Ford is planning to nearly double the production of its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup to 150,000 units annually.
What’s more, on Thursday, the first wave of reservation holders for the F-150 Lightning will be invited to start converting their reservations into orders. Additional reservation holders will be invited in phases to place their orders over the next few months.
Ford also revealed that thanks to “unprecedented” demand it will increase production of the Mustang Mach-E to 200,000-plus units by 2023. Within the next two years, Ford is also expected to have the capacity to produce 600,000 battery-electric vehicles per year.
“With nearly 200,000 reservations, our teams are working hard and creatively to break production constraints to get more F-150 Lightning trucks into the hands of our customers,” says Kumar Galhotra, president of The Americas & International Markets Group, Ford Motor Company. “The reality is clear: People are ready for an all-electric F-150 and Ford is pulling out all the stops to scale our operations and increase production capacity.”
The company’s Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, MI, will take most of the strain from the increased production. To deliver this latest increase, a small task force of employees from manufacturing, purchasing, strategy, product development and capacity planning are finding ways to quickly adapt and expand production of the groundbreaking pickup.
This week marks the final pre-build phase before accelerating into mass production of F-150 Lightning trucks for retail customers and F-150 Lightning Pro for commercial customers. These production-level trucks will be used for testing in real-world customer conditions, collectively accumulating 1 million miles.
F-150 Lightning buyers, of course, are set to benefit from President Biden’s new EV tax credit, given that Ford’s manufacturing staff are part of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.
“The pride and quality UAW members are putting into building the iconic Ford F-150 Lightning is evident in the high pre-production demand for the new F-150 Lightning truck,” says Chuck Browning, UAW vice president. “UAW members are leading the way in doubling the amount of vehicles Ford is producing for this game-changing model of our legendary union-built vehicle.”
