Ford will stop taking orders of its hot new pickup truck, the Maverick, as it works to meet demand.- Orders will reopen this summer for 2023-model-year Mavericks.
Ford will temporarily pause orders for its Maverick pickup truck as it works to meet huge demand for the new, $20,000 model.
Customers will be able to reserve a 2022 Maverick until Thursday evening, a Ford spokesperson told Insider. After that, the order books will be closed until sometime this summer. The Wall Street Journal first reported the pause on Monday.
Ford is taking the step so it can focus on fulfilling existing Maverick orders. When orders open back up again, customers will be able to reserve a 2023 model. In the meantime, buyers can still purchase a Maverick from dealer stock, the spokesperson said.
The Maverick arrived in 2021 as a smaller, more eco-friendly alternative to the overwhelmingly bulky pickup trucks sold by Ford and its rivals. Now that Ford has discontinued its smallest sedans and hatchbacks, the Maverick is the automaker's cheapest offering.
Cameron Johnson, the CEO of Magic City Auto Group in Virginia, told Insider his stores are seeing "huge demand" for the Maverick from buyers across the spectrum. Customers are enamored with the Maverick for its small size, great fuel economy, all-wheel-drive option, and low price, he said.
"Demand has been really great. I just wish we had a lot more of them, which I could say for a lot of models right now," Johnson said.
That 2022 models are nearly sold out just one month into the year is highly unusual, said Johnson, a fourth-generation car dealer. US dealerships have been grappling with extremely low inventories for months as a semiconductor shortage has dealt a blow to manufacturing worldwide.
"Normally it's December of the calendar year when you're trying to get rid of the leftovers. And leftovers don't exist in today's world," he said.
The latest addition to Ford's pickup lineup may have arrived at just the right time. The shortage of computer chips has sent the cost of both new and used vehicles through the roof over the last two years. And the Maverick introduces a relatively inexpensive option that is more interesting and functional than the standard economy car.
"We didn't want to take more orders than we could build," Dean Stoneley, general manager of Ford trucks, told The Wall Street Journal. "We're getting customers who would have perhaps bought a used car and are now buying the Maverick because it is so affordable."