- Ford Maverick recorded 39,061 sales, a rise of 81.9 percent.
- The Blue Oval shifted 7,743 F-150 Lightning EVs, up 80.4 percent.
- ICE F-150 sales dropped slightly, but it’s still America’s favorite truck.
Pickup truck sales in North America held mostly steady in the first three months of 2023, just over 650,689 trucks finding homes, a drop of 2.7 percent on Jan-March 2023. But there were some clear winners that bucked the same-again trend, and both of the runaway successes wore Ford badges.
var adpushup = window.adpushup = window.adpushup || {que:[]};
adpushup.que.push(function() {
if (adpushup.config.platform !== “DESKTOP”){
adpushup.triggerAd(“4d84e4c9-9937-4f84-82c0-c94544ee6f2a”);
}
else{
adpushup.triggerAd(“6a782b01-facb-45f3-a88f-ddf1b1f97657”);
} });
Ford’s unibody Maverick notched up 39,061 sales in Q1, which translates to a massive 81.9 percent uplift on the same three months in 2023. And that raise can’t be attributed to the introduction of a new, or facelifted, model because the Maverick hasn’t really changed since it debuted in late 2021. To put that into perspective, the Maverick found more truck buyers than Jeep, Honda and Hyundai’s pickups combined.
Related: F-150 Sales Slump Spurs Ford’s Controversial Dealer Incentive Plan
The Maverick still has some way to go to catch its F-150 big brother, though. Ford sold 152,953 of those with combustion power, which was down 8 percent on the 170,377 it sold in Q1 last year. But part of that drop can be explained by the improved sales performance of the electric F-150 Lightning. The EV’s sales jumped 80.4 percent from 4,291 to 7,743 units – an impressive result, if still a tiny number in absolute terms.
window._taboola = window._taboola || [];
_taboola.push({
mode: ‘thumbnails-a-mid’,
container: ‘taboola-mid-article’,
placement: ‘Mid Article’,
target_type: ‘mix’
});
window._taboola = window._taboola || [];
_taboola.push({
mode: ‘thumbnails-oc-2×1’,
container: ‘taboola-mid-article-thumbnails-organic’,
placement: ‘Mid Article Thumbnails Organic’,
target_type: ‘mix’
});
The ICE F-150’s decline occurred despite the truck receiving a makeover in the fall of 2023, but might be explained by last year’s UAW strike action and the increased popularity of the Chevy Silverado HD (up 13.6 percent to 41,916) and its GMC Sierra HD brother (up 7.5 percent to 22,374 units).
SWIPE
Other sales winners were the Toyota Tundra (up 41.3 percent to 15,337 units), the Nissan Frontier (up 16.6 percent to 19,744) and GM’s Hummer EV, whose sales exploded by a staggering 83,300 percent – that last figure due to it only selling two units in Q1 of last year (GM moved 1,668 this period).
Naturally, there were losers, too. The Ford Ranger was all-new for 2024, yet its sales fell 83.3 percent to 1,918, while the Toyota Tacoma’s 55.5 percent drop (to 8,310) is probably down to the changeover of models, the new one going on sale in December 2023. Honda’s Ridgeline can only blame its advancing years for its decline (down 22.3 percent to 3,967) and RAM’s ability to boast that it will still sell you a vehicle with a Hemi V8 when Dodge no longer will couldn’t stop its sales sliding 15.1 percent to 89,417 units.
var adpushup = window.adpushup = window.adpushup || {que:[]};
adpushup.que.push(function() {
if (adpushup.config.platform !== “DESKTOP”){
adpushup.triggerAd(“5646c171-cb6e-4e2c-8440-49013ca72758”);
}
else{
adpushup.triggerAd(“e7c4c913-3924-4b2d-9279-6c00984dd130”);
} });