The champ is back on top.
Just one quarter after losing its crown, the Ford F-150 is once again America’s best-selling vehicle.
Americans have bought more F-Series trucks than any other vehicle for more than four decades. But the longtime sales king lost its crown in the second quarter of this year when both the Ram 1500 and the Chevy Silverado outsold it.
An All-New F-150 Arrived Alongside the Microchip Shortage
Ford sent an all-new F-150 to dealerships in 2021, with innovative features like an onboard generator and an available hybrid drivetrain. The F-150 is our Best Buy in the full-size truck category. A new F-150 would mean plenty of sales in an ordinary year, so the truck was an easy favorite to retain its sales title.
But the entire auto industry has been rocked by a worldwide shortage of microchips. Automakers have repeatedly slowed or paused factories due to scarcity of crucial parts. Though all of America’s Big Three automakers worked to keep hot-selling full-size trucks rolling into dealerships, Ford lost ground in the second quarter.
But it made up the distance in the third. Ford says it sold more than 172,000 of the trucks between July and September. Though that’s 22% fewer than one year ago, it’s nearly 50,000 more than either of its rivals.
A New, Electric Fight
The battle for full-size truck supremacy, however, is shifting to new ground. A stable full of electric trucks are set to enter the race. Ford will bring its own F-150 Lightning to that contest next year and has already taken reservations for more than 100,000 of the battery-powered pickups. An electric Silverado and an electric Ram 1500 will follow. They’re joined by electric trucks from several startups, including the Rivian R1T. Last month, Rivian became the first company to put an electric truck into a buyer’s garage.
