Ford is offering employee prices nationwide for recent models of its vehicle fleet. The automaker is doing this to mark the U.S.'s 250th anniversary with a campaign aiming to celebrate American values. Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian has been speaking to Ford's President of Blue and Model E, Andrew Frick. Take a listen.

American Value for American Values is a a nationwide initiative to really just celebrate the anniversary. And at its core, we are saying thank you to the people who keep this country moving, uh really treating them like family and that's why we're extending employee pricing on new vehicles to the public, uh which means customers will have the ability to pay what a Ford employee pays, which we believe is the best way to show how much we value our our customers and and like I said, the men and women who keep this country moving forward.

So, if my understanding is correct, this could be a few thousand dollars a vehicle off the MSRP, right? So, what did you guys learn from the last time you did that and with with what the new reintroduction here today?

Yeah, well, last year when we launched it, uh we launched it with a From America for American campaign. It was right when tariffs were coming out and there was a lot of uncertainty around how that would affect the industry. And, you know, at Ford, we've been around for nearly half the country's existence. Um so we felt it was our role to give customers certainty in an uncertain time, which is why we launched employee pricing because it's a guaranteed price. Uh they know that what they would be getting and they can count on Ford to to make that offering. And and what we learned was it really resonated with customers. They truly appreciated it. Um they loved the fact that they could come go into the store to our Ford and our Lincoln retailers and really understand what they'd be getting, um knowing that they'd get several thousand dollars off of of a price that was guaranteed. So, when we were thinking through how to best celebrate uh this year's 250th year anniversary, we thought, you know what, there's no better way from what our customers told us than to bring back employee pricing uh because it they just loved it.

You know, some of your competitors spoke to me offline about this, talking about how it was basically a sales ploy to get more market share. What do you say to that?

Well, I mean, it we did grow our sales uh volume and our and our share last year during this time period and it's because we made such a compelling offer to customers and it really resonated with them. So, you know, I think that's really important for us. Uh but more importantly, uh we think it's a great way to to, you know, thank uh all the all of our customers out there by doing it. We don't do it very often. Uh we did it last year because of that, you know, kind of uncertain time, but this year we're doing it to celebrate and and really thank them. Uh and and, you know, it's a big deal, you know, for us to turn 250 years as as Americans, that's a really important important milestone. And so, we just want to celebrate as America's most American company.

So, so Andrew Ford coming off a strong Q1 here with from a profitability point of view and, you know, there's some challenges like uh in materials pricing and things like that that affecting all a lot of automakers here. But from your point of view from the American consumer, how are how do they stay? How does that Ford buyer stand right now?

Yeah, well, first of all, to your point, we we had a really strong start to the year, three and a half billion in operating profit and we were able to raise our full year guidance. So, the underlying business is really strong. And, you know, connecting it to your point, it's really based on the strength of our product portfolio right now. F-Series remains America's best-selling truck, our Transit vans, um, you know, lead the industry, our our Explorer tops the three-row SUVs, which is a really important segment. And our Mustang sales were up 50% out of the first quarter. So, between that strong retail business and the really strong Ford Pro commercial business we have, you know, we're really connecting with the customer base. And, you know, that the industry right now is really healthy. It's over 16 million units, you know, we expect it to be anywhere from 16 to 16 and a half million through the year. Um so, I, you know, that shows the the strength in the customer mindset right now and just their resiliency around, you know, you know, being able to come in and get a new a new vehicle.

So, aside from programs like employee pricing for all, how do you help address that affordability crisis that we're seeing with with American consumers here? You know, is it is it more incentives? Is it is it more entry level trims?

You know, I think the incentives really remain relatively flat. Um it is more entry-level trims. Uh we have, we're very fortunate. We have a we have a wide portfolio of vehicles, you know, starting with Maverick and Bronco Sport, um you know, that are, you know, starting under $30,000. Um but what we've been able to do is really expand all of our segments. So, we've brought back back a base Bronco. Um we've extended our uh our offerings with Explorer, with our Explorer Active, which is on the lower end of the price band where Explorer competes. F-150, the strength of our F-150 business is is really across the whole price band. Uh but we're seeing a lot of growth in in our STX volume as well, which is on the lower end of the price band. So, yes, I mean, really what we've been doing um to help with affordability as a whole is is take a look at every vehicle we offer within the segment that customers are buying in the price bands and making sure we have an offering across the whole portfolio. Uh and that has really resonated. That's been one of the reasons we've had such strength in our portfolio right now.

So pivoting really quick to um to to Model E. Uh the unit lost uh $777 million last quarter, but that was narrowing from from a year ago. Is there an opportunity here to extend employee pricing to some of these EVs and get more Americans into EVs?

Yes, actually our employee pricing offer our will will be on both of our Mach-E and our Ford Lightning vehicles. Um and we're really excited about the future of electric vehicles. We have we're right now converting our Louisville assembly plant um to our new universal electric platform, which will uh launch our first vehicle off of that next year. It will be a small uh pickup we're really excited about, um because it's competing right in the heart of where we're seeing the electric vehicle uh business happen. And that's, you know, under $40,000 and we'll have a a really great offering that I think is going to be right in the heart of where the electric vehicle customer is going to be looking for.