Last month, a massive fire broke out at an aluminum plant in New York, which is owned and operated by Novelis. Trouble is, that company supplies around 40 percent of the aluminum sheeting used by the automotive industry these days, with Ford among its biggest customers. From the get-go, it was clear that this incident would have massive financial repercussions for The Blue Oval, with Ford F-Series production set to be impacted in a major way. Now, we're getting a clearer picture of that impact.
"Our ample inventory does position us for a strong fourth quarter and helps to insulate our retail sales from the near-term impact of Novelis," Andrew Frick, President, Ford Blue and Model e, said during the automaker's Q3 2025 earnings call with investors.
"We will end this year with leaner retail stock levels between 55 to 59-day supply, with gross stock down 11 percent. As we look at 2026, even with our net recovery, we forecast being down roughly another 6 percent to about 520,000 units of gross stock, a disciplined approach, yet still leaving us headroom to look for more market opportunities."
Ford also revealed that between 2025 and 2026, it expects the Novelis fire to cost it around $1 billion or less, but that's after it offsets that loss with boosted output next year. For 2025, Ford has adjusted its EBIT (earnings before tax and interest) headwind to between $1.5 billion to $2 billion as a result of this incident, and also adjusted its free cash flow headwind to between $2 billion and $3 billion in the fourth quarter due to the Novelis fire.
However, in 2026, Ford believes that it will be able to mitigate at least $1 billion of its Novelis-related adjustments made this year, largely by boosting production of the Ford F-150 and Super Duty, as Ford Authority previously reported. The automaker will create up to 1,000 additional jobs to increase F-Series production volume by over 50,000 trucks in total, with that ramp up set to begin in Q1. Additionally, the Novelis plant is expected to be back up and running by late November or early December, earlier than Q1 2026, as previously thought.
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