In spite of fuel shortages and pressures from regulators around emissions, Ford Australia is standing behind its entry in the full-size pickup segment, arguing there’s still a decent market for its updated F-150.
Asked about projections for 2026, director for customer experience and sales at Ford Australia, John Hatzimanolis, said he foresees the category stabilising despite the current fuel crisis and increasing pressure from the government’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES).
“We’re not necessarily shielded from fuel prices and all the other issues that are occurring, so in the short-term I’m not sure what that looks like. Over the longer-term, I think we’ll find that the segment does stabilise, maybe at 0.8 or 1.0 per cent [of the overall market],” Mr Hatzimanolis said.
Last year, the large pickup segment accounted for 0.7 per cent of the total market with 8763 deliveries, down 17.4 per cent year over year. Just 792 of these were F-150s, with the vehicle affected by a stop-sale that resulted in its delivery figure plunging by 67.4 per cent.
“Certainly, from our point of view it’s a pretty robust segment, but we think we have a class-leading product that deserves to lead that segment,” Mr Hatzimanolis continued.
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In addition to external pressures like skyrocketing fuel prices and fuel shortages, in amongst increasing pressure from the Australian Federal Government to reduce CO2 emissions with the NVES, the locally remanufactured Ford F-150 has been plagued by recalls and stop-sales in the last year – no doubt raising questions over quality and consumer trust.
However, Ford Australia’s product communications manager, Ben Nightingale told media the Blue Oval received solid sales volumes of pre-update F-150 stock once it went back on sale late last year, and that the updated range has been “really well received” by punters.
“This product [new F-150] is on sale, it’s in dealers – [and] it’s been really well received. We were on stop-sale for a lot of last year, when we went off stock sale in November, our December sales figures were really, really strong,” Mr Nightingale said.
“So demand for the product is there. People want the F-150, and then it’s just about the product delivering and our ongoing support of that. We’ve got over 200 service locations around Australia, making sure we’re looking after customers,” Mr Nightingale added.
Program director Iain Jones reiterated Ford’s commitment to F-150 customers, adding: “I would also say the trust is, we stopped it – we deliberately stopped [F-150 sales and production] to protect our customers”.
“When we found out there were issues, we stopped production of that vehicle – and so to me, that’s equally the trust. We made the tough call and stopped, and we spent a long time going through this truck and the remanufacturing process to validate everything and get it back to what our customers expect.”
“We will look after all our customers,” Mr Jones added in response to comments about pre-stop-sale customer confidence in the brand. “Any customer who has a truck that has an issue, we will look after them”.
Last year, Ford Australia issued a stop-delivery order in July on the remanufactured F-150, which lasted until November. While Ford Australia wouldn’t specify details about what led it to pause deliveries, the move came ahead of a US recall for multiple Ford models, impacting 625,000 vehicles including the F-150 in North America.
Ford Australia’s F-150 has been the subject of multiple product safety recalls locally, includinga major one in August 2025due to defective rear wheel hub bolts that may become loose or break, potentially causing damage to the axle, loss of power, and/or vehicles rolling away when parked.
A July recall was issued due to a potentially defective rear-view camera, and there have now been a total of nine recalls for the F-150 in Australia since it went on sale in early 2023.
The updated Ford F-150 is now in dealers – while it’s technically model year (MY) 2025 in Australia, the pickup is based on the US-market MY24 range – headlined by enhanced technology, a refreshed design inside and out, as well as a new range-topping Platinum version.
As before, all models are powered by Ford’s 3.5-litre ‘EcoBoost’ twin-turbo V6 petrol engine making 298kW/678Nm, driving all four wheels via a 10-speed automatic transmission. All three trim levels are available in short- and long-wheelbase body styles, too.
Stay tuned for CarExpert’s Australian first drive review of the new Ford F-150 on March 26