On Tuesday, Ford released an order and allocation update for its MY23 Super Duty.  

Long Beach, Ca., Fleet Services Manager Dan Berlenbach, Fairfield, Ca., Fleet Division Manager David Renschler, and Santa Clara, Ca., Fleet Manager David Worthington discussed order bank dates, allocation, and production. This information will also help MEMA fleets in planning vehicle purchases.  

Nationwide Government Orders Information 

To start, the new open date is now November 21, 2022, and will last for 33 days. And the on-time delivery time will vary.    

As for allocation and production, according to the update:   

Allocation 

• Each fleet with a FIN will get an allocation based on their average Super Duty purchase for the last five years — approximately 55-60% of their last five-year average purchases.  

  • The allocation does not include cab and chassis or cutaway orders that were placed by upfitting vendors such as aerial/bucket trucks or ambulances bodybuilders. 

  • The FIN number has not previously been used to track that the vehicle was associated with a specific fleet agency at aerial/bucket trucks, ambulances, etc. bodybuilders. 

MY22 trucks rolled into MY23 are not price-protected. The price will be less than a 20% increase. A FIN fleet’s allocation will be live on a special website on 11/14. 

There is also no price protection for MY21 or MY22 vehicle orders that were not produced. 

Allocations are calculated based on global orders (different dealers) or based on the FIN code. Medium duties will likely be allocated the same way. 

As for ordering, Ford will only accept a PO that has been uploaded to its website via the dealer and use Ford’s FIN code towards its allotments. 

If there are any allocations that haven’t been used after the order bank closes, Ford will put those back into the general pool of government allocations and assign them.  

A fleet cannot direct its unused allocation to another fleet to use its vehicle order needs, and there is no horse trading. 

There will be no guarantees on the production of the allocations that have been ordered even if they are assigned a VIN number. 

For California orders, Ford has approximately 75% of the California government truck market and has increased allocations from last year to help support these customers. 

Priority on allocations and build slots will be given to those FINs that had orders balanced out by Ford for MY 22.  

Several Factors Affecting Production  

The 2023 Model Year (MY) is a short model year with a limited number of Super Duty trucks being produced. MY23 is expected to balance out MY22 orders, which will come off the top and be produced in the first couple of months. 

According to the allocation update, one of the main reasons production will start late is the parts shortages affecting production. Also, the computer chip supply chain challenge is not expected to diminish until the calendar year 2024. 

The overall U.S. vehicle production has had a backload of approximately 5 million vehicles since 2020. Experts believe it will take several more years for production to match demand.