Company Profile · FY2025 10-K F · NYSE
Ford Motor Co
one-per-person mature-market
1903 2025
1903 Founded
1908 Model T Introduced
1913 Assembly Line Invented
1945 Post-War Recovery
2005 Bonds Downgraded
2008 Turnaround Plan
2020 Leadership Change
2024 Peak Revenue
2025 Major Loss
Wikipedia history · XBRL financial data

Ford Motor Company makes money by designing, building, and selling vehicles through three separate businesses running under one roof. Ford Blue handles gas-powered and hybrid cars and trucks for everyday drivers. Ford Pro sells commercial vans, Super Duty trucks, and fleet services to businesses and governments. Ford Model e makes electric vehicles and develops software for the whole company. On top of that, Ford Credit finances the purchase and leasing of Ford vehicles, earning interest payments from drivers and dealers around the world. Each vehicle sold to a dealer counts as revenue the moment it ships from a factory, and Ford Credit collects payments long after that truck leaves the lot. The diagram below traces where the money goes.

How Ford Motor Company Makes Money
flowchart LR A["Vehicle Production 4.4M units/year"] --> B["Wholesale to Dealerships 4.4M units"] B --> C["Retail Customer Sales 2.2M units/year"] C --> D["Vehicle Revenue $167.3B"] D --> E["Operating Cash Flow $21.3B"] E --> F["R&D & Production Investment"] F --> A C --> G["Ford Credit Financing $13.3B revenue"] G --> H["Finance Receivables Portfolio"] H --> G D --> I["Parts & Service Sales"] I --> D E --> J["Debt Service $140B net debt"] J --> E

Five years of financial data tell a story of rising revenue sitting on top of shrinking margins. Revenue climbed from $136.3 billion in 2021 to $187.3 billion in 2025. That looks like growth. But gross margin moved in the opposite direction, falling from roughly 15.9% in 2021 to just 6.8% in 2025. Ford is selling more vehicles and collecting more dollars, but keeping less of each dollar after paying to build the vehicles.

Ford Gross Margin % (2021 to 2025)
2021
15.9%
2022
15.0%
2023
14.6%
2024
14.4%
2025
6.8%
Gross margin has declined every year for five straight years, with a sharp drop in 2025 driven largely by EV-related impairment charges and tariff costs.

The 2025 loss makes the numbers starker. Ford reported a net loss of $8.2 billion in 2025 on revenue of $187.3 billion. Most of that loss came from a single source: Ford wrote down about $13.8 billion in charges in the fourth quarter of 2025 related to its electric vehicle strategy. That included an $8.4 billion non-cash impairment of Ford Model e's long-lived assets, plus billions more from cancelled EV programs and the expected exit from a battery joint venture called BlueOval SK. Strip those charges out and the underlying operating business earned $6.78 billion in adjusted profit. That adjusted number still fell from $10.2 billion in 2024, hurt by $2 billion in net tariff costs and lower profits at both Ford Blue and Ford Pro.

$6.8B
Ford's adjusted operating profit (EBIT) in 2025, after stripping out $17.4B in special charges

Operating cash flow tells a more stable story. Ford generated $21.3 billion in cash from operations in 2025, up from $15.4 billion in 2024. Cash kept coming in even as the reported loss was enormous. That gap between cash generation and reported profit reflects how large the non-cash write-downs were. Ford is not running out of money. But the net debt picture shifted sharply. Net debt went from roughly negative $25 billion in 2023 (meaning Ford held more cash than debt, excluding Ford Credit) to positive $140 billion in 2025. That jump is almost entirely explained by the way Ford Credit's debt is now counted, as Ford Credit carries $141.4 billion in debt on its own books to fund its lending business.

Why Ford Credit's debt looks so big
Ford Credit is essentially a bank inside a car company. It borrows money from bond markets and uses it to lend to car buyers and dealers. That debt is not used to run factories. It is matched against loans Ford Credit holds from customers. When analysts look at Ford's industrial health, they usually separate Ford Credit's debt from the rest of the company.

Ford Pro is the financial engine right now. It earned $6.84 billion in operating profit in 2025 with a margin of 10.3%, even after tariff headwinds. Ford Blue earned $3.0 billion. Ford Model e lost $4.8 billion. Ford Credit added $2.6 billion. The EV arm has lost money every year it has been tracked separately, and those losses have come with no clear path to profitability yet.

10.3%
Ford Pro EBIT margin (2025)
-72.1%
Ford Model e EBIT margin (2025)
Ford Pro's commercial truck and van business is subsidising the EV arm by a wide margin. Model e sold 178,000 vehicles in 2025 and still lost $4.8 billion.

Several documented threats sit directly in Ford's path. Each one is specific, not a generic disclaimer about the economy.

2025
crisis
Ford writes down $13.8 billion and cancels its EV roadmap
In December 2025, Ford cancelled three planned electric vehicles, ended production of the F-150 Lightning, and announced it would exit the BlueOval SK battery joint venture. The resulting charges totalled about $13.8 billion in the fourth quarter alone, turning a profitable operating year into an $8.2 billion net loss. Ford may recognise up to $4 billion more in additional charges as these wind-down actions continue through 2026.

Beyond the EV retreat, four other specific risks are documented in Ford's own filings. First, fires at a Novelis aluminum plant in New York in September and November 2025 disrupted Ford's supply of aluminum sheet, cutting F-150 production in the fourth quarter. That disruption is ongoing. Second, Ford entered a consent order with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2024, placing independent oversight on Ford's safety processes. Ford also faces potential recall costs tied to airbag inflators in approximately 3.5 million Ford vehicles. Third, Ford holds long-term contracts to buy lithium, cobalt, and nickel for EV batteries. It must pay for those materials or compensate suppliers even if EV sales stay weak. Fourth, tariffs implemented or revised in 2025 cost Ford about $3 billion in gross tariff costs, with a net impact of about $2 billion after offsets. Those tariffs could get worse.

$3B
Ford's gross tariff costs in 2025, with a net profit impact of about $2 billion after partial offsets

Ford's U.S. market share actually grew, from 12.4% in 2023 to 13.2% in 2025, driven by hybrids and affordable trucks. Hybrid sales in the U.S. rose from 187,426 units in 2024 to 228,072 in 2025. Electric vehicle sales fell from 97,865 to 84,113 in the same period. The company's strength in physical trucks and commercial vehicles is real and current. The question is whether that strength is enough while the EV restructuring plays out.

Ford sold 2.2 million vehicles in the United States in 2025, its highest U.S. volume in the three-year window reported in the filing, even as it absorbed an $8.2 billion net loss. Volume and profitability are telling very different stories at the same time.
What 'adjusted EBIT' means and why Ford uses it
EBIT stands for earnings before interest and taxes. Ford's 'adjusted' version also removes special items like asset write-downs and restructuring charges. Ford argues these charges are one-time events that do not reflect how the core business performs. Critics argue that if a company records large special charges repeatedly, those charges are part of the business reality.

Ford's Ford Plus plan is the strategic framework tying everything together. It groups the business into three segments precisely so investors can see what each piece earns separately. Ford Pro's profits are visible and large. Ford Model e's losses are visible and large. The logic of the plan is that Ford Pro and Ford Blue fund the transition while Model e eventually reaches profitability. But the December 2025 EV write-downs and cancellations suggest that timeline has been pushed out significantly, and the original roadmap no longer exists in its planned form.

$187.3B
Ford's total revenue in 2025, the highest in the five-year window, even as the company reported an $8.2B net loss
The Bet
Ford Pro and Ford Blue generate enough profit, consistently, to absorb the ongoing losses and restructuring costs from Ford Model e while Ford rebuilds its EV strategy around a smaller, more focused set of vehicles. If tariffs persist at current levels, aluminum supply stays constrained, or commercial fleet pricing continues to soften, Ford Pro's margin compresses further and the cash buffer that funds the transition shrinks. The whole structure depends on Ford's commercial truck business staying strong enough to carry the rest of the company through a period when its EV bets are being unwound and redrawn.
Open question
Ford stripped out its original EV roadmap in December 2025, cancelled the F-150 Lightning, and wrote down $13.8 billion in a single quarter. It still generated $21.3 billion in operating cash flow and holds real strength in commercial trucks and hybrids. The two facts sit side by side without cancelling each other out. Can Ford Pro and Ford Blue sustain the margins needed to fund a second attempt at electric vehicles, or will tariffs, supply disruptions, and fleet pricing pressure erode the commercial truck profits that are currently holding the whole structure together?
Compiled · 10-K · FY2025
Total Revenue (5-year)
2021
$136B
2022
$158B
2023
$176B
2024
$185B
2025
$187B
Revenue grew from $136B in 2021 to $187B in 2025, a 37% increase over 5 years.
XBRL · Total revenue · Segment breakdown not reported separately
Gross Margin Trend (5-year)
2021 2025
Gross margin moved from 15.9% (2021) to 6.8% (2025).
Operating Cash Flow (5-year)
2021
$16B
2022
$6.9B
2023
$15B
2024
$15B
2025
$21B
Cash Conversion
-2.61×
A negative cash conversion ratio (-2.61×) typically reflects a loss year or unusual working capital swings.
XBRL · 10-K Financial Statements · FY2025
FY2025
$140B
↑ 3% year over year
FY2024
$136B
Net debt was roughly stable year over year.
XBRL · Balance Sheet · 10-K · FY2025
William Clay Ford, Jr.
Chief Executive Officer
$28M
Sherry A. House
Chief Financial Officer
$8M
Alicia Boler Davis
President, Ford Pro
$19M
J. Douglas Field
Chief Electric Vehicle, Digital, and Design Officer
$15M
John T. Lawler
Vice Chair
$12M
DEF 14A · Proxy Statement
Jun 23, 2026
THORNTON JOHN L
Buy
$0.15M
Feb 19, 2026
FORD WILLIAM CLAY JR
Executive Chair and Chair
Buy
$1.93M
Nov 14, 2025
THORNTON JOHN L
Buy
$0.10M
Jul 1, 2025
Frick Andrew
President, Ford Blue & Model e
Planned
$0.33M
Jul 2, 2025
Frick Andrew
President, Ford Blue & Model e
Planned
$0.34M
3 purchases and 2 sales by insiders over the past two years.
Form 4 · SEC filings · Last 24 months
Vanguard Group
11.8%
BlackRock
7.1%
State Street
4.8%
Geode Capital Management
3.0%
Morgan Stanley
1.1%
Northern Trust
0.9%
Goldman Sachs
0.7%
UBS Group
0.7%
Vanguard Group is the largest institutional holder with 11.8% of shares outstanding.
13F filings
Operational
Ford's aluminum suppliers experienced major fires in 2025 that disrupted production, and this disruption is ongoing. If Ford cannot quickly find replacement suppliers or restart production at affected facilities, it could significantly reduce the company's ability to make and sell vehicles.
Regulatory
Ford entered a consent order with NHTSA in 2024 requiring independent oversight of the company's safety processes. Ford also faces potential large recall costs if NHTSA determines that airbag inflators in approximately 3.5 million Ford vehicles and 2.5 million other vehicles contain safety defects.
Supply Chain
Ford has long-term contracts to buy raw materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel for electric vehicle batteries, even if demand is lower than expected. Ford must still pay for these materials or compensate suppliers, which could significantly harm profits if electric vehicle sales remain weaker than planned.
Market
Electric vehicle adoption has been much lower than Ford expected industrywide, and recent U.S. policy changes eliminated EV incentives, making the situation worse. Ford has already recorded charges and may continue to incur significant costs related to excess battery supply contracts and inventory adjustments.
Strategic
Ford's Ford+ transformation plan requires successfully integrating new technologies, modernizing systems, and balancing competing priorities. If Ford fails to execute this plan at the pace shareholders expect, it could trigger shareholder activism that disrupts the business and distracts management.
10-K Item 1A · Risk Factors
Cash vs earnings
AR growth
Inventory
Share dilution
Debt trend
One-time charges
Goodwill
Customer conc.
Nothing flagged.
10-K · XBRL · Computed signals