Ford crushes earnings expectations as trusty trucks offset major EV losses
Loading up the F-150… Ford's famous truck has been the best-selling vehicle in America for nearly a half century, and it didn’t disappoint last quarter either. The auto OG just unloaded expectation-smashing results, led by its old-school passenger cars and commercial-fleet vehicles like delivery vans. While Ford’s EV biz racked up hefty losses, strong earnings from the legacy divisions let the Michigan automaker drive home a $1.8B profit.
- Ford Model E: Its electric division lost more than $700M, and the company expects it’ll lose $3B this year. FYI: this is the first quarter Ford started breaking out EV results.
“Take my [Ford] to the Old Town Road”… and make it electric. While gas trucks are Ford’s profit poodles, it isn’t skimping on its e-aspirations. It said it would boost spending on EVs to $50B through 2026, with plans to churn out 2M+ EVs/year by then. Last year Ford sold 61K+ EVs in the US, making it America’s #2 best-selling EV maker after Tesla. But it sold only 12K EVs last quarter, and sales of its electric Mustang were down 20%. This week it also slashed the Mach-E’s price for the second time this year.
Being boring can help you be buzzy… Ford’s “boring” legacy cars are bankrolling its money-losing EV ambitions. CEO Jim Farley said Ford is “boringly predictable when it comes to execution and delivering financials, but extremely ambitious in… creating the Ford of the future.” Its gas-car biz could sustain the company until the EV side is profitable, giving it an advantage over pure-play EV rivals. This week, e-truck startup Lordstown Motors warned it could go bankrupt, while the likes of Rivian and Lucid are struggling.