More Unsupported Claims From Ford

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 2:22AM EST · Published Mar 16, 6:20AM EDT

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Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) means to be the king of several car categories. This means it will need to crush some huge competitors. It is not the first time new CEO Jim Hackett has forecast a future he cannot know, and not the first time he has opened the door to disappoint investors. Hackett may want to show Wall Street that he can make a dent in Ford’s near-term future before he makes comments about what Ford may become.

Investors are already skeptical about Hackett’s plans. The company’s stock is off 13% in the past year and 12% in the past three months. During the 12-month period, Toyota’s shares have risen 15% and GM’s are up 2%.

Hackett and his senior management laid out plans for Ford that include an “onslaught” of connected new trucks, sport utility vehicles and hybrids. This, Ford management says, will give it the “freshest” line up of vehicles sold in the United States by 2020. The comment:

Ford brand targeting North America’s freshest lineup among full-line makers by 2020, replacing more than 75 percent of its current portfolio and adding four new trucks and SUVs.

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Hackett must have been given the product release plans of all his competitors.

The new SUVs, connected vehicles, upgrades to cars made over-the-air hookups, a new Transportation Mobility Cloud (which is ill-defined), new driver assist technology and hybrids are the keys to Ford’s future. As a group, the features are so powerful that, according to Hackett:

Our passion for great vehicles is stronger than ever. This showroom transformation will thrill customers, drive profitable growth and further build toward our future of smart vehicles in a smart world.

Thrilling customers will be a challenge. Ford recently posted mediocre results in the J.D. Power 2018 Vehicle Dependability Study and the J.D. Power 2018 U.S. Customer Service Index Study. Ford also received mediocre scores in the Consumer Reports Annual Brand Survey of cars and light trucks.

Hackett has a series of problems to face this year. Ford’s 2018 U.S. sales through the first two months are off 6.6% to 353,773. That performance is below those of GM and Toyota.

In the car industry, 2020 is a long time away. Based on Ford’s current performance, Hackett has a long way to go to get there successfully.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.