Ford reports its best quarter and yearly U.S. sales since 2019

Ford Motor Co. reported strong U.S. sales results for the fourth quarter and the full year, crediting the gains to a wide-product lineup offering various trim levels and powertrains to meet a range of customer needs and pocketbooks.

Ford reported on Jan. 6 that it had its best annual sales and fourth quarter performance since 2019. It sold 545,216 vehicles in the fourth quarter, a 2.7% gain over the fourth quarter 2024. For all of 2025, Ford reported its sales rose 6% to 2.2 million vehicles sold. Ford U.S. marketshare for the year inched up 0.6% to 13% of the market.

To break it out, the Ford brand sold 2.1 million vehicles for the year, a 6.2% gain over 2024 and its luxury brand Lincoln also inched up 2% to 106,868 units sold, lead by sales of the all new Navigator SUV. Navigator ended 2025 with sales up 42.8%, its best since 2007 on total sales of 22,185 SUVs.

“What made 2025 so successful for Ford? One, our share growth and beating the overall industry was achieved by offering a great range of total products, from accessible entry level models to high-performance off-roaders and luxury trim lines,” Andrew Frick, president of Ford Blue and Ford Model e, told the media. “Our growth saw record hybrid sales, it really showed the power of choice approach we had by offering our gas hybrid and electric powertrains. That really paid off for us throughout the entire year.”

Ford reported its sales of EVs for the year were 84,113, down 14% from 2024. For the quarter, EV sales plummeted 52% to 14,513 sold after the end of the federal tax incentive on Sept. 30. But sales of hybrid powertrain vehicles rose 22% to 228,072 for the full year, and increased 18% to 55,374 sold in the quarter.

Across town, rival General Motors saw sales decline in the quarter as its sales of electric vehicles tanked following the expiration of a federal tax incentive. For the fourth quarter, GM U.S. sales slid by 7% to 703,001 vehicles compared with the previous year’s quarter. For 2025, GM reported its sales rose by 5.5% to 2.8 million units sold.

Stellantis sold 1,260,344 vehicles during 2025 — 3% fewer than it sold in 2024 — though the brand said a positive fourth quarter of sales and its diversification of powertrains are encouraging signs for the automaker and its new leadership. For the quarter, sales rose 4% to 332,321 units sold.

Toyota of North America reported year-end U.S. sales of 2,518,071 vehicles, up 8%. For the fourth quarter, Toyota reported sales of 652,195 vehicles, up 8.1% from the year-ago period.

The strength of trucks

Ford’s sales were largely supported by strong growth with its Maverick compact pickup and the ever-popular F-Series full-sized pickup lineup. Frick calls the Maverick, “America’s most affordable pickup,” saying Ford saw record Maverick sales last year. The 2025 Maverick starts at $28,145.

In the fourth-quarter, Maverick sales were up 54.2% to 34,147 and for the full year up 18.2% to 155,051 sold. Frick said the success Ford has had with Maverick and some other vehicles is due to offering expanded trim levels, a recipe to address the affordability constraints.

“That really had a big impact on how we addressed affordability in the market as we saw a strong expansion of the line, not only in Maverick with the Maverick XL, which is our entry level Maverick, which was up 105% and that’s a trend you’re going to see on many of these vehicle lines,” Frick said.

He added that Ford also saw a big uptick in sales for off-road performance trim levels across various vehicles, those include the Raptor, Tremor, Timberline and FX4 trims.

Ford saw sales of its popular Explorer three-row SUV up 14.7% for the year on sales of 222,706 units, and up over 30.6% in the quarter on sales of 61,777 units. For the year, Ford sold 146,007 Bronco SUVs, a 33.7% gain and Frick said the automaker had record sales for Bronco and Bronco Sport, with sales totaling over 280,000 unit up 19.9% over last year.

Production of pickups

Ford experienced some hit to sales of its F-Series in the fourth quarter after two separate fires took down some production at aluminum supplier Novelis’s plant in Oswego, New York, late last year. Ford is its largest customer using the aluminum in the bodies of its trucks. Ford said in October that it will boost its F-Series production volume by more than 50,000 trucks in 2026, ramping up from the first quarter on, to make up for down time caused by an inability to get aluminum. It would do so by adding a third shift of employees at its Dearborn Truck Plant where Ford makes its gasoline- and hybrid-powered F-150.

In the fourth quarter, F-Series sales dipped 3.1% to 208,252 units sold compared to the previous year’s quarter. For the full year, sales rose 8% to 828,832 sold. Frick said Ford is on schedule to start backfilling some lost pickup production from 2025

“We will be shifting our third crew this quarter, we’ve taken action to be doing that and that’s where we’re focusing a lot of our recovery from Novelis after we lost some of the fourth quarter production,” Frick told reporters. “That seems to be on track as of right now.”

Outside of that issue, Frick said Ford had “a really big truck year.”

“Ford sold a total of almost 1.3 million (total) trucks and vans in 2025 making us America’s top truck manufacturer,” Frick said. “No one offers the powertrain choices that Ford offers with our trucks. Our F-Series was up 8.3% on sales of over 828,000 making it America’s best selling truck for 49 consecutive years.”

Ford’s commericial van sales continued to rise with sales of Transit vans up 5.9% to 161,797 units the year.

The road ahead

Part of the F-Series success was due to demand for the F-150 hybrid powertrain, Frick said, which totaled a record of almost 85,000 sold in 2025, a 15% gain over 2024 sales.

Sales of the Ranger midsize pickup rose 53.6% to 70,960 sold for the year with the entry XL trim driving sales.

As for the Escape SUV, which ended production in 2025, Frick said Ford has enough Escape inventory in place to carry into the first quarter, but not much further than that. As Ford sold down that inventory, sales of the Escape ended the year down by 5% to 139,387 sold compared with 2024.

Frick declined to provide an economic or sales outlook for 2026 saying Ford leaders will address that topic when Ford reports its fourth-quarter and annual earnings in February. But he said the company will continue to monitor its overall mix to make sure that “we’re taking advantage of some of the market trends we’re seeing and really meeting customer demand where they want to be purchasing right now.”

He noted that Ford saw growth in the lower trim lines across the Explorer, Ranger and Maverick along with interest in more hybrids, which he anticipates will continue this year.

As for EVs, he said Ford will continue to produce the all-electric Mustang Mach-E, which it builds in Mexico, to match the market demand.

“We have a very strong offering with Maverick and F-150 hybrids,” Frick said, which he expects to continue into 2026. “On F-150, we’ll still how the market continues. We plan to match our production to what the market is going for. So on F-150 we’ll see what that looks like with the natural demand (this) year.”

Jamie L. LaReau is the senior autos writer for USA Today Co. who covers Ford Motor Co. for the Detroit Free Press. Contact Jamie at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. To sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ford reports its best quarter and yearly U.S. sales since 2019

Reporting by Jamie L. LaReau, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press