Folks seem to love the Ford Maverick, according to January sales figures.
While we’re just inching into the second month of 2024, we can already get a finger on the pulse of how sales are doing by way of automakers’ sales reports. Ford just announced their January results, with overall sales (including cars and trucks) up 4.3% to 152,617 units.
Of that total, the Blue Oval managed to move 80,726 trucks and vans last month, according to figures the company announced Friday. 12,443 of those sales were the compact Maverick, making January 2024 a record sales month for the truck. Ford says the Maverick is “one of the most sought-after vehicles on Ford dealer lots”, with 95% of its retail sales coming from previous dealer orders — signifying salespeople are having little trouble shifting Mavericks. Ford cites its effort to expand production capacity helped boost the compact truck’s sales numbers, which are up 98.4% over this time last year.
In its release, Ford mentions that the Maverick outsold the Tacoma by 4,240 trucks (Toyota sold 8,203 examples of its midsize truck, according to data collected and published by Good Car Bad Car). While it has definitely been a solid month for Ford’s solid small truck, it is worth mentioning that the fourth-generation, 2024 Tacomas are only just now starting to hit dealer lots. (In fact, Roman and Andre just picked up a brand-new TRD Off-Road today, which you can check out on the TFLtruck YouTube channel).
In a similar vein, we’re seeing a similar phenomenon play out with the Ford Ranger. According to the company’s January 2024 sales report, the current-generation Ranger racked up just 303 sales, down 89.4% from January 2023. However, the brand-new P703 Ranger is right around the corner, so it makes sense that new Ranger sales are low as the automaker gears up its Wayne, Michigan production plant to build the new trucks and dealers clear out remaining inventory.
Switching back to the Ford Maverick, though, there’s another interesting data point: Half of those 12,443 sales were hybrid models. While the brand’s EV sales dropped by 11% and it cut production forecasts in half for the F-150 Lightning, hybrid sales were up a remarkable 43% from January 2023, and a good chunk of that boost is down to the Maverick.
| Jan 2024 | Jan 2023 | % Change | |
| Ford Maverick | 12,443 | 6,272 | 98.4% |
| Hyundai Santa Cruz | 2,487 | 2,614 | -5% |
Here is a look at the midsize pickup truck sales.
| Jan 2024 | Jan 2023 | % Change | |
| Toyota Tacoma | 8,203 | 17,851 | -54.0% |
| Honda Ridgeline | 3,350 | 3,161 | 6% |
| Ford Ranger | 303 | 2,871 | -89.4% |
We do not have the numbers for other pickup trucks yet.
But what about the F-Series?
It’s not just the Ranger that’s changing for 2024: We’ll see a revamped F-150 as well. Ford opened the order banks for 2024 models last fall and recently kicked off the production runs at both the Dearborn Truck Plant and the Kansas City Assembly Plant as we wrapped up 2023 and rolled into the new year. The Super Duty is also coming off a major refresh for 2023.
So far, Ford’s sales charts reveal dealers sold 48,702 F-Series trucks in January. That is down 11.5% from the same time last year, but with the updated F-150 ramping up production as we speak, some folks are likely holding out a little bit longer as they await their orders to arrive or for dealer-ordered trucks to hit the lots.
We’ve yet to see the absolute latest sales figures from General Motors or Stellantis, so we can’t offer much insight into how the competition stacks up as we head into February. We also likely won’t have a crystal clear picture of how the truck sales race is going until Q1 sales reports roll out in early April. Nevertheless, with the brand’s truck sales up 1.5% from last year, Maverick doing well and Transit sales up 40.1% (selling 14,191 units, to last January’s 10,129), the Blue Oval is off to a promising start as new truck buyers hit the dealers in the new year.
