Ford chief executive Jim Farley has set a goal of selling 5 million vehicles a year by 2032, The Wall Street Journal reports — a target roughly 20% above the automaker's current sales volume and a level Ford hasn't reached since 2019.

Farley laid out the plan at a town hall meeting with employees, telling staff that new models arriving over the coming years would drive the increase, according to the Journal. Ford declined to comment on the report.

The ambition lands at a difficult moment. Ford has shipped about 3 million vehicles to dealers worldwide through September 30, down 9% from the equivalent period a year earlier, the company said. Reaching 5 million means adding 2 million annual sales in seven years.

Why did Ford's volumes fall in the first place?

Part of the slide was deliberate. Ford chose to kill thin-margin models such as the Escape and Edge SUVs, which had sold hundreds of thousands of units a year, sacrificing volume for profitability. That's the mechanism behind much of the recent decline: fewer nameplates, higher margins, lower totals.

The market isn't helping. Buyers face average transaction prices near $50,000, squeezed further by elevated interest rates and fuel costs, while the overall new-car market contracts, the Journal notes. Chinese automakers are pressing Ford in markets around the world. Ford stock has lost roughly 8.5% since January.

What will drive the growth?

The plan rests on affordable metal. By the end of the decade, Ford plans to launch five new models priced under $40,000, among them an electric pickup. Farley has repeatedly said cheaper vehicles remain a key focus — a direct response to that near-$50,000 average sticker price.

In Europe, Ford is leaning on tie-ups with Renault and Geely to bring new models to market faster and more cheaply than it could alone. The Geely partnership, disclosed in July, calls for the Chinese automaker to produce electric vehicles at a Ford facility in Spain under a new manufacturing joint venture (a JV: a company jointly owned by two firms to share costs and risk).

Farley framed the logic at an industry conference last month. He said Ford would partner with Chinese companies where it lacks intellectual property and can be more capital efficient, citing Europe and Southeast Asia as examples. Translation: buy the technology you don't have, spend less doing it.

What about the Fathom electric truck?

One concrete bet anchors the EV push. Ford is targeting more than 100,000 first-year sales of the Fathom electric truck, which will be built on a new assembly line at its Louisville Assembly Plant in Kentucky.

That's an ambitious figure for an electric pickup at a time when EV adoption curves have flattened. But it signals where Ford sees volume coming from: mainstream-priced electric trucks aimed at buyers the current lineup prices out.

Can the math work?

Five new sub-$40,000 models, two European partnerships, one high-volume electric truck. Together, Ford is betting these add up to 2 million incremental annual sales by 2032 — without the low-margin nameplates it just spent years shedding.

The tension is obvious. Ford walked away from cheap, high-volume SUVs because they didn't make money. Now it needs volume again, just at prices buyers can still afford in a high-rate, high-fuel-cost market. Whether it can do both at once is the question the next seven years will answer.