Editor’s Note: Last week, I heard from a guy I played college football with when Jimmy Carter was occupying the White House. While reminiscing about those days he reminded me of the car I drove back then.

It was a lightly used 1971 Ford Maverick that my father bought for $800. It had bench seats in the front and back, a trunk the size of a baby elephant, and no air conditioning. It wasn’t fancy, but it was reliable and safely got me to and from school.

Now, I am driving a 2021 Ford Bronco Sport. It is vastly superior to my old Maverick in every way: more safety features, better gas mileage, and there isn’t a deer skull sitting in the back window with red lightbulbs in its nostrils to let the car behind me know when I’m hitting the brakes!

Stuck in Neutral

Ford (NYSE: F) has come a long way since I first drove my Maverick in the summer of 1978. Ever since cheaper and better Japanese imports upended the domestic automobile manufacturing industry during the 1980s, Ford has been engaged in a never-ending process of reinvention.

Despite the substantial investments in its manufacturing process Ford has made over the decades, its share price has gone nowhere. This week, Ford opened near $11, which is where it was trading thirty years ago.

The only Ford shareholders that have earned a decent return on their investment recently are those that bought the stock shortly after it fell below $10 during the first half of this year when it became apparent the Trump administration was serious about imposing stiff import tariffs on foreign made cars and parts.

The last time anyone made a lot of money on Ford stock was four years ago. After plunging below $5 immediately after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, Ford shot up to $25 in less than two years.

Shifting Gears

After that, Ford gradually lost ground as consumers gravitated towards the electric vehicle (EV) market popularized by Tesla (NSDQ: TSLA). In turn, Ford and just about every other car maker rushed to introduce electric versions of their top selling models.

That development came at a very high cost. According to Yahoo Finance, “Last year, Ford’s Model e EV unit lost $5.1 billion, and the company expects losses to stay the same in 2025. The company sold 105,000 EVs, meaning the company lost around $48.5K per EV sold.”

That type of financial performance is not sustainable. Even a company the size of Ford, which holds about $38 billion of cash, can’t keep losing money at that pace for long without incurring the wrath of its very patient shareholders.

Those shareholders may not have to remain patient much longer. At the start of this week, Ford announced what it describes as “a revolutionary leap forward in engineering and manufacturing to bring a new family of affordable, high-quality electric vehicles within reach for millions around the world.”

Hitting the Gas

Although the company has made similar claims in the past about its forays into globalism, this one appears to have legs. Ford is investing $5 billion to create an entirely new process for building EVs in the United States.

According to the press release, “The platform reduces parts by 25% versus a typical vehicle, with 25% fewer fasteners, 40% fewer workstations dock-to-dock in the plant and 15% faster assembly time.” The company claims this process will result in a “Lower cost of ownership over five years than a three-year-old used Tesla Model Y.”

The first cars made using this new process are projected to arrive in 2027 at a cost of about $30,000. According to the company, these midsize, four-door pickup trucks will be “As fast as a Mustang EcoBoost” and have “More passenger space than the latest Toyota RAV – with a trunk and a bed.”

The company believes its new EV manufacturing process is a gamechanger. According to Doug Field, Ford’s EV, digital and design officer, “We took inspiration from the Model T – the universal car the changed the world.” Field further boasted, “Our new zonal electric architecture unlocks capabilities the industry has never seen.”

It remains to be seen if Mr. Field turns out to be right about that. But if he does, then buying Ford stock at $11 could be a gamechanger for a lot of investors, too.