底特律的汽车制造商采取了出人意料的保守财务战略，使电动汽车成为美国消费者的下一个首选汽车。
他们付现金。
通用汽车和福特在它们之间投资了 650 亿美元——通用汽车投资 350 亿美元，福特投资 300 亿美元——而且到目前为止，不打算借任何钱。取而代之的是，一个世纪以来汽车产品最根本的变化是用公司的经营现金流来支付——随着时间的推移，这大大降低了公司面临的风险，目前，它们的股价也在上涨。
“简短的回答是，他们这样做是因为他们可以，”债券评级机构标准普尔汽车行业负责人 Nishit Madlani 表示。 “[自大流行开始以来]卡车的流行和强劲的定价给了他们信心。”
底特律积极的投资和保守的融资已经酝酿多年。通用汽车在 2020 年 5 月借入了 40 亿美元，同时福特将循环信贷额度减少了 150 亿美元，这些举措旨在缓解因 Covid-19 引发的令人担忧的销售内爆。由于 2020 年销售额下降幅度比预期的要小，然后在 2021 年开始反弹，现金流仍然强劲，推动公司股价走高，让福特偿还高息债务。
与此同时，两家公司都通过暂停派息和股票回购来持有现金。这些公司削减了数十亿美元的年度成本，削减了所有无利可图的轿车产品线，退出了无利可图的海外市场，并专注于卡车，卡车仍然是他们业务中最赚钱的部分。
综上所述，这两家美国本土出生的最大汽车制造商有足够的资金来进行该行业自成立以来最大的技术转型。
创汽车利润，创汽车价格
CFRA Research 分析师 Garrett Nelson 表示：“一旦我们解决了供应链问题和芯片短缺问题，汽车制造商预计将获得创纪录的利润，我们预计这将持续到今年的大部分时间。” “现有业务好，驱动因素是车价创历史新高。”
Detroit 2 的融资策略与当时的初创公司特斯拉在过去十年中为推进电动汽车提供资金的方式形成鲜明对比。这位电动汽车领导者多次从股票和债券市场筹集资金以支付其计划，直到 2020 年才向联邦监管机构提交了 100 亿美元股票销售的文件。特斯拉在加利福尼亚的第一家电动汽车工厂获得了联邦政府担保的贷款。 2010 年，当 EV 市场刚刚起步时，公司还未上市或有实质性收入。
通用汽车和福特已经准备好花更多的钱。
“如果有的话，它会从那里上升，”福特发言人说。
尼尔森表示，美国汽车市场在 2021 年反弹至近 1500 万辆的销量，为底特律积极推进所需的财务缓冲提供了资金。此次崩盘并不像伴随 2008 年金融危机那样严重，当时美国乘用车市场跌至略高于 1000 万辆的汽车和卡车。 Madlani 说，短暂的小幅下跌有助于确保两家公司的资金足够大，可以满足数十亿美元的新投资需求。
“我们为已知和未知做好了准备，”福特发言人说。 “未知的部分是大流行。众所周知，我们需要成为电动汽车的领导者。”
销售反弹虽然仍远低于大流行前的速度，但在截至 9 月的福特公司的九个月内已转化为 78 亿美元的自由现金流。在通用汽车，汽车业务在 2020 年前九个月的运营现金流几乎没有收支平衡，但流动性仍然足够强劲，足以让该公司在资本支出上花费超过 40 亿美元。通用汽车将于 2 月 1 日公布第四季度业绩，福特将于 2 月 3 日公布业绩。
根据汤森路透的数据，分析师预计福特将报告每股盈利 42 美分，营收 358 亿美元，自 9 月季度以来增长 75%。通用汽车预计每股盈利 1.11 美元，低于第三季度的 1.52 美元。通用汽车在 12 月提高了自己的全年预测，称其息税前利润将达到 140 亿美元，高于此前预测的 115 亿美元至 135 亿美元。
尼尔森说，尽管美国工业部门的年销量低于新冠疫情之前的 1700 万辆汽车，但福特和通用汽车的利润一直保持稳定，因为两家公司都在积极削减成本，为转型做准备。例如，福特几乎完全退出了轿车制造业务，通用汽车在 2019 年解雇了 4,000 名受薪工人。这还包括关闭工厂，其中包括通用汽车在俄亥俄州著名的洛兹敦工厂，后来出售给电动汽车初创公司洛兹敦汽车公司。
Behind GM, Ford's aggressive new electric vehicle strategy is old-time financing: Cash
Detroit's automakers have brought a surprisingly conservative financial strategy to making EVs the next vehicle of choice for American consumers.
They're paying cash.
General Motors and Ford are investing $65 billion between them – $35 billion at GM and $30 billion for Ford – and, so far, don't propose to borrow any of it. Instead, the most radical change in auto products in a century is being paid for out of the companies' operating cash flow – seriously reducing the risk to the companies over time, and, for now, boosting their stock prices.
“The short answer is that they are doing it because they can,” said Nishit Madlani, automotive sector lead at bond rating agency Standard and Poor's. “The popularity of trucks [since the pandemic began] and strong pricing is giving them confidence.”
Detroit's aggressive investment and conservative financing has been years in the making. It has been aided by $4 billion borrowed by GM in May 2020, and by Ford drawing down a revolving credit line by $15 billion around the same time, moves intended to cushion a feared sales implosion from Covid-19. As sales declined more modestly than feared in 2020 and then began to bounce back in 2021, cash flow remained strong, taking the companies' stock prices higher and letting Ford repay high-interest debt.
At the same time, both companies held on to cash by suspending dividends and share repurchases. And the companies have cut billions in annual costs, by slashing whole lines of unprofitable sedans, withdrawing from unprofitable markets overseas, and focusing tightly on trucks, which remain the most profitable part of their business.
Put all of this together, and the two biggest native-born U.S. automakers have the cash to take on the industry's biggest technological transformation since its founding.
Record auto profits, record car prices
“Auto manufacturers are expecting record profits once we get through supply chain issues and chip shortages, which we expect to last most of this year,” CFRA Research analyst Garrett Nelson said. “The existing business is good, and the driver is car prices at a record high.”
The Detroit 2′s financing strategy stands in stark contrast to how Tesla, then a start-up, financed its push into EVs over the last decade. The EV leader repeatedly raised money from the stock and bond markets to pay for its plans, filing paperwork with federal regulators for $10 billion in stock sales as recently as 2020. Tesla's first EV factory in California was financed with a loan that was federally guaranteed in 2010, when the EV market was nascent, before the company went public or had material revenue.
GM and Ford are ready to spend even more.
“If anything, it will go up from there,” a Ford spokesman said.
The U.S. car market's bounce back to nearly 15 million units sold in 2021 provided the financial cushion Detroit needed to push forward aggressively, according to Nelson. The collapse was not nearly as large as the one that accompanied the 2008 financial crisis, when the U.S. passenger vehicle market fell to slightly more than 10 million cars and trucks. The brief, shallow dip helped assure that the war chests of the two companies were big enough to meet the need for billions of dollars in new investment, Madlani said.
“We prepared for the known and the unknown,” said the Ford spokesman. “The unknown part was the pandemic. The known was that we needed to be a leader in electric vehicles.″
The sales rebound, while still well below pre-pandemic pace, has translated into $7.8 billion in free cash flow over the nine months that ended in September at Ford. At GM, where automotive operations barely broke even on operating cash flow in the first nine months of 2020, liquidity was still strong enough to let the company spend more than $4 billion on capital expenditures. GM is due to report fourth-quarter results on Feb. 1, with Ford set to announce its results Feb. 3.
Analysts expect Ford to report profits of 42 cents a share on $35.8 billion of revenue, up 75% since the September quarter, according to Thomson Reuters data. GM is forecasted to earn $1.11 a share, down from $1.52 in the third quarter. GM raised its own forecast for the full year in December, saying it will earn $14 billion in earnings before interest and taxes, up from $11.5 billion to $13.5 billion it had previously predicted.
Ford and GM profits have held up, even though U.S. industry unit sales are off the 17 million-vehicle annual pace before Covid, because the companies aggressively cut costs to prepare for the transition, Nelson said. Ford got almost entirely out of the business of making sedans, for example, and GM laid off 4,000 salaried workers in 2019. That's in addition to factory closings that included GM's storied Lordstown, Ohio plant, later sold to EV start-up Lordstown Motors.
