Automakers are struggling to keep up with demand as a global shortage of computer chips is limits how many cars and trucks they can make.
On Friday Ford Motor, which has been hurt by the chip shortage more than most of its rivals, said it had 162,100 truck and cars in dealer inventories, fewer than half the number it had just three months ago and roughly a quarter of the stocks dealers typically hold, Neal E. Boudette reports for The New York Times. Its U.S. deliveries rose just 9 percent in the second quarter, to 472,260 light trucks and cars, a modest gain from a year-earlier total that had been depressed substantially by the pandemic. That total was also below Honda’s sales of 486,419 for the quarter, a rare instance of the much smaller Japanese company’s outselling Ford.
And on Thursday, General Motors and Toyota Motor said their U.S. sales rose 40 percent for the April-to-June quarter. Honda, Hyundai and Kia all reported sales increases of more than 70 percent in the quarter.
Tesla, the electric carmaker, sold 201,250 cars globally in the second quarter, more than twice as many as in the same period a year earlier, the company said on Friday, suggesting that it was not as badly affected by the chip shortage.
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