Ford Motor Co. expects its pretax profit to fall in 2017 but improve in 2018 as it invests in emerging businesses.
Advertisement
The maker of the best-selling F-150 pickup truck and the iconic Mustang muscle auto has said it will invest $4.5 billion to bring 13 new electric and hybrid vehicles to market by 2020.
Ford is boosting spending ahead of the planned 2021 introduction of its first self-driving auto and said today it expects autonomous vehicles to account for a fifth of its sales by the end of next decade.
Sponsored content: Is your agency prepared to defend the next cyber attack?
Talking to investors in Dearborn, Michigan on Wednesday, Fields said the move was part of the plan to make production simpler and less costly.
In response to the threat, Fields said that Ford will work with any administration but may be persuaded to stay in the US if the government simplifies tax codes and provides a “level playing field when it comes to trade agreements”.
Trump said, “We shouldn’t allow it to happen”.
The industry has known for decades that domestic manufacturers struggle to make a profit on small cars. “The bigger the vehicle, the more expensive, it’ll more likely be built in the US or Canada”. Future Ford customers will include city-dwellers who use the Blue Oval’s services to get around every day, but who don’t own a vehicle.
“This is very different thinking for us”. He has criticized Ford’s Mexican investments for more than a year and vowed to pressure the automaker to reverse course if elected.
As Ford first revealed in a regulatory filing last week, an expensive recall has forced Ford to lower its full-year 2016 profit guidance.
US automaker Ford announced Wednesday that all of its small-car production will be moved out of the U.S.to lower-cost Mexico.
Instead, within the next two years, production of the Ford Focus and C-Max – the only two of the company’s small cars still built in the United States – will move to Mexico.
Expected to start production in 2019, the Model E may be offered with hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains as well.
Advertisement
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump lamented Ford’s decision while speaking Wednesday at a church in Flint, Michigan. The No. 2 USA auto maker also said profit will shrink in 2017 due to investments, then rebound in 2018 amid an expansion of its vehicle and truck lineup and $3 billion in annual cost cuts achieved during a three-year span beginning this year. Ford also will place “a high priority on stable and sustainable dividends”, Fields said. Nair said accidents like that could cause regulators to clamp down on the technology. The high-performance Ford Focus RS is made in Germany.
