From the Model T to the F-150 Lightening

Ford Motor stock has soared 26% since the start of last week, to its highest levels since 2015. The boost has come thanks to several electrification-related announcements by the Detroit auto maker.

Last week, it unveiled a battery plug-in version of the F-150 pickup truck, to much fanfare. 

"The F-150 is routinely the top-selling vehicle in America, and Ford earns most of its money in trucks, making the electrification of the F-150 a key issue for investors," wrote Barron's Al Root after that virtual event. "The electric truck isn’t on sale just yet—sales are expected to start around mid-2022—but Ford hit all the important points in its reveal."

The truck will boast 770 foot-pounds of torque, 600 horsepower, and a zero-to-60 mph time of about 4 seconds. It will have a range of a 300 miles on a single charge, and enough backup capacity to power an average home for three days in the event of an outage.

Ford said it received 20,000 preorders for the so-called F-150 Lightning truck in the first 12 hours after its reveal.

But it doesn't just want to make the trucks and drop in someone else's battery pack. The day after its F-150 event, Ford announced a joint venture with South Korea's SK Innovation on a facility capable of making enough batteries to power the equivalent of 600,000 all-electric vehicles per year.

Ford stock jumped almost 10% in two days late last week.

Yesterday, Ford held an investor event to speak about its overall electrification strategy. The key update during that presentation was that management plans to spend $30 billion on vehicle electrification by 2025—$8 billion more than before, with the extra spending going to its battery-production plans. Ford expects 40% of its sales to come from electric vehicles by 2030.

CEO Jim Farley emphasized that the company is all-in on its electrification strategy. "This is our biggest opportunity for growth and value creation since Henry Ford started to scale the Model T, and we’re grabbing it with both hands,” he said.

Investors liked the sound of that too, and sent Ford stock up 8.5% yesterday.

But the rally wasn't over yet. Ford shares jumped yet another 7.1% today, to close at around $14.75, after several analysts weighed in and gave a bullish assessment of the company's electric-vehicle strategy. That's up more than twofold from their pandemic bottom last March. 

Read more from Al on Ford's on-going transformation here.