On Jan. 10, Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) declared its second quarterly dividend in a row for first-quarter (Q1) 2022. This is after Ford stopped paying its quarterly dividend for almost two years on Jan. 8, 2020 (declaration date). I believe the resumption of its quarterly dividends is helping to push F stock higher.

The stock now sits at $24.69 per share, up from $20.77 at the end of 2021.

As of Jan. 14, F stock had risen to $25.02 per share, up from $20.77 at the end of 2021. That represents a gain of almost 19% year-to-date. Moreover, Ford stock rose from $14.16 to $20.77, or up 46.68% during Q4 2021.

This is after the company announced its first dividend in almost two years on Oct. 27. That is the date the company also revealed its Q3 earnings. As I wrote last month, I forecast that the resumption of the dividend will have a very positive effect on the stock going forward.

For example, since Oct. 27, F stock has taken a sharp turn upward. On Oct. 27, it closed at $15.51. By the end of Q4, it had risen sharply to $20.77, up 33.9%. And since Oct. 27 to today it’s up 59%.

Ford’s Transition and Expected Cash Flow

Ford has a lot of confidence about its future and its transition to electric vehicles (EVs). Investors should expect it will report its Q4 and full-year earnings sometime before the end of the month.

Based on some of the recent press releases from the company, Ford intends to go full force into EVs. For example, Ford announced on Jan. 4 that it expects to go “full speed ahead” with the production of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup production. The company said that it is planning to nearly double the production of its pickup to 150,000 EVs per year in Dearborn, MI.

Of course, this is nothing compared to the EV production at Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) of over 930,000 EVs in 2021. Moreover, Tesla still has not yet started producing its Cybertruck pickup EVs or even its semi EVs.

Moreover, on Jan. 5, Ford said that it produced 508,451 vehicles in Q4 — a 26.8% increase over Q3. It said that the industry actually had a decline of 3% during the quarter.

However, its total EV production was just a paltry portion of this amount. For example, Ford said that its Mustang Mach-E sales totaled just 27,140 in 2021. It has not yet broken out how many electric pickups it sold in 2021. However, it did report that it sold a total of 12,284 EVs in December. So, at that rate, its annualized EV production rate is just 147,408, before any production ramps.

Of course, this does not compare with the production levels at Tesla. Their Q4 EV production was 305,840, or 28.6% over its Q3 production of 237,823. In other words, Tesla is producing about 8.3 times the EVs that Ford is producing (i.e., 305,840/36,852 at Ford-run rate).

F Stock’s Valuation

Interestingly enough, Tesla’s valuation is about 10.5 times the valuation at Ford. Ford currently has a market value of $98.44 billion, vs. Tesla’s $1.06 trillion.

This implies that Ford’s valuation could rise significantly during 2022. For example, let’s say that the market is willing to give Ford a pro-rata valuation compared to Tesla based on its 2022 EV production levels. If it produces 150,000 F-150 Lightning pickups and about 30,000 Mustang Mach-E’s, its total EVs for 2022 would be 180,000. That represents about 19.35% of Tesla’s total 930,000 EV production.

Therefore, one might assume that Ford stock could rise to 19.35% of Tesla’s present $1.06 trillion market cap. That works out to $203.9 billion, or 107% over its $98.44 billion market value today. And, of course, this gives no valuation whatsoever to its existing internal combustion engine vehicle production (over 2.041 million vehicles in 2021).

Where This Leaves F Stock

So, combined with the resumption of the quarterly dividend, as well as the ramped up production of EVs, one might conjecture that F stock could at least double during 2022. This means that its target market price is at least $50.40 per share over the next year.

And don’t forget, as I pointed out in my article last month, Ford believes that it will have sufficient cash flow to keep paying its quarterly dividend.

At today’s price of $24.69, the 40 cents annual dividend per share works out to an annual dividend yield of 1.59%. So, investors are getting paid to wait for the company to transition itself into a full EV production company.

On the date of publication, Mark R. Hake did not hold any position (either directly or indirectly) in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.

Mark Hake writes about personal finance on mrhake.medium.com and Newsbreak.com and runs the Total Yield Value Guide which you can review here.