2024 Ford F-150 Lightning Sales Face Major Setbacks

2024 Ford F-150 Lightning Sales Face Major Setbacks

Production numbers are being slashed for the coming year.

Ford Motor Company will reportedly reduce the production output of the Ford F-150 Lightning by half next year due to changing market demands, says Automotive News.

According to a planning memo seen by the publication, the Blue Oval has notified suppliers that they need to prepare for an average F-150 Lightning production volume of 1,600 vehicles a week from January 2024. This is half the planned 3,200 Ford Lightning trucks Ford hoped to achieve.

In an official statement, Ford said it “will continue to match production to customer demand.” Ford F-150 Lightning production was cut earlier this year. At the time, the Detroit-based automaker said this was due to supply chain issues. Approximately 700 workers were affected by this decision, as Ford cut a third production shift.

The Lightning is manufactured at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan.

Whether Ford will remove the third production shift altogether is unknown, but we expect to glean more details closer to the time. Interestingly, Ford added the third shift in late 2022 in an attempt to triple production rates. The automaker hoped to reach 150,000 units per annum, but it seems this is no longer in the cards for the electric F-150 Lightning.

What Ford didn’t anticipate, however, was a decline in demand for electric vehicles. While early adopters showed great interest in EVs over the last two years, interest is waning. Some dealerships are struggling to sell electric cars, and manufacturers have woken up and are rethinking their EV strategies.

In its most recent financial results, Ford admitted that it was losing $36,000 on every EV it sold and announced that it would be cutting back on electric vehicle investments.

Despite this less-than-positive outlook, it would seem the F-150 Lightning is still enjoying popularity in the market. The latest figures show 4,393 examples were sold in November 2023, as opposed to 2,062 in the same period last year. Sales may be improving, but they’re probably not as high as Ford had anticipated. It’s worth noting that 53,069 regular F-150s were sold last month.

Ford CFO John Lawler is convinced the EV segment is still growing – but at a slower pace than the industry expected.

Now that Ford has canceled the appealing incentives, it will be interesting to see whether people are still keen on the electric truck. Aside from that, the Lightning now has to contend with fresher rivals like the Tesla Cybertruck, the upcoming Chevy Silverado EV, and segment stalwarts such as the Rivian R1T.