Ford Delays Pickup as Big Vehicle Slump Hurts Outlook

DEARBORN, Mich. — The Ford Motor Company said on Friday that it would delay introducing its new pickup truck and that it will probably lose money for a fourth consecutive year in 2009 because of the slowdown in demand for large vehicles.

Ford said it would begin selling the highly anticipated 2009 version of the F-150 pickup in late fall, two months later than intended, so that dealers would have more time to clear out the current model. In addition to the delay, the company said it would build 90,000 fewer trucks in the second half of the year than it had previously planned, while increasing production of cars and crossovers that are more fuel-efficient.

“As gasoline prices average more than $4 a gallon and consumers worry about the weak U.S. economy, we see June industry-wide auto sales slowing further and demand for large trucks and S.U.V.’s at one of the lowest levels in decades,” Ford’s chief executive, Alan R. Mulally, said in a statement. “Ford has taken decisive action to respond to this accelerating shift in customer demand away from large trucks and S.U.V.’s to smaller cars and crossovers, and we will continue to act swiftly moving forward.”

For the second time in a month, Ford issued a warning about next year’s financial results. “Unless the economy improves, it will be difficult for Ford to break even companywide on a pretax basis in 2009, excluding special items,” the statement said. In May, executives had abandoned Ford’s long-held goal of becoming profitable in 2009, predicting a break-even performance.

Company shares were down more than 7 percent in afternoon trading.

The automaker said the market had deteriorated to such a degree that its financing arm, Ford Motor Credit, which has been a dependable source of profit, would lose money this year.

Losses from automotive operations would be worse this year than in 2007, the statement said, the opposite of its previous guidance. Ford lost $2.7 billion overall in 2007 and has not earned a full-year profit since 2005.

Ford Credit will have a pre-tax loss — excluding any potential payment related to Ford’s profit maintenance agreement — primarily because of further weakness in large truck and S.U.V. auction values. Ford Credit is no longer is planning a distribution payment to Ford in 2008.

Shares of Ford fell nearly 6 percent, to $5.96 in morning trading.

The F-150 delay increases the likelihood that the F-series will lose its distinction as the best-selling vehicle in the United States after 31 consecutive years. In May, four Japanese sedans, led by the Honda Civic, outsold the F-series, the first time in 16 years that a pickup truck was not the top seller in any given month. Sales of the F-series fell 33 percent last month and are down 20 percent so far this year.

Ford has spent several years and hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, overhauling the F-150, which has generated huge profits and is responsible for a large part of Ford’s image. It is one of two new full-size pickups scheduled to go on sale this fall, along with Chrysler’s 2009 Dodge Ram.

Chrysler executives said they had no plans to delay the Ram’s launch.

“There’s no better way to fight a slower pickup market than to introduce what we think is a game-changing truck,” a Chrysler spokesman, Bryan Zvibleman, said.

General Motors announced earlier this month that it would close four truck plants in North America, and more recently has decided to pull back on plans to revamp its pickups and S.U.V.’s in order to focus attention on smaller cars.

Because of the precipitous drop in demand for trucks, Ford said it now expected total industry sales to be 14.7 million to 15.2 million vehicles, down from its previous projection of at least 15 million.

Analysts say the first three weeks of June have been particularly dismal, with J.D. Power and Associates estimating that sales are equal to an annualized rate of 12.5 million vehicles, the worst in at least 15 years.

In response, Ford is shutting its truck plant in Wayne, Mich., for nine weeks starting Monday, though the adjacent car plant, which builds the fast-selling Focus sedan, is adding a third shift and increasing the speed of its assembly line.

The company will eliminate a shift at each of the two plants that build the F-150, in Kansas City and Dearborn. The Dearborn plant will be idle for “most of the third quarter,” Ford said. Meanwhile, a sport-utility vehicle plant in Louisville will lose a shift in the third quarter.

In contrast, shifts will be added to a plant in Ontario that builds crossover vehicles and to the assembly line in Kansas City that builds Ford’s most fuel-efficient S.U.V.’s, including hybrid versions.

“We view the move to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles as permanent, and we are responding to customer demand,” Mr. Mulally said. “In the near term, we are adjusting production to the actual demand — increasing small cars and crossovers and reducing large trucks and S.U.V.’s. For the long term, we are moving fast to introduce more small cars, crossovers and fuel-efficient powertrains — including more hybrids.”