Ford (NYSE: F) sold 765,649 F-Series pickups last year, up 2%. This made it the best-selling truck in America for 48 years. (Ford launched it in 1948.) It is also 37% of Ford’s sales for 2024, which shows how dependent Ford is on one gas-powered model line. It will give Ford a foundation for its overall sales for years, but an erosion of US pickup sales would damage the company. It also shows that Ford’s EV sales, by comparison, at 97,865 for 2024, are a fraction of Ford’s total.
The F-series is part of the American love affair with large pickup trucks. In 2023, the second and third best-selling vehicles were the two primary competitors to the F-series: GM’s Chevy Silverado sold 555,148 units, and Stellantis’s Ram 1500 sold 444,926. If Americans look for cars with good mileage, it doesn’t appear in pick-up sales.
Ford has protected F-series sales by creating a long list of models to capture customers across a wide range of features and prices. The least expensive XL has a base price of $37,065. The most expensive Raptor has a base price of nearly $80,000. Its features match those of most high-end luxury cars.
Ford’s US sales challenge is its eventual ability to move away from trucks and SUVs for almost all its sales. Truck sales last year were 1,158,964. SUV sales were 875,865. Even if Ford wants to be an EV leader in the US, it could take years before these would come close to matching Ford’s bread-and-butter models.
Ford’s strength is that the F-series will likely be the top-selling truck in the US and maybe for years. Its weakness is that it makes Ford close to a one-legged stool.
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