I recently flew to Charlotte, North Carolina, home of NASCAR in the United States, to preview all the new Ford (F) Performance race cars and meet CEO and Chief Race Car Driver Officer Jim Farley. did.
Farley was in good spirits. First, he enjoyed showing off new high-performance EVs like the new Mustang GT3 race car and Lightning “Switchgear” pickup. Another thing he enjoyed talking about: His expectations that 2024 will be a big year for Ford, its biggest year since he took the helm three years ago. Dew.
How Ford plans to win on the racetrack and in the sales floor
But let's start with Farley's passion for racing.
In a first for Ford Performance, the company's motorsports division highlighted all of its racing commitments in what it calls the launch of the 2024 season. Ford's motorsports presence extends from racing the Mustang in NASCAR to now racing in the GT3 Endurance Series in Europe, to off-road racing with the Ford Bronco and upcoming Raptor pickup truck at the Dakar Rally. has grown rapidly in recent years.
Farley said the company is entering the race for two reasons. Partly to get attention and focus on “passion products” like the Mustang and Bronco, but partly because he believes motorsports is good business, not just marketing. . Ford believes racing can also be a profitable business.
“We think racing can be a business, a sustainable business.” [that] I've looked at my 40-year career so far,” Farley said in an interview with Yahoo Finance (video above).
Since becoming CEO, Mr. Farley, a former Toyota executive, has sought to change the way Ford approaches the market. For example, like Toyota, which has a huge portfolio of automotive products, it won't be everything to everyone.
Mr. Farley told Mr. Ford: was No longer building “vanilla” or regular cars, he wanted to sell cars that were exciting. “We would like to do more racing to inform production cars, rather than influencing suspension geometry as we have done in the past.” [for example]. “Just like we actually want to sell a lot of street race cars,” he said.
Naturally, Farley is a race car driver. For example, he competes in the Rolex Classic Race at Monterey in cars such as a 1966 Ford GT and his 1978 Lola T298, and I saw him driving them at Laguna Seca. However, the same goes for other dedicated race cars.
And it's that focused attitude that Farley hopes to bring into 2024. Last year wasn't the best year for Ford. Six weeks of contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers (UAW) stalled, and weak demand for electric vehicles forced the company to rethink its long-term strategy. However, despite having to deal with the UAW's stand-up strike, the company expects its adjusted EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) in 2023 to be essentially the same as in 2022, at $10 billion to $10.5 billion. We still expect to make a profit.
Another problem with the transition to EVs was just revealed this week, with Ford moving 1,400 employees from F-150 Lightning production at its Rouge electric vehicle production center as demand for EV trucks continues to decline. I let it happen.
Nevertheless, Farley is optimistic that 2024 could be a big year for Ford as it doubles sales of popular vehicles and adjusts its EV rollout. The company will reduce factory shifts for the Lightning while increasing production of the Bronco SUV and Ranger mid-size pickup truck.
“I've been leading the company for three years, and 2024 is the first year I can say that we have a chance to be a real breakout year for a number of reasons,” Farley said. “We have overcome labor issues and negotiations in the U.S., but most importantly, we are launching about half a dozen new products and already have a new lineup of Broncos and Mavericks. ”
Farley believes Ford's new product strategy of focusing on products it's passionate about, rather than being all about products for everyone, will pay off in 2024. Ford's EV strategy is also evolving, with a focus on long-term price reductions as the company expects EV sales to stabilize at about 10,000 units per year. Month. As Ford seeks to give customers what they want, the switch to hybrids helps reduce the cost of transitioning to EVs, especially the F-150.
“We are No. 2 in the hybrid field.” [sales in the US]”At Ford, we have all the options for the F-150, whether it's electric, hybrid or ICE,” Farley said. [internal combustion engine]. We don't really care and let our customers choose. ”
Wall Street may be skeptical that Ford and Farley will backtrack on their EV ambitions after their runaway success just a year ago, but if Ford can grow sales and remain profitable, perhaps all is well. It will be forgiven.
After decent sales in 2023, Farley believes Ford is poised to continue winning on dealer lots with new products in 2024, and on the track with new race cars. You can do it. As Farley talked about the prospects for both of these endeavors, the conversation naturally turned back to this year's big races, and he revealed the one he's really excited to win.
“To bring Mustang back to Le Mans” [24-hour endurance race] Would they have beaten Porsche or Ferrari on their European home turf with an American car you could buy for $300,000 instead of a GT prototype or one-off car? “It would be great to beat Ferrari and Porsche,” he said, adding that all Ford employees and Chairman Bill Ford would be very proud to see this moment.
“We're going to give it everything,” he added, “We're going to give it everything to Ford Motor Company in that race.”
Does that plotline sound familiar?
Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.you can follow him twitter And even more Instagram.
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