I think FMC is caving in to pressure from the woke dipshits that work there. ICE bad, ICE evil, ICE going away ASAP, make it really expensive and scrape as much cash off bad evil people as quickly as possible on the way out the door. As a purportedly bad evil person, I resent that attitude. As an investor, I won't touch FMC with a ten-foot pole. Everything woke turns to shit.
I don't think environmentalism is really the main driver here. Sure, they may say it is...but it isn't. EVs have a few advantages over ICE from a business perspective. For one, you have the government spending money to help you sell. It's much better route that having to spend lobby money to stop CAFE standards from continually making it more difficult to sell ICE.
For two, Tesla proved that you can sell EVs without the dealership middleman. Ford can use EVs to change up their business model and be less dependent on dealerships and take in more profit per vehicle...or atleast offer vehicles for better price. Also allows controlling inventory better.
A third reason, no more R&D on improving ICE. Maybe I'm 100% wrong , but we seem to be at a bit of dead end when it comes to improving efficiency and performance of ICE. Ford can change up the design, suspension, other things, but there isn't really much to add as far as getting more HP without making some new engines?
I'm not saying Ford is done with ICE. They would not have made the bronco if that were the case. I'm thinking they aren't going to continue to sell what they have, maybe with some tweaks. Whatever developments they make for EV that can be used with ICE, they will use. Maybe they can start selling ICE without dealers as things move more to direct sales.
And Ford is far from alone in this regard, since every company is looking hard at EVs. EVs sales aren't going to drop off for a long time, and if things look like crap and people want more ICE again, Ford is not in a worse position than anyone else.
So, there are plenty of reason for Ford to make these decisions that have nothing to do with a desire to save the planet.