Ford Introduces New Gas-Powered Truck Aimed at Global Dominance

Text size

The all-new Ranger pickup shows that

Ford

‘s truck leadership extends beyond the U.S. It also shows that gasoline-powered trucks will be on roads, making money for the company, for a long time to come.

Ford Motor

(ticker: F) unveiled the new truck for U.S. markets Wednesday. It boasts 270 horsepower with its standard 2.3-liter turbocharged engine. A 2.7-liter engine option generates 315 horsepower.

U.S. car buyers, and investors, are more familiar with

Ford

‘s F-Series pickup trucks. Through 2022, the F-Series was the best-selling pickup in America for 46 years running. The F-Series has captured the title of best-selling vehicle in the U.S. for 41 consecutive years.

In 2022, Ford sold 653,957 F-Series pickups in America. Ranger sales amounted to 74,370 units. Investors might overlook the importance of Maverick in the Ford lineup. They shouldn’t. It’s key to Ford’s truck share globally.

“We sell [Ranger] in about 180 markets around the world,” Andrew Frick, Ford Blue’s vice president of sales, distribution and trucks, toldBarron’s. “It’s really helped make Ford the No. 1 seller of trucks globally.” Ranger, for its part, is the category leader in Europe capturing almost 50% of the market.

Ford Blue is the company’s new division that focuses on sales of traditional vehicles. Ford, which is about to celebrate its 120th birthday, now operates, and reports results, in three separate automotive units: The traditional Blue, the growing EV business and Ford Pro, its commercial operations.

The fast-growing EV business, called Model e, gets a lot of attention, but Blue is still the profit generator for Ford. Blue earned operating profit of $2.6 billion in the first quarter of 2023. The Pro business, which still relies mainly on traditional products, generated $1.4 billion. Model e doesn’t have the scale of the traditional business. It lost about $700 million in Q1.

Keeping products fresh is key for Blue sales and profits. Ford sold roughly 300,000 Rangers around the globe in 2022. Sales in 2023 are tracking ahead of that pace with 86,000 Rangers sold in the first quarter.

The Ranger is smaller than F-series trucks and a better fit for overseas markets. “They tend to buy smaller, mid-sized vehicles versus the large F-Series,” added Frick. The Ranger is typically competing against

Toyota

‘s Tacoma-sized trucks.

Toyota

(TM) sold 237,323 Tacoma trucks in North America in 2022 and 334,479 pickups when Tundra numbers are included. Toyota’s Tacoma-sized truck sold overseas is the Hilux. It sells more than 500,000 units a year, making it larger than Ranger in global markets today.

Despite the smaller size, the truck business overseas is similar to the U.S. with about half of Ford trucks sold internationally going to commercial customers.

In the U.S., the new Ranger will start at about $34,000 and Ranger Raptor will start at $57,000.

Raptor’s aren’t really commercial vehicles. Ford’s Raptor derivatives are the performance and off-road versions of Ford trucks. “Some people call it the truck on steroids,” says Frick. “I can’t wait to introduce the Raptor…three liter v-six with 405 horsepower…it’s just incredible.”

Off-road and horsepower might be most exciting, but the new Ranger also comes with the latest towing assistance technology and all of Ford’s vehicles, including Ranger, are connected offering over the air software updates that can improve performance on the fly.

Driver assistance technologies improve via software updates, but auto makers can also optimize suspension, braking or other features. Software controls a lot on cars these days.

The Ranger launch might not move the needle with investors like the launch of an electric pickup, such as the F-150 Lightning, but its arguably just as important for the company, and the stock.

Ford shares were up about 0.3% in midday trading. The

S&P 500
gained about 0.2%. The

Dow Jones Industrial Average
was off about 0.2%.

Coming into Wednesday trading, Ford shares are down about 11% over the past 12 months. Rising interest rates and declining vehicle affordability have sapped some investor enthusiasm for car-related stocks.

Write to Al Root at [email protected]