Ford announced that they are planning to increase the production of the 2022 F-150 Lightning pickup at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn to 150,000 trucks a year – nearly double their original plans. The increased production is to ensure they can meet the high demand for the first all-electric version of the F-Series, America’s best-selling truck.
Due to significant interest in the new electric truck Ford is operating a “wave-by-wave” reservation system. Reservation holders should watch for an email from Ford that will invite them to order their truck over the next few months. The unlucky few who don’t receive an invitation to order for the 2022 model year will be able to place an order for a future model year once Ford works their way through the reservations. The first group of reservation holders will be invited to place their orders for the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning on Thursday, January 6.
“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,” said 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.”
Ford has a small task force comprised of employees from their manufacturing, purchasing, strategy, product development, and capacity planning departments working to expand their production capabilities for the new truck. They are working with suppliers as well as Ford’s own Rawsonville Components Plant and Van Dyke Electric Powertrain Center to increase their ability to produce parts for this exciting electric truck, including the electric powertrains and battery cells.
The final pre-build phase will be this week and will be followed shortly by mass production of the F-150 Lightning for retail buyers along with the F-150 Lightning Pro for Ford’s commercial customers. The “production-level” trucks will be used for testing in all variety of real-world situations and conditions eventually accumulating a collective 1 million miles.
The F-150 Lightning appears to be bringing a great deal of new customers to Ford as more than 75% of reservation holders will be purchasing their first Ford vehicle. In addition to the F-150 Lightning production increase, Ford also announced that they are tripling the production of the Mustang Mach-E and expect to hit 200,000+ units per year by 2023.
Speaking from personal experience, although the Mach-E isn’t what one might picture when hearing “Ford Mustang,” it is a really fun car to drive. Sure, the single-pedal driving style takes a short time to acclimate to, but you can always turn that option off and once you have gotten used to single-pedal driving it feels just as natural as anything else we’ve driven.
Ford is making a big play at the electric car market, investing more than $30 billion in electric vehicles through 2025. They expect to have the capacity to produce 600,000 battery electric vehicles annually with 24 months.
2022 Ford F-150 Lightning Price and Availability
The new 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning will begin production this spring and have a starting MSRP of $39,974, excluding destination charges, before any potential federal or state tax incentives. You can learn more about the all-electric 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning here.