You can look at Ford Motor Company’s 2025 financial report in two ways. 

On one hand, the automaker earned $6.8 billion before interest, taxes, and one-time costs. On the other hand, when you subtract those figures, it shows a net loss of more than $8 billion, the largest shortfall in almost 20 years.

Ford CEO Jim Farley focused on the positives in his report to shareholders.

“Ford delivered a strong 2025 in a dynamic and often volatile environment,” Farley said.

Tariffs added to that volatility. Ford says it paid $2 billion in import taxes in 2025. 

EV losses jolt the bottom line

Automotive analyst Paul Eisenstein with Headlight.News says electric vehicles proved very costly.

“Ford wrote off almost $20 billion on its electric vehicle operations,” he says. “That reflects a whole bunch of changes to their EV program.”

Ford ended production of the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck. It also backed away from plans to convert a factory in Memphis, Tenn. into an EV-only facility.

Eisenstein says Ford has yet to make a profit on EVs but is not abandoning them. He says the company will launch its Universal EV concept at a factory in Louisville, Ky. 

“It’s a radical change in the way you design and build vehicles,” he says. “And if it works, it could lower the cost of EVs substantially.”

Quality is Job 1…or is it?

Farley’s biggest challenge may be improving quality. Ford issued 153 vehicle recalls in 2025, a new industry record. Eisenstein says Ford owners are tired of having multiple recalls on the same vehicle, and often for the same problem.

“This is costing the company billions of dollars and ticking off a lot of customers,” he says.

The blue oval has a silver lining

Ford’s annual earnings statement offered some hope. The company reported record revenue of $187 billion. U.S. sales rose 6% over 2024. And hourly workers will receive individual profit-sharing checks worth about $6800 based on pre-tax earnings.

Eisenstein says net profits or losses can be deceiving.

“The net can be affected by those one-time charges, which can be manipulated to give you a good or bad number, depending on what you feel like you need,” he says. “You want to have a clear sense of what the individual elements in the bottom line are all about.”

Federal immigration agents have been involved in at least 30 shootings since President Trump returned to office — eight of them fatal. In almost every case, the administration declared the agents’ actions justified before any investigation was complete.

Two of those killings happened in Minneapolis within three weeks of each other: Renee Good on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24. Both were U.S. citizens, age 37, and in both cases, masked federal officers opened fire, and the Trump administration’s initial accounts were later contradicted by video evidence.

Their deaths spurred protests across the country and accelerated a growing push by local and state governments to impose limits on federal immigration agents.

Local Pushback

In Detroit, City Council member Mary Waters has introduced the Alex Pretti Detroit No Masks Ordinance, which would prohibit any law enforcement officer — local, state, or federal — from concealing their face while performing their duties in the city. The proposal has been referred to committee but has not yet received a vote.

At the state level, the Michigan Senate held hearings last month on a package of bills aimed at how federal immigration enforcement operates in the state. They would ban law enforcement masks, bar ICE from operating in schools, hospitals, and houses of worship, and prevent state agencies from sharing data with federal immigration authorities.

Former chief warns about anonymity in law enforcement

Former Detroit Police Chief Isaiah “Ike” McKinnon was among those who testified in support of the bills.

McKinnon joined the Detroit Police Department in 1965. Two years later, during the 1967 Detroit uprising, fellow white officers pulled him over while he was in full uniform, put a gun to his head, and shot at him. During that same period, officers across the department were removing their badges to avoid being identified. McKinnon survived — and stayed on the force. In 1993, Mayor Dennis Archer appointed him Detroit’s second Black police chief. Over five years, he overhauled the department’s approach to community trust.

Now 82, McKinnon told Michigan senators he sees the same pattern repeating: officers who conceal their identities operate without accountability.

He spoke with The Metro’s Robyn Vincent about how local police should respond to this moment.

Use the media player above to hear the conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

More stories from The Metro