Ford’s (NYSE:F)–2.43% October sales release perfectly illustrates what’s going on in the broader car business: Electric vehicles are hot, and supply-chain snarls continue to constrain global car production while adding volatility to the results of all automakers.
Ford (NYSE:F) said Wednesday it delivered 158,327 units during the month. That’s up from 142,644 delivered in September, but down from 175,918 units delivered in October 2021.
Ford has delivered 1,538,821 in 2022, almost flat with the 1,573,422 vehicles delivered over the same span of 2021.
Looking a little deeper at the numbers, Ford delivered 56,405 F-series trucks. That’s down sequentially from September and year over year. Investors shouldn’t be too surprised. In mid-September Ford said it didn’t have the parts to finish some 40,000 high-margin vehicles.
High-margin vehicles for Ford are full-size trucks and SUVs.
October results show that supply-chain issues are still impacting overall production. But EV sales more than doubled. Ford delivered 6,261 electric vehicles in October, up almost 120% from the 2,848 EVs delivered in October 2021.
Included in the 2022 figure were 3,055 Mach Es and 2,436 F-150 Lightning electric pickup trucks. Ford this year has delivered 31,144 Mach Es, up 44% year over year. Ford started delivering the Lightning in May. Ford has delivered 11,196 electric pickup trucks so far in 2022.
While October results don’t qualify as a shock, Ford stock was still down 1.2% on Wednesday while the S&P 500SPX –2.50% and Dow Jones Industrial AverageDJIA –1.55% were both off about 0.4%.
A slow start to the fourth quarter might be unnerving investors a little. What investors want this quarter is higher production as supply-chain issues abate along with solid profit margins as the company delivers those trucks and SUVs that weren’t finished in the third quarter.
For the fourth quarter of 2022, Wall Street expects roughly $3.4 billion in operating profit, up from $1.8 billion reported for the third quarter of 2022.
Featured Image- Unsplash @ FourFour
Author Valerie Remorosa 
