Ford is about to ship thousands of F-150s to dealers

Despite having relatively barren supplies on dealer lots and dismal sales in June, Ford Motor Co. revealed on Friday a dramatic plan to pivot.

Ford is getting a new supply of semiconductor chips and will now ship thousands of F-Series pickup trucks built and parked in lots in states including Michigan, Kentucky and Missouri, the Free Press has learned. The company did not provide specific numbers of vehicles.

“We’re working to get chips into F-Series pickups and get them out to dealers. That’s our first priority,” said Erich Merkle, U.S. sales analyst at Ford. “We’ll see our inventories improve. It’ll take time, but stock will gradually start to improve the second half of the year.”

Ford inventory is at “record lows” right now, he said. “This is having a near-term impact on our sales.”

The company in June was down 26.9% year over year, despite the fact that last year at this time was peak pandemic. F-Series trucks plummeted 29.9% to 45,673 F-Series trucks sold in June this year from 65,188 in June 2020.

During the first six months, F-Series dropped 1.5% to 362,032 from 367,387 a year ago.