Ford makes a move frugal car buyers will love
Ford Motor seems to be going with the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' motto following its first quarter earnings results.
The American automotive staple says that it is bringing back one of its most successful incentive campaigns, giving potential car buyers who may be wary about the state of the economy some much-needed confidence to pull the trigger on their next purchase.
Ford is bringing back its popular employee pricing, a strategy that has worked well in the past to bring customers through the door. The "American Value. For American Values" promotion starts Friday, May 1, and runs through the July 4 weekend.
Cranking up the incentive spending helped Ford tremendously last year, as buyers weary about the threat of tariffs were happy to take discounts on vehicles they were eyeing.
Last May, Ford reported a 14.7% share in the U.S., a nearly 2% year-over-year increase.
"A lot of times in this industry we fight for tenths of share, and to have a 1.9% increase year over year was very strong," said Ford Blue and Model e President Andrew Frick. He said that the incentives are what drove the increase.
Ford said its total sales rose in the June quarter by about 7x the overall industry rate and that it was the top-selling brand in the U.S. during the first half of the year.
"Employee pricing for all was easy to understand and resonated with customers," said Ford U.S. Sales Director Rob Kaffl at the time.
Photo by hapabapa on Getty Images
Ford brings back employee pricing to boost sales
Starting Friday, Ford is bringing back employee pricing, one of its most popular incentive programs, which gives the general public the same discounts that Ford employees enjoy.
"American Value. For American Values" will run through July 6, and most new 2025 and 2026 Ford and Lincoln vehicles are eligible for the discount.
"It is our way of sticking up for the people who keep this nation moving," Frick said. "We are deeply invested in the American worker and the neighborhoods where we live."
Related: Ford issues massive recall for its most popular model
Ford has repeated this mantra numerous times before, as employee pricing has taken on different names in the past. In 2025, Ford launched its "From America, For America" employee pricing plan, because, as Kaffl put it at the time, "Employee pricing for all was easy to understand and resonated with customers."
Ford went on to offer other incentives, such as Labor Day and July 4 sales, as well as 0-0-0 financing.
GM is actively cutting back on incentives
While incentive spending is obviously great for consumers and, as Ford has detailed, great for a company's market share, it is not such great news for investors.
Incentive spending means lower margins on each sale, and over the course of a quarter or fiscal year, those lower margins add up.
So while Ford is actively leaning into incentives, rival General Motors, which sold the most vehicles in the U.S. last year and holds a 17% market share, is going the opposite way.
During the company's first-quarter earnings call, CEO Mary Barra bragged that GM "delivered these results with incentives that continue to be among the lowest in the industry for both ICE and EVs."
The company preached "incentive discipline" as it reported an incentive spend per vehicle as a percentage of MSRP that was more than 2% below the industry average.
"Our broad ICE and EV portfolios remain key competitive advantages versus our peers, and our disciplined approach to inventory and incentives keeps us agile," CFO Paul Jacobson said.
Meanwhile, the CEO says GM's lack of incentives shows investors how disciplined the company has been.
" I think because of our lean inventories, and if you look at some of the incentive rates of some of the competitors, you can see how disciplined we are and still selling every truck that we can. And so I think that's the formula and the recipe that we're going to continue to do is work to earn every truck buyer in a disciplined way because of the strength of our products," Barra said.
Related: Ford maintains a big advantage over GM in one key area
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This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 10:33 AM.