WSJ What’s News - Ford Pulls Back From EV Plans After $19.5 Billion Hit

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

P.M. Edition for Dec. 15. Ford expects to take about $19.5 billion in charges as it retrenches from electric vehicles. WSJ’s Rebecca Picciotti unpacks how two starkly different approaches to housing costs played out in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. And Hollywood director Rob Reiner’s son Nick Reiner has been arrested on suspicion of murder in his parents’ deaths. Sabrina Siddiqui hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Ford is writing down a massive $19.5 billion in electric vehicle investments. Plus, what dueling approaches in Minnesota's twin cities tell us about fixing America's housing crisis. In St. Paul, you saw that they didn't find that it worked for their city, and they're, in fact, starting to roll parts of it back. It's not a wholesale rebuke of rent control, but the first attempt didn't. necessarily go as planned. And the U.S. offers Ukraine's security guarantees as part of peace talks with Russia. It's Monday, December 15th. I'm Sabrina Siddiqui for the Wall Street Journal, sitting in for Alex Olsula. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines

and business stories that move the world today. The son of Hollywood director Rob Reiner and Michelle Singer-Riner has been arrested on suspicion of murder in the deaths of his parents. They were found dead yesterday in their Los Angeles home. And this is LAPD Chief Jim McDonald today. We have our robbery homicide division handling the investigation. They worked throughout the night on this case and were able to take into custody Nick Reiner, a suspect in this case. He was subsequently booked for murder. Nick Reiner has spoken about his battle with drug addiction over the years and has said he was homeless and in and out of shelters at times.

Rob Reiner's credits include Hollywood classics such as This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, the Princess Bride, and a few good men. There was an outpouring of grief after news of the couple's deaths from Hollywood celebrities and politicians, including former president's Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Rob Reiner was known for his liberal advocacy and was a Democratic donor. He was also a critic of President Trump, who said today on a post on his social media platform truth social that Rob Reiner was tortured and struggling and that he suffered from quote Trump derangement syndrome. Trump's comments drew criticism from Democrats and some Republicans.

Also in California, four people have been arrested on charges of plotting New Year's Eve bombings. Law enforcement officials said today that the four were arrested on Friday in the Mojave Desert as they began testing explosive devices. The Justice Department says they were members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front, an anti-government group that the DOJ says has advocated on social media for violence against U.S. officials. The government says one defendant provided an FBI source with plans for planting backpacks loaded with explosives outside five locations targeting two companies and detonating them on New Year's Eve. A Justice Department official described the companies as Amazon-type logistics centers.

Minnesota's twin cities have taken starkly different paths to tackle soaring housing costs. St. Paul turned to rent control with one of the country's strictest policies. Minneapolis, meanwhile, steered clear of rent control and instead prioritized boosting the supply of housing with rules in 2020 that made it easier to build apartments. The results are now coming into focus. Rebecca Pichodo, who covers the residential rental market and housing policy at the Wall Street Journal has the story. Rebecca, let's start with St. Paul. In 2022, St. Paul capped annual rent increases at 3% for most departments. What was the outcome there? Development pretty much fell off a cliff.

You know, private housing developers as well as their investors and lenders don't really like being restricted on how much rent they can charge. Some developers paused their projects. Lenders and investors started pulling back on potential financing. Developers that might have looked at downtown empty office buildings and wanted to convert them to new apartments. They started shelving those plans. And so from January to May 2022, we saw that building permits in St. Paul were 79% lower than the same period the year before. Minneapolis took a different approach, making it easier to build apartments. And one way they did that was removing restrictions that limited housing to single family homes. How has that

played out. In Minneapolis, during that same January to May, 2022 period, building permits were four times as high as the year before. So you saw something of a downtown boom springing up in Minneapolis. There's this one neighborhood called the North Loop, and there's all of this new construction going on, and high-end apartment buildings line the streets and, you know, cute coffee shops. It became more of a scene that started, you know, attracting young renters at the same time that St. Paul's building was slowing down. It's worth putting an asterisk next to all of this. This was a tumultuous time for commercial real estate broadly, especially in the Twin Cities. You had the pandemic rattling the office market and there was political unrest like the George Floyd protest in Minneapolis.

So this was all kind of weighing on the region. But you saw that development in Minneapolis. But in St. Paul, you saw that they didn't find that it worked for their city. And they're in fact starting to roll parts of it back. It's not a wholesale rebuke of rent control, but the first attempt didn't necessarily go as planned. And what's the takeaway from housing experts from the Twin City example? Housing economists don't like rent control. You know, there is a broader conversation about how we have a housing shortage in the country. To fill that housing shortage, you want to build more housing.

And so that was the route that Minneapolis took. But it is worth noting that lower income renters in Minneapolis say that all of of this new building doesn't necessarily benefit them. The new apartment skew luxury. Housing experts are still looking at trying to find this balance of building more to boost supply and hopefully bring down rents while also ensuring that when you build more, it doesn't necessarily displace the existing residents who were there. That was the Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Pichotto. Rebecca, thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Coming up, why did Jared Kushner back out of a plan to build a Trump hotel

in Serbia? That's after the break. Isn't home where we all want to be? Reba here for Realtor.com. The pro's number one most trusted app. Finding a home is like dating. You're searching for the one. With over 500,000 new listings every month, you can find the one today. Download the realter.com app because you're nearly home. Make it real with Realtor.com. Pros number one most trusted app based on August 2025 for proprietary survey. Over 500,000 new listings every month based on average new for sale and rental

listings, July 24 to June 2025. J.P. Morgan Chase is financing a $7.4 billion deal for a zinc smelter in Tennessee that would produce critical minerals. That's according to people familiar with the matter. The U.S. government is investing in the smelter, which will be built by Korea zinc. J.P. Morgan has committed to financing $1.5 trillion for national security-related deals in the next decade. And in corporate news out late today, Ford says it expects to take about $19.5 billion in charges mainly tied to its electric vehicles. Ford has lost $13 billion on its EV business since 2023 and says it will now build up its lineup of gas vehicles and shift to hybrids.

It will stop making an EV version of its F-150 pickup truck called the Lightning. It will instead make what's known as an extended range version of the truck. Ford says that by 2030, hybrids, EVs, and extended range EVs, which have gasoline engines, will make up about half its global volume. U.S. automakers have been abandoning plans to quickly step up in EV future after regulatory changes and lackluster demand from Americans. Ford's shares rose about 1.5% in after-hours trading. Broader trading was muted with the NASDAQ finishing the day down 0.6%, while the Dow and

S&P 500 ended barely in the red. U.S. officials say Washington has pledged to protect Ukraine from a future Russian attack as negotiators try to break the deadlock in peace talks. The offer came on the second day of talks in Berlin among the U.S., Ukraine, and European leaders. It includes U.S. support for European security guarantees and seek Senate backing for Washington's promised role. But it remains unclear to what extent Washington would militarily intervene. And a more difficult dispute over whether Ukraine can keep contested territory in the country remains unresolved. The Trump administration is pushing to finalize a deal by the end of the year, but Ukrainian and European officials doubt it can happen by

then. And in a push against Russia, the European Union has sanctioned two oil traders, it says, have played a major role in facilitating the country's energy exports. It's a big swing at a clandestine market that has bankrolled Moscow's war against Ukraine. Energy exports are also crucial to Russia's economy. The EU blacklisted Etibar Ayyub of Azerbaijan and Murtazza Lakhani of Pakistan. Ayub told the journal he has never done anything unlawful, while Lakhani said he considers the basis for the measures unfounded and that he would step down from managerial positions at companies he owns. Jared Kushner has withdrawn from a plan Trump-branded hotel development in Serbia's capital. The project triggered public protests and a political scandal in the Balkan country.

The plan had been for three towers on a Belgrade site damaged during NATO's 1999 bombing campaign. Today, a special prosecutor in Serbia indicted a Serbian cabinet minister and three other officials over their roles in the project. Hours later, Kushner's private equity firm, Affinity Partners, said it was stepping aside out of respect for the people of Serbia. It was an abrupt end to a development the President's son-in-law had pursued for more than two years. His $4.8 billion firm affinity is largely backed by Middle Eastern governments. It has been involved in deals including the record-breaking $55 billion buyout of electronic arts and Paramount's hostile bid for Warner Brothers. And that's what's news for this Monday afternoon.

Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansy with supervising producer Tali Arbell. I'm Sabrina Siddiqui for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening. You know,