Ford’s stock continued to rise on Tuesday amid strong demand for its new electric truck, extending a strong run that saw it rise 140 percent last year, beating out Elon Musk’s Tesla.
The shares of the venerable automaker are presently near 20-year highs.
Ford’s market capitalization of about $97 billion is still a long way behind established competitors like as Toyota ($320 billion) and Tesla ($1.1 trillion). Ford’s worth surpassed that of legacy auto rival General Motors ($95 billion) and electric car startup Rivian ($91 billion) as its stock soared on Tuesday.
Ford’s stock jumped 11.7 percent after the company announced on Tuesday that by mid-2023, it aims to roughly increase the yearly production capacity of its upcoming electrified F-150 Lightning pickup to 150,000 units.
This is the second time Ford has increased manufacturing targets for the F-150, which will be available in the spring (up from an initial output of around 40,000 vehicles).
Ford highlighted higher-than-expected consumer demand for its F-150 pickup and intends to begin taking actual orders for the pickup on Thursday, indicating the stock’s recent rise is a tribute to enormous investor interest in electric vehicles.
As it prepares to take on pioneers like Tesla, the heritage carmaker stated Tuesday that it is “committed to leading the electric vehicle revolution” and will invest more than $30 billion in the industry through 2025.
“Over the next two years, Ford aims to emerge as the clear No. 2 electric vehicle maker in North America and then challenge the No. 1 spot,” according to the company’s press release.
Last year, Ford was the best-performing stock in the auto sector, rising 140 percent to beat out larger rival General Motors and electric vehicle producer Tesla, which rose 41 percent and 50 percent, respectively.
