NILES, ILLINOIS – JULY 18: A 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning EV is obtainable on the market at Golf Mill Ford on July 18, 2023 in Niles, Illinois.
Scott Olson/Getty Images North America
cover caption
toggle caption
Scott Olson/Getty Images North America
Ford Motor Company has ceased manufacturing of the F-150 Lightning, its flagship full-size electrical pickup, and can focus as an alternative on hybrid automobiles and a future line of smaller, cheaper EVs. Battery crops as soon as supposed to provide Ford vehicles will now be sending batteries to bolster the electrical grid as an alternative.
Ford says the transfer is following buyer demand, and reflecting the fact that the Lightning was a money-loser — and Ford, concluded, it all the time can be.
“The American client is talking clearly they usually need the advantages of electrification like immediate torque and cellular energy,” mentioned Andrew Frick, the president of Ford Blue and Ford mannequin e, the corporate’s industrial and electrical divisions. He spoke to reporters on a name on Monday. “But in addition they demand affordability … fairly than spending billions extra on giant EVs that now haven’t any path to profitability, we’re allocating that cash into higher-returning areas.”
The Lightning’s design developed from what was as soon as a gas-powered truck. And now it is going to come full circle; an upcoming plug-in hybrid model of the truck will as soon as once more have a gasoline engine, within the type of a generator that can enable the car to maintain driving even when the battery runs out of juice. The all-electric Lightning is useless; the extended-range Lightning is on its method.
The F-150 Lightning was a giant deal to Ford. It was introduced in 2021 with nice fanfare and an appealingly low value of simply $40,000. But as soon as it truly hit manufacturing strains, Ford was by no means capable of promote it for something near the promised price ticket; the 2025 mannequin began at round $55,000.
The truck was designed to attraction to mainstream truck fans, with no quirky EV styling. It got here festooned with shops all over the place, leveraging the onboard battery so drivers may run instruments at a worksite, energy home equipment at a tailgate get together and even run their home on it, utilizing it like a generator throughout an influence outage.
The Lightning gained 2023 Truck of the Year from Motortrend, unanimously, and from the North American Car, Utility and Truck of the Year Awards. It was Kelley Blue Book’s high choose for electrical vehicles in 2024. And it was the best-selling electrical truck in America final quarter, Ford says.
But that class as a complete was struggling, as electrical pickups didn’t stay as much as lofty expectations — for efficiency and affordability, and because of this, for gross sales. The Lightning, particularly, struggled with reliability. Shoppers had been turned off by its restricted vary when towing; why purchase a truck that may’t do truck stuff?Â
And, extra to the purpose, Ford misplaced cash on each car, even on the higher-than-promised value level. EV gross sales have been decrease than automakers had anticipated previously few years. Production prices did not come down as a lot as Ford had hoped.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has pulled a 180 on EV coverage, eliminating incentives and necessities that pushed patrons and automakers alike towards electrical automobiles.
That consists of stripping away a $7,500 tax credit score that had made some EVs extra inexpensive, and eradicating emissions and gasoline financial system requirements that gave Ford — amongst different EV makers — an incentive to maintain unprofitable automobiles in manufacturing. Those guidelines, which required automakers to make their new car fleets cleaner, on common, over time, are being dialed down — which implies automakers could make extra massive gas- and diesel-powered vehicles and fewer EVs with out working afoul of federal rules.
Frick mentioned that “adjustments within the regulatory surroundings” had been a part of the “whole panorama” that pushed Ford to discontinue the car and work on the extended-range model as an alternative.
Meanwhile, Ford’s all-electric ambitions will likely be smaller — actually, with extra compact and inexpensive automobiles on the coronary heart of the corporate’s EV plans, beginning with the midsize pickup truck the corporate introduced in August. Ford is concentrating on a value level of $30,000 and expects to roll them out roughly a 12 months from now.
The change in plans will value Ford billions of {dollars} in write-offs and money this 12 months, however the firm says it is going to make up for it by changing a money-losing car with ones it hopes will likely be worthwhile.
The pivot additionally leaves Ford with much more battery manufacturing capability than it wants, for the reason that firm had invested closely to construct battery factories to provide the EV manufacturing strains that it is now idling.
So it introduced a brand new line of enterprise: Ford will likely be revamping a battery manufacturing web site in Kentucky to construct batteries for stationary storage as an alternative of for vehicles. Those batteries could be offered to steadiness the electrical grid — batteries can cost up when electrical energy is reasonable, like when wind and photo voltaic are considerable, and discharge it when electrical energy is scarce, a phenomenon that is already reshaping the electrical grids in California and Texas.
They’ll even be offered to knowledge facilities and different industrial prospects, Ford says.
