Ford Celebrates Historic Milestone for F-Series Trucks

[ice-capades]

Ford Celebrates Historic Milestone for F-Series Trucks

Ford celebrated 47 straight years with the best-selling truck in the US as well as 42 years with America's best-selling vehicle

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/ford-celebrates-historic-milestone-for-f-series-trucks

 

 

Ford announced Thursday that its F-Series trucks achieved a historic milestone, having held the title of America’s best-selling truck and best-selling vehicle for over four decades.

 

Ford said 2023 will mark the 47th consecutive year that it made the best-selling truck in the U.S., while it will also be the 42nd consecutive year with the best-selling vehicle in America.

 

"It’s a streak that spans four generations (and started when I was only four) and has lasted longer than the entire lifespan of many other popular consumer products, including compact discs and mp3 players, and the entire brick-and-mortar video rental industry," Rob Kaffl, director of U.S. marketing and sales for Ford, wrote on the company website. "But this accolade is not a walk down memory lane; F-Series continues to grow and in 2023, remained the best-selling vehicle in the nation for the 42nd year in a row," he added.

 

Ford F-Series trucks also celebrated achieving what the company called the "Truck Triple Crown" – having made the best-selling full-size electric truck and best-selling full-size hybrid truck in addition to the top-selling pickup truck in 2023.

 

The company said over 700,000 customers chose a Ford F-Series truck in 2023 and that its lead over pickup truck runner-up Chevrolet was nearly 200,000 trucks through November.

 

Kaffl wrote that Ford is continuing to "push the boundaries of what electric vehicles can do" and that the F-150 Lightning exemplifies the company’s "dedication to a more sustainable future without compromising on power and performance.

 

Ford began producing the F-150 Lightning in 2022 as a means of competing in the growing EV pickup truck segment.

 

A report from Automotive News cited a memo sent to suppliers by Ford indicating that the company is planning to produce an average of 1,600 Lightning trucks per week starting in January – below its prior plans to produce an average of 3,200 per week. In response to the report, a Ford spokesperson told FOX Business that the automaker "will continue to match Lightning production to customer demand."

 

Kaffl added that the company is excited to start production of the new gas and hybrid models of the 2024 F-150 models early in 2024. It also has an "unwavering focus on growth" across its gas, hybrid, and electric models as it looks to meet consumer demand.

 

"The enduring legacy of the F-Series is not just a result of our relentless pursuit of improvement but also a reflection of the trust between our company and customers," Kaffl wrote. "We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to serve our customers and are committed to continuing to earn their business every single day."

 

Edited December 28, 2023 by ice-capades
Additional Content

[ice-capades]

Ford F-Series: America's Best-Selling Truck for 47 Years and Counting

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2023/12/28/ford-f-series--america-s-best-selling-truck-for-47-years-and-cou.html

 

 

By Robert Kaffl, director, U.S. sales

Today, I am thrilled to share a milestone that fills all of us at Ford with immense pride. In 2023, more than 700,000 customers chose a new Ford F-Series truck, making it the best-selling truck in the United States for the 47th consecutive year¹.

 

It’s a streak that spans four generations (and started when I was only four) and has lasted longer than the entire lifespan of many other popular consumer products, including compact discs and mp3 players, and the entire brick-and-mortar video rental industry. But this accolade is not a walk down memory lane; F-Series continues to grow and in 2023, remained the best-selling vehicle in the nation for the 42nd year in a row¹.

 

F-Series is a testament to our commitment to excellence, innovation, and understanding the needs of our customers. Our trucks are Built Ford Tough^®, and they embody the strength, reliability, and versatility that our customers have come to rely on for nearly half a century. And F-Series represents the best of Ford and how we’re creating new digital experiences: it features available technologies like Pro Power Onboard², which helps customers power work sites or even their home in the event of a power outage; features that makes it easier to hitch and tow a trailer, and even BlueCruise hands-free highway driving³. 

 

One key to our success in 2023 and beyond is the diversity of our powertrain offerings. We understand that our customers have unique needs, whether they're on the job site, the farm, or embarking on a weekend adventure. That's why we're proud to say that the Ford F-150^® PowerBoost Hybrid has claimed the title of the best-selling full-size full-hybrid pickup in America1 (and ranks second overall among all pickups behind the Ford Maverick^®).

 

The electrification of F-Series is also making waves with the F-150 Lightning^® leading the charge as the best-selling full-size electric pickup truck in the U.S.,1 completing the U.S. truck leadership triple crown. As we continue to push the boundaries of what electric vehicles can do, the F-150 Lightning is a shining example of our dedication to a more sustainable future without compromising on power and performance.

 

Looking forward, we are excited to begin production of the new 2024 gas and hybrid F-150 models early in the year. Our unwavering focus on growth across gas, hybrid, and electric models in 2024 reflects our promise to offer a truck for every customer – one that fits seamlessly into their lifestyle.

 

The enduring legacy of the F-Series is not just a result of our relentless pursuit of improvement but also a reflection of the trust between our company and customers. We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to serve our customers and are committed to continuing to earn their business every single day.

 

¹ Based on CY 1977-2023 total sales through Nov. 2023 and Ford internal projections. 

² See owner’s manual for important operating instructions.

³ Ford BlueCruise requires a Connected Service plan that provides regular map updates, FordPass® App, and modem activation. Ford BlueCruise-equipped vehicles come with either a 90-day trial or a 3-year BlueCruise Connected Service plan, after which purchase is required. See ford.com/bluecruise for BlueCruise availability and version details. See the Connected Services section of your Ford Account for your BlueCruise Connected Service plan status and available plan options. Driver-assist features are supplemental and do not replace the driver’s attention, judgment and need to control the vehicle. Ford BlueCruise is a hands-free highway driving feature. Only remove hands from the steering wheel when in a Hands-Free Blue Zone. Always watch the road and be prepared to resume control of the vehicle. It does not replace safe driving. See Owner’s Manual for details and limitations.

Edited December 28, 2023 by ice-capades
Additional Content

[DeluxeStang]

Love to see it. I wouldn't be surprised if the f-series was the best selling vehicle in the world for decades to come. 

[Joe771476]

The EV market is not growing like he says it is. It's all done.

[Bob Rosadini]

55 minutes ago, Joe771476 said:

The EV market is not growing like he says it is. It's all done.

 

Joe, I wouldn't say it is all done...IMO rather the industry maybe recognizing that many factors will drive the success of EV's..including reliable sources of raw materials that is consistent with environmental and political considerations where these  materials originate, plus a realistic charging network that keeps pace with environmentally friendly  electric power generation, as well as a reliable distribution grid.

 

For sure when Farley cuts Lightning F-150 projections in half, the winds are changing.

[akirby]

The only thing that’s changing is unrealistic expectations fueled by the promise of lower prices and pending government regulations.

[ausrutherford]

On 12/28/2023 at 12:40 PM, DeluxeStang said:

Love to see it. I wouldn't be surprised if the f-series was the best selling vehicle in the world for decades to come. 

 

That would be the Corolla.

 

And I am not including the Corolla Cross, but just the normal sedan, hatch, and wagon. 

[GearheadGrrrl]

In the worldwide market Ford should be in the top 5 sellers, but will probably get beat out for first by the Corolla or RAV4 and share the top five with the Tesla Model Y and another Toyota. Depends a lot too on how related vehicles are grouped or not, if you include GMs pickups as one they may beat out Ford. But still quite a marketing accomplishment for Ford and GM, given that in most of the world market their full size pickups aren't even available.

[Bob Rosadini]

1 hour ago, ausrutherford said:

 

That would be the Corolla.

 

And I am not including the Corolla Cross, but just the normal sedan, hatch, and wagon. 

And probably for good reason...Never sat in one much less driven one but I imagine they are reasonably priced plus they don't look like a cheap vehicle.  

[fuzzymoomoo]

I could have added to the total but I’m not about to nearly double my monthly payment. Maybe in a few years. 

[akirby]

3 hours ago, Bob Rosadini said:

And probably for good reason...Never sat in one much less driven one but I imagine they are reasonably priced plus they don't look like a cheap vehicle.  

You normally need low prices to get the most sales just because of the number of potential buyers in that price range.  The fact that GM Ram and Ford can sell 500k-1M trucks each at avg prices double or triple that of Corolla really says something.  Especially when they are North America only.

Edited December 30, 2023 by akirby

[Chrisgb]

We had OK to not too shabby incomes during our working years. Nice, though modest homes with big yards, and we were able to afford one nice vehicle at a time and one "experienced." The nice ones were almost all demos while I was in car sales. We had three kids in sports and dance, took a few vacations, a good life IMHO. We tried to expose our kids to as many opportunities that they were interested in as we could, so the vehicles were treated as appliances. We even had two minivans at the same time for a while, and our choice was to put vehicles well down in the budget priorities.

With health care, $800-1,000 a month daycare per child, $350K starter homes,  I just wonder sometimes when I see a young family cruising along in a lifted 60+K Crew Cab, if some opportunities were sacrificed in their lives for that $900 72-month payment.

[Rick73]

23 hours ago, Bob Rosadini said:

And probably for good reason...Never sat in one much less driven one but I imagine they are reasonably priced plus they don't look like a cheap vehicle.  

Agree.  Affordable, good size for average-size adults, relatively safe, and up to 50 MPG Combined also checks a lot of boxes for buyers looking for basic transportation instead of excitement.  Viewed from behind the Corolla sedan looks very nice, but the front is hard for me to look at. Looks better to me in darker colors, but I avoid dark colors in general.

[Bob Rosadini]

17 hours ago, Chrisgb said:

We had OK to not too shabby incomes during our working years. Nice, though modest homes with big yards, and we were able to afford one nice vehicle at a time and one "experienced." The nice ones were almost all demos while I was in car sales. We had three kids in sports and dance, took a few vacations, a good life IMHO. We tried to expose our kids to as many opportunities that they were interested in as we could, so the vehicles were treated as appliances. We even had two minivans at the same time for a while, and our choice was to put vehicles well down in the budget priorities.

With health care, $800-1,000 a month daycare per child, $350K starter homes,  I just wonder sometimes when I see a young family cruising along in a lifted 60+K Crew Cab, if some opportunities were sacrificed in their lives for that $900 72-month payment.

My bet? They own very little...everything is mortgaged to the hilt.  Vehicles? Do they have titles to them? nope. One lease after another.

Granted many have good two figure incomes but they don't deny themselves anything in the short term.

Rainy day insurance?  Nope.

People like you and I are IMO rarities today.

[akirby]

27 minutes ago, Bob Rosadini said:

My bet? They own very little...everything is mortgaged to the hilt.  Vehicles? Do they have titles to them? nope. One lease after another.

Granted many have good two figure incomes but they don't deny themselves anything in the short term.

Rainy day insurance?  Nope.

People like you and I are IMO rarities today.

I used to get jealous when I was younger watching the neighbors drive super expensive cars until I realized they were just over leveraged and not saving anything.  Now as I get ready to retire we have 2 nice vehicles paid for, a very nice house that will be paid off within a year and 2 very sizable 401Ks plus 2 pensions.  Discipline pays off.

[Gurgeh]

3 hours ago, akirby said:

I used to get jealous when I was younger watching the neighbors drive super expensive cars until I realized they were just over leveraged and not saving anything.  Now as I get ready to retire we have 2 nice vehicles paid for, a very nice house that will be paid off within a year and 2 very sizable 401Ks plus 2 pensions.  Discipline pays off.

I have a friend who worked all her life with a very modest income. She didn't like to drive so never owned a car and always lived in housing that she could easily afford. She was disciplined with her money and now is set to retire owning a modest home free and clear and with several million dollars of savings, investments, IRAs and 401ks that had built up (and is still building up) over the years. She still doesn't own a car, but that is by choice, not by inability to pay.

[DeluxeStang]

On 12/29/2023 at 9:44 AM, Joe771476 said:

The EV market is not growing like he says it is. It's all done.

Can we please stop this nonsense? The EV and hybrid market isn't done, it's just not growing as quickly as originally projected. On this site, I'm always reading how everyone wants EVs, or no-one. Can we have a sense of proportionality and logic in our discussions from now on?

Edited January 1 by DeluxeStang

[DeluxeStang]

4 hours ago, akirby said:

I used to get jealous when I was younger watching the neighbors drive super expensive cars until I realized they were just over leveraged and not saving anything.  Now as I get ready to retire we have 2 nice vehicles paid for, a very nice house that will be paid off within a year and 2 very sizable 401Ks plus 2 pensions.  Discipline pays off.

Yeah, my folks are basically the same way. They own a maverick and a base model explorer. They don't need to prove anything, their cars are all paid off, their 5,000 sq ft house is paid off, they have no credit card debt, they have a respectable amount of money in investments.

 

I think that's just something that comes with age, people don't really care about having to prove themselves to others constantly. You have more confidence in yourself, and as such, don't care as much about how others perceive you. There's no need to buy flashy status symbols to impress people. A young person buys a Corvette because they want others to think they're successful, an older person buys a Corvette because they want a Corvette. 

Edited December 31, 2023 by DeluxeStang

[DeluxeStang]

5 hours ago, Bob Rosadini said:

My bet? They own very little...everything is mortgaged to the hilt.  Vehicles? Do they have titles to them? nope. One lease after another.

Granted many have good two figure incomes but they don't deny themselves anything in the short term.

Rainy day insurance?  Nope.

People like you and I are IMO rarities today.

So I'm genuinely curious, why do some many people lease vehicles? I know some businesses can use leases as a tax write off, but for your average owner, I just don't see the appeal. You save a little bit of money, but you're still paying hundreds of dollars a month to drive a glorified rental. Paying thousands of dollars and after years of doing that, you have to give it back. I've never understood it, not really. At least with car payments, once you're done, you own it, it's your asset to do whatever you please with. 

[akirby]

2 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

So I'm genuinely curious, why do some many people lease vehicles? I know some businesses can use leases as a tax write off, but for your average owner, I just don't see the appeal. You save a little bit of money, but you're still paying hundreds of dollars a month to drive a glorified rental. Paying thousands of dollars and after years of doing that, you have to give it back. I've never understood it, not really. At least with car payments, once you're done, you own it, it's your asset to do whatever you please with. 
 

 

 

Leasing is no different than buying a new car and then trading it in every 2 or 3 years.  The only real difference is with a lease you have a large balloon payment due at the end of the lease so the monthly payments are lower and if you don’t want to keep it you just walk away and they take back the vehicle to cover the balloon payment.  You’re paying depreciation either way it’s just a different way of financing.

 

Leasing is always more expensive than buying and keeping a vehicle for 5+ years because depreciation is the worst in the first 3 years.  But if you’ve decided that you want a new vehicle every 3 years then leasing is a good way to finance it.

 

People delude themselves and rationalize leasing because of the lower monthly payment and no out of warranty repair costs when it’s almost always far cheaper to keep and repair an older vehicle.  It also allows them to get a nicer vehicle than they could afford if purchased.

 

So it all comes down to whether you want to buy a brand new vehicle every 3 years and pay for that privilege or if you’d rather keep them longer and save money.

[akirby]

BTW I learned a trick about 20 years ago to help visualize the actual cost of trading in on a newer vehicle.

 

Don’t focus on payments.  Let’s say your current vehicle is paid off and worth $20k and the new one costs $40k.  Now picture your current vehicle sitting next to the new one but the current one has $20k in cash sitting on the passenger seat.  Which one do you want?  Certainly changed my perspective.

[HotRunrGuy]

3 hours ago, akirby said:

BTW I learned a trick about 20 years ago to help visualize the actual cost of trading in on a newer vehicle.

 

Don’t focus on payments.  Let’s say your current vehicle is paid off and worth $20k and the new one costs $40k.  Now picture your current vehicle sitting next to the new one but the current one has $20k in cash sitting on the passenger seat.  Which one do you want?  Certainly changed my perspective.

 

And that's why you're not selling new cars,,,,,,,

 

Happy New Year!  HRG

[DeluxeStang]

4 hours ago, akirby said:

 

 

Leasing is no different than buying a new car and then trading it in every 2 or 3 years.  The only real difference is with a lease you have a large balloon payment due at the end of the lease so the monthly payments are lower and if you don’t want to keep it you just walk away and they take back the vehicle to cover the balloon payment.  You’re paying depreciation either way it’s just a different way of financing.

 

Leasing is always more expensive than buying and keeping a vehicle for 5+ years because depreciation is the worst in the first 3 years.  But if you’ve decided that you want a new vehicle every 3 years then leasing is a good way to finance it.

 

People delude themselves and rationalize leasing because of the lower monthly payment and no out of warranty repair costs when it’s almost always far cheaper to keep and repair an older vehicle.  It also allows them to get a nicer vehicle than they could afford if purchased.

 

So it all comes down to whether you want to buy a brand new vehicle every 3 years and pay for that privilege or if you’d rather keep them longer and save money.

Exactly, it is cheaper, but out of curiosity, I looked up the average monthly payment, compared to the average lease payment, it's only about a $60 difference per month. In this economy, that's not very substantial imo. 

 

Valid point about some consumers wanting to swap out new cars every few years. I'm surprised some people have this mentality of using up cars, and swapping them out like crazy. Maybe it's my inner old man starting to emerge, but I'd much rather hold onto a car for as long as possible, and just take care of it. 

 

I sort of view the idea of swapping cars out quickly as a habit rooted in the past. Cars in decades past were far more problem prone, and we generally saw significantly shorter product lifecycles. For instance, if you leased a '65 mustang and came back in three years time, you had a mostly new mustang to experience while avoiding the repairs lurking just around the corner. These days, a three year old mustang should still run flawlessly unless it's been absolutely abused to no end, and the car you're swapping it out for is fairly comparable to what you already had. I knew people who would keep leasing challengers and Tacomas, stuck in this cycle of never ending payments while essentially driving the same car. It certainly made me question their intelligence. 

[akirby]

Looking at a $60k f150 the difference is $250/month for a 36 mo lease vs 60 month finance.  plus there are differences in tax and interest that aren’t included.

Sometimes mfrs offer lease subsidies that lower payments.

 

It really comes down to 2 types of people - those who only care about monthly payments and those who just want something different every 2-3 years.  Some people get bored with their vehicles.

[Gurgeh]

13 hours ago, akirby said:

 

 

Leasing is no different than buying a new car and then trading it in every 2 or 3 years.  The only real difference is with a lease you have a large balloon payment due at the end of the lease so the monthly payments are lower and if you don’t want to keep it you just walk away and they take back the vehicle to cover the balloon payment.  You’re paying depreciation either way it’s just a different way of financing.

 

Leasing is always more expensive than buying and keeping a vehicle for 5+ years because depreciation is the worst in the first 3 years.  But if you’ve decided that you want a new vehicle every 3 years then leasing is a good way to finance it.

 

People delude themselves and rationalize leasing because of the lower monthly payment and no out of warranty repair costs when it’s almost always far cheaper to keep and repair an older vehicle.  It also allows them to get a nicer vehicle than they could afford if purchased.

 

So it all comes down to whether you want to buy a brand new vehicle every 3 years and pay for that privilege or if you’d rather keep them longer and save money.

In terms of the economics of car ownership, the bold comment only works with the initial lease, because at the end of the lease you are left with nothing to help finance your next vehicle after 3 years or so. Those who think that leasing magically makes cars that are unaffordable to them magically affordable, well, there's that bridge in Brooklyn they can also probably afford if they just lease it. (I would add that a reasonable reason for an individual to lease is if it is a novel vehicle that they are concerned might be difficult to resell or that it's resale value might be much worse than anticipated. With a lease the resale value is cooked in at the get-go.)

Edited January 1 by Gurgeh