Ford Motor Co. reported its sales dropped 10% in October but did note its EV sales continue to grow led by the new F-150 Lightning.
“Ford continues to see strong demand for its vehicles, with orders for ’23MY vehicles up 134% over this time last year. The all-new Super Duty saw a record 52,000 orders in just five days,” said Andrew Frick, vice president, Sales, Distribution & Trucks, Ford Blue.
“The F-Series continued as America’s No. 1 truck, expanding its lead over our second-place competitor to more than 100,000 trucks this year. We doubled our electric vehicle sales. F-150 Lightning had its best monthly sales performance since launch.”
Tough results
But rivals such as Toyota and Subaru posted double digit sales increases last month.
Sales of Ford SUVs declined by 14%, suggesting competition in the segment is heating up as inventories build across the industry.
Sales of Ford’s electric vehicles increased 120% over last October, about two times the rate of growth of the overall EV segment and making F-150 Lightning America’s best-selling electric truck with sales of 2,436 — its best monthly sales performance since its introduction this year.
America’s best-selling electric van, Ford E-Transit, climbed 71.5% compared to September on sales of 770 vans, and Mustang Mach-E sales grew 7.3% over last year on sales of 3,055, Ford reported.
Maverick in short supply
Maverick truck turned on dealer lots in just six days last month with sales up 123%.
The company’s popular compact pickup enjoys a conquest rate over 60%, with its top competitive conquests outside of pickups coming from Civic, Honda CR-V and Toyota’s RAV4.
Ford’s BlueCruise and Lincoln ActiveGlide technology now has more than 97,000 customers enrolled. It has accumulated more than 28 million hands-free miles with a network of over 130,000 Blue Zone miles across North America, Ford said.
Order banks opened for the ’23MY Super Duty on Oct. 27 with more than 52,000 total new orders placed in five days — averaging more than 10,000 orders per day.
Bronco SUV sales continue to expand — up 48.4% in October on sales of 10,928 vehicles, 91% of Bronco’s retail sales are coming from previously placed orders.
“Overall, it now appears the new-vehicle sales pace in October was the strongest since January. That’s good news for the auto industry. We’ve been expecting some softening in overall demand, but not a full collapse. Looking at the initial October results, that’s exactly what we see,” noted a new analysis by Cox Automotive.
