Ford sold 6,047 EVs in the United States in the third quarter, down 80.2% from a record a year earlier, as the Mustang Mach-E lost almost three quarters of its volume and the F-150 Lightning all but disappeared from the count.
Total US sales fell 6.6% to 509,764 vehicles, the carmaker said in a statement on Friday. Electric vehicles accounted for 1.2% of that total, down from 5.6% in the third quarter of 2025.
Hybrid sales fell 19.7% to 44,308, while sales of internal combustion vehicles were almost flat at 459,409.
The fall in electric sales was steeper than at General Motors, which a day earlier reported a 61.7% decline to 25,473, or 3.8% of its US sales.
A Record Base
The comparison is with the third quarter of 2025, when Ford sold a record 30,612 electric vehicles as US buyers rushed to claim the $7,500 federal EV tax credit before it expired on September 30.
That quarter was also the best on record for the Mustang Mach-E, at 20,177.
The latest figures are for the United States only.
The year-earlier record does not explain the whole decline, because sales have kept falling since.
Ford sold 9,746 electric vehicles in the second quarter, which makes the third quarter 38.0% lower than the one before it.
Cox Automotive forecast about 239,000 US electric vehicle sales for the quarter, which would put Ford’s share at about 2.5%, against 7.0% of the 437,487 sold a year earlier, though Cox’s final figures are not yet out.
By Model
The Mustang Mach-E accounted for 5,574 of the quarter’s electric sales, down 72.4%, and down 20.7% from 7,032 in the second quarter.
Ford sold 289 F-150 Lightning pickups, down 97.1% from 10,005 a year earlier.
Ford ended production of the battery-electric Lightning late last year and has said its successor will use an extended-range electric design.
It sold 2,421 in the second quarter.
Its year-to-date Lightning total of 4,770 is unchanged from the figure Ford reported at the end of August, which implies that none were sold in September.
The Lightning does not appear in the production and inventory tables that accompany the statement.
The E-Transit van accounted for the remaining 184, down from 430.
Ford built 7,559 Mustang Mach-Es at its Cuautitlan plant in Mexico in the quarter, including 1,761 in September, and held about 5,000 in US stock at the end of the month.
Output in the quarter exceeded US sales by 1,985, though the plant also supplies other markets.
The company said it has extended its Ford Power Promise offer on the 2026 Mach-E through the fourth quarter, giving buyers a home charger or $1,500 in bonus cash.
September
Ford does not break out September in its quarterly statement, but the monthly figures can be derived from the year-to-date totals it published for August.
On that basis, it sold 1,785 EVs in September, down 84.8% from 11,712 a year earlier.
The Mustang Mach-E accounted for 1,722 of them and the E-Transit for 63. Total sales in the month rose 1.9% to 169,132.
Hybrids and the Rest
Hybrids outsold electric vehicles by more than seven to one in the quarter, though they too declined.
Hyundai Motor Group, by comparison, said its US hybrid sales rose 53.4% in the quarter to a record 138,112.
The exception was the Maverick Hybrid, which set a third-quarter record of 27,793, up 59.6%, and a nine-month record of 74,300.
The F-150 Hybrid accounted for 34,527 sales through September.
Ford attributed the fall in total sales to the planned end of the Escape and the Lincoln Corsair.
Escape sales fell 85.3% to 4,714 and Corsair sales fell 93.8% to 413.
Together the two models were down 33,722, which accounts for 94% of the 35,758 decline in Ford’s total.
Without them, Ford’s sales fell 0.4%, to 504,637 from 506,673.
“We delivered a solid quarter and continued to gain retail share adjusted for the planned sunset of Escape and Corsair,” said Andrew Frick, President of Ford Blue and Model e.
Excluding the two models, Ford said its total sales were essentially unchanged, against an industry decline of about 1%.
On the same basis, it estimated that its retail market share rose about 0.4 percentage points to 12.1%.
The total kept Ford ahead of Hyundai Motor Group, whose Hyundai, Kia and Genesis brands sold a combined 506,200 vehicles in the quarter, up 5.4%.
The margin was 3,564 vehicles, and it narrows to 1,195 without the 2,369 heavy trucks in Ford’s count.
Truck sales rose 0.5% to 315,112, while F-Series sales fell 1.9% to 203,707**, despite a 2.4% rise in September to 67,448.**
Ford also said that a short-term supplier issue unrelated to aluminum affected F-150 production at the end of September, and that the expected financial impact can be contained within its full-year guidance for adjusted earnings before interest and taxes of $10.0 billion to $11.0 billion, issued on July 28.
The Year So Far
Ford has sold 22,653 electric vehicles in the United States in the first nine months, down 67.5% from 69,600 in the same period of 2025.
Hybrid sales are down 19.7% at 138,630, and total sales are down 8.6% at 1,516,279.
The statement makes no reference to the company’s electric vehicle sales in its text, which is devoted to trucks, large SUVs and hybrids.
Ford’s next electric model, the Fathom midsize pickup, is not due to reach customers until 2027, at a starting price of $28,350.
“It’s going to be a heck of an effort to launch this at scale, at cost, on time,” Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley said on Tuesday.
