Ford scored some silicon and is back to building F-150, report says
The new trucks are set to start rolling out to dealers in the near future.
The global semiconductor shortage has been a problem for the automobile industry as a whole for months now. While things don't seem to be getting better anytime soon, that's not going to stop Ford from shipping new F-150s to dealers, according to a report July 3 by the Detroit Free Press.
The silicon shortage has caused several manufacturers -- including Ford -- to halt production on many new vehicles. Still, Ford has somehow managed to score a bunch of computer chips for the F-150 and is working on getting the two put together. Whether this is a new shipment of the same chip that the truck was designed to use or a new chip that's being integrated into the truck as a stop-gap is unclear.
Also unclear is the exact number of pickups using these chips that will get built and sent to dealers. Ford says the number is in the thousands but isn't giving out any specifics. Hopefully it's a lot, though, because stock of the F-150 (and just about everything else) at dealers is at record lows right now, which has led to some rough June sales figures for the Blue Oval.
How rough? Try being down 26.9% from this time last year and remember that at this time last year we were still in the relatively early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hopefully, with more stock arriving at dealers soon, Ford will be able to reverse this trend.
We asked Ford for comment but didn't hear back in time for publication.
