Ford Motor
said it was cutting prices for its F-150 Lightning all-electric pickup truck. Improving production, which means increasing supply, was cited by the auto maker.
Ford sees cuts as a sign of strength. The market doesn’t. Ford (ticker: F) stock fell 5.7% Monday to $14.14 while the
S&P 500
and
Dow Jones Industrial Average
were up about 0.5% and 0.4%, respectively.
Analysts aren’t sure about the cuts either. CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson lowered his price target for Ford stock to $15 from $16 following the news. He rats shares Hold. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote that Ford must “hear the footsteps” of the competing Cybertruck coming.
Tesla
(TSLA) announced it produced its first Cybertruck at its plant in Austin, Texas over the weekend. Ives doesn’t cover Ford stock. He covers Tesla and rates shares Buy. His price target is $300 a share.
Ford announced price cuts on Monday ranging from about $6,000 to $10,000 across its lineup of electric pickups. The base model Lightning now starts at about $50,000, down from about $60,000.
Few customers buy just the base model. For Model year 2023, the average transaction price for an F-150 Lightning is about $87,000, according to Cox Automotive. The average discount works out to about 9% off that amount.
Ford has its reasons.
“Shortly after launching the F-150 Lightning, rapidly rising material costs, supply constraints and other factors drove up the cost of the EV truck for Ford and our customers,” said Marin Gjaja, chief customer officer at Ford Model e, the company’s EV division, in a news release. “We’ve continued to work in the background to improve accessibility and affordability to help to lower prices for our customers and shorten the wait times for their new F-150 Lightning.”
Along with increasing supply, commodity prices are a factor in cuts. Ford delivered its first Lightning when lithium prices were roughly $75,000 a metric ton.
Lithium
is a key input cost for lithium-ion batteries that power EVs. Now lithium prices are roughly $45,000 a ton.
Lower prices should help Ford deliver more. Ford delivered about 8,800 Lightnings in the first half of 2023, down from more than 13,000 in the second half of 2022. Some planned plant downtime and a battery problem led to the dip.
Coming into Monday’s session, Ford stock has risen about 29% this year.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
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