Ford Motor said Monday that it would scale back plans to produce electric vehicles and take a $19.5 billion hit to its profit to cover the costs of a major change in strategy.

The announcement amounted to an admission by Ford that it had overestimated demand for battery-powered vehicles and underestimated the staying power of vehicles powered by gasoline and diesel. Other big automakers, including General Motors and Stellantis, have also recently changed their plans and placed a far greater emphasis on combustion engine vehicles and hybrids.

The U.S. auto industry’s move away from electric vehicles is also a result of a reversal in government policies since President Trump took office in January. His administration has slashed government incentives for electric vehicles while promoting fossil fuels. This month, the administration announced plans to significantly weaken fuel economy standards, which would reduce automakers’ incentive to make electric cars.

Ford executives said the changes announced Monday would affect factories in several states but would ultimately create several thousand jobs.

A new factory in Tennessee that had been expected to produce an electric pickup truck will instead produce a gasoline model, Ford said. The company will cancel plans for an electric commercial van and instead build new gasoline and hybrid models in Ohio.

And the F-150 Lightning, an electric version of Ford’s popular pickup manufactured in Michigan, will no longer be a pure electric vehicle. Instead, it will be equipped with an auxiliary gasoline-fueled generator that can recharge its battery when it has been depleted, Ford said. Ford suspended production of the Lightning in October.

Ford said it remained committed to building a medium electric pickup in Kentucky that would cost around $30,000, or about as much as similar gasoline-powered vehicles. The technology for the pickup, which will become available in 2027, can also be used for other kinds of vehicles.

Still, the announcement is a significant retreat by Ford on pure electric vehicles, at least for the next few years.

Jim Farley, the chief executive of Ford, insisted that the company would still be able to compete with Chinese automakers whose well-regarded electric vehicles are quickly gaining market share in Asia, Europe and Latin America. They are in effect barred from the United States by tariffs, but auto executives acknowledge that those vehicles or the technology in them cannot be kept out forever.

“They don’t know about truck customers in the U.S. We do,” Mr. Farley said in an interview on Monday, referring to Chinese automakers.

The changes announced Monday will allow Ford to be more profitable and competitive, he said. The planned medium pickup will help Ford defend against low-cost Chinese models, he added.

“I think this makes our company much more China-proof,” Mr. Farley said.

But some industry experts said Ford’s strategy could make it vulnerable in the future if car buyers, including in the United States, became more willing to use electric vehicles.

“Dropping the Lightning might make Ford more China-proof until the day Chinese companies understand American pickup buyers the way Japanese car companies learned to understand American sedan and then S.U.V. buyers,” Erik Gordon, a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, said in an email. “There are no trade secrets to understanding American vehicle buyers.”

Excluding the one-time financial hit, Ford expects to still report a profit before interest and taxes of around $7 billion for 2025, the company said. But Ford will report a net loss in the fourth quarter, when most of the $19.5 billion will be booked.

Much of the financial hit stems from a decline in the value of Ford’s electric vehicle division. Accounting rules require the company to record the decline as a loss. While much of the loss will be on paper, $5.5 billion will be in cash, most of it next year.

Some costs also stem from a decision this month by Ford and SK On, a South Korean battery maker, to end their partnership. Ford will take full ownership of a battery factory in Kentucky that has been owned by the joint venture with SK, which is taking full ownership of a factory in Tennessee.

The Kentucky factory, designed to make batteries for cars, will be modified to produce batteries the size of shipping containers that data centers, utilities and other customers use to store energy, often from solar panels or wind turbines.

Tesla, the leading American electric vehicle company, has long had a fast-growing energy storage business, but Ford and other established automakers are only now dipping their toes in that market.

Ford, it said, expects half of the cars and trucks it sells by 2030 to be electric vehicles or hybrids that use a combination of batteries and gasoline motors. But the emphasis will be more on hybrids than the company had earlier anticipated.

If electric vehicle sales defy expectations and surge again, Mr. Farley said, Ford will be able to adjust and make more of them. “We have lots of flexibility,” he said.