EV sales lifted Ford Motor’s July sales by 37%, while industry sales dropped 11%.
Ford said its increase in U.S. monthly sales was propelled by a 169% increase in electric-vehicle (EV) sales and a 70% jump in SUV sales. Its truck sales climbed about 20%, which made up just over half of Ford’s U.S. monthly sales.
U.S. car sales fell almost 11% industry wide in July, reflecting challenges in restocking dealership lots as supply-chain challenges and the semiconductor chip shortage continue to affect production.
Ford has set some major goals on EV production this year. The company announced that it has secured battery capacity and raw materials that will help it reach its targeted annual run rate of 600,000 EVs by 2023 and more than 2 million a year by 2026. Ford plans to invest more than $50 billion in EVs through 2026. It also plans for more than half its global production to be EVs by 2030.
The automaker’s U.S. sales dropped by nearly a third in July 2021 versus the year before, partially due to a fire in Ford’s leading chip making factory in Japan.
Studies show that more than half of car buyers want an EV. Ford says its EV business grew more than three times the rate of the overall EV segment in July, helped by Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning sales. Its market share of the EV segment grew to 10.9% in the month of July. This is the company’s highest level on record and second only to Tesla.
Ford announced nearly a 19% increase in quarterly profit last week, as sales jumped 50% to $40.2 billion. This was largely driven by having more vehicles available to buy and buyers willing to pay higher prices for the vehicles with inventories still low.
