DETROIT – Ford Motor’s F-Sequence pickup will stay America’s best-selling automobile for a fortieth straight 12 months in 2021 and the business’s top-selling truck for the forty fifth consecutive 12 months, the corporate mentioned Thursday.
Whereas the pickup, which incorporates the F-150 mannequin and different bigger siblings, has topped U.S. gross sales for many years, retaining the titles this 12 months was significantly notable given an ongoing scarcity of semiconductor chips that lowered manufacturing throughout the business.
Ford prioritized manufacturing of the F-Sequence all through rolling shutdowns of crops this 12 months as a result of elements scarcity, solely having to shut services that produce the pickups for comparatively quick quantities of time in comparison with months at different crops.
The chip scarcity could trigger Common Motors’ Chevrolet Silverado to lose its long-held second-place gross sales title this 12 months to Stellantis’ Ram pickup. By means of the primary three quarters, Ram’s full-size pickup gross sales totaled 434,772 items in comparison with the Silverado at about 407,000.
GM spokesman Jim Cain downplayed the nameplate rankings, however mentioned the Detroit automaker stays “very nicely positioned to ship its seventh consecutive 12 months of gross sales management within the full-size pickup phase.”
Not like Ford and Stellantis, GM has two full-size pickups. It sells the higher-priced GMC Sierra alongside the Chevy Silverado. Mixed gross sales of each pickups outnumbered its crosstown rivals via the third quarter.
Each GM and Stellantis report gross sales on a quarterly foundation, whereas Ford experiences its outcomes month-to-month.
Ford offered 663,508 F-Sequence vans although November, a 7% lower from a 12 months earlier. That features 534,831 items via the primary three quarters of the 12 months, giving it a sizeable lead over its Detroit crosstown rivals.
Ford confirmed its F-Sequence outcomes Thursday in releasing its November gross sales, which elevated 5.9% in contrast with a 12 months earlier to 158,793 autos.
Ford, based mostly on non-public business knowledge, mentioned it was the one main U.S. automaker to put up a year-over-year enhance in November. It additionally mentioned it was the top-selling automaker within the nation for a 3rd consecutive month, marking the primary time since 1974 that it has completed that streak.