From: Glenn Petersen | 5/26/2023 2:27:38 PM | | | | Ford’s EV charging deal with Tesla puts pressure on GM, other rival automakers
PUBLISHED FRI, MAY 26 202312:25 PM EDT UPDATED 14 MIN AGO Michael Wayland @MIKEWAYLAND CNBC.com
KEY POINTS
-- A surprise deal between Ford Motor and Tesla on electric vehicle charging technology and infrastructure could put new pressure on other automakers’ EV strategies.
-- Ford CEO Jim Farley and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the deal Thursday during a live audio discussion on Twitter Spaces.
-- RBC Capital analyst Tom Narayan said the Ford-Tesla deal could be a near-term negative for GM and other automakers. DETROIT – A surprise deal between Ford Motor and Tesla on electric vehicle charging technology and infrastructure could put new pressure on other automakers’ EV strategies.
The tie-up between the two rivals will give Ford owners access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers across the U.S. and Canada, starting early next year. More importantly, Ford’s next generation of EVs — expected by mid-decade — will use Tesla’s charging plug, allowing owners of Ford vehicles to charge at Tesla Superchargers without an adapter.
The agreement will make Ford among the first automakers to explicitly tie into the network.
Ford CEO Jim Farley and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the deal Thursday during a live audio discussion on Twitter Spaces. On Friday morning, Farley acknowledged the tie-up would create challenges for Ford’s rivals.
“I think GM and others are going to have a big choice to make,” he said on CNBC’s “ Squawk Box.”
Farley’s comments referenced which EV plug should be standard for charging in the U.S. A charger known as CCS is the industry norm now. Tesla vehicles and its Supercharger network use what’s known as NACS. Other vehicles can use both, but they need an adapter.
“The CCS is a great standard, but it was pretty much done by kind of a committee, and I think GM and others are going to have a big choice to make,” Farley told CNBC. “Do they want to have fast charging for customers? Or do they want to stick to their standard and have less charging?
Ford’s stock rose more than 7% during Friday trading, above $12 per share. Tesla’s shares also climbed more than 6%, topping $195.
The Ford-Tesla deal could be a near-term negative for GM, Stellantis and other automakers that don’t have access to as many fast chargers, which are considered crucial to expand EV adoption, said RBC Capital analyst Tom Narayan
“The news is obviously a positive for Ford shares today (and potentially near term negative for GM/STLA), but ultimately, we think this should be viewed as Tesla playing the long game,” Narayan said in a Friday investor note.
Tesla says it has roughly 45,000 Supercharger connectors worldwide at 4,947 Supercharger Stations. The company does not break out how many are in the U.S. The U.S. Department of Energy reports the country only has about 5,300 CCS fast chargers.
General Motors, without specifically addressing Farley’s comments, said Friday it “believes that open charging networks and standards are the best way forward to enable EV adoption across the industry.” GM said it is working with a group of companies and SAE International, formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers, to develop and continue to refine an open connector standard for CCS, which it said was important for “the buildout of an open network of fast charging across North America.”
The Detroit automaker has announced several partnerships with EV charging providers and lobbied for more federal support for such infrastructure.
‘Totally committed’
Ford is “totally committed” to a single U.S. charging protocol that includes the Tesla plug port, Farley said Thursday.
Musk, when announcing the deal with Farley, alluded to other automakers being able to use the Tesla Supercharger network and the company’s charging ports.
“Working with Ford, and perhaps others, can make it the North American standard, I think that consumers will be all better for it,” Musk said Thursday.
Tesla previously discussed opening its private network to other EVs. White House officials announced in February that Tesla committed to opening up 7,500 of its charging stations to non-Tesla EV drivers by the end of 2024.
Public charging of electric vehicles is a major concern for potential buyers, and no automaker other than Tesla has successfully built out its own network. Instead, they’ve announced partnerships with third-party companies that have often proven unreliable and frustrating to owners.
Most U.S. drivers log vehicle miles from home to locations nearby. But EV buyers who want to take longer road trips, or who do not have access to a garage with a charger, often worry about access to reliable, public charging.
The issue is getting worse: at least 1 in 5 charging attempts by drivers failed last year, according to a study on public charging released last year by J.D. Power.
Tesla’s Superchargers were ranked the best for overall customer satisfaction, according to a separate new study from J.D. Power.
Wall Street bullish
Wolfe Research analyst Rod Lache called the deal a “win-win,” as it more than doubles Ford customers’ access to fast chargers and increases Tesla’s network’s utilization.
“For Ford, access to Tesla’s network helps solve a major pain-point for their EV customers, who otherwise have to use third-party charging providers,” he said in a Friday investor note. “Meanwhile, for Tesla, adding Ford customers will help boost network utilization, a key driver of profitability.”
The deal is a major boost to access to fast-chargers for Ford and its customers, Morningstar analyst David Whiston said. He added that it “puts some pressure on other legacy automakers but if you are someone like GM, I don’t think you need to panic.”
Whiston said he would like to know more about the deal, such as cost, length and other details that were not announced.
A Ford spokesman said more information about the agreement will be announced closer to Tesla’s chargers opening up to Ford owners early next year.
– CNBC’s Michael Bloom, Lora Kolodny and John Rosevear contributed to this report.
Ford Tesla EV charging deal puts pressure on GM (cnbc.com) |
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From: Savant | 7/18/2023 9:19:21 AM | | | | Ford slashed prices on its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck by up to nearly 17% Monday, the latest sign that swelling inventories and fierce price competition are softening the market for the technology the auto industry is betting its future on.
Ford Motor said Monday that the reductions, which effectively dropped the Lightning's starting price by almost $10,000 to $49,995, were the result of lower material costs and the company having more factory output. Some versions will get a steeper price cut than others.
The Lightning is one of Ford's highest-profile EV launches yet and is key to its growth plans as it aims to transition more of its lineup away from the gasoline-powered vehicles that continue to drive the bulk of its profits.
Automakers globally have been investing hundreds of billions of dollars to create new electric models, build battery factories and construct new EV plants. The capital binge -- in part prompted by tightening carbon-emissions requirements -- has over the years generated enthusiasm among investors seeking a growth opportunity in the wake of Tesla's meteoric rise in stock value.
Along the way, auto executives have touted strong consumer interest in their latest EV entries, as the companies set ambitious targets for converting their lineups to electrics. Now, Ford's Lightning price cut is the latest development raising questions about the strength of the budding EV market.
The pace of sales overall on EVs -- while much stronger than the broader car market -- slowed in the first half of this year. Meanwhile, some car companies are already reporting excess inventory, a reversal of a year earlier when many newly released models had multimonth wait lists.
Some automakers also have been cutting prices on some top-selling EV models.
Tesla -- which had 60% U.S. market share in electric vehicles this year through June, according to Motor Intelligence -- reported a surge in second-quarter deliveries that was helped by sharp price cuts and discounts rolled out earlier this year. Also over the weekend, Tesla began production of its Cybertruck nearly four years after the prototype was introduced.
Ford in January responded to Tesla's price cuts by lowering the price on its Mustang Mach-E electric SUV, a direct rival to Tesla's top-selling Model Y. The Dearborn, Mich., car company reduced prices yet again on the Mach-E in May.
When first introduced, the Lightning had a starting price tag of around $40,000. However, Ford several times hiked the sticker price during a period of strong demand and to help offset higher expenses related to materials and the battery inputs.
Shares of Ford fell 5.9% Monday, following news of the EV pickup's price cuts.
Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley has expressed reticence about price cuts on EVs, citing concern that it hurts resale values and brand image. Ford has been able to raise Lightning prices over the past year in part because there are few EV truck options on the market.
"There's a limit on how far we'll go," Farley said of the company's price cut strategy at a Wall Street Journal event in May. "I think it's a worrying trend."
EV pricing has softened throughout the year as some automakers have followed Tesla's lead. Industrywide, the average price buyers paid for an EV decreased nearly 20% from June 2022 to last month, according to research firm Cox Automotive. For gas-engine vehicles, prices have remained steady over the same period, increasing slightly to $48,808.
Electric cars have begun to back up at U.S. dealerships. There were 92 days of unsold EV inventory at the end of June, a measure of stock availability based on recent sales trends, compared with a 51-day supply across all types of vehicles, according to Cox.
The inventory numbers don't include Tesla, which sells directly to consumers. In the first quarter, the value of Tesla's finished goods -- a measure that reflects unsold vehicle inventory and those in transit to customers, among other products available for sale -- increased to roughly $4.6 billion, up from less than $1 billion the year before, securities filings show.
Boosting sales of the EV truck has become even more important as Ford aims to significantly increase production. Ford has twice increased its factory output target for the Lightning in the past couple of years and now aims to build about 150,000 electric trucks a year at its plant in suburban Detroit.
Tesla, too, is aiming to beef up the rate at which it churns out EVs, recently applying for approval to double the size of its factory near Berlin in order to produce up to one million EV cars a year.
The auto industry is under pressure to sell more EVs in part because of stiffening government regulations, not only in the U.S. but also in Europe and China. The Biden administration in April proposed some of the nation's toughest-ever restrictions on car pollution, laying out new rules that analysts say would require about two-thirds of all new vehicles sold be EVs by 2032.
Ford is already losing money on the EVs it sells. It projects that this part of the business could lose $3 billion this year, a figure that it expects to be offset by the profits earned on its gas-engine business.
Tesla, which continues to dominate the electric-vehicle market globally, has been aggressive in its efforts to grow sales, even if it has come at the expense of near-term profitability.
Throughout the year, it has released a series of price adjustments that have effectively taken down the cost of its vehicles between 14% and 28%, depending on the model. Tesla has more wiggle room to lower prices because its operating margins are higher than those of its rivals, including Ford.
Industrywide sales of electric vehicles in the U.S. surged by 50% in the first half of the year, cooling from a 71% rise in the year-earlier period.
Ford's EV sales increased 12% in the first half of the year, but executives say the growth rate would have been higher if the two plants building the Mach-E and F-150 Lightning weren't temporarily shut down for expansions.
-- Will Feuer contributed to this article.
Write to Nora Eckert at nora.eckert@wsj.com |
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From: Glenn Petersen | 7/27/2023 7:22:21 PM | | | | Ford raises full-year guidance after solid earnings beat
PUBLISHED THU, JUL 27 202312:00 PM EDT4 UPDATED AN HOUR AGO Michael Wayland @MIKEWAYLAND CNBC.com
KEY POINTS
-- Ford Motor on Thursday raised its 2023 guidance after second-quarter earnings significantly beat Wall Street expectations, boosted by strong pricing and demand for the automaker’s traditional vehicles.
-- Ford increased its full-year adjusted earnings forecast to a range of between $11 billion and $12 billion, up from a prior forecast $9 billion and $11 billion.
-- EV adoption, however, is taking place more slowly than the company expected, in part because of higher costs.
DETROIT — Ford Motor on Thursday raised its 2023 guidance after second-quarter earnings significantly beat Wall Street expectations, boosted by strong pricing and demand for the automaker’s traditional vehicles even as adoption of EVs took hold slower than the company expected.
Ford increased its full-year adjusted earnings forecast to a range of between $11 billion and $12 billion, up from a prior forecast $9 billion and $11 billion. It also upped its expected adjusted free cash flow to a range of $6.5 billion to $7 billion from earlier guidance of $6 billion.
There was pressure on Ford to raise its guidance after crosstown rival General Motors raised its yearly guidance Tuesday for the second time this year.
Ford finance chief John Lawler said vehicle demand and pricing were “holding up” better than the company anticipated at the beginning of the year for its traditional businesses. However, he said, electric vehicle adoption is taking place more slowly than the company expected, in part because of higher costs.
Ford’s traditional business operations, known as Ford Blue, earned $2.31 billion during the quarter, while it’s Ford Pro commercial business earned $2.39 billion. Its “Model e” electric vehicle unit lost $1.08 billion from April through June.
The company said it now expects to lose $4.5 billion on the EV business this year, widening losses from roughly $3 billion a year earlier.
Here’s how Ford did during the second quarter, compared with what Wall Street expected based on average estimates compiled by Refinitiv:
Adjusted earnings per share: 72 cents vs. 55 cents expected
Automotive revenue: $42.43 billion vs. $40.38 billion expected
The automaker reported net income of $1.92 billion, or 47 cents per share, substantially up from a year earlier when it earned $667 million, or 16 cents per share.
Ford said its adjusted earnings before interest and tax, or adjusted EBIT, jumped to $3.79 billion, up from $3.72 billion a year ago. Its adjusted margin dropped to 8.4%, from from 9.3% in the year-ago period, amid increased production and sales.
Total revenue for the quarter was $45 billion, up 12% from $40.2 billion a year earlier.
It’s the second quarterly report in which the automaker broke down its financial results by business unit instead of by region.
Ford Motor (F) earnings Q2 2023 (cnbc.com) |
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From: Julius Wong | 8/10/2023 10:07:08 PM | | | | GM, Ford, Stellantis slide as union president tosses proposals in the dustbin
Aug. 10, 2023 4:37 PM ET Stellantis N.V. (STLA), GM, F By: Christiana Sciaudone, SA News Editor 79 Comments
Bill Pugliano/Getty Images News
General Motors Company (NYSE: GM), Ford (NYSE: F) and Stellantis N.V. (NYSE: STLA) slid amid worries that a strike or big union wage increase may be imminent.
It probably didn’t help that the United Auto Workers union president tossed STLA’s contract proposals in the literal garbage on Tuesday.
GM was down 5.8% while F fell 4.5% on Thursday. STLA was down 1.8%.
Tensions remain high between manufacturers and the United Auto Workers union as contract negotiations continue. Should a contract not be agreed upon, the union could strike next month.
The UAW is reported to be pushing for at least a 40% pay increase over the four-year contract, which would include a 20% jump in wages from the start.
STLA broke a pledge not to seek givebacks in this round of talks, UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. On Tuesday, Fain jettisoned STLA’s contract proposals into a trash can.
Last week, GM traded shots with the UAW ahead of the September 14 expiration of the current four-year labor contract. The company said it expects to offer unionized workers higher wages, but warned that granting the United Auto Workers' contract demands for large pay rises would hurt its ability to make sound business decisions.
Stellantis ( STLA) is the lead negotiator with the UAW, but the union has also presented demands to General Motors ( GM) and Ford Motor ( F).
The UAW demands would add more than $80B to each of the biggest U.S. automakers’ labor costs, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the companies’ estimates.
When it reported earnings recently, GM's updated guidance did not include potential disruptions that could arise from a UAW strike. |
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