Ford tells suppliers it’s halving F-150 Lightning production
Enlarge / Electric Ford F-150 Lightnings being built at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan. (credit: Ford)
On Monday, Automotive News reported that Ford's suppliers have been told by the automaker that from January it is halving the production rate of its F-150 Lightning from 3,200 trucks a week down to 1,600 trucks a week.
Ford debuted a fully electric version of its best-selling F-150 pickup truck in 2022. You'd be hard-pressed to tell the electric F-150 Lightning from a gas- or diesel-burning F-150-bar some aerodynamic detailing here and there, they all use the same body, and the EV hides its batteries neatly between the chassis rails.
That conservatism in design appeared to be a winning strategy with the pickup crowd. Ford's order books were flooded with over 200,000 reservations well before the truck hit the streets, spurring the automaker to announce last January that it would double its original production plan and aim for an annual production rate of 150,000 trucks a year.