Ford Motor
‘s sales of electric vehicles rebounded in the second quarter from the first as the auto maker dealt with a problem with its batteries and upgraded its factories, but the company still ranked third in the U.S. market.
Tesla (ticker: TSLA) leads in the U.S. by a wide margin, while
General Motors
(GM) came in second with 15,354 EVs. Ford (F) delivered 14,843, including 8,633 Mustang Mach Es and 4,466 F-150 Lightning trucks. In the first quarter, Ford delivered 10,866 EVs including 5,407 Mach Es and 4,291 Lightnings.
Ford and GM want to be second and are highly competitive with one another, but they would both be happy to sell more EVs. Both auto makers have plans to be selling millions a year by the middle of the decade.
Rivian Automotive (RIVN) delivered 12,640 units in the second quarter, a figure that implies it pushed Ford out of first place in deliveries of electric trucks. The 12,640 includes deliveries in Canada, as well as R1S SUVs and R1T trucks, both of which are produced on the same platform, so the exact number of truck sales isn’t clear. But if Canada accounted for 1,000 vehicles and trucks and SUVs each made up half of the remaining 11,640, that would leave sales of R1Ts at 5,820.
Rivian didn’t immediately respond to a request for a more detailed sales breakdown.
Ford’s EV deliveries have been down for a couple of quarters from the 20,339 reported for the fourth quarter of 2022. Planned downtime to update production facilities, as well as a battery problem that delayed F-150 Lightning manufacturing for weeks, are the main reasons for the dip.
Investors appear to have wanted a little more. Ford stock was down 2.1% in midday trading Thursday, while the
S&P 500
and
Dow Jones Industrial Average
were off 1.2% and 1%, respectively.
Overall in the U.S., Ford delivered 531,662 vehicles in the second quarter, up from 475,906 in the first quarter. Deliveries of F-150 trucks, including both traditional and electric models, hit 212,516 in the second quarter, up from 170,377 in the first three months of the year.
Tesla sold about 466,000 EVs globally in the second quarter. The company doesn’t disclose deliveries by region, but the figure likely includes about 175,000 vehicles sold in the U.S.
Tesla stock was off 3% in Thursday trading, which still leaves it up about 6% over the past five days. GM stock was off 1.4%. Rivian shares were 0.9% lower in Thursday trading.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
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