With legacy automaker Ford’s (F) earnings report set to emerge later today, there has been a surprise flood of small news items about the company. For the most part, investors are taking it quite well, and Ford shares are up over 2% in Monday afternoon’s trading session.
First, we have more about Jim Farley’s electric vehicle of choice, the Xiaomi (XIACF) Speed Ultra 7. It might have seemed like a puzzling move at the time, but Farley elaborated that he tries “…to drive everything we compete against.” After all, Farley notes, “…you’ve got to get behind the wheel to truly understand and beat the competition.” Which sounds reasonable enough, even if his praise for the kind of vehicle he once called an “existential threat” to his own operation sounded a mite effusive.
This did not help matters much after Edmunds released a report saying that the rear doors on its 2024 Ford Ranger pickup were difficult to close and required “a tremendous shove” to get them to fully close. Given that a car door is, much like a light switch, generally presumed to “just work,” this is an issue that may come back to haunt Ford in the pickup market, one of its biggest.
Not All Bad
There was positive news afoot for Ford as well, starting with its Android Auto connections. Ford recently added electric vehicle routing to Google Maps, which means Google Maps users can now identify the state of their batteries. It will even offer routing to charging stations between your current location and your destination.
And, just to top it off, Ford recently identified several of its engines that can successfully reach the half-million-mile mark without incident, assuming scrupulous maintenance. This includes:
- Lima V8 in 460 cubic inches
- Inline-Six in 300 cubic inches
- 351 Windsor
- Cleveland V8
- 6.8 liter Triton
- five-liter Coyote V8
- 4.6 liters and 5.4-liter Modular V8
- FE V8 in 390 cubic inches
- 3.5 liters EcoBoost V6
Is Ford Stock a Good Buy Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on F stock based on five Buys, eight Holds, and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 24.2% rally in its share price over the past year, the average F price target of $12.21 per share implies 7.81% upside potential.
