We all knew that legacy automaker Ford (F) had ambitions of getting into the electric vehicle market. It even realized these ambitions to some extent, before paring them down in the face of market reality. But some of those ambitions made a comeback, as Ford got in on the electric semi stakes with its new F-Line E truck. This did not bring much comfort to investors, though, who sent shares down fractionally in Monday afternoon’s trading.
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The F-Line E will hit roads in Western Europe this summer, reports note, and be available in a choice of four-by-two or six-by-two configurations. The F-Line E is rated for up to 26 tons, and will be powered by a set of four modular batteries. The batteries are nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) packs that offer around 98 kWh each. This gives the F-Line E a range of about 300 kilometers, or roughly, 185 miles.
Perhaps the best part here is charging speed. The batteries on the F-Line E can be recharged from 20% to 80% in about 45 minutes, which is about the time it takes to unload the truck. Plugging the truck in when unloading starts will have the truck mostly ready to turn around by the time it is emptied, reports note. If the truck needs to be reloaded, the chances the batteries will fully charge in that time only improve.
The Blue Light Special
K-Mart is pretty much a dead brand these days, ever since it was purchased by Sears some time ago. Some K-Mart locations remain, yes, but most of these are not even in the United States. This was a bit of a problem for a car service tech, who recently opened a car’s hood to find a K-1 oil filter in place. This would not be such a problem, except K-1 oil filters were a K-Mart product.
The filter was found on a Ford vehicle, the engine compartment of which was found to be coated in a “…mass of black, caked-on gunk.” But given that the engine in question was a 1964 Y-block that came out of a 1964 F-100 before being installed into a 1954 F-100, it is hard to blame the oil filter fully for failing here. Not even the service tech blames the filter; he noted that engine conditions of the era often meant sludge was a normal by-product.
Is Ford Stock a Good Buy Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on F stock based on two Buys, 11 Holds and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 30.64% rally in its share price over the past year, the average F price target of $13.87 per share implies 2.82% upside potential.
