- Ford executives are considering killing the all-electric F-150 Lightning, the Wall Street Journal Reports.
- The Lightning was at one point projected to sell up to 150,000 units per year, but Ford actually sold just 33,000 last year.
- Ford wants to win the EV truck war in the long term, but there are a few reasons why sitting out the next couple of years could make sense.
Ford announced the electric F-150 Lightning at an optimistic moment in the EV era. The company—and many others—expected hockey-stick like growth for all of their upcoming electric products. Ford at one point planned to sell up to 150,000 Lightnings annually. But last year, the company sold just 33,000 of the electric trucks, and likely sold them at a substantial loss. So it’s no wonder that some Ford executives are considering pulling the plug, according to The Wall Street Journal.
No final decision has yet been made, sources told the WSJ. But the move would come about a week after Ford itself began a campaign to promote the Lightning’s ability to power your home, including with smart charging to take in electricity when rates are cheaper, and also return energy to the grid with some participating utilities.
But as the WSJ notes, Ford’s EV sales have declined in the wake of the electric tax credit going away. Total EV sales dropped 24% in October, and the Lightning has been known as a costly loss-leader for years. And now, it may no longer be useful for Ford to keep around at all.
Ford declined to comment to InsideEVs on whether it was considering canceling the F-150 Lightning.
To understand why the option may be on the table, you also have to understand how automotive regulations have changed. In the previous era of U.S. standards, car companies had to hit certain “fleet average” fuel economy targets. The more gas-guzzling cars you wanted to sell, the more EVs you had to sell, essentially. So since Ford loves making gas F-150s, selling electric ones was a good way to keep the forces balanced. But Trump has ripped up America’s fuel economy regulations, while simultaneously imposing tariffs that are driving up production prices.
So suddenly, it’s a lot harder to justify losing money on a vehicle you no longer have to build. Especially when consumer demand has never matched expectations. One dealer owner told the WSJ that he doesn’t order F-150 Lightnings because no one wants to buy them.
What I can say is that F-150 Lightning is the best-selling electric pickup truck in the U.S. – despite new competition from CyberTruck, Chevy, GMC, Hummer and Rivian – and delivered record sales in Q3. Right now, we’re focused on producing F-150 ICE and Hybrid as we recover from the fire at Novelis. We have good inventories of the F-150 Lightning and will bring Rouge Electric Vehicle Center (REVC) back up at the right time, but don’t have an exact date at this time.
I’ve been a critic myself, not just of the Lightning but of the whole crop of modern electric trucks. The fact is, it is nearly impossible to offer an electric truck with the capability, range and space that full-size truck buyers demand at a price that’s competitive with internal-combustion trucks. Buyers have proven, too, that most won’t pay the premium until the technology gets cheaper and the kinks get ironed out.
But that leaves Ford, General Motors and others in a bind. Because the potential for electric trucks is amazing—the F-150 Lightning, Chevy Silverado EV, Tesla Cybertruck and Rivian R1T all offer compelling advantages over gas trucks, and plenty of performance. This market will grow, and they want to own it. Yet the current products all seem to be money-losers.
Still, a spokesperson for Ford noted that the Lightning is the best-selling electric truck despite more and more competitors, and that it delivered record sales in the third quarter of this year.
And as the WSJ notes, giving up on trucks would torpedo a strategy the Big Three once had to outfox Tesla and prepare buyers for an electric future: lean into their strengths in making large trucks, and ensure they’re the same kinds of profit engines that their gas versions are.
Electric trucks, with their hefty price tags and one-ton batteries, were supposed to be Detroit’s answer to Tesla. Ford and GM thought their best shot was to enter with electric versions of their bestselling, most profitable vehicles. Not only would the trucks have a built-in fan base, they had also address the EV profitability conundrum by commanding higher prices than a sedan or small SUV.
Instead, Ford seems to be pinning its hopes on the new $30,000 electric truck and “Universal EV Platform” that’s said to have far fewer parts than the current Lightning thanks to an all-new assembly process. Ford CEO Jim Farley has touted that truck and platform as the way it will head off advanced Chinese automakers, both in the U.S. and abroad. But that won’t even debut until 2027 at the earliest. If the Lightning goes away, what will Ford have to keep EV-interested folks warm until then?
Ford Universal EV Platform
Photo by: Ford
So should Ford and the rest keep bleeding money on products that aren’t yet economically viable, hoping to win the tech war with experience? Or should they scrap what they’ve done so far, and come back in a few years with a fresh plan of attack?
For now, we don’t know. F-150 Lightning production remains idle due to aluminum supply constraints and a decision to prioritize the more profitable gas and hybrid trucks, but the current plan is to reopen the plant.
“We have good inventories of the F-150 Lightning and will bring Rouge Electric Vehicle Center (REVC) back up at the right time, but don’t have an exact date at this time,” a spokesperson said via email.
Contact the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com.
