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Ford (F) Fell On It's Sword Already, But More Pain is Ahead if They Can't Fix The Whole Company

Austin Smith

Published: February 11, 2025 9:26 am

24/7 Wall St. Key Points:

• Ford (NYSE: F) continues to struggle in the EV market, with minimal sales growth that remains insignificant compared to competitors like Tesla
• It seems that a CEO replacement and a shift in family control are necessary for a turnaround.
• The company’s attempt to blame tariffs for weak performance is seen as an excuse rather than addressing fundamental operational and strategic issues.
• Also: Are you ahead, or behind on retirement? Click here to take a quick quiz and see for yourself.

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Transcript:

[00:00:04] Doug McIntyre: Lee, the Ford Motor Company, still the worst run big company in the United States. I don’t know. They fell on their sword again. Look, they sort of met the guidance, which is fine. So they said that next year is going to be weak. And I love it when companies say like this, the best part of the year is going to be in the second half of the year.

[00:00:25] Doug McIntyre: Right. I see. All right. So it’s like, well, it’s going to be sort of crummy in the first half and then it’ll get better. So if you look at Ford, It’s the same problem. Warranty problems appear to be less important, but they still can’t sell any EVs to save their lives. And although it was improved, but still, yeah.

[00:00:50] Doug McIntyre: But that’s like saying that we sold six cars last year and now we sold eight. It’s like, the percentage is impressive, but here’s the thing, the Ford family has to make two moves. The first one is they got to get rid of the CEO. And they also then have to go to Ford himself and say, look, you’ve had this job since 1999.

[00:01:11] Doug McIntyre: That’s long enough to sit in the chair. We’re going to take this cousin, that cousin, whatever. And they’re going to be the new representative of the Fords and try to fix the thing. You got to get a like guy like Alan Mulally, who ran Ford for several years. And it was a great company right now.

[00:01:30] Doug McIntyre: You’ve got a company that continues to screw up the EV business that is run by a family member who is just absolutely is incompetent. He’s incompetent who has decided to employ an incompetent CEO so that when they get together and stuff and to have a fun time, like can swap incompetence. So Ford, if Ford does not make the decision to change management and change which members of the family run it. You could forget it. You can take this stock, you can set, get the, have ’em send you the certificates so you can set ’em on fire.

[00:02:09] Lee Jackson: Well, and the thing is, that, and of course, in an effort to blunt the criticism from Wall Street and from every place else. They go, well, now these tariffs might really affect earnings.

[00:02:20] Lee Jackson: And it’s like, okay, that’s not your biggest problem, but all right.

[00:02:24] Doug McIntyre: No, it’s not your biggest problem. And I understand on these investor calls, you have to say, tariffs might hurt us, but what you have to say is other than tariffs, we’re going to do awesome. And then everybody knows there could be tariffs and it tears the industry apart.

[00:02:40] Doug McIntyre: Why do you tell people that something they already know, tell them why you are. Absolutely the greatest car company in the world, prove it to people and no one’s going to blame you about tariffs because you have no control over it.

[00:02:52] Lee Jackson: Well, and the, places where it would affect Ford Motor isn’t China.

[00:02:57] Lee Jackson: It’s in Canada and Mexico because they have production lines there. So, it’s all negotiation and probably the Canadians and Mexicans probably say, okay, well, We’ll take care of stuff, but yeah, to blame it on that. That’s, weak. It’s weak.