8 months ago

Ford F-150 Lightning EV Fails to Meet Expectations

Ford F-150 Lightning EV Fails to Meet Expectations
How Ford failed to bottle Tesla’s EV magic · livemint.com

Ford recently announced that it will stop making the electric version of its popular F-150 truck, the F-150 Lightning.

This decision comes after the company realized that the truck wasn't as popular as they hoped.

Ford had big plans for the Lightning, thinking it would be a big competitor to Tesla's electric vehicles.

They even took a lot of reservations and planned to make a lot of these trucks.

But when people started buying it, they found that it didn't work as well as they expected, especially when towing heavy things.

Ford is now changing its electric vehicle strategy and taking a big financial loss.

This shows that making electric trucks is harder than it seems, and companies need to understand what customers really want.

Key facts

Company
Ford Motor
Model
F-150 Lightning
Financial Impact
$19.5 billion write-down
Sales Target
150,000 annually
Actual Sales (2023)
23,000 (9 months)
Customer Satisfaction
Lower than Rivian
Price Difference
18% higher than nonelectric version

Quotes

Jim Farley

Chief Executive of Ford Motor Company

“The only way we’re going to change that is we have to scale our electric business so that we are competitive with them on scale or beat them in more profitable segments, like pickup trucks and commercial vans. We have to…get to a million units as quickly as we can in the next couple of years, and we have to make money, more money than we make on our gas vehicles.”
livemint.com
“It’s like no pickup truck I have ever driven. It hauls ass and tows like a beast. Metaphorically, it might as well have a Superman cape and a Captain America shield.”
livemint.com

Alexander Edwards

President of Strategic Vision

“Traditional Ford F-150 truck buyers are among the most truckiest of all truck people, and while the Ford F-150 Lightning, in my opinion, was a fantastic vehicle, it was not a fantastic vehicle for people who needed it to behave like a Ford F-150 truck all by itself. Instead, it is a truck for your Tesla Model S owner who might need to do a couple things here and there.”
livemint.com

Sources

Related news