Alcoa (AA) on Watch as Ford (F) Gears to Unveil Aluminum-Rich F-150
Drucker Worldwide's Richard Schultz commented today that Ford will be taking about 700-pounds of weight out of the latest version. The analyst see Ford using about 600-pounds of aluminum in the F-150s framework.
Ford said it sold 74,592 of its F-series trucks in 2013, a gain of 8.4 percent over the prior year. Assuming another modest 8-percent sales gain for 2014 (which could easily be more with the redesigned truck) and you have about 80,560 trucks. At 600-lbs of aluminum per truck, that's 48,335,616-lbs for the year, or 21,925 metric tons of aluminum.
For reference, Alcoa reported producing about 3.55 million metric tons of aluminum in 2013 and with third-party shipments at 2.801 million metric tons.
While Ford's F-150 revamp might not be enough to move the dial for Alcoa and other aluminum producers right now, spreading of the technology could impact the production of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of autos in the future. Given that the F-150 is the most-popular truck in North America, Ford's gamble could put a smile on the faces of Alcoa investors over time.
Shares of Alcoa are down 5.9 percent following its Q4 report Thursday night.