Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
Do you think they underestimated the demand, or purposely limited supply to drive sales of more profitable vehicles, or some other explanation I'm not thinking of?
It's possible they couldn't secure more units from their suppliers to make more hybrids.
JSH would know more about this, but I imagine suppliers need to know a couple years in advance what volume is required, and that would tend to lock in the maximum units.
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Suppliers and volumes are locked in about 12 - 18 months before the start of production. Some suppliers may be involved earlier than that depending on the parts they supply and the amount of development work required and the lead time on tooling.
From what I've read the battery pack is the limiting factor for Maverick hybrid sales.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rmay635703
What’s funny is now after the price increases some of Ecobust trucks (new) are having minor price drops under MSRP.
I can only imagine that Ford wanted to use Maverick as a loss leader to tease people into show rooms for bait and switch.
They should have understood that they were offering a historically popular vehicle class that hadn’t been on the market in at least 20 years so a lot of people bit.
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It isn't funny that Ford raised the price on the Maverick and then offered discounts. The increased MSRP is a direct response to dealers' "market adjustments" in 2021 and 2022. The actual price for the Maverick and other new cars was thousands over MSRP but Ford didn't get a penny of that extra money - it went to the dealers. The obvious solution is to raise MSRP to the actual selling price to match the real selling price and then offer discounts as needed to move units. That way Ford collects the bulk of that extra revenue not the dealer.
The Maverick shares an assembly line with the Bronco Sport - another popular model. Hermosillo Assembly has a production capacity of about 5,000 a week. That gives Ford the ability to make about 240,000 vehicles per year between the two models. They are on track to make 210K vehicles in 2023 which isn't bad considering continuing supply chain issues.
While the Maverick is popular right now the question mark is what the sales will be in the future. The long term production target is 120,000 Mavericks a year which would make it the second best selling midsize / compact truck behind the Tacoma.
Ford also has to take into account that the Maverick cannibalizes sales from the Ranger. (Ranger sales dropped from 100K in 2021 to 60K in 2022 and the Maverick is outselling the Ranger almost 2 to 1 in 2023)