Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) will report its Q4 2021 Earnings today. The automaker is in the midst of a massive shift to electrification, surged by billions of dollars in investments and a reputation as one of the most successful legacy automotive companies to turn to EVs in a changing sector so far. Ford’s Earnings Call is set to begin at 4:05 PM EST today. Here’s what to expect.
Wall Street Consensus
Wall Street expectations predict that Ford will post a profit of .45 cents per share and an increase in revenue to $35.5 billion. The estimates are courtesy of Refinitiv, a global provider of financial market data and infrastructure. Increases in EPS are attributed to Ford’s improved semiconductor situation. As noted by GM earlier this week in their Q4 Earnings Call, CEO Mary Barra believes shortages in semiconductor availability will decrease. By Q3 and Q4, Barra said that “we’re going to be really starting to see the semiconductor constraints diminish.”
Ford was affected by the semiconductor shortage, as was every automotive company on the planet. However, there is an indication from several companies and sector analysts that the issues regarding chip shortages could subside by late 2022, which will only provide positive benefits for the electrification industry as more vehicles can be delivered due to a plentiful chip and semiconductor supply.
Ford’s Farley commits to 600k units in 22 months: ‘I think we’re one of the first to scale’
Growth
Ford has already outlined tremendous growth targets on behalf of CEO Jim Farley. Farley committed Ford to several increased production capacity plans, one for the F-150 Lightning and one for the Mustang Mach-E. Additionally, Farley said Ford should be able to deliver 600,000 electric vehicles in 22 months, citing that he feels the company could be the first legacy automaker to scale EVs.
Ford’s electrification switch has already contributed to a strong shift in powertrain choice. Ford saw growth overall in January 2022 compared to the same month in 2021, but most of the growth was due to its electrification options. With the F-150 Lightning order bank opening up in January, pre-order holders were able to finalize their trim and package level for Ford’s introductory electric truck.
According to Refinitiv, analysts believe Ford will earn between $1.54 and $2.35 EPS on revenue of $147.5 billion.
Ford’s stock price has increased substantially since Farley took the CEO position in 2020. The automaker recently achieved a $100 billion valuation due to the increase.
Rivian
CNBC notes that some analysts may have skewed forecasts if they did not pay attention to Ford’s financing adjustments that it revealed last month. Ford stated that it made $8.2 billion on its investment in Rivian. The gains occurred when the company went public.
“The company also reclassified a $900 million profit on its equity investment in Rivian to a special item which will impact the company’s full-year adjusted earnings guidance,” CNBC wrote in its synopsis of Ford’s Earnings Call.
Analysts Consensus
Dan Ives, an analyst for Wedbush, said, “Huge step in the right direction as Farley doubling down on EV vision. We believe Ford is in the midst of massive EV transformation led by Electric F-150.”
Additionally, Philippe Houchois of Jeffries stated, “Ford is back, with strong earnings and a repaired balance sheet. Shares have also rerated on recovered earnings that now approach cyclical highs.”
Disclosure: Joey Klender is not a Ford Stockholder.
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Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.
The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.
Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.
This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.
The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.
However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.
Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.
Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.
Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.
The analyst said:
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.
There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.
This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.
Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets bold Robotaxi prediction from Wall Street firm
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a bold Robotaxi prediction from Morgan Stanley, which anticipates a dramatic increase in the size of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing suite in the coming years.
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Percoco dug into the Robotaxi fleet and its expansion in the coming years in his latest note, released on Tuesday. The firm expects Tesla to increase the Robotaxi fleet size to 1,000 vehicles in 2026. However, that’s small-scale compared to what they expect from Tesla in a decade.
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
By 2035, Morgan Stanley believes there will be one million Robotaxis on the road across multiple cities, a major jump and a considerable fleet size. We assume this means the fleet of vehicles Tesla will operate internally, and not including passenger-owned vehicles that could be added through software updates.
He also listed three specific catalysts that investors should pay attention to, as these will represent the company being on track to achieve its Robotaxi dreams:
- Opening Robotaxi to the public without a Safety Monitor. Timing is unclear, but it appears that Tesla is getting closer by the day.
- Improvement in safety metrics without the Safety Monitor. Tesla’s ability to improve its safety metrics as it scales miles driven without the Safety Monitor is imperative as it looks to scale in new states and cities in 2026.
- Cybercab start of production, targeted for April 2026. Tesla’s Cybercab is a purpose-built vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals, only two seats) that is expected to be produced through its state-of-the-art unboxed manufacturing process, offering further cost reductions and thus accelerating adoption over time.
Robotaxi stands to be one of Tesla’s most significant revenue contributors, especially as the company plans to continue expanding its ride-hailing service across the world in the coming years.
Its current deployment strategy is controlled and conservative to avoid any drastic and potentially program-ruining incidents.
So far, the program, which is active in Austin and the California Bay Area, has been widely successful.
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