Pickup trucks sell in droves and it takes a village to put the things together. But folks might not realize just how much of an economic force these vehicles are. To help highlight the importance of its pickup truck on the eve of a new generation, Ford commissioned a deep dive into the impact of the F-150. Spoiler alert: It's pretty darn big.
Boston Consulting Group on Thursday unveiled its research into the economic impact of the Ford F-Series pickup truck line. Even if you're aware of how deep these trucks are woven into the US economy, the results may still seem pretty surprising. The study dives into four specific areas: employment impact, GDP impact, manufacturing impact and usage impact.
I'll start with usage, since its thesis is pretty wild. According to BCG's research, the Ford F-Series is one of the largest US consumer products on the market, producing an estimated $42 billion in revenue each year. That's more revenue than the Android OS or every single major league sport combined. It's not as much as the iPhone ($55 billion), but that's still very impressive. In fact, BCG's study shows that the F-Series alone generated more revenue than entire big-name companies like McDonald's, Nike and Coca-Cola. Being the best-selling vehicle in 39 different states will do that, y'know?
The F-Series' employment impact is equally impressive. BCG claims that roughly 13 to 14 jobs are supported for every Ford employee working directly on these trucks, representing some 500,000 jobs in the US. One assembly line worker might not seem like a big fish, but behind that person's assembly is a massive structure, starting with the automaker's suppliers and stretching all the way to the accountants that help manage each dealer's finances.
If you like big-picture thinking, look to BCG's GDP impact estimations. According to the study, the F-Series adds $49 billion to the US GDP. Again, that covers everything from soup to nuts, from automaker R&D all the way to post-sale repairs and what their employees spend money on. On a more nuanced look, direct F-Series activities alone (assembly, stuff like that) contributes $11 billion to the US gross domestic product, which is still plenty impressive.
Of course, this is only meant to highlight one specific product: The Ford F-Series. Ford did commission this, after all. In all likelihood, all three of the major light-duty pickup lines have an indelible connection to the strength of the US economy; it's just interesting to see this connection highlighted in very specific figures.
