Ford's Darkest Day In 5 Years

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17. The problem is not the F-150 but SUVs

The F-150 is outsold by GM pickups, but GM sells its pickups under two names, Chevrolet and GMC. This was to avoid anti-trust laws. In the 1960s they was a pushvto breakup GM. While Ford was just a little big smaller then GM in the 1960s but that when you included they overseas sales. Domestically GM was almost twice the size of Ford. Thus GM made sure you sold enough GMC trucks to make sure Chevrolet sold less trucks then Ford. That is still why Ford sells F-150 more the GM sells Chevrolet C-1500s, but if you include GMC 1500s, total GM pickups sold is more then Ford sells F-150s.

Anyway, these pickups are purchased by working class men who use them to move themselves and others and pickup other large items. The main alternatives for these buyers are station wagons and mini-vans.

SUVs are not seen as an alternative to pickups. SUV drivers are afraid of getting they vehicle scratch, that is not true of pickup drivers.

Pickup sales have been steady over the last 30 years with some increase, but the real increase has been in SUVs. SUVs are listed under trucks, so "truck" sells have jumped over the last 30 years but that has mostly SUV sales not F-150s. Ford Explorer is a top seller for Ford, it "replaced" large sedens and sports cars not pickups. Ford has other SUVs, all together sell more then Ford sell F-150s. The same for GM. Jeep sells nothing but SUVs now, Dodge (using the name Ram now) sells pickups but concentrates on SUVs

Just a comment the problem is not pickups but SUVs, while most SUVs are based on puckup bodies, but they are NOT pickups. F-150 sold well when oil prices were high, but SUV sales dropped. When prices drop it was SUVs that gained sales.

Side note: Right after 2008 do to high price of oil, F-250, the big brother to the F-150, sales were so low Ford stop making them for almost a year. After almost two years Ford had to put them back into production, demand had return for buyers needed them for like F-150s, F-250s tend to be work trucks and after a years of use and abuse you have to replace them. These trucks are steady sellers for Ford no matter the price of oil, unlike SUVs whose sales goes up as the price of oil goes down, and SUVs sales decline when the price of goes up.