No U-Turns in Ford's Future, Farley Says

After being named as Ford’s next CEO, the automaker’s current chief operating officer, Jim Farley, says the company is on the proper course, with no need to reverse the tech-driven direction taken under the outgoing Jim Hackett.

Speaking to Reuters, Farley said the hunt for new revenue streams in a rapidly evolving technological landscape will continue.

Under his leadership, Farley, who takes the top job on October 1st, said Ford might dip its toes into software, fleet management, and electric vehicle recharging, claiming that, “These are new growth initiatives that could create a lot of value for the company.”

Speaking of Ford’s continuing work in the realm of self-driving vehicles, a field that’s been slower to advance than we were led to believe in past years, the future CEO said “these are concrete areas that will change Ford,” adding, “They’re going to impact the company’s future look and feel.”

Most telling comment of the Ford press conference from incoming CEO Jim Farley on Ford's competition today: "It's Amazon, Baidu, Tesla, Apple, Toyota and others." $F

— Phil LeBeau (@Lebeaucarnews) August 4, 2020

Autonomous and electric vehicles seem to be the catnip investors like, but Ford’s past efforts, which were not unsubstantial, failed to set Wall Street on fire. The automaker’s sliding share price traces an uninterrupted line through the tenures of both Fields and Hackett; it will be Farley’s job to reverse the slide, and it’s his job that’ll be on the line.

Ford has to prove to investors and analysts that it’s positioned to make money chasing the future. The shareholders must be rewarded.

For now, however, Ford’s bread and butter remains its lengthy menu of trucks and SUVs — the latter group growing so crowded, Ford might have to ditch one long-running nameplate. Pandemic troubles aside, the company’s pre-existing $11 billion restructuring plan is another effort that must be completed under Farley. For now, he has the complete confidence of his bosses.

Per Reuters, the company’s executive chairman, Bill Ford, said that it wasn’t necessary to search the industry looking for a replacement for Hackett. With Farley, “our board felt that we were on the right path,” Ford said, adding that he doesn’t “expect any big surprises” with regard to upper management switcheroos.

In a media call reported on by the Detroit Free Press, Ford did say the possibility of looking elsewhere came up while discussing the transition of power.

“We clearly talked about taking a look outside,” he said. “Increasingly, everybody was getting inspired by Jim Farley’s leadership. While we talked about it and did throw some names around, every time we did that, we always felt Jim Farley rose to the top.”

As for Hackett, the outgoing CEO claims the time felt right to pass the torch.

“I said we ought to do it now, the wind in our sails is really starting to pick up,” Hackett said during the call. “Jim’s grasp of products is legendary.”

While tech and fancy gadgets wow certain journos and sometimes investors, if the core business isn’t running efficiently, all is lost. Farley implied his top focus will be on getting lucrative products like the next-generation F-150 and upcoming Bronco and Mustang Mach-E into buyers’ hands without any screw-ups.

He also added, interestingly, that he remains committed to expanding an “affordable” lineup for buyers, suggesting that there’s more low-end product to come from an automaker that’s already ditched all but one member of its passenger car stable.

[Image: Ford]