CEO Farley expects to sell 5 million cars a year by 2032, a 20% sales increase
By Ryan Felton and Christopher Otts
Ford Motor expects to sell 5 million cars a year by early next decade, Chief Executive Jim Farley told workers this week, a sales volume the company hasn't reached since before the pandemic.
Farley announced the target -- a roughly 20% increase over its current volume -- in a town hall meeting Thursday, saying Ford aims to reach it by 2032, people familiar with the comments said. He said the company will generate the uptick in sales on the back of several new models in the coming years, the people said.
The company's global strategy turns on Farley's emphasis to no longer make "boring" vehicles, which for now has left it without the budget-friendly small sedans and SUVs it used to give priority to. Farley has said that making affordable vehicles remains a priority, however, and Ford is planning to launch five new models priced below $40,000 by the end of the decade, including an all-electric pickup truck.
The new car market is shrinking, and high interest rates and fuel prices are challenging consumers who are already dealing with average transaction prices around $50,000. At the same time, Ford has been wrestling with stiff competition from Chinese upstarts around the world, a reality that will become more complicated if those companies were to break into the U.S. The company's stock is down about 8.5% for the year.
Ford declined to comment.
Ford has delivered about 3 million vehicles to dealers worldwide through Sept. 30, a 9% decline from the same period in 2025, according to the company. The last time the carmaker eclipsed 5 million in global sales was in 2019, before the pandemic. As recently as a decade ago, the automaker sold over 6 million units a year globally, industry data shows.
Ford's sales decline in recent years has been driven in part by a decision to discontinue several popular, but low-margin models, including the Escape and Edge SUVs, that amounted to hundreds of thousands of sales each year.
The company expects the new $30,000 EV truck, called the Fathom, to generate over 100,000 sales in its first year of production, The Wall Street Journal has reported. The Fathom is on target to begin production in the fourth quarter of 2027, executives said this week.
Overseas, Ford plans to roll out several new vehicles in Europe through partnerships with the French car company Renault and China's Geely, which will build cars together at a Ford factory in Spain.