To date, roughly 200,000 consumers have lined up to reserve a 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning, just a couple of months after the second phase of production began ahead of the all-electric pickup’s launch next spring. The big question, as always, is how many of those reservation holders will convert them to actual orders? Roughly 66 percent of 2021 Ford Bronco reservation holders ordered an SUV months ago, but Ford CEO Jim Farley thinks that even more 2022 Ford F-150 Lighting holders will follow through, as he explained to Automotive News in a recent interview.
“I think it’s going to be north of 80 percent, but we don’t know,” Farley said. “The issue is that since we launched Lightning, full-size trucks have gotten a lot more expensive. So that price that we launched at is looking more and more attractive, so when people look at moving from a reservation to an order, I think it’s going to be extremely high – north of Bronco’s.”
Farley admitted last month that Ford is surprised by the level of interest consumers have shown in the F-150 Lightning thus far, which is what prompted the automaker to double the truck’s planned production at the Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center and invest an additional $850 million to do so. Originally, Ford believed that it would sell around 20,000 Lightnings per year, but clearly, that was a conservative estimate.
What is unique about the F-150 Lighting is the diversity of customers that are interested in one. As Ford Authority recently reported, 79 percent of reservation holders are first-time EV buyers, while 75 percent are conquest sales or buyers who currently don’t own a Ford vehicle.
We’ll have much more on the F-150 Lightning soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for the latest Ford F-Series news, Ford F-150 news, F-150 Lightning news, and continuous Ford news coverage.
Comments
As my 2011 F ages, of course I’ll consider a newer replacement. And of course I’ll consider the Lightning. The decision on which truck to get will depend on my needs and my budget, but at present, the Lightning could accomplish what my old truck does.
Ford is screwing the earliest order holders by giving selective discounts to certain buyers, NOT based on the priority of their order, but some other undisclosed metric. I had place two orders (for business) and I’m cancelling both. Can’t tolerate this kind of callous disregard for the ones that stepped forward first with cash to encourage Ford’s move to EVs.