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Ford F-150 pulls semi truck through snow-clogged Chicago streets

Earlier this week, the Midwest was crippled by a massive snowstorm that dumped a foot or more of powder in some areas. The result was, of course, transportation gridlock. It's a fortunate thing for this stranded semi-truck driver, then, that a Ford F-150 EcoBoost stumbled upon him. Despite a tow rating of just over 11,000 pounds, the four-wheel-drive, turbocharged pickup managed to dislodge the big rig from a snow-covered street. Of course, the Ford didn't get the semi moving all on its own – watch the video towards the end and the semi was quite clearly spinning its rear tires. Still, it's an impressive feat that we've little doubt F-Series fans are celebrating. Related video:

Autoblog Minute: Ford reports record second-quarter profits

Second-quarter financial results are in, and Ford reports increased profits. Autoblog's Mylencia Gillenwaters reports on this edition of Autoblog Minute. Show full video transcript text [00:00:00] Second-quarter financial results are in, and Ford reports increased profits. I'm Mylencia Gillenwaters and this is your Autoblog Minute. Ford Motor Company reports second-quarter financial results including a pre-tax profit of $2.9 billion dollars and a net income of $1.9 billion. Excluding special items charges, this marks a 10-percent increase over last year's profits. This latest report from the Dearborn-based automaker marks their best quarterly profit since 2000. Looking forward [00:00:30] CFO Bob Shanks said in a statement that he expects the second half of the year to be even better, as supply constraints of the redesigned Ford F-150 affected first-half sales. For Autoblog I'm Mylencia Gillenwaters. Autoblog Minute is a short-form video news series reporting on all things automotive. Each segment offers a quick and clear picture of what's happening in the automotive industry from the perspective of Autoblog's expert editorial staff, auto executives, and industry professionals. Earnings/Financials Ford Autoblog Minute Videos Original Video

GM takes 2020 full-size pickup sales crown

It's no secret that 2020 was an unconventional year for auto sales. Extenuating circumstances or not, it was a year of upheaval even for ever-resilient (and ever-profitable) pickups, with General Motors taking the crown from Ford in the full-size segment.  The Ford F-Series still outsold every other full-size pickup nameplate in the country by a significant margin. It's only when you combine GM's Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra variants that you get a number that exceeds Ford's. This isn't really a new phenomenon, either. In fact, it was only somewhat recently that Ford took the overall full-size crown away from GM, and not only did Ford widen the gap in recent years, but Ram has once again become a legitimate challenger, even managing to outsell the Silverado by a healthy margin in 2019, but never coming close to the F-Series in terms of total volume.  But, 2020 being 2020, things got weird yet again. Ram remains relevant, of course, but Ford got caught with its pants down thanks to the one-two punch of COVID and the generational changeover of the core F-150 model, which resulted in a production interruption as the company's assembly facilities transitioned from building the old 2020 model to the new-for-2021. This perfect storm, as it turns out, was sufficient for GM to walk away with the full-size crown. See for yourself: Full-size 2020 pickup sales: GM total: 847,110 F-Series: 787,422 Silverado: 594,094 Ram: 563,676 Sierra: 253,016 Tundra: 109,203 Titan: 26,439 As you can see, Ram slipped back behind Silverado, slotting comfortably into third place. The Silverado 1500 had a flat year, but the heavy- and medium-duty variants bucked the trend and contributed to a slight uptick in sales for the nameplate, while F-Series tumbled more than 12% (nearly 110,000 units), opening the door for GM to steam ahead.  There were similarly significant shakeups in the midsize truck segment. First, 2020 was the first full year of retail sales for the Gladiator pickup, which surged to fourth place behind the stalwart Tacoma, Ranger and Colorado. GM's combined sales of the Colorado and Canyon are good enough for second place by manufacturer, but nowhere close to what it would take to dethrone Toyota.