Ford Motor Q2 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 28, 2021

There are 13 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Holly, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome you to the Ford Motor Company 2nd Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

Operator

At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Lynn Antipas Tyson, Executive Director of Investor Relations. Lynn, I hand it to you.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Holly. Welcome to Ford Motor Company's 2nd quarter 2021 earnings call. With me today are Jim Farley, our President and CEO and John Waller, Solar, our Chief Financial Officer. Also joining us for Q and A is Marion Harris, CEO of Ford Credit. Today's discussions include some non GAAP references.

Speaker 1

Securities. These are reconciled to the most comparable U. S. GAAP measures in the appendix of our earnings deck. You can find the deck along with the rest of our earnings materials as well as content from our Capital Markets Day at at shareholder.

Speaker 1

Ford.com. Today's discussion also includes forward looking statements about our expectations. Actual results may differ from those stated. Segment. The most significant factors that could cause actual results to differ are included on Page 21.

Speaker 1

Unless otherwise noted, all comparisons are year over year, segment. The company EBIT, EPS and free cash flow are on an adjusted basis and product mix is volume weighted. A quick update on our upcoming IR events On Monday, August 2, Barclays will host a fireside chat with John Waller and Lisa Drake, our Chief Operating Officer for North America. On Tuesday, August 3, Jefferies will host a virtual fireside chat with Alex Purdy, our Director for Business Operations for Enterprise Connectivity and on August 11, JPMorgan will host a virtual fireside chat with Hao Tai Tang, our Chief Product Platform and Operations Officer. Now I'll turn the call over to Jim Farley.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Lynn. Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. Early in the Q2, 2 months ago, we detailed our strategy for the future of Ford. Put simply, our Ford Plus plan is focused on 2 things, really distinctive products that only Ford could do and an always on relationship and experience for our customers that gets better and better over time. Segment.

Speaker 2

We're building on our foundational strengths, our iconic products, the uniquely appealing vehicles, our manufacturing excellence and the industry's best captive finance company, but we're now adding new capabilities and new talents and we're investing in new businesses that will accelerate segment, our value we create for customers and our investors. We're committed to delivering a richer experience segment for our Ford and Lincoln customers. 1 that improves over time with things like our over the air software upgrades, data driven experiences, productivity and uptime services for our critical commercial customers, charging software and a lot more. Ford Plus also means introducing the industry's most compelling high volume electric vehicle lineup and investing the capital and human resources required to design and build world class batteries and electric powertrain components. Segment.

Speaker 2

And with Argo AI, we're well positioned to launch an autonomous people and goods delivery business with significant future growth potential. But fundamental to transforming Ford segment. We are also expanding our addressable market. Our commitment is to earn your confidence with strong execution quarter after quarter, year after year, delivering solid returns regardless of the challenges we face with external environment, segment like we did in the Q2. Despite the many headwinds from the semiconductor shortage, some of which were unique to Ford, Our team skillfully managed our business and we generated a positive EBIT.

Speaker 2

And I can tell you that this outcome was far from certain at the beginning of the quarter. It required intense focus from our team on cost, pricing and mix. The primary advantage we have right now is the strength of our product portfolio and it's about to get a lot stronger. Segment. We stopped making Me Too products in declining segments few years ago, and we unleashed our product development team to create emotional and distinctive products that only can come from Ford.

Speaker 2

The Mustang Mach E, which is already the 2nd best selling electric SUV in the United States was recently named Car and Driver Electric Vehicle of the Year after rigorous testing against 10 other great EVs, including the Tesla Model Y Performance, the Porsche Taycan and the Audi E Tron. The demand for our first round segment of high volume EVs clearly has exceeded our most optimistic projections. The reservations for the F-one hundred and fifty Lightning have now climbed well past 120,000 units and 75% of those customers We're working with LG Chem, SKI Innovation to increase our annual battery capacity for the Mustang Mach E by 70% and we're taking similar actions ahead of the launches of the E Transit later this year and the F-one hundred and fifty The customer and critical reception to our new Bronco lineup has also been remarkable. Segment. In June, we started shipments to fulfill 125,000 orders we have for Bronco 2 and 4 door models 7% of those Bronco customers are also new to Ford.

Speaker 2

And then there's the Maverick, our upcoming hybrid pickup that offers room for 5, gets 40 miles per gallon in the city and is priced starting at less than $20,000 Always on means we are regularly interacting with our customers on things large and small, and we're building new capabilities like connected services to enrich the customer experience and drive reoccurring revenue streams. Segment. We developed a proprietary software and hardware stack we call BlueOval Intelligence to deliver updates to customers' vehicles over the year. Some of our competitors can do it for their Entertainment Systems, we do it for almost all of our modules in the vehicle. For example, the Mustang Mach E activation rates, We have now updated more than 150,000 vehicles over the year just this year, and we expect this the top 600,000 vehicles And by 2028, we will have 33,000,000 OTA capability vehicles on the road around the world.

Speaker 2

And we're mining the real world data from these vehicles real time to better meet our customer needs. To me, this is the most important point. For example, driven by the vehicle data from the Mustang Mach E and the F-one hundred and fifty already, we've identified $50,000,000 in efficiencies just from warranty cost avoidance and other opportunities. We're also building out our global Ford Pro commercial business, which we expect to grow from $45,000,000,000 in 2025 from $27,000,000,000 in 2019. Segment.

Speaker 2

Last month, we announced our acquisition of Electrify to help accelerate electric vehicle fleet adoption by offering those customers the best scaled depot charging experience for all commercial customers. Segment. It's an example of how we're building out Ford Pro now. In mobility, we are now focused on planning and executing a phased deployment of AVs that will lead to large scale commercialization of Ford's AVs. Segment.

Speaker 2

Last week, as you've seen, we reached the industry first collaboration between Argo and Lyft to deploy Ford service driverless vehicles on the Lyft TNC network. This collaboration will enable commercial deployment at scale and demonstrate Ford and Argo's ability to connect into multiple TNCs or transportation networks. Segment. And on the technology front, Argo, I'm really excited about this, introduced Argo LiDAR, which will help us expand our autonomous services segment beyond the dense urban areas that most are focused on. This new LiDAR designed to be cost effective segment.

Speaker 2

Now before John reports on the quarter and our expectations for the rest of the year, let me give you an update on the semiconductor situation. Segment. In April, we said we'd expect to lose about 50% of our planned volume in the second quarter, segment, which then implied a loss in adjusted EBIT. In fact, we did better than expected. We leveraged the strong demand to optimize our revenue and profits.

Speaker 2

We are seeing signs of improvement in the flow of chips now in the Q3, But the situation remains fluid, especially due to the delay in ramp up of 1 of our key suppliers, Renesas that Ford is uniquely exposed to in the first half. Overall, segment. After effectively managing through the first half, we are now spring loaded for growth in the second half and beyond because of those red hot products, pent up demand and improving chip supply. Navigating these chip constraints has led us to make important permanent changes in our business model at Ford. We are modernizing our go to market strategy.

Speaker 2

What does that mean? We're placing a greater emphasis sales on build to order sales bank, not just low stocks. We have learned that, yes, operating with fewer vehicles on lots number of customers configuring and ordering their vehicles online, so we have better visibility segment to real demand using an order bank. This allows us to lower inventories, simplify our incentives and reduce Our order complexity in the industrial systems cost. For our customers upside is that they more quickly get the precise vehicle they want.

Speaker 2

Now this isn't theoretical. I hope we get into the Q and A. We're doing it right now as we speak. Segment. Relative to the supply chain, we made 3 notable changes.

Speaker 2

First, we are no longer relying on this segment, we are now engaging directly, for example, with the fabs on semiconductors and key points in supply chain for our critical components electronic components. Segment. With closer relationships and more transparent exchange of information such as technology roadmaps, segment. We can integrate their know how into our designs to better align supply and demand. 2nd, We are providing longer term forecast to critical vendors, so they can better understand and accommodate our requirements.

Speaker 2

Segment. And 3rd, we are more comprehensively scanning for obstacles in our supply chain. Risk mitigation actions include stockpiling of critical parts like semis, dual sourcing and design interchangeability in the case of single sources. These changes are all being applied to new technologies as well, including batteries, which are rapidly becoming a larger portion of our bill of material at Ford. Our pending joint venture with SK Innovation called Blue Oval SK segment that's really critical given our demand for our new electric vehicles.

Speaker 2

And now I'd like to turn it over to John to take us through the results for the quarter and our outlook.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Jim. So first, I want to reiterate that everything we do and every decision we are making, segment, including capital allocation, it's squarely focused on delivering our Ford Plus plan. And you'll see that as I share our key takeaways from the quarter, our full year outlook and describe how we are positioned for even stronger performance heading into 2022. And as Jim said, we delivered better than expected results given the semiconductor constraints. Year over year, Our automotive business improved across several key financial metrics as we overlap the industry wide COVID related manufacturing shutdowns segment we saw in the Q2 of last year.

Speaker 3

Now for a more accurate picture of our true trajectory in this present environment, segment. We're focusing more on sequential comparison and we think those are more appropriate. While wholesales were down 28% sequentially, segment. Our teams optimized for revenue and profit with disciplined incentive spending and mix management. We allocated chips to customer orders, sales and our more profitable vehicles.

Speaker 3

In addition, the strength of our sales order bank gives us confidence and our ability to drive a more balanced performance of wholesales, revenue and profit in the second half of this year, segment, including sequential improvement in wholesales and share. So let's turn to our results. On a consolidated basis, segment. Wholesales and revenue were up 18% 38% year over year respectively and we delivered adjusted EBIT segment of $1,100,000,000 with adjusted margin of 4%. Outside of North America, our underlying trajectory continues to improve segment despite the impact of the semiconductors and that's driven by more focused product portfolios, geographic footprint as well as lower costs.

Speaker 3

Segment. Ford Credit continued to deliver strong performance with record quarterly EBT of $1,600,000,000 that's demonstrating why it's a strategic asset and critical to enabling Ford Plus. I know a prime example So it's another example of Ford credit being a strategic weapon for us. Now turning to the regions. South America posted a 40% sequential decline in wholesale due to the semiconductor shortage.

Speaker 3

Now as we manage the chip constraints, segment. We focused our efforts on customers ordering vehicles for future delivery. We exited the 2nd quarter with our U. S. Customer sold order bank up more than 7 times compared to a year ago.

Speaker 3

And with new models to come, segment. We are clearly poised for a rebound in North America when the semiconductor supply stabilizes and aligns with demand. Segment. On a year over year basis, EBIT was up $1,100,000,000 Outside of North America, the turnaround of our operations remains on track. Segment.

Speaker 3

In aggregate, EBIT improved $800,000,000 year over year, but declined sequentially, mainly driven by Europe where the semiconductor shortage segment that caused wholesale units to drop sequentially by nearly 35%. The transformation in Europe segment continues as the region capitalizes on strengths in commercial vehicles with Ford Pro and a more focused passenger portfolio including key imports. Segment. Europe has stepped up investments in electrification, including $1,000,000,000 for a new EV manufacturing center in Cologne, The launch of our E Transit next spring and a new all electric light commercial vehicle from Romania. Segment.

Speaker 3

In South America, our restructuring is on track. Our lean, de risked and asset light business model is focused on our strengths with Ranger, Transit and Key Imported Vehicles. The region introduced Bronco Sport and Mustang Mach 1 in selected markets and is preparing now for the launch of the new Transit Van in the second half of this year. In China, We continue to see improvement in key areas of focus, including Lincoln, commercial vehicles, electric vehicles and with our portfolio of near premium Ford vehicles. Lincoln attained its highest ever quarterly sales, was profitable and also captured the number one spot in J.

Speaker 3

D. Power's luxury sales satisfaction ranking, unseating Audi, which had held the position for 11 years. Segment. In addition, 97% of leaking volume is now produced locally and commercial vehicles now account for 52% of overall sales mix in China. Segment.

Speaker 3

And finally, we are readying for the launch of the localized Mustang Mach E later this year. Our International Markets Group, segment. We delivered another solid quarter, leveraging its portfolio strengths with Ranger pickups and Everest SUVs. And we're continuing to assess our business in India segment and will have more to say on this later this year. Companywide, 2nd quarter adjusted Free cash flow was negative $5,100,000,000 As expected, semiconductor related volume losses had a greater impact on free cash flow segment EBIT because of adverse working capital and timing differences related to customer allowances for marketing incentives.

Speaker 3

Ford Credit did provide a partial offset with distributions of $4,000,000,000 in the quarter. Now we expect working capital and these timing differences to normalize segment over time as the semiconductor supply is restored. Cash and liquidity remained very strong, ending the quarter at $25,100,000,000 $41,000,000,000 respectively. The strength of our balance sheet provides significant financial flexibility to navigate periods of stress while also continuing to invest in growth in our Ford Plus plan. Segment.

Speaker 3

Now let's turn to the outlook. Based on the underlying strength of our business and present assessment of the semiconductor supplies through the second half, Along with other factors, we have increased our outlook for full year adjusted EBIT to between $9,000,000,000 to $10,000,000,000 segment. Now this assumes about a 30% sequential increase in volume in our second half versus our first half, segment, which is supported by the anticipated improvement in the supply of semiconductors. Our guidance implies we are we expect second half adjusted EBIT to be lower than the first half of the year. And so we provided a bridge to help with this segment.

Speaker 3

We've included that on Page 19 of our earnings presentation. So let me provide a little bit of color around this. Segment. Relative to tailwinds, we expect about $3,000,000,000 to $4,000,000,000 in favorable market factors, net And we see pressure on contribution margin. We expect commodities to be up almost $2,000,000,000 half over half.

Speaker 3

Warranty costs are expected to be higher in the second half, up about $500,000,000 but we still expect full year warranty expense to be down year over year. Relative to structural costs, about $1,500,000,000 in investments in modernization, segment consistent with what we laid out in May, including customer experiences, connectivity, IT, new product launches. Segment. Looking at Ford Credit. Based on current market dynamics, we expect Ford Credit to decline by about $1,000,000,000 as auction values begin to normalize and Sunrise.

Speaker 3

We also have a non repeat of reserve releases that we had in the first half. And lastly, We also have the non recurrence of the $900,000,000 non cash gain on Rivian we booked in the Q1. And it's important to note that this gain also impacts our run rate sales heading into 2022. We are also increasing our full year adjusted free cash flow target $4,000,000,000 to $5,000,000,000 supported by expected favorable working capital in the second half as production increases from an anticipated improvement Ship availability. Now as our operating results improve, so does our cash conversion, which we continue to target in the range of 50% to 60%.

Speaker 3

And the strength in cash conversion and our balance sheet provides us ample financial flexibility to invest in growth, segment, including in EVs, Ford Pro, our Connected Services and Mobility. Now looking towards 2022, We are confident in the underlying trajectory of our business and excited to see the momentum continue as we leverage one of the strongest product lineups in our history and continue to implement our Ford Plus plan. We're on a new path at Ford. It's got a plan, the resources and the resolve to build a better business. So now, I'll hand it over to the operator to open it up for questions.

Operator

Our first question comes from the line of Brian Johnson, Barclays.

Speaker 4

I've got a couple of questions. First, a little bit of housekeeping, But just thinking ahead to 'twenty two, if we take the second half a good rate of $3,500,000,000 but also bear in mind that your first half is typically the stronger half of the year for Ford. Is there any read through for 2022?

Speaker 3

Hi, Brian. Thanks. Yes, I think the way we see it segment. We've got strength in the underlying performance of our business. As we head into 2022, we also know that the product lineup is going to get stronger, right?

Speaker 3

We're just launching Bronco now. We've got F-one hundred and fifty Lightning next year. We have Maverick next year. And we also expect that we should get to more of a full line rate on our manufacturing of all our other vehicles, new vehicles that we've had this year. So we do see strength in the product lineup heading into next year.

Speaker 3

But what we also see heading into next year, a few headwinds. Ford Credit, we expect that to be more normalized to our run rate that we normally see. And that's because we see auction values coming down and then we should see our credit reserves and our credit losses normalize as well. We also see that next year as volumes increase and stocks increase across the industry, we should see some pricing moderation. Segment.

Speaker 3

Again, we also see commodities being higher next year as well. And we're going to continue to invest in our new product portfolios. We've got the launches coming in next year. We've Got our Ford Plus plan. So we see that continuing as we head into next year as well.

Speaker 3

So there are some headwinds, segment. But the underlying strength of the business continues to be positive. And with that, we see that trajectory continuing into 2022 and then on our way to the 8% EBIT margin for 2023.

Speaker 4

Okay. And just a follow-up, the $1,500,000,000 2H headwind from investments in modernization. Is that something new that was planned for this year, but maybe back end loaded due to management focusing on the chip shortage or kind of how do you think about that?

Speaker 3

No, that was planned. That's coming in. Part of that's due to the launches of the vehicle. Without launch cost comes advertising, but we're also investing in connectivity, the IT we need to put in place for the connectivity as well as customer experiences, digital experiences, user experiences with the vehicle. So we're continuing to invest to build out our Ford Plus plan.

Speaker 2

And we are not slowing down our modernization because of the chip situation. In fact, we're doing the opposite.

Speaker 4

Okay. And a question for Jim. As you look at the order book for the F-one hundred and fifty Lightning, and what's shaping up for the Bronco and the Maverick, Any sense of how many of those customers are, as you mentioned, the F-one hundred and fifty new to Ford, but also maybe new to that segment. So for example, SUV buyers migrating to the e lightning due to the storage or the bidirectional charging or the features?

Speaker 2

Great question. Put simply, What we've learned about our very large order bank for Lightning is way over index on the coast. Almost 80% are new to Ford. What's interesting, 2 out of 5 are people who are going to trade in an ICE pickup, segment, which is very important because it indicates a move a little bit faster to full sized truck bev Customers are largely new to Ford, but they aren't new to the segment. These are customers who really like these silhouetted vehicles.

Speaker 2

What is really interesting for me is some would portray the full size truck industry as kind of conservative customer. That's not what we're seeing. These very large order bank for F-one hundred and fifty Lightning, they're new to bev And they are excited to move to bev and they are more than half of them are pickup truck customers.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you.

Operator

And our next The question comes from the line of Rod Lache with Wolfe Research.

Speaker 6

Hi, everybody. I just first wanted to clarify the answer that you gave to Brian's question. So, you're going to be annualizing at $6,000,000,000 to $8,000,000,000 in the back half. And I think what A lot of people want to understand is, is that a kind of a fair bridging off point for us to think about what happens from here into 2022 and beyond. So did you assume some moderation of pricing already in that number?

Speaker 6

Is that level of investment kind of the run rate and how should we think about the incremental benefit from that run rate for Bronco, Maverick, the further warranty improvement and some of the international improvements that you're working on.

Speaker 3

Hi, Ron. Thanks. So in the second half, We show the net number there, for the volume net of the manufacturing production costs and other market factors. So What we are assuming is that in the second half of the year, particularly in the Q4, we start to see some moderation in pricing Due to the fact that we should see volumes and inventories and stocks coming up a bit. So that is something that we do have built into that number for second half, particularly in the Q4.

Speaker 3

And then when it comes to 2022, Bronco is just getting up now, up and running now, launched now. As Jim said, we have a hefty order bank there. And then F-one hundred and fifty, Lightning, Maverick, they're launching next year. So Our product portfolio strong today is going to be even stronger next year. And so we see that contributing to the run rate as well.

Speaker 3

So I think coming out of Capital Markets Day, we talked about the trajectory of the business. 2022 being Definitely stronger than 2021 as we walk towards 2023 and the 8% EBIT margin that we plan to hit.

Speaker 6

And just secondly, really interesting comment about that sevenfold increase in your order bank and changing the way that vehicles are sold. Can you just Talk a little bit about what that actually means from a volume perspective, because I don't think we've ever really known what your actual customer order bank actually, what's the magnitude of that? Maybe you could just tell us what that number was a year ago? And Any thoughts on what this actually means for pricing? Obviously, it's positive, but those units are not going to land on dealer lots for very long.

Speaker 6

So it would seem that there's really not a big reason to significantly boost incentives anytime soon

Speaker 2

Thank you, Rod. Put simply, We're really committed to both going to an order based system And keeping our inventories between 50 60 days supply. I've been here at Ford for 13 years. There were many years after the financial crisis where our day supply was 20, 30, 40 days. And in those years, segment.

Speaker 2

The maximum retail order bank we had in the U. S. Was 1,000 to 2,000 a month. We are now at 70,000 units on our way to 80,000 units. That gives you the order of magnitude difference in the way we're looking at this Order bank change for the company.

Speaker 2

A lot of people in our industry are making big deal about the move online, sure. But for Ford, we think there's Massive benefit across all stakeholders for going to an order bank system. It put pressure on our industrial system to deliver quickly. It reduces our dealers' costs, more than just low day supply, as you mentioned. It allows us to significantly reduce our incentives.

Speaker 2

And I guarantee you, I don't know how much money we're wasting. I know we're wasting money on incentives. I just don't know where With an order based system, we will have much less risk of that. It requires us to dramatically reduce our order complexity as well. So there are a lot of enablers sales that have been put in place to move us to this new system and new go to market approach.

Speaker 2

I'd love to talk to you more about it, but I'll try to give you the high hard ones.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks. Makes sense. Thanks, everybody.

Operator

Our next question comes from John Murphy, Bank of America.

Speaker 7

I just wanted to actually follow-up quickly On that, Jim, you mentioned getting back to 50 to 60 day supply. That sounds closer to normal than not, but also the way you're describing the order bank, it sounds like 20% to 25% of your sales would be build to order horseshoes and hand grenades. So I'm just curious how you decide where that balance how you keep the inventory tight, your partners at the dealership happy and selling and creating value for you. But then also Big part of the story is the tightness in the secondary market, in the used markets keeping resets high, which is helping the new vehicle pricing and Certainly helping out at Ford Motor Credit. So I mean there's a kind of a seesaw effect here to get the benefit on both sides.

Speaker 7

Just how do you figure out segment where this should land, and how you actually execute on it?

Speaker 2

Yes, really good question. So The team has done a lot of work on this. I'll try to answer it very simply. Our target is 50 to 60 day supply. That means trucks will be a little bit higher.

Speaker 2

We have a lot About a third of our truck dealers in C and D County, 5 trucks to them could be a 100 day supply, but they need 5 trucks for the local community. And for urban and suburban dealers, it will be less than that range. Different segments will have different targets. We actually did this post financial crisis for a few years and then over time lost discipline. And this is quite important for this management team.

Speaker 2

We have a weekly and a monthly operations review, where we'll look at this very carefully by segment for each of the regions. That's the kind of soft wiring or management judgment. Going to an order bank, I would say, is a hardwired way of reducing the stock. Segment. And I think it's going to take both for Ford to make this transition.

Speaker 2

It can't be just relying on management keeping within that range. We certainly will have exception an exception process to go beyond that and it will be a pretty tough discussion with our operating teams. But I think what I'm more excited about is the hardwiring of going to an order to delivery order system, which actually our new launches gave us that gift, because Ford Bronco and Mach E and some of the other high demand vehicles, we moved the reservation system into an order bank system. We then realized, my God, why don't we do this for all the vehicles, not just those vehicles. And that's when we had to put a series of incentives and more policy changes like order complexity reduction in the system to make it kind of the way we do things at Ford.

Speaker 2

I think it's going to require both changes.

Speaker 7

Okay. That's helpful. And just a follow-up on that. On current state of affairs of retail versus fleet mix, I mean, it seems like particularly talking to the dealers, is that emphasis on retail? The dealers certainly at your level.

Speaker 7

Just curious if fleet comes back, I mean, the demand is there, right? How are you balancing that Current days and go forward, I mean, because the demand is there. It's just some of it's getting fulfilled in the used market, right? I mean, they're going after auctions instead of even ordering from you guys. I mean, how do we think about that recovery go forward and where it stand right now?

Speaker 2

Really good question. So It depends on the region. Of course, we're a dominant commercial brand in multiple regions like Western Europe and the U. S, even in China in certain segments. And we're seeing in Europe a very dramatic order bank on our vans.

Speaker 2

It is something I've never seen in my career. We're talking months months months of backorders. So the demand for our commercial vehicles in Europe is extremely strong and the order bank is months months. In the U. S, we're very fortunate that our commercial business is heavily focused on transit and super duty And of course, F-one hundred and fifty is kind of mixed.

Speaker 2

And so for those vehicle lines, Transit and Super Duty, it's very easy to we don't have to prioritize between Retail and Commercial because those vehicle lines are almost 100% commercial. The one that's Challenging for us to balance is F-one hundred and fifty. And we as you could see in this quarter, segment. We're very carefully mix managing, but we are very respectful of the needs of our commercial customers. Segment.

Speaker 2

We know where our toast is buttered. And those customers are really important for us. In fact, we are in discussions with them right now about the trade off between feature content and availability. We have many commercial customers in the U. S.

Speaker 2

That have been waiting for months months for the vehicle And we are discussing with them, would you be willing to take off feature content to get your vehicles now? And that's and you can expect us to be balanced about that discussion and negotiation and compromise. And it's we'll make the right call for the company and for the customer, But they are pushing us for availability now, even if it means lower feature content.

Speaker 7

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Adam Jonas, Morgan Stanley.

Speaker 8

Thanks. Great call so far. And Jim, I have to say, I did a Control F for the word hybrid in the deck and in the press release, and I don't see it, man. No hybrid, it's a beautiful thing. So good.

Speaker 8

Yes, but they're dead. They're gone. All right. My question on EVs, right, your BEVs, When do you think that they can be positive profit on a fully costed basis, not contribution? Like when When can they be profitable?

Speaker 8

And do you think it's 2022 is still too early for that? My first and I have a follow-up.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Adam. Actually Mach E is profitable, contribution margin positive and profitable on the bottom line today. Wow. So we've seen strong demand for that. Yes.

Speaker 3

So I think when we look at it, over time, as we talked about Market Day and we've talked about with you. We've got to ride that technology curve down. We've got to get to the $80 per kilowatt hour for the battery pack before the end of the decade. We've got to scale the bev content. We have commonality in the top hats and other components that will help us as well.

Speaker 3

And then of course, we need to build on our services and such to really improve the profitability of the beds as we move forward. But I can tell you that

Speaker 8

That's incredible at a 50,000 type run rate for that to be correct. Okay. My follow on question, Jim, is about always on and the order bank. I mean, I think this is really huge, Just really interesting when you combine the order bank system with Always On, where you go kind of can engage the consumer directly for services and F and I and insurance and the OTA. But I am talking to some dealers that are freaking out that some Darwinian forces could be at work where you're not, let's say, directly infringing on the franchise laws, but you're dancing close as you probably should given all the technological changes over the past 70 or 80 years since these laws came.

Speaker 8

So what's your message to them? What if order book goes to 80% of your units or the majority and then the dealers are just these delivery centers and then you're Going direct on all the other wonderful services, what's the message of the dealers?

Speaker 2

Great question. Well, we're going to have a couple of different population of dealers. We're going to have our professional dealers, and the answer is a little different for them versus our retail dealers. We'll have our rural dealers and the answer is a little bit different for them than suburban or urban dealers. The I would say the message we're giving to our team, our dealers is look, we're going to have to work really carefully together.

Speaker 2

So because The customers are going to have a lot of questions on Ford BlueCruise, for example. So we want to make sure the dealers are very knowledgeable about these new OT8 features services that are really meaningful in the use of the customer's life. That's one. The second one is service, service, service, service. That is the most important thing for us segment.

Speaker 2

The company is wiring a closed loop between the vehicle, the condition of the vehicle, the service capacity of the dealers And the customer is going to be the most important ballet we're going to have to play together with the dealers. This is especially true for Ford Pro. And in fact, today, we already have 160 remote trucks service for our commercial customers at their business. Warranty work, that's a good example of the evolution of the business model where they're taking their service department from a fixed hub and going on the road with their service capacity. And those trucks have to be cooked into the vehicle data and the prognostics, our parts legacy system to order parts and the dealers own dispatch system.

Speaker 2

That has to be a closed loop. So all I would say to you is, the orchestration and Our chance to win just like maybe targets A chance to win versus online retailers is that in person service, especially and professional customers.

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Colin Langan with Wells Fargo.

Speaker 9

Great. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on a good quarter. We've never seen them at these levels obviously before, and obviously it's impacting your market share. Any sense of how much of that You think you could recoup and how much may or you can certainly switch to other brands, people might only wait for so long?

Speaker 3

Yes. Hi, Collyn. It's John. So, I think what we're seeing here from a market share drop, it's completely related to the fact that our stocks reduced so much. We had the chip issue.

Speaker 3

We lost the volumes that we lost in the second quarter. We that as we work to improve the run rate and through the Q3, we're very focused on maintaining this high turn rate, filling the orders that we have. As Jim said, we're going to continue to work on retail orders and continue to I'll bring our customers along that way as well. So we think that we have a good chance to regain that share, especially with the strong lineup that we have. And so we see this as a temporary issue related to the chip issue and the volume and production we had in the quarter.

Speaker 2

And we will not cede truck leadership to anyone.

Speaker 9

Okay. Maybe we touch on Connected Services. You rolled out Ford Live in Europe on commercial vehicles. I believe it's free right now. I mean, how is that rollout going?

Speaker 9

And when Do you sort of try to monetize that and get revenue out of these services?

Speaker 2

Great question. So segment. We just launched Ford Live as you mentioned in the UK and Spain. We have 5 more EU countries covered by the end of the year to launch. So we're really excited about Ford Live.

Speaker 2

What we've committed to so far is in the next couple of years by 2025, we expect Our digital and charging revenue in Ford Pro to be about $1,000,000,000

Speaker 10

Today,

Speaker 2

I wish we had more time to focus on this frankly. We have about just under 200,000 unique subscriptions segment for our telematics and data services. We grew at about 20,000 units in the core, 20,000 subscriptions in the quarter. And we feel like that digital telematics and selling data like fuel tank information plus adding the charging services like Electrify for depot charging for The monetization of Ford Live is really around our traditional parts business, which is very high margins And we have a very low share. So the opportunity for us upside is tremendous.

Speaker 2

Post warranty, even our commercial customers, We get very few of those customers. And so the real payoff for this closed loop is going to be much higher share post warranty of that very profitable business.

Operator

Segment. Our next question will come from the line of Ryan Brinkman with JPMorgan.

Speaker 11

Thanks for taking my question. One thing that especially stood out in your results, I think, is on Slide 6, where it shows that Units wholesale in the quarter rose 18% year over year, but that revenue was up by more than twice as much by 38%. Just a few questions around pricing and overall revenue per unit. I can see from the Global Walk on Slide 9 that net pricing helped EBIT by $1,900,000,000 or kind of like 10% of last year's revenue, which seems to suggest of the idea that like half of the growth in revenue over unit volume in Q was driven by price and the other half by mix. Is that roughly correct?

Speaker 11

And what do you think the outlook is for continuing to grow revenue in excess of the change in volume?

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks. Thanks, Ryan. It's I think pricing is the majority of what was behind that growth. We had a very strong quarter relative to pricing as we saw our inventory shrink and we see the strength in the underlying demand of the products that we have.

Speaker 3

And so I think I would think about it more as pricing, a little bit of mix in there, but more of it is pricing.

Speaker 11

Okay, very helpful. And then just as a follow-up, we saw some estimates that your incentive spending in June in the U. S, it may have fallen like 50% year over year, leading the decline in industry wide incentives. I'm curious how much of the decline in incentives do you think may be driven by hot new products like the F-one hundred and fifty, Bronco, Bronco Sport, Mach E, etcetera, versus how much is a function of the low inventory environment or maybe just a general segment. And to that end, it might be helpful to know if carryover pricing, which I think usually clients year over year, if that might also be tracking stronger and what your outlook is for incentive spending going forward, maybe in light of some of the comments you made earlier on the call about inventories and order bank,

Speaker 3

etcetera. Yes, that's a great question. I think we've been working and unpacking this as you'd expect. Well, it's a combination of all of the segment. Right.

Speaker 3

We have strong products. We see continued demand for those strong products. Supply is well short of that. It's allowed us to continue to keep The pricing strong and improved the pricing in the Q2 versus what we had expected. And I think as long as the segment.

Speaker 3

You see this imbalance between supply and demand. You'll continue to have stronger pricing power as we've seen through the Q1 and the second quarter. Segment. As we go through the year and we start to see supply and demand normalize, we'll see some of this pricing come off little bit in the Q4 and then we have to see how that runs through next year. But given the strength of our product lineup And the demand we see, we expect to have a relatively strong pricing power for the new foreseeable future.

Speaker 12

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Joseph Spak with RBC Capital Markets.

Speaker 12

Thanks. Good afternoon. I wanted to get back to the investments in modernization and maybe frame that in the context of The 2023 view you laid out at the Capital Markets Day, like how does that investment trend segment. As you think about the margin targets you laid out, and is there an assumption that by the time you get to 23 or maybe a little bit later, There's a return on that investment such that it becomes a neutral or even positive to the margin.

Speaker 3

Yes, thanks. Of course, as we make our capital allocations and we make these investments, we expect that we're going to get return on them and that's all part of our walk up into 2023 and the 8% margin. We're also continuing to work on cost reductions elsewhere, right. These are investments that we're making in our new products with the launches and connectivity and I. We've got advertising in there for these launches and then of course customer experiences as I talked about earlier.

Speaker 3

But we're also driving cost reductions elsewhere as we continue to improve the business towards that 8% margin in 2023. So we'll invest in certain areas. We'll see costs go up in certain areas, but we should also see costs coming down in other areas, particularly material cost, etcetera.

Speaker 2

One particular area modernization that doesn't, I don't think, get enough attention in where we're investing as a company. Certainly, dollars 30,000,000,000 in electrification and The vertical integration of batteries and of course our investment in autonomy. I think you all know about We're spending our money in the general categories. The one I really want to highlight is the very significant investment in our embedded electrical architecture upgrade. This is really a significant move by Ford to not just invest in electrification, but move those products to fully digital updatable in all modules and go to a fully modern zonal electric architecture.

Speaker 2

I'm not going to go through the details, This is a very expensive transition, but it will enable a whole new capability for the always on experience even today's connected vehicles like Mustang Mach E. And I want to highlight that because it often gets lost segment and the other categories of investment and modernization.

Speaker 12

Okay. So just to clarify, so the EV spend is included in that bucket Yes,

Speaker 2

yes. So when we talk about upgrading our electric vehicles, segment. It's much more fundamental than just the investment in the tooling and the engineering of the electric vehicle and its components and propulsion. It also includes a completely new approach to an embedded Software and Hardware System.

Speaker 12

Okay. And just and going back to the order bank, which is clearly interesting, like that's It seems like an easier task, quite frankly, when you have great product like you do with the Bronco, the Mach E and the Lightning, which are You know, seem well received and also limited. I guess what I'm wondering is, how are you going to sort of balance that with inventory as you sort of think about like an Edge or an Explorer in year 4 or 5 of product life cycle, like is the plan to still keep inventories of the older product or more mature product tight such that you can still get some into the order bank or are there other plans to keep that product fresh throughout the lifecycle That can lead people to orders. Sure.

Speaker 5

I mean,

Speaker 2

we'll have ground stock for sure in dealers and we obviously have to keep the vehicle fresh. More and more of that will be the digital freshness of the vehicle. But I would say, if you look at our 60 plus 1,000 Unit Order Bank in North America. A lot not all of those are Broncos and Mustang Mach E's. Service.

Speaker 2

We're doing this for our whole brand.

Speaker 12

Thank you.

Operator

Segment. Our next question will come from the line of Philippe Houchois with Jefferies.

Speaker 5

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you very much. I've got 2 questions. The first one, sorry, go back on this order bank and inventory levels. To be honest, I'm a bit surprised you're talking about 50 to 60 days of inventory in the future because that's not much lower than what we've had in the past.

Speaker 5

And I would have thought the auto bank would actually You two actually carry much less inventory and we've seen the benefit of that to pricing. So I wonder if this 50, 60 days kind of the first step that you think you can do Better in the future. And along those lines, and then maybe more on the Ford credit side, but when I look at European car companies, they carry more finished product on their balance sheet, the core balance sheet and then relatively less on the Finco balance sheet through the dealer receivables that I use as a proxy. The opposite in the U. S.

Speaker 5

And I'm just wondering if you look at a situation where you go to more order banking for your production, If you end up carrying more inventory on your industrial balance sheet, which would increase your working capital requirement from an industrial standpoint. That was my first question. And the second one, if I can ask briefly on China. It seems like you're stalling a bit in China. And because you've localized a lot more of Lincoln more profitable, you had big losses in consolidated side before.

Speaker 5

And I'm just wondering, can you comment maybe on what is happening generally in China? Is there it seems to be a concern about How the Chinese brands are making good progress. Some of the EVs launched by your competitors are not quite getting the love from customers that was expected. And I'm just wondering if you see a more difficult environment for in China for you in the balance of the year into next year. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes, I'll take the working capital. Now, the way we see the order bank helping us is we actually see it simplifying the industrial system because we'll know exactly what we're going to build. So we're actually working through that now and trying to use that to Simplify and reduce things like working capital. So I think if anything, it would have the opposite impact. It wouldn't increase working capital.

Speaker 3

We'd use it to drive down working capital. Then on the day supply, what we've seen in the past is around a 75 day supply. So 50 days, it's a 25 day reduction. So we do see that as substantial. And of course, that'll be different across the different vehicle lines.

Speaker 3

So We do see that as a substantial pullback in the day supply.

Speaker 2

And just remember in Europe, just running forward of Europe, The cross border issue in Europe is not so small. We have holding centers and

Speaker 3

lots of

Speaker 2

ways to manage the stock. We don't plan to implement that system in the U. S. It evolved over time and We have one country. So I think we can our intention is, as John said, is not to handle it that way.

Speaker 2

In China, The team has made tremendous progress from a $1,500,000,000 loss hovering around breakeven now or slightly below that. And we're in a very important time for Ford in China. Lincoln is now profitable and we just localized those models. We only launched Lincoln in 2015. I was there.

Speaker 2

So it's a recent phenomenon and we're just about to launch a whole plethora of brand new vehicles like we're doing in North America today. So we're on the eve of the Mustang Mach E launch, localized,

Speaker 3

And

Speaker 2

then we have all these new vehicles, the Evos. I can go on a long list, and it will be just like what we're seeing in North America, full freshness. And that will play out over the next couple of years. So China is very important for our profit plans. I think the team has done a tremendous job in stabilizing our sales situation and improving our costs.

Speaker 2

And now it's going to be a growth story in China. We're just commercializing and industrializing the vehicles as we speak. And Mustang Mach E is kind of the first major one. Thanks.

Speaker 5

Thank you very much.

Operator

And our final question for the day will come from the line of Dan Levy with Credit Suisse.

Speaker 10

Good evening. Thank you for squeezing me in. First, I wanted to just ask on the chip shortage. And I fully recognize the situation is very fluid and your crystal ball is as good as anyone else's. But do you have a sense for how long it might take until you're no longer supply constrained on production?

Speaker 10

Is this something that's fully resolved by your best guess early next year or do you think that this there might be still some supply constraints lasting much longer and deeper into 2020 So just the baseline expectations around that?

Speaker 3

Yes. So Dan, I mean, I think my guess is as good as anybody's We do see that the chip issue running through this year and we could see it bleeding into the 1st part of next year. But I think we won't really have a good feel for that until later in this year. We know that As we've had discussions with the fab suppliers, they're telling us they're reallocating Capital, they're increasing supply for automotive, etcetera. But I think this is one of those things where we need to see the relief coming through before we can really I feel comfortable that we're out of the woods here.

Speaker 10

Great. Understood. And second question is just on ICE versus BEV. And clearly, you're deemphasizing ICE. And presumably that means the investment is coming down.

Speaker 10

I assume that part of that $30,000,000,000 headline number you gave includes some reallocation from ICE to EV. I think we also know right now that and maybe this is just a function of the market, but ICE sales are extremely strong segment in the U. S. Could remain the case for a while. So what should we expect on margin for ICE vehicles, Especially as some of that investment comes down, is it possible that the outgoing margin on some of the ICE vehicles actually increases and You could potentially run into a negative mix issue as we as you start to pivot from ICE to the BEVs.

Speaker 2

Yes. It's a good question. Generally speaking, that Certainly could happen. We don't know how the demand will shift. Obviously, our guess is 40 percent of our mix, 2 40 gigawatt capacity by 2,030.

Speaker 2

So we're busy making all that happen, as you say. 40% is a lot higher than today. And I think we have well, I know we have the right strategy for the company. But so much of this transition is going to depend on government support, infrastructure build out, and we need to be patient. And I think agility will become a very important skill for the company.

Speaker 2

So far, the first inning would imply that Ford's number 1 in sports cars and Mustang. We're number 1 in vans with transit. We're number 1 in pickups with F-one hundred and fifty. We're electrifying all three of those in the next 6 months. And so far, the demand is actually higher than we expected.

Speaker 2

So I don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what's going The support in China, but especially in Europe, has accelerated the bev adoption in those regions. But as you say, we get into the next phase of expansion, with a lot more product offering and all that capital pointed at bevs, it's hard to say, And it's hard to handicap the government's policy at a government level over time. I think the most important thing isn't how much money we're spending because that's enough. It is our agility and the kind of execution of our BEVs and our management of the profitability of those vehicles.

Speaker 2

And that's where we're putting our energy. The agility of our industrial system, our manufacturing, our focus on the profitability improvement in the vertical integration for key electric components and making our vehicles different and more competitive than others. I know that's a very general answer, but I don't think we know enough to answer your question.

Speaker 10

Segment. Understood. That's helpful, nevertheless. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. And with that, This concludes the Ford Motor Company Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. We'd like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Ford Motor Q2 2021
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