Ford is considering discontinuing the electric F-150 Lightning due to low demand and $13 billion in total EV losses since 2023....WSJ today.


Ford Considers Scrapping Electric Version of F-150 Truck - Wall Street Journal - 6 NOV 25

 

CNBC is reporting the same

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/06/ford...htning-ev.html
What would they use the River Rouge complex for instead? I am surprised they didn't develop an E-xpedition/NavigatEr type vehicle as a Halo vehicle like the Escalade IQ to spread out the costs a bit. No matter what pickup trucks are still not what well off people want to be seen in even if it's an EV. An electric Navigator would be more palatable to the opera and gala crowd.

 

Not surprised.... Ford should have entered the truck EV market via the Ranger. These buyers typically are not as demanding and the EV tech shortcomings would not be so amplified in a mid range truck platform.

 

Considering Rangers start at 33k and 56k gets one a Ranger Raptor, there was no plausible way they could market an E-Ranger without losing easily at least another 50% on each unit compared to the loss on the Lightning

 

Ugh! If EV trucks, specifically the Lightning, ended production I would have a very hard time going back to a gas truck.

I would really miss the exceptional ride quality, the secure front trunk storage, the silent 240v 30 amp inverter output, along with many other Lightning qualities.

 

Makes a guy wonder how this will affect the new "T3" truck that was scheduled for this year, then pushed back twice. Do they push that back again? 2030 now? Shelve it altogether?

 

This stinks, admittedly a EV truck wouldn't work for me right now but I want them to continue to evolve

 

Is Ford still offering a free charger install? It seems to me that with the tax incentives gone, the price has just risen again though not completely out of line with a well equipped gas truck.

Anyone remember the days when the TV was loaded with automotive commercials? I can remember when the 1997 F150 was about to make it's debut, Ford had this thing pulling up cactus plants and pulling ledges together with a lasso.

Remember when the ecoboost was pulling logs in Oregon, pulling a sled around Daytona and then running the baja? Then Ford did a across America tour and offered 30 minute test drives. I signed up and got an hour because of my enthusiasm! I bought and ecoboost truck four months later in 2011.

The Tundra was seen pulling a 747 or similar and GM had their share of corny truck commercials.

Ford needs to put it's brand back in American homes again. Corny, catchy commercials sell trucks.

 

I've had a Ford Truck in my driveway for 30 consecutive years, since my first F-150 in 1995. If the Lightning is no longer produced who knows what will replace my Lightning.

Remember this 6 year old Prototype Electric F-150 video?

FORD F150 PULLS 1M-LBS TRAIN | TOWING CAPABILITY DEMONSTRATION

.

 

It seems that with robust sales figures, the car manufacturers don't need to advertise like they used to.

It seems that the GM E truck is or is going to be a nice truck, I don't see Ford stepping away from the plate. I'm seeing more Riviens on the road though I can't consciously imagine why. What an ugly little cuss.

Tesla had an opportunity to produce a true Lightning competitor and they blew it. Ford has failed at many things but they are still a premiere truck builder.

 

What Tesla should have built instead of a Cybertruck to haul outsized egos, is what GM and Hyundai have joined forces to build now... an inexpensive, all electric, compact van/truck to haul parts and packages.

GM just dropped BrightDrop altogether, after basically only a year and a half of sales. Not enough buyers as it was, and once incentives evaporated, not even a few buyers. Poof.

I was sad. I wanted one of those rounded looking BrightDrop 600s to make a mini-motorhome. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I just liked the looks of the BrightDrop better than Ford's E-Transit. Yet if I were a delivery business wanting a fleet of all electric delivery route sleds, it would be E-Transit all the way, simply due to Ford's dealership network (not all GM dealers are certified to sell or service some commercial vehicles, like the BrightDrop and Silverado MD) and body parts commonality with gas Transits.

What GM and Hyndai is building now is a courier vehicle. Have you ever gone to an automotive parts store and noticed a fleet of small vehicles parked outside the store ready to run parts orders to independent mechanic shops? The Napa parts stores used to have small cars with giant yellow hats on top of them. I went to an Autozone the other night and they had a fleet of mini pickups blocking the front door so that thieves can't ram their own vehicle through the glass in the middle of the night. I was surprised to see the mini-pickups, because previously all of the cars were tiny hatchbacks... presumably for better fuel economy.

I think auto parts stores have always tussled between tiny hatch backs versus mini pickups. On the one hand, tiny hatchbacks get the best fuel economy, and keep the parts being delivered a bit more secure between stops. On the other hand, a lot of car parts are too big to fit in a tiny hatchback, but multiples of such parts can easily fit in a small pickup, albeit less securely between multi-stop delivery runs, and at the cost of higher fuel consumption.

What is needed is an all electric mini van the size of Ram's ProMaster City, or Ford's discontinued (in the US) Transit Connect.... a purpose built Courier vehicle (remember the Ford Courier mini truck?), that is fully enclosed (for dry deliveries in the rain, and to reduce opportunity thefts when parked between stops), that isn't encumbered with seats that have to be folded down or unbolted and stored, that can be charged overnight and make local deliveries during the day.

If Tesla had built that vehicle, and made it affordable, in this day and age of Uber Eats, Door Dash, and Amazon drivers delivering entire routes in their personal vehicles... then that would have been another Model 3 / Model Y momentum moment for Tesla... or any vehicle manufacturer that focuses on how American culture increasingly relies on things being brought to them, rather than having to go out and get them.

Ford's Maverick was getting close to that type of vehicle. Perhaps the next EV platform that Ford has been teasing will actually bring aa nimble, electric, inexpensive, purpose built last mile delivery vehicle optimized for point to point parts and product delivery (as opposed to set delivery routes).

 

The vehicle is a small part of the equation. Tesla's long game has always been simple, autonomous vehicles that can undercut the offerings from google, GM, Ford, etc. My hypothesis is that they are holding back their truly cheap offerings until full autonomy is legally allowed, at which point they can eliminate the expensive "last 50 yards" human component in deliveries and replace the driver with a humanoid robot that can carry the goods, go up stairs, punch in codes and open doors if necessary, and leave the merchandise. Until that point is allowed, the cost of employing a human and furnish insurance for the human is an overhead that needs to be removed, from their perspective.

 

WayMo is being sued for running over and killing a cat last week in San Francisco, which has the densest population per square foot living with the highest number of active and fully autonomous taxi vehicles running around (and at times, amok) in United States, I believe surpassing NYC, in terms of driverless vehicles that are not just in testing, but actually in service.

Insurance is here to stay, no matter who is or isn't behind the wheel.

Robotaxi's however, may not be, as it seems that this cat is pulling on the heart strings of city leaders more than the dog that a WayMo Jaguar taxi ran over and killed in 2023.

Now there is talk of more restrictions, in a city that was at the forefront of championing the concept.

 

Wasn't Ford losing their shorts every time they sold a Lightning? Either way, I was at the local Ford dealer the other day and didn't see a single Lightning on the lot. I want to say I recall they had ~ a dozen last year at any given time but didn't see any last week.

 

Inventory locally here is dependent on the dealer’s willingness and success in selling them.

Locally here the biggest one, Brandon Ford shows 2 available and the smaller, Sarasota Ford shows 32 available for sale. Sarasota Ford loves to sell Lightnings and it seems like most of their sales staff own one. That’s where I bought my platinum 8 months ago.

Brandon Ford, claims to be the world’s biggest seller of F Series trucks in the world show 458 new 2025 ICE F-150s and only shows 2 new Lightning in stock.