Six weeks ago, Ford temporarily halted production of the electric F-150 Lightning, again. Except this time around, it wasn’t because of battery fires. No, this time around it was because Ford needed to retool the factory so that it could build more F-150 Lightnings. Now the Associated Press reports that production is back online.
It may be surprising to hear that Ford plans to increase F-150 Lightning production if you’ve seen the news that it also projects it will lose $US4.5 billion on EVs this year. But according to Ford, ever since it cut prices for its electric pickup truck, orders have increased sixfold. Which is part of the reason why Ford didn’t just increase its production capacity for the F-150 Lightning, it fully tripled it. Soon, the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center will be pumping out Lightnings at a rate of 150,000 trucks per year.
While Ford did not reveal exactly how many orders it had received, it did say that it had enough to keep the reworked factory going at full capacity for 45 days. So odds are, we’ll see a pretty big jump in Lightning sales when numbers are announced at the end of Q3. Something Ford would very much like to see happen since even though the Lightning’s Q2 sales were double what they were last year, they were up only four per cent compared to Q1, something Ford blames on the need to shut down production to retool the plant.
Marin Gjaja, chief customer officer for Ford’s electric divison, told the AP, there’s plenty of demand now, but, “We’re seeing competition increase. We’re seeing inventories out there grow as competition adds supply and availability. And we’re going to have to adjust with the market. Ultimately, the customers are going to decide.”