Ford follows through on July EV deliveries, McLaren and APL partner in sneaker design

Yahoo Finance autos reporter Pras Subramanian breaks down Ford's July sales and its push into the EV space, and also shares details about McLaren and APL's new sneaker partnership.

Video Transcript

DAVE BRIGGS: Let's talk autos now. Ford flipping the script on the US auto industry. The maker of the best selling truck for 40 plus years says sales increased more than 36% from a year ago when industry wide estimates suggest a double digit decline. Senior autos reporter Pras Subramanian here. How did Ford do this in that climate?

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Lots to crow about here with these July sales. Obviously, you said 37% from a year ago. I think a lot of it was the fact that they were so hit by COVID last year. So shutdowns kind of hitting their sales volume. So two months in a row of actually sales rising. And also Ford EV sales up 170% from a year ago. The Ford Mach-E, they're doing well. The Ford Lightning now, they're up to 2,200 sales in July alone, 4,500 since they started making production.

And now they're saying that they've sold the Ford Lightning in every state in America, including Hawaii. So a big strong month for them. And it follows up on the really strong Q2 they had where they sort of beat on every metric that mattered.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, Pras. It's interesting. And also, the chip issue though. Because so many of these automakers are still talking about the fact that production isn't where it needs to be, isn't as far as it is in order to eat demand-- to meet demand. Do you see any improvement there? And I guess how significantly are we expecting that picture to improve, at least in the short term?

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: It sounds like at least for Ford that they're able to work through that. We heard from GM that they had something like 90,000 vehicles at the factory because they hadn't had the chips installed yet for certain things like autonomous driving, and everything to seat heating. So it's still a problem that they're still working through. I think it's getting better as we kind of progress through 2022.

DAVE BRIGGS: All right. An interesting bit of news here. McLaren, who we know from those beautiful fancy cars and their F1 cars as well, getting into the shoe game. Tell me about this.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: It isn't the first time a shoe brand worked with a car company, or a racing company to make a shoe that they might wear to the track. But this is actually something like a actual design collaboration. I think two years they worked with APL and McLaren to make this interesting shoe here. So it is a true collab, but it's going to cost you. It's going to be 450 bucks for that shoe. Kind of reminds me of a Puma maybe. So I'm not dying to get this shoe here. I mean, I don't want to knock it. But--

SEANA SMITH: It's cool. I don't know if it's $450 cool though. Right?

DAVE BRIGGS: 450. No. Does that compare to anything else? I mean Yeezys aren't even that, are they?

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: I mean, probably around that. But shoes these--

DAVE BRIGGS: We're too old to talk about that. I know. But--

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: I mean, a little out of my element here. But shoes these days are pretty expensive. So why not a McLaren shoe? You get the McLaren car, why not a fancy shoe with-- they call it the orange or day-glo paint. I mean, why not?

SEANA SMITH: Well, you're a huge car guy, car lover. If you're not willing to spend $450 on the shoe, I think that's telling them for the audience.

DAVE BRIGGS: I think that's a good point. Are they aiming for sneakerheads? Are they aiming for auto heads? I don't know where you meet in the middle with a $450 pricetag.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Or it's the resale market. It's like collecting them and reselling. That's a big part of that. So maybe that's what it is.