Ford to stop taking orders for Maverick pickup truck amid supply chain woes

Ford Motor Company on Monday said that it is planning to stop taking retail orders for the Maverick pickup truck from January 27 as it does not have the capacity to meet overwhelming demand. The company will first focus on completing the existing bookings. However, customers may still be able to purchase a Maverick pickup from their local Ford dealer.

The ongoing global shortage of semiconductor chips has left car manufacturers without any choice but to limit production as they are unable to complete the assembly of some new vehicles, causing several companies worldwide to idle production.

The automaker will resume taking orders for the 2023 Maverick pickup in the summer, it said in an emailed statement. The Maverick compact pickup truck was launched by the company last June with a petrol-electric hybrid powertrain as standard. Thanks to this technology choice, the vehicle's starting price has been kept below $20,000, in order to make it an affordable product.

The 2022 Ford Maverick is available in four different trim options, XL, XLT, Lariat and Lariat First Edition. Demand for the model is particularly high in the market of California that favours imports, a Bloomberg report said.

Ford Maverick has become a popular choice for customers and the model recently won the North American Truck of the Year award. It won the title out of a dozen of candidates given that they must be new or substantially changed for the current model year. Maverick pickup competed with models such as Hyundai Santa Cruz and the Rivian R1T pickup in the final round.

The vehicles were judged by fifty automotive journalists from the US and Canada who evaluated the finalists on value, innovation, design, performance, safety, technology and driver satisfaction.

(with inputs from Reuters)