Ford's decision to invest $5 billion in a new family of electric vehicles might seem crazy at this point, given how much the political winds have shifted against EVs since President Trump took office.

• But widen the lens, and Ford's big bet is the only natural choice in the face of existential threats to its business.

The big picture: More and more mainstream car buyers can't afford a new Ford, which sells for an average of $56,000.

• It's not just Ford, of course. The entire industry is facing an affordability crisis.
• At the same time, Chinese carmakers have figured out how to make inexpensive, high-quality, digitally advanced EVs, and they're quickly taking over the world.
• It's only a matter of time before those Chinese cars arrive in the U.S.

Failure to invest in the face of that global challenge is akin to waving the white flag.

Yes, but: Building affordable EVs profitably is much harder without consumer tax credits and other EV-friendly policies killed by the Trump administration.

• And Trump's tariff policy places a huge cost burden on American automakers — nearly $10 billion this year alone for General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.
• At least it gives them more time to push high-margin, U.S.-built trucks and SUVs.

Threat level: U.S. automakers are at a crossroads, with new tech and new competition from all directions, says Ford CEO Jim Farley.

• "Legacy automotive companies, we need a radical approach...But we need to do it and be sustainable and make money, and we need to do it with American workers," he said yesterday.

Driving the news: Ford's answer is a new EV platform designed from a clean sheet by mostly outsiders to bring fresh thinking to the problem.

• "We applied first‑principles engineering, pushing to the limits of physics to make it fun to drive and compete on affordability. Our new zonal electric architecture unlocks capabilities the industry has never seen. This isn't a stripped‑down, old‑school vehicle," said Doug Field, Ford's chief EV, digital and design officer who previously worked at Tesla and Apple.

The first model, coming in 2027, will be a versatile medium-sized pickup truck, with room for five passengers, a storage "frunk" (front trunk) and an open pickup bed.

• Ford envisions multiple body styles sharing the same universal EV platform at price points below $40,000, enabling economies of scale to ensure profitability.
• The cars will be powered by low-cost, lithium-iron-phosphate batteries produced in Michigan.

Zoom in: The effort includes a complete rethinking of how vehicles are assembled in order to overcome China's advantages, including low-cost labor and control of battery supply chains.

• For instance, large single-piece aluminum castings replace dozens of smaller parts, enabling the front and rear of the vehicle to be assembled separately on different branches.

The bottom line: "There are no guarantees with this project," Farley acknowledged. "We're doing so many new things I can't tell you with 100% certainty that this will all go just right. It is a bet. There is risk."

• But, says Farley, it's a risk worth taking.

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A new report zooms in on the gigantic amounts of energy needed specifically for training large AI models, as opposed to just aggregate estimates of training and use (or inference).

Why it matters: It yields a clearer picture of localized energy needs when hyperscalers build data center clusters that train exceptionally big "frontier" AI models. It's a joint project of the Electric Power Research Institute and Epoch AI.

State of play: The power required for the largest frontier training runs will surge this decade, potentially reaching 1-2 gigawatts by 2028 and a whopping 4-16 GW by 2030 (though that high end is considered unlikely).

Stunning stat: "This demand would be highly significant, with the high end for a single model approaching 1% of total U.S. power capacity," the report finds.

• "The energy demands of training cutting-edge AI models are doubling annually, soon rivaling the output of the largest nuclear power plants," said Jaime Sevilla, director of Epoch AI, in a statement.

The big picture: Total U.S. power needed to serve AI is estimated at 50 GW in 2030, a huge uptick from 5 GW today, the report finds in tallying inference and training.

• "Forecasts suggest AI could consume over 5% of U.S. generation capacity by 2030," it states.

The bottom line: The white paper acknowledges plenty of uncertainty, but it provides more data points that can help policymakers and hyperscalers plan.

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⚖️ Exxon and Suncor are asking the Supreme Court to review a decision by Colorado's high court that allowed climate litigation against the companies to proceed in state court.

• Why it matters: If the Supreme Court takes the case, the fallout would ripple across the wide array of climate cases against oil giants in state courts nationwide.
• The big picture: Oil companies argue that federal law preempts the state claims (which they reject anyway). "This case presents a case-dispositive and recurring question of extraordinary importance to the energy industry, which is facing dozens of lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages for the alleged effects of global climate change," the new petition argues.

🦜 New peer-reviewed research finds that "[c]ompared to a counterfactual without human-driven climate change, the historical intensification of heat extremes has caused a 25–38% reduction in the level of abundance of tropical birds." Full paper...authors' essay in The Conversation.

🚗Via Bloomberg, "The Trump administration released new guidance outlining how states can use federal funds to build electric car chargers after a federal court blocked an earlier move to freeze the program.

Suspension of output from a huge Chinese lithium mine is a story about the global market and where it's heading.

Why it matters: Lithium is an essential raw material in electric vehicles, so any increase in prices could translate into higher costs for EV makers.

Catch up quick: Battery giant CATL halted output at a property in the Jiangxi province, prompting global speculation about whether the country is teeing up a crackdown on overcapacity.

• The mine makes up about 6% of global lithium mining, according to Bank of America figures cited by Bloomberg.

📈 Spot lithium carbonate prices in China rose about 3% yesterday, FT reported.

• U.S. chemicals company Albemarle closed up 7%, while American lithium miner Piedmont gained 14.1% and Lithium Americas rose 9.3%.

⬇️ Reality check: Lithium prices have tanked over the last several years amid a global slowdown in EV sales growth.

• The market is "significantly oversupplied," according to a recent report by BNP Paribas senior commodities desk strategist David Wilson.

🌎 "This is a rebalancing of the disequilibrium that exists within the global lithium market," Gracelin Baskaran, director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, tells Axios in an email about the move in China.

What we're watching: It might be a temporary lull in demand. Benchmark Minerals is projecting a 204% increase in demand over the next decade.

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"Ørsted and our industry are in an extraordinary situation with the adverse market development in the US on top of the past years' macroeconomic and supply chain challenges."

The Danish offshore wind giant announced plans for a roughly $9.4 billion share sale to aid its finances, sending its shares down 30% on the news.

• The company said it could no longer proceed with the planned divestment of its Sunrise Wind project under construction off New York.

Why it matters: Trump's removal of U.S. support for offshore wind is a big problem for the company.