Ford Motor Company has named Lisa Drake president of its newly formed Ford Energy business, effective immediately. Reporting to Vice Chair John Lawler, Drake will lead the end‐to‐end operations for Ford’s battery energy storage systems (BESS) initiative, spanning cell manufacturing, system assembly and sales. The business unit, announced in December 2025, targets utility‐scale deployments and residential energy storage. Drake brings extensive experience scaling industrial operations and securing supply chains, most recently serving as vice president of Technology Platform Programs and EV Systems. Under her leadership, Ford Energy aims to capitalize on an estimated $30 billion U.S. market for grid‐scale storage by 2030, leveraging Ford’s existing U.S. battery footprint in Michigan and Tennessee.

In recent discussions, Ford and General Motors have engaged with First Brands Group, the Ohio‐based auto parts supplier currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, to structure a debtor‐in‐possession financing package. The talks, reported by the Financial Times, could involve up to $200 million in new financing to maintain First Brands’ operations through reorganization. Ford relies on First Brands for critical fasteners and safety‐related castings used in F‐Series trucks and Explorer crossovers; any supply disruption could impact assembly volumes and inventory levels at Dearborn and Kansas City plants. A finalized financing deal would safeguard Ford’s parts pipeline and mitigate potential production bottlenecks in H1 2026.

Ford has announced a recall of approximately 119,000 U.S. vehicles built between 2018 and 2022 to address an engine block heater wiring defect that poses a fire risk. The recall affects models including the F‐150, Super Duty pickups and Expedition SUVs. Ford will notify owners starting in March 2026 and will offer free inspections and wiring harness replacements at its 3,000 U.S. dealerships. This action adds to Ford’s record recall activity in 2025, following 850,000 units recalled earlier for airbag inflator and transmission issues, underscoring continued quality control challenges that investors will monitor in relation to warranty reserves and customer satisfaction metrics.

Ford is taking a $19.5 billion special charge in Q4 2025 to realign its electric vehicle (EV) strategy, including discontinuing the current F-150 Lightning production. Citing slower EV adoption in key U.S. markets, Ford will shift capital toward hybrids and gasoline‐electric models while retaining a pipeline of eight new EV launches through 2028. The company will invest in a Universal EV Platform designed to reduce per‐vehicle costs by 20% and plans to introduce a $30,000 midsize electric pickup in 2027, targeting a break‐even point within its first year of production. CEO Jim Farley emphasized that these moves will accelerate profitable EV volumes, projecting Model e operating losses to narrow from $5.2 billion in 2024 to under $2 billion by 2027.