Tesla Cybertruck Sounds the Death Knell for the Ford F-150 Lightning, but It's Not All Bad

As legacy carmakers accelerated their EV plans, they ran into new problems in their bid to replace Tesla as the EV market leader. Soon, it became obvious that producing electric vehicles was no longer enough as the market matured and the customers became picky. This is a rough explanation of why legacy carmakers, left and right, warned about slowing EV sales in the second half of the year. Some of them went as far as claiming that people no longer want to buy electric vehicles and that electromobility is doomed.

This couldn't be further from the truth, as sales statistics clearly show that sales of ICE vehicles are declining while EV adoption is accelerating. If legacy carmakers can't monetize on this trend, it's only their fault. Since they are not selling more EVs than last year, it's clear that someone does, or the EV sales graphics would not point to the sky. That someone is, you guessed it, Tesla, which continues to operate its EV factories at full capacity.

Ford is among the traditional carmakers that moved the fastest with electrification. The F-150 Lightning was one of the first electric pickups on the market, while the Mustang Mach-E put up a good fight against the Tesla Model Y. Ford had ambitious plans for 2023, thinking that ramping up production would be enough to increase sales and limit the losses at its EV division thanks to economy of scale. Unfortunately for Ford, things did not go according to plan.

After an overhaul of its production line at Rough EV Center, where the F-150 Lightning is produced, Ford was confident it was on track to reach an annual production capacity of 150,000 electric pickups. However, by July, it became clear that sales needed a boost. That was the moment when Ford slashed the F-150 Lightning prices, even though it was already losing a crapload of money on every one of them. Even that didn't help much.

By October, Ford acknowledged it had a problem, and it canceled dealer orders for the Lightning across the US and Canada. At the time, Ford explained the move by switching the production line to the 2024 model year. The explanation held for a while, but two weeks later, Ford had to cut one shift at the Rouge EV Center. Earlier this month, it finally admitted the problem publicly and announced that F-150 Lightning production would be cut in half next year. That means producing 1,600 units per week instead of 3,200.

Ford sold 20,365 F-150 Lightning trucks between January and November 2023 and will probably not surpass 25,000 units by December 31. This represents one-third of the planned 2024 production, so even the 1,600-unit-per-week plan looks like an exaggeration. There's another factor at play, though, as what Ford counts as sold might not reflect reality. From the carmaker's standpoint, a vehicle is sold as soon as it's headed to a dealer. However, finding a customer to pay for it is another matter.

A quick search on Cars.com and Edmunds reveals that there are thousands of brand-new Ford F-150 Lightning trucks piling up on dealer lots. To make matters worse, the vast majority of them are MY2023, at a time when Ford is preparing to start MY2024 deliveries. This means that dealers are now in a precarious situation, forced to discount them heavily if they want them moved off the lot. This contrasts with how things were going earlier in the year when hefty dealer markups raised the price of the Lightning.

There's a silver lining to this, as you can buy a Ford F-150 Lightning from inventory if you want one, and you can do it at MSRP. This is something few anticipated only half a year ago. Not only that, but 2024 will undoubtedly bring some nice discounts. Especially as the Cybertruck has just started deliveries, Ford will have to throw in some compelling incentives to make the F-150 Lightning more attractive.

There are downsides, though, both for those who bought an F-150 Lightning in the past and those who will buy one in the future. For once, these are electric vehicles whose batteries might wear out fast if they are kept for long with a depleted battery. I don't see dealership employees charging them periodically. And even if they will, it's more likely that they will charge them entirely to keep a charge for longer. This is another scenario that wears the battery fast. Chances are high that whoever buys these trucks later will experience a shorter battery life.

Things are equally bad for existing F-150 Lightning owners, considering the plummeting value of these electric pickups. Those who paid dealer markups ranging between $30,000 and $70,000 are certainly pissed to know that a new truck is much cheaper than they hoped to get by flipping theirs. You can already buy low-mileage (less than 3,000 miles) Lightning trucks for less than the MSRP, so why would you pay the full price?

My local Ford dealer still has plenty of 2023 model year F-150 Lightning #EV trucks on their lot.

Many of them are now on the front line by the street and they recently removed the Added Dealer Markup (they still have $40k ADM on their 2023 Raptors).

It’s going to be tough to… pic.twitter.com/C4888G5Maf

— Matthew Donegan-Ryan (@MatthewDR) December 19, 2023