Ford has an enviable problem: It can’t build electric pickups fast enough to have one available for everyone who wants to buy them. But it’s working on it.
Today, the automaker announced plans to nearly double the production of its upcoming F-150 Lightning electric truck. “We will be ramping up to a run rate of 150,000 per year by mid-2023,” a Ford spokesperson tells Kelley Blue Book.
About the Lightning
The F-150 Lightning is an all-electric version of America’s best-selling vehicle, the F-150 full-size truck.
The Lightning is available as a basic work truck with 426 horsepower and about 230 miles of range for just under $40,000. It can be optioned up to a luxury truck with every amenity, 563 horsepower, and about 300 miles of range, for more than double that price.
Ford advertises it with a payload capacity of 2,000 pounds – near the middle of the F-150 range. Towing capacity, the company says, is a robust 10,000 pounds. Questions remain about what a full bed or trailer does to the range. No one outside Ford — with the exception of President Joe Biden — has had the opportunity to test the truck yet.
200,000 Reservations, and a 3-Year Backlog
But plenty of truck buyers have reserved one. Ford sold more than 200,000 $100 tickets to buy the truck before closing reservations last month. A reservation earns the holder the right to buy a truck, so not every reservation will become a sale.
The company currently has the capacity to build 15,000 of the trucks in 2022, 55,000 in 2023, and 80,000 in 2024. That could leave some buyers waiting three years for their pickup. The new expansion plans could cut that wait dramatically and allow Ford to sell new reservations.
Orders open this month, with a new wave of reservation-holders invited to place their final order every two weeks.
Virtually every automaker is moving toward electric vehicles (EVs). Ford has seen quicker success than most. The Mustang Mach-E electric SUV sold well enough that the company was recently forced to delay plans for both Ford Explorer and Lincoln Aviator EVs in order to scale up production of the existing one.
Future Electric Trucks: What’s Coming in 2022 and Beyond
