Ford Motor Co. reported a 48% drop in February sales on Tuesday and outlined sharply lower production targets for the second quarter compared with a year ago in the face of a deep slump in demand.

The automaker, which posted a record annual loss of $14.6 billion last year, said it planned to produce 425,000 vehicles in North America in the second quarter, down 38 percent from 685,000 vehicles a year earlier.

Ford is the only U.S. automaker that has not arranged government funding to survive and has said it has enough cash to ride out the downturn.

Ford posted a 55 percent decline in sales for its Volvo brand, which it is reviewing for a potential sale.

Sales in its Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands fell 48.2 percent to 96,044 units in February from a year earlier.

In those brands, SUV sales fell 71.4 percent, truck and van sales 54 percent, car sales 40.8 percent and crossover sales 35 percent, it said.

Ford said it had 405,000 vehicles in inventory at the end of February.

The automaker's U.S. sales were down nearly 21 percent in 2008, a steeper decline than the overall market's 18 percent drop.

(Reporting by Soyoung Kim, editing by Matthew Lewis)

Ford Motor Company