Ford Motor autos are displayed on the market on the Leif Johnson Ford dealership on June 30, 2026, in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Pictures
DETROIT — Regardless of reporting a ten.2% decline in its July U.S. automobile gross sales Tuesday, Ford Motor is touting the outcomes as a “good gross sales month.”
That is in keeping with Rob Kaffl, Ford’s director of U.S. gross sales, who mentioned the steep decline from the earlier yr was “by design,” because the Detroit automaker phased out two autos and lowered its day by day rental fleet enterprise.
“July was a superb gross sales month for plenty of causes. Our July outcomes mirror a technique that’s working precisely as deliberate: we have deliberately been sunsetting choose fashions and pulled again on low-margin rental fleet quantity to make room for an onslaught of new-product introductions by the top of the last decade,” Kaffl mentioned in an emailed assertion.
Many occasions, automakers don’t cancel merchandise — like Ford has accomplished with its Ford Escape and Lincoln Corsair — till nearer to manufacturing of newer fashions. Or they construct up inventories to help gross sales throughout the changeover in manufacturing for brand spanking new autos.
Kaffl mentioned the corporate prioritized retail gross sales of its F-Sequence pickup vehicles because the automaker continues to get better manufacturing after two fires final yr at a serious aluminum provider. The corporate mentioned rental gross sales, which generally are much less worthwhile, had been lowered by 96% in contrast with a yr earlier.
With out such actions, Ford contends its gross sales could be down lower than 1%, barely higher than an estimated 2% fall for the general trade in contrast with July 2025.
Deliberate or not, the decline final month provides to a lackluster gross sales yr for the automaker following the troubled F-Sequence manufacturing in addition to a pullback in all-electric automobile gross sales. Ford’s gross sales yr thus far by way of July are down 9.7%.
Ford’s U.S. gross sales by way of June had been already off 9.6% from a yr earlier. That compares with an estimated 2.4% gross sales decline for the general trade by way of the primary half of the yr, which does not embody July, in keeping with the latest knowledge from Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Guide.
Larger costs and client financial issues are weighing on the general auto trade, which Cox and different forecasters count on to be off about 3% in contrast with final yr, to fifteen.8 million new autos bought.
