Ford Motor Co. said Nov. 11 that it has increased the incentives on its new F-150 pickup, just two months after the model went on sale, including offers aimed at owners of Chevrolet and Dodge pickups, according to a Reuters report. Ford spokesman Jim Cain told Reuters the F-150 was now offered with a loan rate of between 0.9 percent and 2.9 percent, two percentage points lower than before. "We've got the best truck in the market, bar none, and we're feeling aggressive," Cain told Reuters. "Our revenue management models tell us we have a volume and market share opportunity." Ford also broadened a $1,000 "loyalty bonus" it had offered to Ford pickup owners to include anyone who owned a Ford vehicle built after 1997, Reuters reported. And Ford is offering the same bonus to owners of Dodge Ram pickups, manufactured by the Chrysler group, and General Motors' Chevrolet Silverado pickups, who trade in their vehicles for a new F-150, Reuters noted. Unlike its competition, Ford is still not offering any blanket cash rebates or zero percent loan deals for the F-150, which is Ford's best-selling vehicle and a key driver of its profits, according to Reuters. All the just-announced deals exclude the four-door SuperCrew version of the truck and the old versions of the F-150, which are still being sold as Heritage models, the report said. When the new F-150 launched, analysts questioned how much profit Ford could get from the truck given its higher assembly costs and the cutthroat competition in the U.S. marketm, Reuters noted. But Ford executives said the truck would provide a higher profit margin than the old model. Ford sold about 36,000 F-150 trucks in September.
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