Ford to Stop Producing F-150 Lightnings Until Next Year
It’s been a bit of a rough week for Ford Motor Company. On Monday, when the automaker announced third-quarter earnings, it revealed that warranty costs are still tugging at its net income, which fell 26 percent. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the company is tying manager bonuses more closely to product quality and costs, as sources told Reuters earlier today. More discouraging, at least for the firm’s EV business, which lost $1.2B during Q3, was the news (confirmed to Automotive News) that Ford won’t build any new electric trucks until next year.
The 12-acre Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, will shut down beginning at the end of the day on Friday, November 15. Approximately 800 employees, including 750 hourly workers, will head home. (Headcount data comes from Ford as of April 2024.) The assembly line will be quiet for seven weeks. On Monday, January 6, 2025, production is scheduled to resume. The F-150 Lightning, which went into full production right on schedule, on April 26, 2022, is the first electric vehicle made at Rouge, whose EV-specific manufacturing center opened in 2021, the fruits of a $700M investment.
Those three years have been a rollercoaster for the F-150 Lightning. It may be the most well-executed electric pickup on the market, but it is no longer the best-selling one. (As of July, that’s the Tesla Cybertruck.) Ford—along with every other company that makes electric vehicles—has been surprised by the flow, then ebb, of interest in electric vehicles. In January of 2022, after being forced to cap reservations at 200,000, Ford doubled production, anticipating 150,000 units per year. Fast forward to the beginning of 2024, and Ford lowered production targets by half and cut jobs at Rouge, trimming back to just one shift. Ford had sold 24,000 units in 2023. As of October 3, 2024 sales totals weren’t far off that: 22,807.
Ford hasn’t idled Rouge since August of 2023, when it shut down the factory to retool. That took six weeks, essentially the same duration as the scheduled shutdown this fall, since the upcoming seven-week idle period will include the standard holiday week break. Ford’s been making some tough decisions this year, such as canceling a three-row EV, delaying a mid-size EV pickup, which is being developed by a “skunkworks” team in California, and focusing instead on an EV work van. The successor to the F-150 Lightning isn’t due until 2027. In the meantime, expect the automaker to lean on its cash cow—the commercial vehicle business, Ford Pro, which builds the Super Duty trucks—to keep things afloat.
I would wager this may be the last you see of this version of this truck. It was out dated when it arrived to the competitors and under performed.
Ford is really pressed for money right now and can’t update it.
I will send this warning again. Ford is in really bad shape and I am afraid for their future. While I am not a Ford fan I will be the first to say I in no way want them to fail or become owned by an over seas MFG. I really don’t want them in a partnership unless they lead it.
America is down to two old Detroit owned MFGs and we can’t afford to lose anymore.
VW is in real trouble too.
The auto industry is not doing as well as some would like you to believe. Income is up but expenses are crippling.
Agree on all counts!!!
The legacy auto industry is not doing well. Tesla and BYD are doing just fine.
Asked a guy about his F-150 at Home Depot. He said the truck struggles to tow his 20 foot Whaler, the range is drastically reduced while towing, and it takes forever to charge. He can’t wait to get out of it
Ford just took a billion dollar write- down on a cancelled electric suv. I doubt they will restart production of the electric F-150. Seems like 80% of people who are purchasing a vehicle want nothing to do with electric. .
Who in their right mind is surprised that Ford is cancelling production of an EV truck, warranty costs are spiralling out of control and the only part of the business holding its end of the bargain is Ford Pro?
Jim Farley is not a proper CEO. Stop focusing on pipe dreams and get with your dealers and customers.
I turned down an offer from Ford earlier this year, primarily due to the schedule, but a large part of it was this type of news and the uncertainty of the new auto industry in general. I would have been working of the f150/transit, but I’ve seen the industry go up and down too many times to tie my last 15 working years to it.
I have seen a few of these here in the Austin area. I never see them do truck things. Meanwhile we have F-250s everywhere hauling and trailering stuff. It seems to be more of a Suburban mall crawler than an actual truck. I’m not surprised manufacturing has been paused.
Bring back the Ford Courier and give it a state of the art 4 cylinder and 6 speed manual.
An updated Courier is one of few good ideas I’ve heard lately. I loved my 1979 Courier and really only wished it had been made with more corrosion resistant materials
The best way for Ford to promote the Sales of this beautiful truck is to offer a FULL BATTERY REPLACEMENT when required. For the original buyer, it should be Free during the initial 5-Year, 75,000 mile warranty and at Corporate cost for the next 10-years. Ford should also offer it to Used Car purchasers at a price that makes buying a Used Truck, very attractive. This would reestablish Ford as the Industry Leader in the Automotive Industry. It sounds like it will cost a lot of money, but the alternate is Losing a lot more money. Ford also has an underground Cave Facility near Kansas City to build and service these vehicles.
I’m betting Ford will not resume production of the Lightning if Trump is elected and EVs are not crammed down our throats. They may go with a hybrid but not an EV.
Stop the political nonsense. It’s about the MONEY. Everyone jumped on the EV bandwagon because Tesla makes money. As with most things in business, the supply exceeded the practical demand and problems with charging on trips became big news. That will change in years to come. Many years ago Ford could not give away Hy-brid cars (a buddy got one below dealer cost – way below, he loves it and has had it over six years). Ford scaled back hy-brid vehicles and went EV. Now the hy-brid is the hot seller. Batteries are getting better and lighter per power. It will take awhile, but the EV will be the top seller because the consumer will want them! If you want to see the future look at BYD of China. They are on track to become the global leader in EV sales! They are building a plant in Mexico for S. American sales. All the business analyst see EV’s as being lower cost and practical in a decade. GM and Ford just got ahead of the game. Now they need to get by on hy-brid sales. BTW the commercial vehicle market will be the fastest adopter of EV’s in the next decade according to the business news as they will be less expensive to operate — MONEY talks.
Simply more great ev news. Bankruptcy for those that don’t listen to the consumer. Remember don’t force let demand drive supply. That simple!
GM and Ford executives display their cluelessness when they fail to understand that a $75K-$125K full-size pickup (or SUV) is probably the worst imaginable use-case for an EV. I really have to question whether there was ever a viable business plan for any of these ridiculous vehicles.