DETROIT — Ford announced on Thursday that it will be sending out 144,000 of its redesigned F-150 and Ranger pickup trucks to North American dealers. These trucks were built earlier but held back to address potential quality concerns.
In addition, Ford will resume shipments of the F-150 Lightning electric trucks later this month, which were paused in February. The company has also reduced prices on some variants of the Lightning by up to $5,500.
The release of these large F-150 and midsize Ranger trucks is crucial for Ford to reach its pre-tax profit goal of $10 billion to $12 billion by 2024. Ford reaffirmed this target last month.
The delay in sending out the trucks to dealers may impact Ford’s first quarter numbers, which are due on April 24.
During an investor meeting last month, Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler mentioned that the company had 60,000 F-150s ready to be shipped in the current quarter.
Last year, Ford adopted a cautious approach to vehicle launches at its Kentucky Truck complex, where Super Duty pickups and Navigator large SUVs are produced. The company paid out nearly $4.8 billion for warranty repairs in 2023, according to its annual report.
Regarding the redesigned F-150s, Ford engineers identified issues with certain electronic components during analysis of the trucks held in stock. Before shipping any trucks, they resolved the software issues that were causing these problems.
On the stock market, Ford’s shares were up 8 cents, or less than 1%, trading at $13.14 a share in the afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange.
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