At the time when Ford started to put together the idea for the 2015 Ford F 150, gas prices were high and climbing all over the United States. Consumers needed to cut back and that meant they would be looking for more fuel efficient trucks and cars. The 2015 Ford F 150 was a heavy truck that was not going to get very good fuel mileage, so Ford took a risk and optioned for a lighter, mostly aluminum body for the truck. That option made the truck up to 29 percent more fuel efficient than the last model.
Fast forward to this week and some of us in the country are looking at fuel prices that are just above $2 per gallon in most states. That is down more than 30 percent from the peak back in April of this year, which was about $3.70 per gallon on average. The 2015 Ford F 150 pricing had to be adjusted due to the switch in metal for the body of the new truck. However, now it looks like Ford might not be able to afford to adjust the prices and come up with a logical explanation for the price hike.
There are a number of things that Ford adjusted to bring the overall weight of the truck down so it would get more miles per gallon, but those changes also presented a cost increase to them. Drivers are not as worried about paying for the gas at this time and might actually prefer a lower cost, heavier truck at this time, which leaves the 2015 Ford F 150 out of the buying picture. There will still always be the group that spend the money because they can, but that group is not that large these days.
Ford is trying to appeal to the middle class truck buyer and the middle class truck buyer does not have extra money, even with lower fuel costs. According to Ford, the company sold more than 760,000 F-Series pickup trucks last year and that was an increase of 18 percent over the same sales from 2012. Right now, Ford has hundreds of new 2015 Ford F 150 waiting to pass inspection so they can go to the dealers all over the country.
With all of this being said, Ford is not going to stop production of the 2015 Ford F 150 pickup, in fact, the company noted that it would be in full production with this model by the end of December at one Michigan plant for sure. Does that mean that Ford could be sitting on tons of inventory should the F 150 not sell as well with the aluminum body style? The sales for 2015 will be the only indicator of that.