(Reuters)

Ford Motor on Thursday posted its best annual auto sales in the United States since 2020, helped by sustained demand for cars and pickup trucks, a day after many of its peers reported double-digit gains in new vehicle sales.

The Detroit automaker said vehicle sales rose 7.1% to 1.99 million units in 2023. In 2020, Ford posted new vehicle sales of a little over 2 million units.

Overall, U.S. new vehicle sales last year finished at around 15.5 million units, of which electrified vehicles including hybrids made up nearly 17%, according to data from Wards Intelligence.

The industry’s sales figures underscored the strong demand for personal transportation last year, but analysts are warning that high-interest rates may hurt appetite for new vehicles going forward.

Sales of Ford’s EV models, such as the F-150 Lightning pickup truck and Mustang Mach-E crossover, also jumped nearly 18% to 72,608 units from a year earlier. The company’s EV models accounted for 3.6% of total sales.

Ford’s hybrid vehicle sales were up more than 25% to 133,743 units compared with last year and accounted for about 7% of total sales.

With sales of 1.99 million vehicles, Ford was the third-largest automaker by sales in the United States, behind General Motors and Toyota.