ROSEVILLE, Michigan — Ford Pro might just be Ford Motor Co.’s “Ferrari,” and some competitors say they are coming after it.

For years, the commercial vehicles segment was overlooked as less exciting, but connectivity is especially helping to change that picture. Today, Ford Pro is driving margins that are fueling the Blue Oval’s investment in its future, including electric vehicles. Meanwhile, major competitors are making changes they say will better serve their customers.

Ford Pro alone increased its operating income to $7.2 billion in 2023 by 81% with a 12.4% operating margin, even with a slower Super Duty truck production ramp-up with a new quality check process and a United Auto Workers strike. It's forecasting $8 billion to $9 billion in 2024 and a mid-teens margin. For scale, Ford Blue, the Dearborn automaker's internal combustion engine and hybrid vehicle business, posted an operating income of $7.46 billion and a 7.3% operating margin last year.

“I remember a time when Fiat owned Ferrari, and I had a valuation of about $4 billion on it,” said Adam Jonas, analyst at investment bank Morgan Stanley, while posing a question to Ford CEO Jim Farley during a recent earnings call. “Now, Ferrari is worth $80 billion today, and the business was totally ignored by investors when it was part of Fiat. Now, Ford's Ferrari, it's called Ford Pro. And I think we agree, people are ignoring the cash cow.”

Ford’s stock closed Friday at $12.06 per share, giving the company a market capitalization of $47.9 billion, according to Yahoo Finance. By comparison, Ferrari NV was valued at $77 billion on the Nasdaq. Meanwhile, General Motors Co. was nearly $47 billion, and Tesla Inc. was $520.9 billion.

Understanding the value of Ford Pro, the automaker's commercial vehicle unit, became clearer after the automaker last year began breaking out profits for its three divisions — Ford Blue, Ford Pro and Model e, its electric-vehicle division.

“How we've segmented the business is shining a light on the value of Ford Pro,” Tim Baughman, Ford Pro’s general manager, recently told The Detroit News. “In the past, the commercial side of the business wasn’t as understood. It may not be as exciting as the next Bronco or the next Mustang, or talking about it like, ‘It's just a commercial van.’”

Others are seeing the value in commercial, too. General Motors almost a year ago announced GM Envolve, a reimagining of GM Fleet as a “one-stop customer experience” for commercial business solutions across its brands, including the all-electric BrightDrop commercial van business. GM says it was the top seller of U.S. commercial fleet deliveries for a second consecutive year last year, with sales up 20% from 2022.

"The technologies that have changed the way consumers use their vehicles also impact the way fleet managers and owners use their vehicles for business needs, and our GM Envolve model was built through research and listening to fleet customers — from Fortune 500 companies on down to small mom-and-pop, local businesses," GM spokesperson Sabin Blake said in a statement. The model "gives GM Envolve customers one point of contact for the full suite of GM fleet products and services from hardware to software."

Earlier this month, Stellantis NV introduced Ram Professional as its commercial business division under the Stellantis Pro One commercial strategy focused on being a “360-degree” business partner. Its Dare Forward 2030 strategy calls for its commercial-vehicle business to represent half of the nearly $327 billion (300 billion euro) in annual revenues the automaker is projecting by 2030, including $5.4 billion (5 billion euro) in subscriptions.

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