Wall Street hailed Ford Motor’s (NYSE:F)plans to internally separate its legacy and electric vehicle businesses, announced Wednesday, pushing the automaker’s stock to its fifth-highest daily gain in the past 12 months.
But Wall Street analysts weren’t sold on all aspects of the changes under CEO Jim Farley’s "Ford+" turnaround plan for the Detroit automaker.
Some analysts still call for a full spin-off of one of the businesses. Others question whether Ford can achieve a 10% operating profit margin across its businesses by 2026, while increasing global EV production to two million units by that timeframe.
Morgan Stanley expects Ford to produce 560,000 EV units by 2026 and estimates the company’s adjusted operating profit margin on EVs to be only 4% by 2026, not 10%.
The research firm first issued those targets prior to Ford’s announcement, but maintained the forecast after the update. However, experts cited there could be some upside they aren’t taking into account just yet.
F shares were trading down 26 cents, or 1.4%, in the first hour of trading to $17.84.
