Soundbites: August 2012 Sales

Ford Motor Company's U.S. total sales increased 13 percent in August compared with last year – and 19 percent for retail sales – with gains in cars, utilities and trucks. Here to break it down for us is the Ford Sales Analyst, Erich Merkle.

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Cut #1:	"What we saw was a 13% increase in our total sales, but even more encouraging was the retail side which gave us a 19% increase, so we're really starting to see sales gain traction with the consumer." :14 sec.
	The spike in gasoline prices have not slowed sales, because Ford has the product to meet the demand, according to Merkle.
Cut #2:	"Fuel prices really play to our strong hand these days because so much of our lineup is made up of EcoBoost and we have a full line up of cars, utilities, and trucks all of which now are very fuel efficient." :13 sec.
	Merkle says consumers were buying cars in the month of August.
Cut #3:	"If you look at our car sales, we were up seven percent, in passenger cars sales in the month of August, but at retail we were up 35 percent in terms of what consumers were buying so they were strongly moving towards our fuel efficient passenger cars." :16 sec.
	Cars were not the only vehicles flying out of the showrooms.
Cut #4:	"On the utility side of our business we were up 28 percent, with tremendous gains in small utilities, namely the Escape, which was up 37 percent." :11 sec.
	Not to be out done were truck sales, especially in the F-Series.
Cut #5:	"F-Series sold 58,201 trucks last month, that's a 19 percent increase, and yes, EcoBoost plays very well into F-Series as it's over 40 percent of our mix, it's our best selling powertrain in the F-150 at retail." :18 sec.
	Putting that into perspective, Merkle says the EcoBoost engine is the number one selling engine at retail for the F-150, which marks a milestone at the end of August.
Cut #6:	"F-150 EcoBoost-powered vehicles sold over 200,000 since its introduction in the first part of 2011." :09 sec.
	Ford Motor Company's fourth-quarter North American production plan is to build 725,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter, up 7 percent (50,000 vehicles) from the fourth quarter of 2011.