New York (AFP) – Ford reported lower than anticipated fourth-quarter operating results Tuesday on an unexpectedly large tariff hit and lower vehicle volumes due to a supplier outage. The big US automaker, which had previously signaled a loss for the final quarter of 2025 due to more than $14 billion in electric vehicle program write-downs, reported lower than expected earnings when the EV costs were excluded.
Ford lost $11.1 billion on revenues of $45.9 billion, down five percent from the year-ago period. Excluding one-time items, Ford’s earnings came in at 13 cents per share, six cents shy of analyst expectations. Ford incurred some $900 million more in tariff costs for 2025 following a late-December determination by the Trump administration limiting a provision to mitigate levies on imported auto parts. As a result, Ford ended up with a $2 billion tariff hit for all of 2025, compared with an earlier forecast of $1 billion, said Chief Financial Officer Sherry House.
Meanwhile, Ford’s sales volumes were dented by a pair of fires at the Novelis Oswego aluminum plant in upstate New York in October and November, resulting in another $2 billion hit for the year. House said the hot mill at the site is partially operational. The plant is expected to be fully operational sometime in the middle of 2026, she said. “We’ve got people on the ground there and know exactly what is going on and where things stand,” House said on a conference call with reporters. “We have contingency plans to secure the sufficient supply for the hot mill from various sources.”
While Ford expects some costs associated with US President Donald Trump’s tariffs to mitigate in 2026, the company anticipates a larger hit from importing aluminum due to Trump levies on the metal, House said. Ford projected 2026 adjusted earnings of between $8 and $10 billion, up from $6.8 billion in 2025 and in line with analyst expectations.
© 2024 AFP
