Ford’s expectation is that as more consumers embrace electrification through hybrids, they will eventually end up owning pure-electric vehicles. “You do wonder what a customer will think when they realize that in three months the engine has never started, but they still have to go get the oil changed on it,” said Doug Field, Ford’s chief EV, digital and design officer. For now, though, Detroit’s automakers are leaning into the lucre that comes from selling millions of fossil-fuel vehicles in a rare moment of loosened regulation.“They’d be crazy not to do what’s the most profitable thing to do,” Wakefield said. “It would also be crazy not to start investing some of that money into what they really need to do to win in the future.”