Ford Motor Company announced on April 26 the start of full production of the electric version of the classic bestselling F-150 pickup truck in a push to enter the electric vehicle market ahead of its competition.
The April 26 ceremony for the F-150 Lightning was broadcast live via webcast to promote Ford Lightning’s new assembly system at its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan.
Ford aims to start production at its expanded Rouge manufacturing complex until the company’s new electric vehicle production plant in Tennessee is ready for operation in 2025.
The Michigan-based automaker has plans to triple the initial annual production of its new pickup truck model to 150,000 over the next few years.Ford’s original plan was to build 40,000 Lightning models annually, but the company said that a rise in demand for electric vehicles prompted it to boost its initial production twice since August 2021.
Ford said that it had 200,000 preliminary order reservations from customers for the Lightning before it cut off taking further orders in December 2021.
Union representatives for workers at Ford’s combustion engine plant in Windsor, Ontario, were concerned about the security of their jobs when the electric F-150 was announced, but company officials assured them that the combustion engine F-150 would remain in production until 2040, the Windsor Star newspaper reported.Ford is among many automakers which have come out with similar truck models recently.
The release of the F-150 Lightning follows the release of the R1T pickup truck by Rivian Automotive Inc., a new electric vehicle company.
However, Ford was able to beat its main rivals. General Motors Co.’s electric Silverado and Stellantis NV’s electric Ram truck have yet to be released, and the launch of Tesla Inc.’s Cybertruck has been delayed until at least 2023.
Ford reengineered its current F-150 model with a new battery-operated engine, a cargo-carrying front trunk, and multiple electrical outlets that can power a home or a construction site.
The company said that it took 19 months to build an electric assembly line next to its existing Rouge F-series factory.
General Motors Co. took a different track by designing its electric Silverado from scratch, but it delayed the release of the new Silverado to the fall of 2023. The manufacturer gutted one of its old factories in Detroit to build the new truck and several other electric vehicles, and built new plants to supply the models with in-house designed batteries.
Ford’s fast-track plan aimed to beat its competitors by a year with a release of the Lighting in spring 2022, but the company in the past has suffered poorly executed launches, including the botched rollout of its redesigned Explorer SUV in 2019.
Ford reassured the Canadian autoworkers of Unifor Local 200 that operations at the plant in Windsor, Ontario—directly across the river from Detroit—which produces the engines for the classic version of the F-150 pickup truck, would continue, the Windsor Star reported.“They’re still a long way from getting out of the combustion side when it comes to the trucks,” said D’Agnolo, who explained that Ford executives “don’t see until 2040 before they get out of the combustion side of it.”
“Right now, those truck engines are their bread and butter and they’re not going to be making any changes whatsoever when it comes to that,” he said.
D’Agnolo said Ford officials confirmed that demand for the Windsor-built 5.0-liter, 7.3-liter and the future 6.8-liter combustion engine models remains strong.
He said he expects the transition to the electric motor to arrive more quickly than anticipated due to government demand and advancements in technology.
The Canadian authorities have set a 2035 deadline for all new car and light truck sales to be electrically powered, but that regulation doesn’t include heavy duty trucks.
