Sales of pickup trucks have rebounded to where they were before the coronavirus outbreak.\u00a0
(Photo: Daniel Mears, The Detroit News)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/aside>\n<\/div>\nThat boost has helped\u00a0defy predictions that overall vehicle\u00a0sales would crater by 80%.\u00a0\u00a0According to J.D.\u00a0Power, overall retail sales have been on the upswing for five straight weeks, with sales off only 38%\u00a0last week from predicted, pre-virus levels.<\/p>\n
But the\u00a0demand has eaten into truck inventory levels, which are now half their normal levels with production idled across North America. When plants of Detroit automakers begin reopening May 18, automakers say their first priority is to rebuild supplies of those trucks that have been so beneficial to their bottom lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile there is considerable uncertainty around future demand for new vehicles, one certainty is that manufacturers need to replenish heavily depleted stocks of large pickup trucks,\u201d said Thomas King,\u00a0J.D.\u00a0Power’s president of data and analytics. “Pickup truck production will be a focus for all manufacturers because of their depleted inventories and the major contribution that pickups make to manufacturer revenues and profit.\u201d<\/p>\n
To accelerate truck sales, manufacturers have offered 0% percent financing, seven-year loan terms\u00a0and record incentives \u2014 $5,000 per sale on average \u2014\u00a0to move their best-selling, most-profitable products. With sales\u00a0approaching normal levels, Ram has been the first to dial back truck incentives.<\/p>\n
Park Cities Ford in Dallas reopened its showroom in\u00a0late April with social-distancing measures in place. Unlike Michigan, Texas dealerships never shut down completely and maintained\u00a0sales through appointments and online. Truck sales are strong and the dealership\u00a0is carefully monitoring declining inventories that are down to two months versus the usual three to four months.<\/p>\n
“Inventories haven’t hit red-alert yet,” said Park\u00a0Cities General Manager Greg Tomlin. “But if plants don’t open back up soon it will be a real problem for us. We stock a lot of pickups, but it’s also Explorer and Escape inventories that have us concerned.”<\/p>\n
Truck sales have boosted\u00a0average transaction prices to a near-record\u00a0$35,700. And\u00a0they pushed the market share of Detroit automakers\u00a0to 43%\u00a0compared to 37% before the pandemic.<\/p>\n
The stampede\u00a0for pickups has depleted once-healthy inventories. According to J.D.l Power, truck inventory levels normally average 103 days; they\u00a0are expected to be down to 68 days by\u00a0the end of this month and remain there for most of the summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve reviewed the inventory across all of our regions at the end of April. I have not seen inventory levels that low for \u2014 well, I can’t remember when,\u201d Fiat Chrysler CEO Mike Manley said on a Tuesday earnings call. \u201cWhen you get down to that level of inventory… you’re bound to be running short of certain high-volume truck configurations. But what it does mean is that we bring our plants up with a much higher level of dealer orders than people maybe expect.\u201d<\/p>\n
To meet demand, automakers will be prioritizing truck production\u00a0as their plants come back on line.<\/p>\n
\u201cDealers have done an exceptionally good job of selling from a low inventory base. But I would say that as we open back up here, prioritizing trucks and getting them out remains our priority among other vehicle lines,\u201d General Motors Co.\u00a0CFO Dhivya Suryadevara said in an earnings call Wednesday. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re going to prioritize.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ford’s F-series pickups are perennially the best-selling vehicles in America. Four Ford plants,\u00a0supported by 2,000-plus U.S.\u00a0suppliers, are devoted to pickup manufacturing that employs 19,000 workers.<\/p>\n
“The F-series,” said Ford Motor Co. Chief Operating Officer\u00a0Jim Farley, “will be critical in rebuilding our economy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The coronavirus outbreak may have thrown millions onto\u00a0unemployment rolls and shut down businesses across the nation, but\u00a0people still need pickup trucks for their jobs. Sales of trucks in the United States have bounced back\u00a0to pre-pandemic levels. Ford, Chevrolet, GMC and\u00a0Ram\u00a0dominate the U.S.\u00a0truck market, and pickups have led a broad recovery of autos since the sales […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25333,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25332\/revisions\/25333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}