Ford Raises Incentives for Big SUV's

Bloomberg Reported that Ford Motor Co. is raising consumer incentives on Expedition and Excursion sport-utility vehicles as the second-largest automaker faces increased competition from General Motors Corp. From Tuesday through Oct. 8, Ford will boost the rebates on the large sport-utilities by $500 to a total $2,000, said spokeswoman Karen Shaughnessy. The third quarter "historically is the time you see an escalation of incentives," she said. Expedition U.S.sales in this year's first half fell 14 percent from a year earlier to 92,523, while the Excursion declined 26 percent to 18,099. At the same time, sales of General Motors' large sport-utilities have risen, with gains of 33 percent to 97,056 for the Chevrolet Tahoe, 8.1 percent to 73,778 for the Chevrolet Suburban and 37 percent to 32,075 for the GMC Yukon XL.