Ford Motor Co.’s U.S. sales slipped 2.2% year-over-year in 2022, amid the auto industry’s worst sales showing in a decade.
The Dearborn automaker reported 1,864,464 sales for the year, down from 1,905,955 in 2021. For December, Ford’s sales of 179,279 vehicles were up 3.2% year-over-year.
Meanwhile, Ford’s market share inched up 0.7 percentage points last year, buoyed by its growing electric-vehicle sales. Ford sold 61,575 EVs in the U.S. last year, up 126% for the year. The automaker is in second place in EV sales behind market leader Tesla Inc. and aims to boost annual EV production capacity to 600,000 units globally by the end of this year.
“Delivering on our strategy, share expansion came from broad-based growth from our SUV lineup and our all-new EVs growing at twice the rate of the overall EV segment,” Andrew Frick, vice president of sales, distribution and trucks for Ford Blue, said in a statement. “With a strong retail order bank, Ford is well positioned heading into 2023.”
Ford has three EVs on the market: the F-150 Lightning pickup, which closed the year as the best-selling electric truck in the U.S. with 15,617 sales since it launched in May; the E-Transit van, which had 73% share of the electric van segment to end the year, with 6,500 sales; and the Mustang Mach-E crossover SUV, which saw sales increase 45.4% year-over-year on sales of 39,458 units.
Industrywide, sales were down to their lowest level in a decade amid nagging supply constraints and signs that demand is beginning to soften as rising interest rates make new vehicles less affordable for consumers already dealing with high inflation.
Cox Automotive reported Wednesday that industry sales were slated to fall 8% year-over-year, to just under 14 million units. In a blog post, the industry data provider said that 2022 “will be recorded as a year that began with inventory challenges and ended with demand issues. In a down market, Ford and General Motors, the big players in Detroit, delivered relatively strong numbers, as their inventory levels improved, and they gained back share lost in 2021.”
Analysts expect sales to rise modestly this year, with auto information website Edmunds.com, Inc. forecasting sales of 14.8 million units — higher than 2022, but still well below the roughly 17 million sales that had been the industry norm in the years leading up to the coronavirus pandemic.
“As the market closes out 2022 and we look to the year ahead, there is little reason to believe retail vehicle sales will increase in any meaningful way,” Charlie Chesbrough, Cox Automotive’s senior economist, said in a statement. “With high auto loan rates in place and inflationary pressures on American consumers, vehicle affordability will continue to put downward pressure on the U.S. auto market.”
Bucking the trend, General Motors Co. reported that 2022 sales were up 2.5% to 2.3 million units as the Detroit automaker reclaimed its title as the No. 1 U.S. auto seller. Stellantis NV saw sales fall 13% from 2021, to 1.5 million units. Toyota’s sales of 2.1 million vehicles were down 10%. Kia Corp., Hyundai Motor Co., Honda Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. and Subaru of America Inc. all reported sales declines for the year.
Edmunds reported new data this week reflecting how expensive it has become for consumers to purchase a vehicle: the average annual percentage rate on new financed vehicle rose to 6.5% in the fourth quarter and some 15.7% of consumers who bought a new car in that period committed to a monthly payment of $1,000 or more — the highest rate ever.
“Although we have seen an increase in rates, we are still experiencing a strong amount of pent-up demand right now as evidenced in a strong December industry, and Ford’s sales being up 3% year-over-year (last month),” Ford spokesman Said Deep said via email, noting the record retail orders Ford has to kick off the year. “We are monitoring rates as we always do to be competitive in the industry.”
Meanwhile, the F-Series pickup truck lineup, Ford’s cash cow, recorded sales of 653,957 trucks last year — down nearly 10% from 2021 but enough to retain its decades-long streak as America’s best-selling truck and overall vehicle. The automaker reported that F-Series had its best monthly sales performance of the year in December with 75,076 trucks sold.
Ford noted that improved inventory flow led to stronger sales in December, particularly with F-Series. The automaker ended the year with 398,000 units in inventory, or a 60-day supply.
GM’s Chevy Silverado reported 523,249 sales, while Ram trucks had 468,344 sales.
To close the year, Ford had more than 245,000 orders for the new 2023 Super Duty, which is part of the F-Series franchise. Overall, Ford reported having a record 329,000 retail orders for model-year 2023 vehicles, up nearly 70% over 2022 model-year vehicles as the automaker increasingly moves to a model in which customers order their vehicles in advance.
For the popular Bronco that launched in 2021, Ford reported sales of 10,412 units in December and said the SUV’s share of its segment climbed to its highest level since launch. The company sold 117,057 Broncos last year. The Bronco Sport, the smaller sibling of the Bronco, notched just under 100,000 sales for the year, down 8% year-over-year.
Explorer, one of the most popular Ford brand SUVs, saw sales slip 5.5% for the year and 7.8% in December. Expedition sales were up nearly 11% in December but down 24% for the year.
In the truck segment, Ranger sales were down nearly 40% in 2022, while sales of the popular Maverick, launched in late 2021, totaled 74,370 in its first full sales year.
The Blue Oval maintained its streak, now at 44 years, of having the best-selling commercial van lineup in the U.S. The results were led by sales of the popular Transit van.
Lincoln, Ford’s luxury brand, reported sales that were down 4% for the year but up 17.3% in December.
Garrett Nelson, an analyst at CFRA Research, on Thursday maintained his “buy” rating on Ford shares and his 12-month price target of $16 per share. The automaker’s stock closed up 2% Thursday to $12.25.
Nelson noted that Ford’s 2.2% sales decline outperformed the industry’s 8.8% decline.
“We remain favorably inclined toward Ford given its strong balance sheet, generous dividend yield (5.0%), and it coming off a year in which the shares declined by 42%,” he wrote, “underperforming the S&P 500’s 19% drop in 2022, but well ahead of the performance of EV pure plays, such as Tesla (-65%), Rivian (-82%), and Lucid (-82%).”
jgrzelewski@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @JGrzelewski