Ford reported first-quarter results after the bell on Wednesday and lifted its full-year profit outlook, sending Ford stock up 6% in after-hours trading. The automaker said adjusted earnings were $0.66 a share, well above the $0.19 expected, on automotive revenue of $39.82 billion.
Adjusted EBIT came in at $3.5 billion, a figure Ford said included a $1.3 billion one-time tariff benefit. The company raised its full-year adjusted EBIT guidance to $8.5 billion to $10.5 billion, from a prior range of $8.0 billion to $10.0 billion, and said its strong first-quarter results and raised guidance reflect the momentum of the Ford+ plan.
The numbers matter because Ford is trying to show that its turnaround can hold up even as costs and tariffs shift around it. Earlier this month, the company posted first-quarter U.S. sales of 457,315 vehicles, down 8.8% from a year earlier, after a pre-tariff buying spree before April 1 pulled demand forward.
That left Ford with a mixed picture going into the rest of the year. The company said the F-150 business will see a net $1 billion improvement from the Novelis recovery, but it also warned that commodity headwinds will reach about $2 billion, or $1 billion more than expected, while ongoing tariffs will cut results by around $1 billion. Ford also said it plans to spend about $1 billion in incremental investment in Model e to support the ramp-up of its new Universal EV platform, part of a shift toward smaller, cheaper electric vehicles.
The tension is that the quarter looked cleaner than the year ahead may be. Ford said the first quarter benefited from a one-time rollback of President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, while rising materials costs, especially aluminum and steel, are expected to weigh more heavily in the second half. The company also said last year’s Novelis aluminum plant fires hurt pickup production, but that effect should normalize by year-end, and it is coming off a $19.5 billion charge in December tied to a pivot in its EV business.
For investors, the takeaway is straightforward: Ford is guiding to better profits than it expected three months ago, but it is still navigating a business where tariff swings, commodity inflation and EV spending are all hitting at once. The next test is whether the company can keep that guidance intact once the temporary tariff boost falls out of the numbers.