New York - Ford closed the last quarter with heavy losses of$11.1 billion, according to results released by the US car giant on Tuesday.
The decisive factors were the restructuring of its heavilyloss-making electric vehicle business, a fire at an aluminium supplier, and US President Donald Trump's import tariffs.
The US carmaker had already announced a write-down of $19.5 billionon battery-powered vehicles. Ford had closed the same quarter lastyear with a profit of $1.8 billion.
Sales fell by 5% year-on-year to $45.9 billion.
At the divisional level, the picture was similar to previousquarters: the electric car division posted an operating loss of $1.2billion. Meanwhile, cars with combustion engines brought Ford anoperating profit of $727 million, and the commercial vehicle division earned about $1.2 billion on this basis.
Following Tesla's success, the major US carmakers General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis invested billions of dollars to add more electriccars to their model ranges.
In the future, Ford intends to focus more on hybrid vehicles - and onsmaller models in the electric car segment.
The fully electric version of the large F-150 pickup truck has been discontinued.
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