering the gradual drip-drip of companies announcing NACS support and getting access to Tesla’s Supercharger network.
This year was the year that we expected a big flood of vehicles to gain access, and several brands have throughout the year.
But one big exception has been Volts… I mean Volkswagen.
At the very beginning of the year, VW was one of the companies that announced imminent access. It said that cars would be able to use the network in March, then quickly corrected that to June.
But then June came and went, and we heard nothing further. We reached out to VW PR, and they couldn’t tell us either – only that an announcement was coming soon. Then we waited longer.
But now, the day is finally here. 10 months after VW’s original announcement that Supercharger access was coming soon, and 8 months after the initial (later corrected) date, VW ID.4 and ID.Buzz owners in the US will get access to Superchargers starting… in a week.
November 18 is the official activation date, after which those cars will be able to charge on Superchargers – just in time for the Thanksgiving travel season.
VW vehicles will have to use a NACS adapter in order to use the stations, and these are available for $200 from VW. You can purchase them at your dealer or online at parts.vw.com.
ID.4 and ID.Buzz owners with a model year 2025 vehicle are eligible for a $100 rebate on the adapter, if they buy the adapter before July 15, 2026 and submit a rebate claim within 90 days.
The NACS adapters are only intended for use with DC chargers, and not level 2 chargers like Tesla Destination Chargers.
Like all other makes that have access to Tesla Superchargers, VW owners can download the Tesla app to find compatible stations (not every Supercharger can be used with non-Tesla cars, with usually the older stations being incompatible) and arrange payment.
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Environment
Anthropic to spend $50 billion on U.S. AI infrastructure, starting with Texas, New York data centers
Anthropic announced plans Wednesday to spend $50 billion on a U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure build-out, starting with custom data centers in Texas and New York.
The facilities, which will be designed to support the company’s rapid enterprise growth and its long-term research agenda, will be developed in partnership with Fluidstack.
Fluidstack is an AI cloud platform that supplies large-scale graphics processing unit, or GPU, clusters to clients like Meta, Midjourney and Mistral.
Additional sites are expected to follow, with the first locations going live in 2026. The project is expected to create 800 permanent jobs and more than 2,000 construction roles.
The investment positions Anthropic as a major domestic player in physical AI infrastructure at a moment when policymakers are increasingly focused on U.S.-based compute capacity and technological sovereignty.
“We’re getting closer to AI that can accelerate scientific discovery and help solve complex problems in ways that weren’t possible before. Realizing that potential requires infrastructure that can support continued development at the frontier,” said CEO Dario Amodei. “These sites will help us build more capable AI systems that can drive those breakthroughs, while creating American jobs.”
The move comes as Anthropic rival OpenAI pushes forward with an aggressive build-out of its own. The ChatGPT maker has secured more than $1.4 trillion in long-term infrastructure commitments through deals with Nvidia, Broadcom, Oracle and the major cloud providers, including Microsoft, Google, and, most recently, Amazon.
The scale of that spending has raised questions about whether the U.S. has the power capacity and industrial backbone to deliver on such promises, and whether the AI sector is drifting into bubble territory.
Anthropic serves more than 300,000 businesses, with enterprise clients driving most of its revenue.
The number of large accounts, which generate more than $100,000 annually, has nearly increased sevenfold in the past year. Internal projections obtained by The Wall Street Journal showed Anthropic expects to break even by 2028, well ahead of OpenAI, which is projecting $74 billion in operating losses that same year.
To support that trajectory, Anthropic tapped Fluidstack to build custom facilities optimized for its AI workloads, citing the firm’s speed and ability to deliver gigawatts of power on short timelines.
In parallel, Amazon has opened a dedicated data center campus for Anthropic on 1,200 acres in Indiana.
The $11 billion facility is already up and running, while many competitors are still promising data centers of the future. Anthropic has also expanded its compute deal with Google by tens of billions of dollars.
The move also comes as the role of the federal government in financing AI infrastructure becomes a flashpoint.
Last week, OpenAI asked the Trump administration to expand a key CHIPS Act tax credit to include AI data centers and grid components like transformers, according to a letter obtained by Bloomberg.
That request followed backlash over comments from CFO Sarah Friar, who had floated the idea of a government “backstop” for OpenAI’s compute deals.
Though the company has since walked back the suggestion of federal guarantees, the episode underscored the political and financial uncertainty surrounding how — and by whom — America’s AI infrastructure will be funded.
WATCH: SoftBank’s Nvidia exit fuels OpenAI push despite mounting losses, stiff competition from Anthropic
Robotaxi network Waymo is continuing to expand the reach and capabilities of its driverless vehicles to public riders in new cities. Today, the Alphabet, Inc. subsidiary announced freeway trips in three major US cities, as well as an expansion of its service availability in a familiar region.
2025 continues to be a pivotal year for autonomous rideshare developer Waymo, as it expands its fleet of test vehicles and public robotaxis to new cities around the US. That includes the commencement of customer rides in Austin, Texas, plus expansion plans in cities such like Dallas and Nashville, with other regions like Miami and Washington DC in the works.
Less than a month ago, Waymo shared plans to expand robotaxi operations across the pond, beginning in London in 2026. Today, Waymo offers public robotaxi rides in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco – the last of which is closest to company headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Today however, Waymo announced an expansion of its service map in The Bay Area, which now includes San Jose. Furthermore, Waymo has added freeway driving capabilitites in the region as well as in two other cities.
Waymo adds freeway robotaxi driving in three cities
According to a release from Waymo today, it has begun offering freeway access to public riders in the Phoenix, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Public access to freeway-capable robotaxi rides was enabled by millions of miles logged on freeways with Waymo present in those three cities.
Beyond that, Waymo said it plans to expand freeway access to robotaxi riders in additional cities in the future, including Austin, Atlanta, “and beyond.” Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov spoke:
Achieving fully autonomous freeway operations is a profound engineering feat—easy to conceive, yet hard to truly master. This milestone is a powerful testament to the maturity of our operations and technology. We are proud to begin offering riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix trips that use freeways as we continue to scale the Waymo Driver, always guided by safety.
In addition to freeway-enabled routes, Waymo shared that it is expanding its Bay Area service map, which now covers the entire Peninsula, from San Francisco to San Jose. This expanded map (seen above) also includies curbside service at San Jose Mineta International Airport (SJC).
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