Ford announces $1.7B profit, deep cuts to lineup

DETROIT — The company that put Americans in cars affirmed Wednesday that those vehicles are going the way of the Model T and it will focus ever more on trucks and SUVs.

Ford, during its announcement Wednesday that it had a first-quarter profit of $1.7 billion, said its traditional car lineup soon will be trimmed to just the Mustang and a new Focus Active crossover that comes out next year.

By 2020, nearly 90 percent of Ford's product lineup in North America will be trucks, SUVs and commercial vehicles.

For the first quarter, the Dearborn automaker said it earned 43 cents per share, beating Wall Street analysts' average expectations by 2 cents per share.

Ford's revenue worldwide increased 7 percent to $42 billion for the quarter. The 9 percent increase in quarterly profit can be almost entirely attributed to a drop in the automaker's effective tax rate to 9 percent from 28.6 percent, Ford officials said.

The automaker's pretax profit fell 14 percent from a year ago to $2.2 billion for the quarter.

Ford also unveiled plans to pare an additional $11.5 billion in costs between 2019 and 2022. These reductions would come on top of the $14 billion in cuts that the automaker previously announced in the fall.

The latest planned reductions will come from areas including engineering, materials costs, marketing and sales.

Ford Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks told reporters it is too early to say whether the additional cuts and "efficiency opportunities" would result in layoffs or staffing reductions.

"We have looked at every single part of the business," Shanks said. "It's a little bit of everything, and I don't think they're done yet."

Additionally, Ford said it expects to put $5 billion less into capital expenditures from 2019 to 2022 than it once anticipated.

Shanks said that rising costs for commodities, such as aluminum, steel and copper, were a nearly $500-million drag on Ford's performance for the quarter. For the year, higher commodity costs are expected to be a $1.5-billion "head wind," Shanks said.

Ford's decision to pull back on car production reflects a shift in consumer sentiment that has had an impact across the automotive industry.

The full-size Taurus, midsize Fusion, small Fiesta and wagon-like C-Max will no longer be sold in North America, Ford officials said. Exactly when these models will stop being sold in the market hasn't been announced.