DETROIT, May 18, 2026, 12:07 EDT
- Ford shares lost early ground. The company had announced a battery-storage agreement with EDF and rolled out a new product plan for Europe.
- The stock was at $13.24 near midday, off 1.2%. It had hit $14.32 earlier in the session.
- Ford Energy could get as much as 20 gigawatt-hours in storage orders over five years through the EDF deal, though deliveries aren’t due to begin before 2028.
Ford Motor shares gave up gains by midday Monday, turning lower as the market looked past an initial jump tied to a battery-storage agreement with EDF. Investors focused on how long the project could take and the risk in Ford’s newest shift.
Ford slipped 1.2% to $13.24 just before noon in New York. The stock had hit $14.32 earlier. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF was down 0.4%. General Motors lost 0.6% and Tesla was down 2.6%.
Ford is moving to sell battery capacity built for electric vehicles to new customers, as it looks to set up a business in grid-scale storage. This comes just months after Ford took a $19.5 billion writedown on its EV efforts. Under a deal with EDF, Ford Energy will let the renewable-power developer buy as much as 4 gigawatt-hours a year of DC Block battery energy storage systems, or BESS, with a potential 20 GWh across the term. These large batteries serve grids, data centers and industrial buyers.
A gigawatt-hour supplies one gigawatt for an hour. For a new player, it’s a real number, but there’s no revenue yet. The companies said deliveries from the deal should start in 2028.
Ford Energy president Lisa Drake said the group was “not simply delivering hardware,” calling the deal a test of Ford’s manufacturing strength at a time when utilities and developers are asking for steady supply. Tristan Grimbert, head of EDF power solutions North America, said supply-chain reliability and product quality are “paramount.” Business Wire
Ford is trying to catch up in a market driven by demand from AI data centers, renewables and grid issues. Tesla is still the main comp. The company put out 8.8 GWh of energy storage in Q1, which shows what scaling up in this business looks like when it’s running.
Ford’s energy-storage announcement landed the same day it put out a fresh plan for Europe. The automaker is set to launch seven new models in the region by 2029, aiming to win back passenger-car share and hold onto its commercial-vehicle business. “We need to stand out in a crowd,” said Jim Baumbick, Ford’s European president, to Reuters, as rivals like BYD and Chery keep moving in and Stellantis keeps up its van strength. Reuters
Ford’s struggles in Europe are clear. Reuters said the automaker sold a little over 426,000 cars on the continent last year, far below the more than 1 million it moved ten years ago. BYD saw sales jump nearly 270%, while Ford’s sales edged up just 0.1%.
Ford shares have seen swings on the Ford Energy news. The stock spiked 13% in a single day last week, its sharpest one-day move since around 2018, after Morgan Stanley analysts pointed to the storage division and Ford’s battery tie-up with CATL.
Ford’s headline numbers added to the rally. The automaker posted first-quarter revenue of $43.3 billion, net income of $2.5 billion and adjusted EBIT of $3.5 billion. Ford also bumped up its full-year adjusted EBIT outlook to a range of $8.5 billion to $10.5 billion. CFO Sherry House said, “path to higher margins is clear.” Q4 Communications
But risks are plain too. The EDF deal is just a framework at this stage, not evidence Ford can roll out a storage business at scale or at high margins. Shipments are about two years away. Ford’s 2026 guidance still bakes in commodity and tariff pressure, ongoing Model e losses, and no big disruptions like a lasting Middle East war or a major U.S. slump.
The stock trades more like a company looking for a new identity than a mature automaker, with investors still guessing about its next chapter as the order book, margins, and factory performance aren’t all in view yet.
